Mr. CRAVENS. On what page?

Reverend KNOX. Beginning on page 19. The question seems to be centering about the political belief, something that heretofore in the United States has been considered the privilege of the individual. Now, apparently, it becomes a crime for a person to hold different political opinions than the political opinions of the major parties of the United States. I think it is just that Board, or can be construed to be just that Board, if those making the construction wish to do so. At the bottom of the page is the statement that Harry Bridges says he was not in the Communist Party, to which Mr. Holtzoff said: Well, of course, that is subject to proof.

I would like to see it broad enough to cover.

And then, this is the reply of Mr. Hobbs:

May I suggest to my friend from New Jersey that this second phase of the title is exactly for that purpose-to get away from the necessity of making any proof of the party affiliations or anything else—whether they can prove it was in behalf of a foreign government or not.

Now, I submit to you gentlemen that statement is rather all-inclusive. I do not know exactly what it means. I am not sure that Mr. Hobbs knows exactly what it means, but if it means what it appears to mean, that this bill is for the purpose of deporting or putting in a concentration camp those persons who, in the absence of proof that they come under the specific provisions of the bill, which states that things are a crime, whether it can be proved or not, that they were working on behalf of a foreign government, or whether, in the opinion of the Board, that it does seem like they would, they can act at their discretion.

Mr. CRAVENS. Are you not a little confused?

Reverend KNOX. I think I am; I am not sure.

Mr. CRAVENS. The section of the report that you are referring to refers, not to the deportation of aliens or the concentration of aliens, but the refusal to permit them to come into this country.

Reverend KNOX. No; I think not.

Mr. CRAVENS. Section 301, title III, is what he is talking about. Reverend KNOx. If he is talking about that, why should it enter into a discussion of Mr. Bridges, who is in the country?

Mr. CRAVENS. I suppose they have under consideration why he is here, and how he got here in the first place; but the part of the report your are referring to, Reverend, has to do not with the incarceration of aliens and aliens subject to deportation, but the exclusion of aliens coming to this country in the first place. He is referring to section 301. Reverend KNOX. I said 301 and 302; it is inclusive of both of them. Mr. CRAVENS. Those sections deal with the refusal to permit an alien to come into this country if he is a member of the Communist Party or any of those other parties which advocate the overthrow of the Government by force or violence.

Reverend KNOX. If I am confused, then there is also somewhat of a justifiable conclusion that Mr. Hobbs seems to be confused; and if the author of the bill is confused about its application to Mr. Bridges, as it seems to be, then I may be excused for being confused.

Mr. CRAVENS. Well, Mr. Hobbs is referring to the fact that, on merely showing membership in the Communist Party you could refuse the right of an alien to come into this country.

Reverend KNOX. No; but he does not say showing membership in the Communist Party.

Mr. CRAVENS. If you show he is a member of the Communist Party, or of a party that actually advocates the overthrow of this Government by force or violence, you can exclude him. That is what they are talking about.

Reverend KNOx. He has not only to show that he does, but advocates it, and to prove it as well.

Mr. CRAVENS. That the Communist Party advocates the overthrow of this country by force.

Reverend KNOX. He makes the suggestion that it is to get away from making any proof.

Mr. CRAVENS. That the Communist Party does advocate that theory? Reverend KNOX. Or that he belongs to the party.

Mr. CRAVENS. Yes.

Reverend KNOX. Or that he belongs to any group that advocates that, or can be proved to advocate it.

Mr. CRAVENS. That is right; but that all deals with the exclusion of aliens in the first place, but not their deportation after they have been admitted to this country and then have to be deported.

Reverend Knox. I appreciate that fact; but still further on in the discussion of the Harry Bridges case the question follows, and, of course, refers then back to the old law of 1918 and the Registration Act of 1940. Mr. Vreeland then said this:

That is the thing I was concerned with, and I know that nine-tenths of the Congress has specifically in mind the Harry Bridges case, and they want to I know that this will take care of him

To which Mr. Hobbs replies:

One hundred percent. He is already taken care of.

To what is Mr. Hobbs referring there?

Mr. CRAVENS. I do not know. Lifting that right out of his context there, I could not say.

