The CHAIRMAN. You were speaking a moment ago about unemployment.

Representative JOHNSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. If one reads of business conditions in this country he will reach the conclusion that the stage of unemployment which is going on will increase, is that your opinion?

Representative JOHNSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you this, bearing on the subject of immigration: Isn't it true that adverse conditions in this country operate automatically to check immigration?

Representative JOHNSON. That would be true under ordinary conditions, and if it were not for the extraordinary situation existing in Europe as the result of the war it might be expected to hold good in the future.

The CHAIRMAN. I am not dealing with extraordinary conditions but dealing with the present; you might say with world conditions at present. To begin back with the panic of 1857 and coming up to the reaction in 1873 and the years following, the depression of 1893-94, and notably the panic of 1907, do not these statistics show at the start that immediately after you reach a stage of unemployment here in the United States and that condition becomes known abroad immigration falls off very largely? In other words, in 1907-08 it fell down from 1,100,000 to 700,000 or 800,000. Immigration goes down immediately following a stage of unemployment here. The proposition has a bearing upon this flood in Europe ready to overwhelm us in a way, it is said-and I am not speaking lightly of it, because there is a great deal to be said about it--but isn't it true that this period of unemployment will act as a retardation or check upon immigration?

Representative JOHNSON. I agree with the Senator that that has been the situation in the past, but I think we may safely say that we are facing unusual and different conditions at the present time.

The CHAIRMAN. Does not that have a distinct bearing, perhaps not a controlling bearing but a distinct bearing, upon the emergency here?

Representative JOHNSON. Not entirely, for the reason that according to my best information all of central Europe is so disturbed and so much of its population on the move, and conditions there are so much worse than they possibly can be here, even with unemployment among our present citizens, that great numbers will continue to come in if they are permitted so to do.

The CHAIRMAN. Then, upon that proposition-and you will excuse me for interposing a question, please-how can you explain the number of men who go home, the number who leave the United States, amounting to more than a third-yes, nearly one-half-of those who have come into the United States during the past few months?

Senator EDGE. Does that apply during the last four or five months? The CHAIRMAN. It does. And isn't it true, also, there having been set up in Europe a number of new Republics, that these new Governments are going to exert all the pressure they can to retain their nationals in order to develop their countries? Isn't the spirit of nationalism waking, and will not it operate to keep those men in their

own countries? And, even further, will not it have the effect of driving some of the aliens away from America that we now have, even naturalized citizens, and cause them to go back to their native countries? And do not all these things tend to this, that there may not be the flood of immigration that you speak of; that there are certain tendencies which are offsetting the possible fear that millions of immigrants are coming to our shores from the different European countries? Then again, on that proposition, when you find that there was no increase in November over October, when you consider those who went home-or at least there is a difference of only 1,000 or 2,000 here two years after the armistice-and especially in the last two or three months, if the state of things reported from Europe exists why is it that more have not come in and a different condition does not now exist? Mind you, that deals with the emergency.

Representative JOHNSON. You will bear in mind that since steamship transportation became available to any degree, steerage rates have advanced from $80 for so-called fourth-class accommodation, to $120 or $130 just for ordinary steerage accommodations. That in itself should be a deterrent to people who have depreciated money. On top of that we have the passport system at present, the fee for the viséing and registration being $10 in our money, a very considerable sum to many of those people. Yet those who have come into the United States in numbers ranging from 70,000 to 100,000 per month since July 1, 1920, have met not only all these expenses, but the great expense of travel from their towns to some port and the cost of waiting for ship.

Senator EDGE. Would not these conditions give us a better class of immigrants?

Representative JOHNSON. I want to call attention to the third State Department report, from consular agents, dated December 31, 1920, discussing that very phase, and discussing the assistance given prospective immigrants by their relatives here in the United States, some of them receiving tickets for transportation. On that point I think one of the principal arguments for this bill is that it permits a citizen here, if he desires to bring his blood relatives from Poland, we will say, to make the arrangements, to receive the permit, so that if she starts at all there is every likelihood that the relative may come through without the distressing tie-up that happens daily at Ellis Island.

