immigration question. I think it would be very desirable if Mr. Quinn could come. Mr. SABATH. Will you not try to have him come? Mr. LINEBERGER. I will do the best I can to get him here. Mr. SABATH. I know the committee would be pleased to hear from him. The CHAIRMAN. It will be considered in order that the American Legion resolution be placed in the record and that the representative be asked to appear. Mr. Box. I want to call the attention of the committee to the fact that several times we have given witnesses the right to revise their statements. I understand that is under the rule to be followed by this committee, that those revisions, however, can not erase any matters of substance. The CHAIRMAN. That is correct. Mr. Box. If they are to take these records (I practiced law, and I know about records)-where the record is large, if they are to take these records out and keep them indefinitely, we will need these hearings in a few days, and I think there ought to be some restriction on the scattering of this testimony, and there should be some provision to bring it back so our secretary can have it printed in the regular way, within a reasonable time, so we can use it for the benefit of our colleagues. These gentlemen that make statements will be taken into consideration by the House, as well as the committee. The CHAIRMAN. There are two methods. We could order the temporary printing of each day's proceedings, subject to revision. It is a little expensive, but it fixes the matter in type. They will be printed exactly as the Congressional Record is, and then the revision can follow, and that course is pursued by the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. Box. Does that involve any great expense? The CHAIRMAN. Where the revision tears down the type, it does. The experience has been that if we would print it daily, and let them be final, the edition of one day might be used up before we knew it, and when we came to find the volumes, or send out texts of the series, one day would be entirely missing. Judge Burnett had that trouble all the time. The plan of the committee in the last five years has been to assemble about a week at a time, printing as rapidly as possible, giving them a serial number, each series. Mr. Box. This last arrangement is a very decided improvement, but I know it will be some time before we have it printed, and these gentlemen, before they revise it, are liable to be crowded for time with other matters and postpone it, and we will want the record, and it will not be here. I want to be sure that this record is here for the benefit of these witnesses, and our colleagues, who are very much interested. The CHAIRMAN. I think at the conclusion of the day's hearings all the hearings of the week will be gathered together and printed, subject to revision. Mr. Box. That is all right. Mr. SABATH. I think that we should insist that all these hearings should be returned by every one of these gentlemen within three days' time at least. The CHAIRMAN. You can not do it. Take a man like Mr. Marshall. It will be subject to small corrections, but he likes the privilege of seeing that he has rounded out his sentences. If we sent them to him yesterday, he is likely to have another engagement, and he will hold them eight days. Mr. Box. Many others are in much the same situation. The CHAIRMAN. The clerk will endeavor to get the hearings upfrom the stenographers. They are behind, too. We have held such long sessions per day that they are a little behind. We will endeavor to close them up. We have one or two witnesses present. Matters have come in which I think should go into the record, and we might start with two tables which have been placed before you, made from this one large blue print, endeavoring to show in a comparative way quotas that would be admitted on the census of 1910 and 1920, on quota additions of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 per cent; the 1890 quota basis is being made separately, but in addition to the ones dealing with the census of 1910 and 1920, the straight quota on the population of 1910 is also a comparative table, based on naturalization of 1920. The large blueprint table has been cut in two, and made in tables 1 and 2. Without objection it will be placed in the record. Mr. WATKINS. Table 1 is on the population. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; that is correct. Mr. WATKINS. Table 2 is on naturalization. The CHAIRMAN. Table 1 deals with the present law, the census basis of 1910, and shows various percentages. Table 2 is based upon the naturalization on the census of 1920, and it is noted that the various countries have been rearranged to show those with the heaviest possible immigration in the tops of both. (The papers referred to are as follows:) TABLE NO. 1.—Citizenship of foreign-born white population by countries of birth, and quotas that would be available under per cents specified: Population (Table No. 1) based on census of 1910, and naturalization (Table No. 2) based on census of 1920. TABLE NO. 1.-Citizenship of foreign-born white population by countries of birth, and quotas that would be available under per cents specified: Population (Table No. 1) based on census of 1910, and naturalization (Table No. 2) based on census of 1920-Continued. TABLE NO. 2.-Citizenship of foreign-born white population by countries of birth, and quotas that would be available under per cents specified: Population (Table No. 1) based on census of 1910, and naturalization (Table No. 2) based on census of 1920. [NOTE.-The 3 per cent quota column in Table No. 1 shows the quotas under the present law and will serve for purposes of comparing the current quotas with those shown in this table.] TABLE NO. 2.