LETTER TRANSMITTING STATEMENT FROM CUBAN EMBASSY Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, January 24, 1924. Chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives. SIR: I have the honor to inclose for the information and consideration of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization a memorandum presented by the Cuban Embassy to the Department of State dated January 21, 1924, relating to the immigration bill (H. R. 101, December 5, 1923), now understood to be pending before the committee, and referring also to the letter of the Secretary of Labor, dated December 31, 1923, transmitting suggestions in connection with the legislation now under consideration. The memorandum has also been forwarded to the chairman of the Committee on Immigration of the United States Senate and the Secretary of Labor. I have the honor to be, sir, Your obedient servant, WILLIAM PHILLIPS, Acting Secretary. EMBAJADA DE CUBA, MEMORANDUM PRESENTED TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE SECRETARY OF STATE RELATIVE TO THE IMMIGRATION BILL (H. R. 101, DECEMBER 5, 1923) BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND TO THE LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF LABOR (DECEMBER 31, 1923) TRANSMITTING SUGGESTIONS IN CONNECTION WITH IMPENDING IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION The Government of the Republic of Cuba considers that certain changes proposed by said legislation would work unnecessary hardship to both immigrant and nonimmigrant citizens of Cuba coming to the United States, and that the restrictions placed upon the latter class of persons would have the effect of discouraging the commercial and business relations between the two countries which have become of great importance. Quota restriction on immigrants.-The Secretary of Labor suggests in his letter that the quota restriction should apply to all countries. In the case of Cuba, the limitation of immigrants seem unnecessary, as the number of Cuban immigrants admitted is only slightly in excess of Cuban emigrants departed, as shown by the following official figures of the Commissioner General of Immigration of the United States, covering the last six years: In the last six years there has thus been a total net increase of only 1,070 Cuban immigrants in the United States, the average admitted each year being 1,238, as compared with 1,059 departed. The bill before the House of Representatives provides, in section 10, that the quota for any country shall be 200 and in addition thereto 2 per cent of the number of foreign-born individuals of such nationality resident in the United States as determined by the United States census of 1890. Since Cubans were not enumerated separately in this census but were grouped with other natives of the West Indies, it will prove difficult for the Government departments of the United States to estimate the number of Cubans resident in the United States in 1890, as required by section 11 (b) of the bill. The total for the West Indies, according to the census of 1890, was 23,256, and if the Cuban-born represented, let us suppose, one-half of this number that is, 11,628 (by the census of 1900 there was shown to be a Cuban-born population in the United States of 11,081)—then the quota from Cuba would be 200 plus 2 per cent of 11,628, or 233, making a total of 433. As the average number of Cuban immigrants admitted in the last six years has been 1,238, the proposed quota restriction would, therefore, operate to exclude approximately 805 Cuban immigrants per year on the average. The immigrants from Cuba in the fiscal year 1922-23 were classed as follows (Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, p. 80–81): If the women (462) and children (361) are excluded from the "no occupation" group,there remain but 75 in this class. We thus find that the Cuban immigrants are mostly skilled laborers, a large number being cigar makers, who work in the factories of Florida. (In 1922-23, 337 gave this State as their destination.) It is pertinent to point out that Cuban immigration into the United States has shown no tendency to increase, but that, on the contrary, it has registered in the past six years a marked decline compared with the decade 1908 to 1917. Cuban immigration to the United States for the 10 fiscal years 1907-8 to 1916-17 totaled 34,013, or an annual average of 3,401, compared with an average of 1,238 per annum for the six-year period immediately following. It is therefore submitted, on behalf of the Cuban Government, that the proposed quota restriction, so far as Cuban immigrants are concerned, would be unnecessary: (1) Because this immigration is unimportant from the point of view of numbers; (2) because it has actually declined in recent years; and (3) because Cuban immigrants are mainly skilled laborers, of special value to an important manufacturing industry of the United States, that of tobacco. Restrictions on nonimmigrants. The bill as well as the letter from the Secretary of Labor provides that to insure that a nonimmigrant will maintain the status under which he was permitted to enter the United States and to guarantee his departure within the time specified, "the giving of bond with sufficient surety" (or, as stated in the bill, "the giving of cash bond"), "in such sum and containing such conditions as may be by regulations prescribed," shall be exacted. It is the view of the Government of Cuba that these requisites will tend to discourage Cuban citizens from coming to the United States temporarily for business or pleasure (which are often combined), or as bona fide students, and that such persons will then select Europe in preference to