Now, an argument that has been made against this bill is that it shuts off common labor and admits dependents, but my experience is that the most of the dependents who get to Ellis Island, illiterate or otherwise, are admitted by some kind of bargain made there.

Senator HARRISON. What do you mean by that?

Representative JOHNSON. That is to say that the relatives put up bond, or give a guaranty of the cost to put an illiterate child in school; so that if they do come as relatives our present immigration laws, supposed to be somewhat restrictive, are really not so.

The CHAIRMAN. Would our present immigration laws, so far as desirables and undesirables are concerned, be restrictive if there were proper machinery to enforce them?

Representative JOHNSON. Well, in that connection I might say to the Senator that at this very time the House Committee on Appro

priations is cutting the Immigration Service appropriation probably one-half, and any member of either the House or the Senate can go to Ellis Island, or to Hoffman Island, where the quarantine stations are, and will come away a little bit sorry and ashamed that if we do have these people down there at our gates, they can not be taken care of better.

The CHAIRMAN. You would not suspend immigration because the House Appropriations Committee does not give money enough for the service, would you?

Representative JOHNSON. Oh, no. But I think we should take care of those who come here, and also make arrangements to direct immigrants to other ports other than the one at Ellis Island.

If you will permit me to say it, the principal newspapers and persons who will oppose a temporary suspension of immigration for one year or for six months have always opposed any restrictions on immigration to the United States, and probably always will oppose any restrictive measure. We are always met by the same opposition. There have been for years efforts to restrict immigration, and it always comes down to the little evasive cry, keep out the bad and let in the good.

The CHAIRMAN. There are two schools, (1) those who want unrestricted immigration, and (2) those who want restrictions. But isn't there a middle ground between absolute suspension and, perhaps, certain restrictions?

Representative JOHNSON. There has been that situation, but, Mr. Chairman, it is my firm belief that if we go on in the United States each year encouraging the feeling that we must have some more common labor other than our own, more serf labor, the time will come when, if House and Senate try to act, it will be too late, because we will have become so dependent upon that serf labor and bound to listen to the appeals of those who use that labor or thrive on it in some form or other. That is the nub of the whole problem.

This is an emergency. I am constrained to believe these reports which come through our State Department agents, speaking in a general way of conditions in Central Europe. People there are disturbed. The farmer is not growing crops. The eyeglass maker or the watchmaker in the town is losing business, and he sells out for anything he can get and migrates. A disturbed people become restless and want to move. The armies take certain of the men and hold them, and they prey on the others who become dissatisfied and want to move.

I want to say that this bill is not aimed at any race or at any people of any hemisphere; it is aimed at all peoples.

Senator EDGE. Do not you think the standard of living or the standard of ambition of common labor in America is naturally getting higher all the time and making it necessary to continue admitting, not serf labor, but common labor?

Representative JOHNSON. Only because Americanized labor refuses to work side by side with the un-Americanized labor.

Senator EDGE. You would not want in any way to stifle the ambition or discourage the ambition of so-called common labor to improve its condition, would you?

Representative JOHNSON. Oh, no. But it must be inevitable if we study the history of other countries, that in our own country we will in time have labor that will not get much schooling. We have children of our own.

Senator DILLINGHAM. You were drawn away from the question of common labor conditions in this country. I want to bring you back to that subject with the suggestion that the best writers that I have read in the last six months state that when the armistice was signed we were short 4,000,000 laborers. That is, short of the demand made by the manufacturers of the country; taking all classes, trades of every kind, that there was a shortage of about 4,000,000 men in the labor market at that time. It was also admitted at that time that there had been underproduction in this country, and that that was one of the reasons for high prices of commodities. Since that time there has come a depression in the manufacturing establishments of the country, and all over the country they are dismissing men, so that at the present time it is unquestionably true that there is a large number of unemployed in the country. But I am looking forward six months, to a time when things will readjust themselves and industry in the country, I hope, will have revived and prosperity will again come to us. I will be glad to hear you on the question of the situation we will be in at that time.

