in the improvement of our situation as regards aliens, will act on some other matters; the American Youth Act, which would give some jobs for young people who are idle; appropriations for Federal education, which would give young people, including the sons and daughters of aliens who are going to be affected by such an act, sons and daughters of aliens, who were born here, who are in our schools, who are working here, an opportunity; legislation of that kind, which is constructive legislation, which will help us solve our problems, both as to crime and the assimilation of aliens into this country, bringing them up as good citizens. This would be very much more worthy of your consideration, and I hope very much you will set aside this bill and give attention to some of the other bills which are before Congress with regard to the improvement of aliens, and particularly the conditions of young people.

Mr. HOBBS. How old are you?

Mr. CADDEN. I am 29.

Mr. HOBBS. You are a native-born American?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; I am, sir.

Mr. HOBBS. And you are a voter?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; I am a voter.

Mr. HOBBS. No one has ever impinged upon your right to vote, have they?

Mr. CADDEN. No one has ever infringed upon my right to vote; no, sir.

Mr. HOBBS. Are you a member of any party that has had its rights infringed upon?

Mr. CADDEN. No; I am not.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you recognize a distinction between a citizen's rights and an alien's rights, in any particular?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; I believe I do.

Mr. HOBBS. Wherein do they differ, with regard to membership in the Communist Party?

Mr. CADDEN. I believe the main distinction is that the alien does not have the right to vote.

Mr. HOBBS. I say, wherein do the rights of aliens and citizens differ with respect to membership in the Communist Party? Do you recognize any distinction?

Mr. CADDEN. Well, I don't understand your question very well. I don't know exactly what you are getting at. Could you phrase the question in some other way, to give me a clue?

Mr. HOBBS. Do you think it is the right of the alien to belong to the Communist Party?

Mr. CADDEN. As I understand it, it is the right of an alien to belong to any political party.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you think an alien has just as much right to be here as an American citizen?

Mr. CADDEN. I believe that most of the people in the United States, or their parents, were once aliens.

Mr. HOBBS. That is, of course, sidestepping the question. I will ask you, please, to confine your answers-and with all due respect I say this-to the questions asked you by any member of the committee.

Mr. CADDEN. I will try, sir. I don't understand the question. It is my understanding that a person who is in this country, according to

the phraseology of the Constitution, has equal protection under the law, as I understand it; and if there are any laws which limit the rights of aliens, then those rights are so limited by the law. I don't know of any such laws.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you mean statutes?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; I am not familiar with them.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you recognize the existence of any laws growing out of the sovereignty of the United States over the matter of deportation? Mr. CADDEN. I certainly do.

Mr. HOBBS. That are not statutes at all?

Mr. CADDEN. I certainly do.

Mr. HOBBS. You do not recognize the validity of the statutes on deportation?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; I recognize the validity of all statutes. But I also recognize that in this country there are an awful lot of people who are aliens who have been here for years and years, who came here before there were any restrictions on immigration, and that have families here, sons and daughters, have become part of the American people, who have been working here, as part of the American people, for years, who are aliens and yet, for one reason or another have not taken out citizenship papers—some question of illiteracy; some who don't know how to do it. I meet people in many States who simply never knew they were supposed to do such a thing.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you recognize the right of the Government of the United States to restrict immigration?

Mr. CADDEN. I do.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you resognize the right of the United States to deport any alien that in its judgment constitutes a menace or an undesirable citizen?

Mr. CADDEN. That is right.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you recognize the fact that the United States Government has statutes on its books, that have been on the books for years, since 1917 and 1918, respectively, which say that any alien who is a member of any party that advocates the overthrow of this Government by force and violence shall be deported?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes: I understand that.

Mr. HOBBS. It is your contention, then, that the Communist Party does not advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence?

Mr. CADDEN. My contention is that this is a matter of fact, and should be decided by the courts that are in charge of and responsible for deciding such matters of fact. I believe that is the point Mr. Jackson has made, that he has not been able to prove that, as a matter of fact, in the courts, and therefore he wants the Congress to pass on it, as a matter of fact.