Reverend KNOx. I think it is pretty much a part of the context.

Mr. CRAVENS. Title III refers to the exclusion of aliens, and the remarks that you have just made, so far, apparently refer to the incarceration of aliens who have already been admitted and who have been ordered deported from the country.

Reverend KNOX. Yes; that is quite true.

Mr. CRAVENS. This bill deals with two separate situations.

Reverend KNOx. I understand that; but, nevertheless, that question was asked, and the answer stated here is that it takes care of the man who is already in the country and does it 100 percent. There must be very definite confusion, or very definite confusion in the mind of Mr. Hobbs.

Mr. CRAVENS. I do not mean to imply that the committee does not get confused once in a while, too.

Reverend KNOX. I think, perhaps, there is considerable confusion as to the democratic way of life in the mind of the author of the bill in the suggestion of the concentration policy in the first place.

Now, in the New York Times of March 17 I ran across this interesting statement [reading]:

The emergency will increase as our effort to aid Great Britain is intensified. Aliens who actively oppose or seek to undermine it should be safely interned as they were in the World War.

Now, the New York Times is discussing this bill, and it is also discussing the question of inability of deportation. In the judgment of the New York Times, at least, it appears that this bill is going to be used for incarcerating those persons who are in opposition, for instance, to aid to Great Britain, that it now becomes a crime for a person to oppose that, particularly if that person, of course, be an alien, to oppose aid to Great Britain, and that person could be held in jail or a concentration camp during the period of the war.

Mr. WEAVER. Why not get down to the wording of the bill, and what is there in the bill that even intimates that it is for this purpose? We have not much time this morning, and there are a number of persons here who would like to be heard. The problem that has confronted the Attorney General is very definitely stated, that we have now, and this is all we were talking about in connection with the concentration camps, that there are some 8,000 persons who have been here and have been subject to deportation under existing law. While the world is torn up, as it is, if they are going to be sent back to their countries upon order of the Department, you have to have visas for them. What is your opinion on that?

Reverend KNOx. In the break-down of the law, which unfortunately I do not have with me today, I noted that the vast majority of them are upheld on criminal charges. My answer to the problem would be that the alien in our midst ought to be given exactly the same standing before our laws as the citizen, so there should be no distinctions in that particular, that if a man is guilty of a violation of the law which would send a citizen to jail, certainly our prisons are equipped to take care of them. If it is a matter such as the questioning indicates, that it is purely political and has to do with a man's social or economic or political beliefs, then, in my judgment, there is no excuse for the incarceration of such a person, whether he be a citizen or an alien.

Mr. WEAVER. Are you in favor of deporting the criminal alien? Reverend KNOx. I do not think that the question which we are discussing today, sir, has anything to do with the question of whether we are in favor of deporting the criminal alien or not. The question of concentration camps is based on the assumption that there are those who cannot be deported; that is true, is it not?

Mr. WEAVER. Well, it is based on the assumption that there are certain situations that render aliens deportable, which are already provided by law. Now, we have a lot of them on our hands, and we cannot get them back to the countries from which they came. Some of the countries refused absolutely to issue a visa for any of them to return, such as Russia. What are we going to do with them, just let them roam around the country indefinitely at will?

Reverend KNOx. In answering your question intelligently I would have to know what was construed as a criminal offense in this particular.

Mr. WEAVER. The statutes provide offenses that make an alien deportable.

Mr. CRAVENS. Yes; for any violations of the laws of the United States involving moral turpitude.