Representative JOHNSON. I never had any faith in the cry last year that we were 4,000,000 short. I hope the mills and factories of the United States will have started up full blast before long, and I would be the last man to give out a pessimistic statement when everybody is striving to get the country on its feet and all of the wheels going. But these reports I have secured are the result of efforts made by big newspapers, and I believe the reports to be conservative.

Senator DILLINGHAM. I think anybody will admit that unemployment exists at this time.

Representative JOHNSON. Yes; and much of it. My opinion of what was the matter was slowed-up production at very high costs. High prices naturally resulted, and high prices slowed down buying and the demand for labor. Now the warehouses are simply bursting, and freight cars from Baltimore to Boston are lying idle on every sidetrack. In my own part of the country, on the North Pacific coast and Alaska, when I went home, imagine my surprise to find that all of the canners had their warehouses full of cans that they had purchased at war prices. They now have fish to pack in cans, but which they can not sell at the price paid for the cans. What is the result? That industry is gone, and will be gone for a year or so; and so it is with other industries.

Now, gentlemen of the committee, I know we all try to look at this matter through great big spectacles. No one wants to look at it from the standpoint of New York City alone, or Boston, or Baltimore; but perhaps when we see articles in the great magazines and in the metropolitan press we forget the communities of 10,000 people, where the working people have been encouraged to buy homes and become citizens and have representation from their number on the city councils; and we should not forget the disturbance it makes in a wellorganized community of 10,000 or 20,000 to have come in all of a sudden an array of newly arrived alien common labor, to cut the

1

wages 20 per cent or 30 per cent or whatever it may be. That will upset any little community, and even big communities. I believe a knowledge of that fact, having seen those conditions arise, so many of our people have seen it in all localities where immigration has come in in recent years, is what has made the present tremendous demand for a suspension of immigration.

I think that when these figures are stripped of those going back, and so on, that our gross immigration for the fiscal year now running is likely to be around 800,000. And I think the result and the feeling would be about the same if the gross were only about 500,000. think it is true that if the steamships can be had and the poor people on the other side can raise the money by selling everything they have, and with this unrest continuing for the next year or two years, that there will be a great influx of immigration; and I believe the United States can do as much for the rehabilitation of those countries to let it be known that we have had to suspend immigration as by anything we could do. I have been told by responsible persons who have visited those countries that one of the reasons why they are not getting upon their feet better is that the whole people have got into this mulling movement; they want to move, and they are coming here if possible.

Senator EDGE. Why do you think those countries have not put an embargo on people leaving their shores?

Representative JOHNSON. Some have done it by putting them in army service. But I have reports from Spanish countries that they actually encourage some of their people to leave, and Spain furnishes. immigration insurance to people coming out of that country.

Senator EDGE. You have studied this question, and I would like to know what the reason is that a country wants to get rid of its people. Representative JOHNSON. It must be because they think they will be a disturbing factor in the country and against the Government.

Senator EDGE. Assume that we try to keep out undesirables, why do you think Spain or any other country would want to lessen its population, especially the countries in central Europe, where there was such a large war waste?

Representative JOHNSON. I suppose because in central European countries the new Governments are feeble, money is of little value, crops bring a small return, and Governments are holding together with great difficulty. One prominent international traveler told me. he had doubt if Czechoslovakia or the Polish Government could endure owing to the

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Isn't it true, as a general proposition, that the European countries are discouraging emigration? Isn't that true of Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, barring a small minority, which might be a disturbing influence? If you will look at the governmental regulations of Italy and Greece and other countries you will see that in this period of reconstruction and of self-independence they want to retain their men.

Representative JOHNSON. If that is so, they can refuse to give them passports.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I ask, would you think that a solution of this emergency problem-and I like to confine myself to that, because we are not dealing with the larger problems, as to which we