Mr. HOBBS. You have that construction of Mr. Jackson's letter. Of course you have your right to construe it as you please. And we have an equal right to construe it as we think it should be construed. But our understanding is a little different from yours. We understand that he contends in his letter that that proof has been made so many times and in so many courts and has become so well cataloged and standardized that it is not necessary to prove it again and again and again, even though some courts still persist in holding that that proof is insufficient. And he has come deliberately to the conclusion that the

time has arrived when it is not necessary to prove it for the umpteenth time. But waiving all that, you say that the Congress has no right to say that a member of the Communist Party, who is an alien, should be excluded or deported because of his membership or collaboration with the Communist Party per se.

Mr. CADDEN. This is an attempt to limit a minor political party, and the limitation of any minor political party is a very dangerous thing for Congress to do.

Mr. HOBBS. You don't mean to say that this is aimed at the Communist Party of America.

Mr. CADDEN. That is what Mr. Jackson says in his letter.

Mr. HOBBS. Don't you know that this bill is aimed only at aliens? That it only applies to aliens against whom a valid warrant of deportation is outstanding?

Mr. CADDEN. That is correct.

Mr. HOBBS. Well, then, you certainly don't think this bill, for instance, is aimed at Earl Browder, or any member of that party who supported him, who is an American citizen?

Mr. CADDEN. But it apparently is an attempt on the part of the Attorney General to establish this proposition as a question of fact. Mr. HOBBS. I am asking you

Mr. CADDEN. And this would apply to citizens, whether they were citizens or aliens, so far as the Communist Party is concerned, or any other minority party.

Mr. HOBBS. Do you not understand that his letter is addressed to this bill, and that he is speaking from that background?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOBBS. And therefore he is speaking only about aliens against whom a valid warrant of deportation is outstanding?

Mr. CADDEN. But you cannot dissociate this law from many other statements made by him and other members of the administration, frowning on the opinion and actions of minorities, even the Republicans.

Mr. HOBBS. Of course, you have a right to your opinion of Mr. Jackson, and all of us have our respective rights to ours. But that is neither here nor there. I am asking you if you concede the right of Congress to exclude or deport aliens because they are members of the Communist Party, or collaborate with it.

Mr. CADDEN. No; I am afraid not. This is a question of personal opinion you are asking?

Mr. HOBBS. That is right, sir.

Mr. CADDEN. That is something that has not been very well thought out by me, because it is not a part of the discussion I came here prepared for. As a matter of fact, it is something that is rather philosophical and could be discussed quite a long time. But I would say that any limitation, or any attempt to classify, and in a way attack a political party of any kind is not the concern of Congress. Congress is a body which has to respect the rights of any political group. Otherwise, Congress, in a parliamentarian system, could hardly exist. Mr. HOBBS. I have heard you say that before. But I am asking you something different from that, if you will pardon me. I am asking you if you, both individually and speaking as a representative of this group-what is it, the National

Mr. CADDEN. The American Youth Congress.

Mr. HOBBS. The American Youth Congress, if you mean what you have said two or three times in your testimony, that you challenge the right of Congress to pass an act excluding aliens from the United States who are members of or collaborators with the Communist Party.

Mr. CADDEN. Well, as I said before, I cannot express the opinion of the organization on this question, which we have not decided. I can only express my own personal opinion that this is an infringement of the rights of a minor political party or group, and any such infringement is a great danger to our democracy.

Mr. HOBES. If that be true, if that is your position, and you think it would be an infringement or impingement on the rights of a minority party or group, then you do think it is beyond the right of Congress to exclude or deport aliens, solely because of membership in or collaboration with the Communist Party.

Mr. CADDEN. I would say that. That is a personal opinion.

Mr. HOBBS. Well, now, you are speaking for your group, are you not?

Mr. CADDEN. Not on this question; no.

Mr. HOBBS. You said that the second point of their great anxiety because of this bill was because it was un-American.

Mr. CADDEN. That is right.