-Citizenship of foreign-born white population by countries of birth, and quotas that would be available under per cents specified: Population (Table No. 1) based on census of 1910, and naturalization (Table No. 2) based on census of 1920— Continued. 1 Egypt, Danzig, Esthonia, Fiume, Iceland, Latvia, included in totals. The CHAIRMAN. Representative Cable has submitted a paper from Dr. John M. Gillman, of the University of Pittsburgh. If there is no objection it will be laid aside and be printed in connection with the one we have authorized to be submitted by Doctor Jennings of Johns Hopkins, and the two will be by themselves. Mr. CABLE. Í read that article in the paper, and wrote to get that information. (The papers referred to are as follows:) Hon. JOHN L. CABLE, Washington, D. C. UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, MY DEAR SIR: I take pleasure in reply to your request of the 17th, to forward to you a copy of my study of Doctor Laughlin's Report on Social Inadequacies in the United States. If in any way I can be of further service to you, I shall be only too glad to be called upon. Sincerely yours, JNO. M. GILLMAN. STATISTICS AND THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM. On November 21, 1922, Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, staff member of the eugenics record office of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., and "expert eugenics agent" of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the House of Representatives, appeared before that committee with the results of a study which he had made on the "individual physical, mental, and moral quality, and more particularly the potentiality of the immigrant as a parent of desirable Americans of the future." As a basis for this study he had taken "the occurrence of the degree of specific degeneracy within the several nativity and racial groups of the United States,' as revealed by an enumeration "of the inmates of the custodial institutions of the several States and of the Federal Government."2 Ten such degeneracies, or "social inadequacies," were subjected to this analysis; as follows: (1) Feeblemindedness; (2) insanity; (3) crime; (4) epilepsy; (5) inebriety (including drug habitues); (6) disease (including tuberculosis, syphilis, leprosy, and other chronic infections and legally separable diseases); (7) blindness; (8) deafness; (9) deformity (including cripples and ruptured); and (10) dependents (including ne'er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and paupers).2 In this investigation Doctor Laughlin claims to have found "a measure of degeneracy which characterizes the several nativity groups of the United States." The differences in institutional ratios, by races and nativity groups, found by these studies" he asserts "represent real differences in social values, which represent, in turn, real differences in inborn values of the family stocks from which the particular inmates have sprung. These degeneracies and hereditary handicaps are inherent in the blood." He further asserts that "making all logical allowances for environmental conditions, which may be unfavorable to the immigrant, the recent immigrants, as a whole, present a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities than do the older stocks."5 It goes without saying, therefore, that not the adequacy of the individual, but that of his family race or nationality becomes the test of his admissibility into the United States. Now, these conclusions are of serious import. They may go far in shaping our immigration policy of the near future. It is upon such evidence, for instance that rests the major part of the argument for changing the base year of our percentum immigration law from 1910 to 1890. Greater assurance of their validity might, therefore, be sought than the mere testimony of the chairman of the committee that he had examined Doctor Laughlin's "data and charts" and had found them "both biologically and statistically thorough, and apparently sound." In fact, even a casual perusal of the "Hearings" will raise very serious doubts as to the soundness of both the statistical methods used and the biological premises implied. For instance, as a biologist, does Doctor Laughlin really care to go on record as claiming that deformity can be proven a race characteristic and racially heritable. Is the state of being an orphan hereditary? But it is not necessary here to enter upon a detailed analysis of Doctor Laughlin's biological implications. Primarily Doctor Laughlin's is a statistical study. It is a study of "data and charts." And when examined in the light of the very elementary principles of statistics it is found that Doctor Laughlin has built upon three very doubtful premises, namely: I. That an enumeration of these institutions, and particularly the enumeration as conducted by himself, sufficiently reveals the proportionate occurrence of these inadequacies among the various race and nativity groups. II. That the data as gathered disclose significant differential occurrences among the various races and nationalities. III. That the mere occurrence of an inadequacy within a group of individuals of a given race or nativity is a valid proof of the existence of susceptibilities toward the inadequacy as an inborn racial quality, Doctor Laughlin's fundamental biological assumption. * * * I.-A. Sufficient ground exists to doubt that "a statistical survey of the race or nationality of the inmates of the custodial institutions of the several States and of the Federal Government ""most accurately and profitably' reveals the " occurrence of the degree of specific degeneracy within the several 1 Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 67th Congress, Third Session, Nov. 21, 1922, p. 729. The Report, as Serial 7-C, was released by the Superintendent of Documents in July, 1923. Page 730; Page 733; Page 752; Page 755; 6 Page 748; Page 731. 5 7 |