the United States for traveling and for the purpose of education. As a result, the commercial and business relations of Cuba with the United States, which depends to a large extent on this intercourse, will suffer, while those with Europe will tend to increase proportionately by the transfer of interest from the United States to Europe. Cubans visiting Europe will become better acquainted with goods of European manufacture and will acquire a taste for such goods, leading to greater importations and commercial relations with the European nations. The number of nonimmigrant Cubans entering the United States is not large and the official statistics of the Commissioner General of Immigration show that there is no tendency on their part to remain permanently in this country. The preceding figures for the last five years show an annual average of 6,063 arrivals and 6,217 departures; that is, that about 254 nonemigrant Cubans are leaving the United States each year in excess of those coming in. Under these circumstances, and having very especially in view the close commercial and business relations which have grown up between the two countries, it seems to the Government of Cuba that the Government of the United States would be reluctant to place obstacles in the way of or restrictions upon the natural and necessary intercourse between the Republic of Cuba and the United States of America unless fully justified in doing so. And as it appears to the Cuban Government, for the reasons given above, that the quota restriction on Cuban immigrants and the giving of bond and other conditions which may be prescribed to insure that nonimmigrant Cubans admitted shall depart from the United States at the expiration of the time limit and that they shall maintain the status under which they were admitted are unnecessary and a detriment to the development of the commercial and business relations between the two countries, it is hoped that the proposed immigration legislation, when enacted into law, will not alter the present situation with respect to the admission of immigrant and nonimmigrant citizens of the Republic of Cuba into the United States. WASHINGTON, D. C., January 21, 1924. LETTERS WITH REFERENCE TO COMMUNISM Hon. JOHN E. RAKER, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D. C., January 25, 1924.. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. CONGRESSMAN: In response to your request by telephone that the department furnish you with certain information as to the history and doctrines of the Communist Party, I take pleasure in submitting the following for your consideration: HISTORY The history of the Communist Party goes back to November, 1847, when a convention was held in London for the purpose of formulating the doctrines and beliefs of certain radical elements. At that congress Karl Marx and Frederic Engels were commissioned to prepare a manifesto, which is the basis for communistic beliefs and Marxian teaching. The party formed by this congress was known as the First International. A Second International was formed at Paris in 1889, and the program adopted there was the basis for radical teaching in continental Europe until 1914, when the extreme radical elements repudiated the doctrines of the Paris convention or the Second International as being too conservative. The history of the present Communist Party may be said to date from the formation of the group for the emancipation of labor, formed in 1883, by Vera Zasulich, George Plekhanov, R. Alexrod, and Leo Deutch, their purpose being to further Marxian socialism in Russia. In 1898, this group formed the Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party. In 1903 a congress was held at which the extreme radicals broke away from the above organization and formed an organization known as the Bolsheviki, which is the present Communist Party or the Third International. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, this party succeeded in organizing a government in Russia and it is now the political party supporting the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic. Upon the coming into power of the Russian Communist Party, communism received an impetus not only in Russia but throughout the entire world. The Communist Party holds a congress in Russia each year for the purpose of furthering its doctrines throughout the world and in order to formulate its platform. The present beliefs of the communists may be said to conform substantially to the doctrines adopted by the Third International held at Moscow in March, 1919. The manifesto of the Third International announces an elaborate political program and theory of government. The following are some of the more important expressed doctrines of the Communist Party: DOCTRINES They believe in the control of the government of the world by the working classes. Their goal is to be accomplished by the exercise of armed force on the part of the workers against the so-called capitalistic and bourgeois classes. They believe in the expropriation of factories, mines, and landed estates, the control over such property to be in local soviets composed solely of the laboring classes and their representatives. Control and supervision over local soviets is to be vested in intermediate committees, final power in the state resting in a central executive committee, which would seem to be vested with such powers as usually adhere to the office of an absolute dictator. While the communists teach that all property, except possibly the essentials of a livelihood, shall be vested in the state and shall be administered for the good of the working classes, there is no provision for general suffrage or direct