Mr. HOBBS. And not in accordance with the constitutional guaranties. Did you not say that?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; that is correct. I tried to explain that.

Mr. HOBBS. Wasn't that what you had in mind; that Congress had no right to deal with them in this way, by ordering the exclusion or deportation of aliens because of membership in the Communist Party or collaboration with it?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes. I tried to emphasize that there is a difference between the adoption of a policy and deciding a question of fact; that the courts have been set up to decide questions of fact, and that especially in the light of the Attorney General's plea, this bill seems to be designed to decide a question of fact, and that this seemed to me to be not in line with out classical interpretation of the powers and duties of Congress; that the duties of Congress were to protect our welfare through the establishment of some constructive agencies and activities of Federal Government, which would solve some of these problems, rather than limiting the rights of individuals.

Mr. HOBBS. So your quarrel, essentially, then, with a bill of this kind is that it usurps the province and prerogatives of the courts to pass upon questions of fact?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; that is one of our points; especially in the light of the Attorney General's interpretation of it.

Mr. HOBBS. And you do not recognize the fact that the jurisdiction of the courts, and what they are authorized to pass upon is exclusively within the province of Congress?

Mr. CADDEN. I didn't study law, so I do not know that.

Mr. HOBBS. You do not see a distinction, whether you are a lawyer or not, between the right of an alien and the right of a citizen?

Mr. CADDEN. My concern is with making a distinction between people who are good citizens and people who are not good citizens. And my first remark was that in my opinion the laws of our country

were many, which had been passed to limit the rights of citizens, whether they were aliens or not. If they did something which was not to the best interest of the people of the country, whether they are aliens or citizens makes no difference. If they commit a crime, one of these crimes described in the bill, it makes very little difference as to the effect of that act upon the public welfare.

Mr. HOBBS. Pardon me again. That is not my question. I am asking you with respect to immigration or deportation. I am asking if you recognize any distinction between the rights of aliens and the rights of American citizens. And let me point out that your statement is utterly inaccurate in that part of it where you say it is a question of who is a good citizen and who is not a good citizen. It is not, if you will pardon me, a question of that, because what we are dealing with here is the question of the noncitizen exclusively. Mr. CADDEN. What is your question now?

Mr. HOBBS. I am asking you if you recognize any distinction in respect to the right to be here and remain here between a noncitizen and a citizen.

Mr. CADDEN. Hasn't that already been answered by the laws which guide the deportation of aliens?

if

Mr. HOBBS. But I am asking you what you think. I am asking you you think we have no right to deal with and to prescribe the regulations under which aliens should come here and be sent from here. Mr. CADDEN. Of course, I think that is a matter of history.

Mr. HOBBS. I think it is; and I think it is an historic policy on the part of our sovereignty. But I am asking you if you think so. Mr. CADDEN. Sure, I do.

Mr. HOBBS. I am not asking you to form my opinion, except insofar as yours may by reason of the cogency of expression of it, change mine.

Mr. CADDEN. This doesn't seem to me to be the matter in the bill. This is already the subject of other laws now in effect.

Mr. HOBBS. And you are pleased to ignore the provisions of the bill, and always come back to and refer to the criminal law. We are not talking about that. We have a perfect right to punish an alien, just as we have the right to punish a citizen who violates the criminal law. Mr. CADDEN. Correct.

Mr. HOBBS. What I am talking about, and what the bill talks about, is the right of the United States to choose who shall live here. You deny that, and say that the alien has exactly the same right as the citizen, as long as he does not violate the criminal law. Is that your position?

Mr. CADDEN. Yes; it is.

Mr. HOBBS. Thank you, sir. And do you think that is the position of the organization which you represent?

Mr. CADDEN. I think so.

Mr. HOBBS. Thank you very much. That is all. Are there any questions, gentlemen?

Mr. CADDEN. Thank you, very much.

Mr. HOBBS. We are obliged to you, Mr. Cadden, for this expression of your views, and the views of your organization."

Are there any other witnesses?