limit is put on as to the number that can be taken care of the first year. It is limited to 3,500. Commissioner Shaughnessy quoted this morning something like 3,100 hardship cases. There are a lot more that are not known, because the people have not made an effort to become citizens. That is usually when it becomes known. Somebody has advised them they are illegally here and would be deportable, although they have American-born wives and children.

I am anxious that section 7 should be enacted just as it is. I know of a great many cases where people have been waiting for 12 years for Congress to enact some provision to enable a man who came in between 1921 and 1924 to go through the process of registering and establishing a record. In some cases these men came in openly and supposed themselves to be legally admitted, and they do not know yet that they need to get a certificate to make it a legal entry, and that record has not been made. There are a lot of people in this country who want to become citizens, who are Americans in spirit but cannot go through the process because they have no record of their entry. I do not think it should be limited purely to the veterans.

I know of a case where a man came in from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, with his mother and sisters and brothers to join the father, who was the captain of a Gloucester fishing schooner. They landed in Boston and supposed they had been reported as becoming permanent residents. This young man went to school in Gloucester. When his father was naturalized some years afterward his name appeared on the certificate. He assumed he was an American citizen by virtue of his father's naturalization. He acted as an American citizen. He went back and forth across the border to visit relatives, and was always admitted upon showing his father's citizenship.

However, a few years ago he went to visit his mother, who had returned to live with other relatives in Nova Scotia, and when he started to come back he was stopped by the immigration inspector, who informed him his papers were no good because there was no record of his having been admitted. It was not his fault. However, he was admitted by another immigration inspector on the same papers, and is now in this country. He is probably subject to deportation under this law, yet it is not his fault. He is willing to make a certificate of registry or do anything he can. He has an American-born wife and child. This bill would take care of such a case.

The only thing I can say about this bill is that it is a splendid bill and ought to go through.

I listened to your conversation, Mr. Chairman, with Mrs. Davidson about a limit being put somewhere. I agree that we must put it somewhere. I am not opposed to Senator Copeland's suggestion as of January 1, 1937. The only question I have in mind is that with that limit, even though you may have this 4-year period within which people may get their status corrected, this is a big country. It will take a long time for these things to percolate down to the level of the average alien. I do not believe there is any subject in our laws about which there is so much misunderstanding. The lawyers in my town do not know anything about it. They send their cases to me. The average alien does not hear about these provisions of the law. Take the provision which allowed alien veterans of the World War to be naturalized without the payment of a fee, which expired May 25, 1937. It was published in all the national papers. I personally wrote letters to local newspapers. It was sent to foreign

language newspapers. Every possible step was taken to advise those alien veterans that they could get in under the law. Yet within the past week one of them came to see me and wanted to know if there was anything I could do.

When we pass a law which has such sweeping regulations, we may pass it in good faith, and then find that we have done an injury to somebody we did not intend to hurt. During the first 3 days of this week, from 9 a. m. to 11:30 p. m., with short intermissions for lunch and dinner, I sat at my desk and wrote out applications for first naturalization papers, declarations of intention, for foreign-born men and women who had been up against it for years and now, under the W. P. A.they must prove their American citizenship or go off the list. I had two very pathetic cases. One was a woman who had a naturalized husband. He had seven children all born in this country. She came in herself at the age of 10 years. She was certain that both her father and mother were naturalized before she became 21 years of age, which would have made her an American citizen. She cannot find any record of their naturalization or any citizenship certificate. She does not remember in what year they were naturalized. There is no way by which she can find a record to get a certificate, and she is off the W. P. A. rolls. Yet she had lived here and was educated here and is really an American. She said: "I have never sent any money back home. I spent all my money here. What am I going to do? I have no money. My husband gets a few dollars a week, but he can't support the family on what he gets. I have been on this sewing project for 3 months, and I have paid up the back rent and some of the cost of our living. Now I haven't got anything." I don't know what she will do. I suppose she will have to go back on relief.

I know also of a case of a man who is in the same boat, who came in at the age of 3 years. He knew his father was a citizen and had voted, but he cannot find the papers, and his father is deceased. He knows his father was naturalized before he attained his majority. He does not know where to turn. He hopes he can find a job in private industry.

I could go on for hours mentioning such cases, which I believe the Dies bill will correct. I feel certain it will enable us to get rid of the enemy alien who should be deported.

Senator Reynolds asked what attitude we ought to take regarding people who have been in this country for a long time and have not become naturalized. I think it should be pointed out that there are all kinds of reasons for that. One of the biggest reasons is that they cannot read or write. They think they are too old to learn. I have taught people who are 65 to read and write English. I don't take much stock in that theory that they are too old to learn. In 18 years I found just two people I could not teach to read and write English. They just didn't have the ability to grasp it. I had one man to whom I would point out a word and tell him what it was, and maybe in 2 minutes after that he couldn't tell what it was. They just don't get it. Our judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New Jersey, I think very properly, will not naturalize anyone who cannot read and write English. I think we could improve that condition very much under this provision.

Another thing is that they cannot get certificates of arrival. It takes now an average of from 8 months to a year to get a certificate back from the other side, for first papers, and from 4 to 8 months thereafter for naturalization. That is very discouraging, when you stop to think that when a man starts to get his naturalization papers he has first got to get a certificate of legal entry and then wait 2 or 3 months for the court to hear him, and then under the law 2 years before he can file a petition. I think you can readily see that man will be unable to become naturalized in less than 4 years.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. Why all that delay?