representation of the people in the central government. The communists frankly state that the above system of government is to be accomplished not by infiltration of the present systems of government but by a forcible capture of the bourgeois parliamentary state, and its ultimate destruction. A communist may be said to be one who believes in the forcible destruction of the bourgeois state and the establishment in its place of a proletarian dictatorship. It has been estimated that there are less than 400,000 communists in Russia. Under the present soviet régime the Russian citizen is separated from the final or supreme controlling elements of the State by at least eight intermediate organizations. The communist doctrines make very scanty provisions for an orderly method of change in the character or government or its personnel. If it is the intention of Congress to provide for the exclusion of communists, I would suggest that the statute be worded so as to cover all aliens who adhere to the platform of the Third International. My suggestion is based on the theory that a communist is as dangerous under one party name as another. I hope that the above statement of communistic beliefs will be of some service to your committee in amending the laws looking toward the exclusion and expulsion from the United States of nondesirable aliens. Respectfully, Hon. JOHN E. RAKER, House of Representatives. EARL J. DAVIS, For the Attorney General. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 20, 1924. MY DEAR MR. RAKER: I have received your letter of January 25, 1924, in which, adverting to your proposed amendment of the act of June 5, 1920, you make inquiry whether in the amendment in question the words "aliens who are communists" are sufficient without any further designation or definition " who and what a communist is and stands for." as to In my judgment, the words "aliens who are communists" are too indefinite to establish a proper category in an exclusion act. You also refer to a suggestion received in a letter from the Attorney General's office that the expression might be worded as follows: "All aliens who adhere to the platform of the Third International." I suppose that this suggestion is made in the view that the description would indicate those aliens who believe in the forcible overthrow of the existing order and are advocating for this purpose the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force or violence. The present law, however (sections C, D, and E), would appear clearly to provide for the exclusion of such aliens and I do not perceive the necessity of an amendment for the purpose above described. In accordance with your request, there is transmitted to you, under separate cover, a copy of the hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, pursuant to Senate Resolution 50. I am, my dear Mr. Raker, very sincerely yours, CHARLES E. HUGHES. SECOND STATEMENT FROM CUBAN EMBASSY FORWARDED Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 1, 1924. Chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives. SIR: I have the honor to inclose for your information and such action as you may deem appropriate a copy in translation of a note dated January 14, 1924, from the Cuban ambassador at this Capital concerning a proposed amendment to the immigration law by which a quota for Cuba would be established. Copies of the above-mentioned note are being sent to Senator LeBaron B. Colt, chairman of the Committee on Immigration, United States Senate, and to the Secretary of Labor. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, MOST EXCELLENT SIR: My Government having heard of the amendment which the honorable the Secretary of Labor, Mr. Davis, has proposed to make in the immigration law to the effect of setting a quota of admission into this country for Cuban emigrants, I have the honor, in compliance with instructions received, to apply to your excellency and represent that the institution of such restrictions with regard to Cuba might affect the commercial relations of the two countries and would greatly hamper the coming to the United States of thousands of Cuban citizens who are not emigrants without any advantage at all in the way proposed by the Department of Labor, inasmuch as very few Cubans do emigrate to this country. In support of this state, I beg leave to call your excellency's Government's attention to the fact that in Cuba letters of citizenship are not issued to any but the foreigners who become naturalized in accordance with the laws, and must add that the cases of fraud that have been brought before the courts have given rise to sentences in some cases and will surely lead to the same result in others. I avail myself of the opportunity to renew to you, etc., C. DE LA TORRIENTE. t FEBRUARY 7, 1924. Hon. CHARLES E. HUGHES, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. SECRETARY: I beg to acknowledge your letter of February 1, Di, with memorandum from the Cuban ambassador in opposition to proposals for the establishment of immigration quotas for Cuba. Permit me to say that the immigration bill which has just been reported by this committee to the House of Representatives does not carry such a provision. I inclose copy of the bill. With sincere personal regards, I am, yours cordially, SIR: I have the honor to inclose for the information and consideration of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, a translation of a note dated January 4, 1924, presented by the Legation of Salvador to the Department of State, relating to the immigration bill (H. R. 101, December 5, 1923), and referring also to the letter of the Secretary of Labor dated December 31, 1923, |