Reverend KNOX. Then we have the question of moral turpitude; it is what? Then you have the question of sabotage. You may turn to the varied phrases given all the way: there is subversive activity, and you have the question of espionage. You have still further in the provisions, the phrase "deleterious to the national safety of the United States." What does that mean? We are providing not only for the criminals which we now have, but we are providing for an increasing class that we shall call criminals, whose only crime, if it be a crime, is the crime of political opinion, or by organizational activity, or by economic beliefs, which are different, without in any way being an overt act against the Government, or probably of any of the things that are ordinarily described as a criminal act. The thing that I see in this is the creation not only of the class which we already have of 9,000, but I would want to guard carefully and analyze that situation to see what should be done with the 9,000 that are now subject to deportation, and I am alarmed over the possibility of the larger number who might be incarcerated in concentration camps under a war hysteria and the rather loose all-inclusive construction of these terms, and some of us and all of you gentlemen, I am sure, know the story of the last war. I am sure that all of you are acquainted with the Palmer raids. I am sure you know of the large number of people who were incarcerated in the time of hysteria and later were released when we were in a period of rather normal thinking, and I am sure that the majority of the people of the United States regretted the rather hasty and ill-conceived action in imprisoning these people. The thing that I am alarmed about is not only the 9,000 that we now have, but the very large number that we may have under the rather loose and allinclusive construction of the bill.

I think, perhaps, in broad outline, that concludes the objections which I have to the bill. In the first place, to recapitulate, the whole idea of concentration camps is abhorrent to the American way of life and the American philosophy, in the day when we are speaking of preservation of democratic traditions and our democratic freedoms and our democratic ways, when we are calling upon the American people to make sacrifices in order to maintain a democracy, we now propose to follow the line of other countries in the establishment of the type of governments which we have condemned most severely in these countries, and if there is one thing that we have held up more than any other thing in the United States in telling the story of democracy, it has been the fact that we do not have political prisoners here in this country, where we stated that in Germany and in France, or other places, as the case may be, there were large concentration camps where people were suffering, not because of any particular crime which they had committed but because they held political opinions that were different from the political opinions of those that are in power, and I think that in itself is sufficient to justify opposition to the bill. I think it ought to be in itself sufficient to cause you gentlemen to refuse to report the bill out of the committee.

If we had no other reasons for it, then I call your attention again to the terms which are absolutely meaningless terms, as used, unless they are more accurately defined than they are defined in the bill. The term "sabotage" means nothing unless you define the term. The term "subversive activity" means nothing unless you define the term. I live in the city of Detroit and I have been listening in the last few days to and reading volumes on the question of the Ford strike. One side of the Ford strike spoke, the union side of the Ford strike, and they say it is a tremendous struggle to provide liberties for themselves and good working conditions in the plant, to provide for themselves the right to belong to a union free from the activities of the service department, which they brand as being thugs and criminals. On the other side, I read with a great deal of interest the application for an injunction before one of the judges in the city, which states that the whole C. I. O., and particularly the automobile workers, were dominated by the Communist Party, and on one side there is a group of people who feel that they are absolutely American, they feel that their only desire is to secure for themselves and for their families better working conditions and liberties, and yet on the other side there is a very definite statement that they feel that the leaders particularly of these groups are dangerous people. So, when we come into the definition of the term "subversive activity," what do we mean? What is subversive activity? Is it a subversive activity for a labor leader, for instance, to organize into labor unions men who are seeking to secure for themselves and for their families better working conditions and shorter hours of labor and more freedom in their association with one another, and the right guaranteed to them under the Wagner Labor Relations Act of organizing and collective bargaining? I say that these terms are absolutely meaningless terms unless they are clearly defined and made so clear that it is impossible to construe them merely in keeping with the heat or the intensity of a mission or the prejudice of the public, or it may be the prejudice of the judge who is sitting upon that particular case, if we might refer to the judiciary in that particular way. It is not a matter that has to do with specific things. It is a matter that had to do with public opinion and hysteria at that particular time. That is the thing that we see is a danger in this whole thing.

Of course, in Germany, for instance, those who are in concentration camps at the present time are certainly there from the viewpoint of those who are in power, because they are dangerous to the state. They are there because they are criminals in the eyes of the state. They are there because they have committed things which in that state constitute crimes, but we have said that those things for which they were sent to concentration camps were not crimes, that they were simply political opinions which were held different than those in power, and certainly in an hour like this, again I say when you are calling upon the young men of the Nation to sacrifice, when you are calling upon the mothers and fathers of the Nation to go into the tax program, one of the greatest the world has ever seen, when you are calling upon the people of the Nation to give their resources and all of their resources to it, to what? The whole cry is to the preservation of freedom. We are a different type of civilization, we say, than the civilization which we find in the totalitarian states, and we hold