Mr. TAYLOR. Because of the large number of applications which have been filed since the fees were reduced. The President signed the bill reducing the fees on April 19, 1934. Some of them had been jacked up as much as 1,000 percent on July 1, 1929. It costs $25 for an alien to pay for naturalization. Many of them do not have 25 cents. When the fees were reduced and they got jobs there was a rush to file applications. A year ago last January there were 65,000 applications on file. Naturally the personnel sufficient under ordinary circumstances could not handle that extra work. I have been writing to my own Congressman and Senators asking for more help. They have caught up a little bit, but the influx in applications still continues. With the improvement of business and more people being employed that influx, which was dammed up from 1929 to 1934, is going to further increase for the next 2 or 3 years. It seems to me there should be increased appropriations for the Department of Labor in order to handle that.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. It seems to me it would be desirable to get in the record, if the figures are available, the number of naturalizations in the last few years, and figures on the number of applications. I would like to see it run back for a considerable number of years. Mr. Taylor has presented the argument about the reduction in applications because of the jacking up of the fee in 1929. If you could run it back to 1925, I think that would be desirable.

Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. That will be very easy, Mr. Chairman. We have those statistics compiled.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. Do you have the figures on applications at ports of entry?

Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. Yes; we have those figures. We have presented that information to the Committee on Appropriations time and again, but never had any success in getting increased appropriations.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. I know what that means.

(The data referred to are here set forth in full, as follows:)

Statement showing number of applications for certificates of arrival on hand at Ellis Island awaiting action at the beginning of each fiscal year from July 1, 1928, to July 1, 1937, inclusive

Table showing certificates of naturalization issued year by year from 1925, to July 1,

Mr. TAYLOR. I do not know that I want to detain you any longer, Senator Schwellenbach. I do not think you want to sit here and hear me recite a lot of cases, but I think I have called your attention to enough to illustrate the points I have made. I do feel very keenly that the greatest advance that could be made in the reform of our naturalization laws, both from the standpoint of giving a square deal to the American citizen wife and children in our hardship cases, and getting rid of enemy aliens, and establishing the immigration and naturalization service along those lines, would be in the enactment of the Dies bill, and I hope it will be enacted.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. Thank you very much.

Mr. TAYLOR. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the privilege of appearing before the committee.

STATEMENT OF MELVIN FAGEN, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. You may proceed, Mr. Fagan. First state your name and whom you represent.

Mr. FAGEN. My name is Melvin Fagen. I represent the American Jewish Committee, which is interested in this legislation, not so much because we are actually concerned with specific cases or that we handle individual cases which require such legislation but because we have always been interested in humane and progressive laws, and we feel that the future and safety of the minority is largely dependent upon the safeguarding of civil liberties. That is why I appear here in support of this bill and to urge that certain amendments be made before it becomes law.

I should like to address myself to the two principal objectives of the bill, first in relation to the subject of hardship cases. I think we all realize the harshness of deporting a person for failure to observe certain administrative laws relating to the admission of immigrants. The number of cases might be greatly multiplied, and I do not want to go into them in detail. I believe the important thing is to make available to aliens the same right which is accorded every criminal. The criminal has the right of appeal when he is convicted of crime. It is that same right this bill is attempting to enact into law. This question of appeal does not mean that we want to keep in this country all individuals who have native-born children or American wives. It means we feel they should have a right to bring their cases before a higher tribunal and to appeal on the basis of certain humanitarian conditions for a change in decisions which would separate families and cause great hardships.

For that reason I cannot agree with the chairman that the permanent enactment of that feature would be a bad thing. It seems to me it would be advisable, when you once accept that principle, to

make it a permanent feature of our policy. I think it was unfortunate that this question was rather confused with the right of an individual alien to bring in his children and wife from abroad. The making of this provision for the right of appeal has no connection with the right of an alien to bring in his wife and children from abroad.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. You are talking about the same right of appeal that is accorded to a criminal.

Mr. FAGEN. Yes.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. The right of appeal of a criminal does not give him any greater right in the appellate court than he had in the lower court. The appellate court is bound by the same laws, the same rules, as the lower court. The only power the appellate court has to pass upon the question is whether or not those rules were properly applied by the lower court. The appellate court does not have the right to pass upon a question of fact. That is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the lower court and the jury, so long as there is a scintilla of evidence to support their findings. So you are not quite correct in your analysis of the right of appeal of a criminal as compared with the provision contained in this bill for a review by the Secretary of Labor.

Mr. FAGEN. I grant that the analysis is not a pertinent one, and that it would not be fair to compare the right of appeal of a criminal to the provision in this bill. The differences, I think, are principally due to the fact that in this sort of appeal the penalty is fixed, and it is not the same right to an appeal that a criminal has to a higher court, which appeal may often be based upon the ground that the punishment imposed by the lower court was out of proportion to the crime with which he was charged.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. Not upon the basis that it was out of proportion, but that the punishment was out of accord with the provisions of law. The appellate court cannot cut down a sentence from 10 years to 5 years. The appellate court can say the case has been improperly tried, that the rules have not been observed, or it might say the legislative body had violated the Constitution in fixing the amount of sentence; but the appellate court has no right to change the sentence.

Mr. FAGEN. No; there must be a right that is somewhat different from the mere term of punishment.

Senator SCHWELLENBACH. I realize that, but you insist upon that analysis.

Mr. FAGEN. I grant you that the right of appeal as used in law is not applicable in this instance. From the point of view of the individual concerned, it is the right to appeal and have a higher tribunal consider certain facts which he thinks will give him the right not to have the punishment imposed upon him that was imposed under the provisions of the naturalization laws.

I should like also to point out the fact, and the point has already been made, that many of these individuals have American citizen wives and children. Mrs. Davidson stated that 98 percent of them have American citizen wives and children. The National Council of Naturalization and Citizenship appointed a committee, of which I was chairman, to make a study of the alien population of the United States and determine just how many American dependents were in the alien families. We made a study of approximately 5,000 noncitizens and their families throughout the country. That was last