The CHAIRMAN. You have the right to affix your signature above the appeal board, which is set for the protection of the Secretary himself?

Mr. SNYDER. The board of review makes recommendations to me which are approved by me or modified by me.

The CHAIRMAN. And you act in the name of and for the Secretary of Labor?

Mr. SNYDER. By authority of the act of 1927 I am vested with the right to act for the Secretary of Labor. So far as these functions are concerned, I am the Secretary of Labor-speaking with modesty, of course.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed and tell us, as concisely as you can, the features of this bill.

Mr. SNYDER. I should like to say to the committee-it has been said before, but I think it can be said again, because it is important— the act of 1917, known as the Burnett Act, is an exclusion act and excludes aliens by classes. Among the classes excluded are aliens. called contract laborers; that is, persons who have been aided, assisted, encouraged, or solicited to enter the United States in pursuance of contracts or agreements, express or implied, or promises, whether true or false. Those are contract laborers.

The act itself in the same section that excludes those persons makes certain exceptions-actors, artists, domestic servants, members of the learned professions, etc. Those are specifically excepted from the contract-labor clause.

An alien seeking to enter the United States in pursuance of a contract is always excluded under the act unless a waiver is had, and a waiver may be had upon proper showing made by interested persons. This showing is ordinarily made before the alien starts from the country of his origin. It is made by a prospective employer. Now, that waiver is of value to that alien for entry into the United States if he is coming for permanent residence, if he is coming from a nonquota country; for instance, a Canadian coming to the United States under a wavier of contract labor, gets his nonquota visa and comes in. A European coming to the United States under the waiver of contract labor, does not get his quota visa. He does not get a nonquota visa and can not get a quota visa because he must take his place in the line.

The CHAIRMAN. He gets it when he is reached?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes, sir; and he may be reached in 5 months, 5 years, or 15 years, depending on the country from which he comes.

Now, the act of 1924 fixed those quota limitations and fixed them in a very accurate and precise way. The act of 1928 modifies the preference-quota provisions so that now we have each quota divided half and half. The first half goes to fathers and mothers of citizens and husbands of citizens who were married subsequent to May 31, 1928. The second half goes to the minor unmarried children and the wives of aliens lawfully admitted.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. You omitted agriculturists who come in the first class.

Mr. SNYDER. They come in the first half.

Now, in all the quotas of the western part and northern part of Europe, as I understand the fact to be, the first 50 per cent that is available for these preferences, is not entirely used up. I shall be

corrected, of course, by State Department testimony. That is a State Department function and I do not know all about it by any means. But my understanding is that the first 50 per cent of a great many quotas has numbers in it available for additional preferences if the Congress, in its wisdom, sees fit to permit them.

Mr. Box. If there is a vacancy in those quotas, why can not those people be admitted now if they can show they are entitled to the exemption from the contract-labor section?

Mr. SNYDER. Because there is no preference specifically available to them.

Mr. Box. Are the quotas filled up-the nonpreference quota? Mr. SNYDER. The nonpreference quota people come in and take those preferences up.

Mr. FREE. I am not quite sure that Mr. Schneider got that point. See if I am right. This is what I think you, Mr. Schneider, were asking about this morning, but not being able to look into your brain, I do not know. Mr. Snyder, as I understand the Burnett law-as I understand it, all the 1917 law does now, since we have passed the other laws, is to waive the contract-labor provisions, but the quotas laws come in then and say that these people who would be permitted under my bill, however, now to come in under the quota-the only thing the 1917 law is doing is waiving the contract-labor provisions. Mr. SNYDER. Exactly so. These people that you are seeking to facilitate are now entirely nonpreference. They have no preference, no exemption, no standing at all, if they are coming for permanent residence. They are away down the list. Now, the proposition is to create, within that first 50 per cent of each quota, a new preference class. That is my understanding of it, to take out of the nonpreference class certain persons who are peculiarly qualified for admission into the United States and put them ahead of others who are not so peculiarly qualified; put them, in other words, in the same position as the father and mother of a citizen or an agriculturist or the husband of an American woman citizen who has married since May 31, 1928. So much for the technical aspect of it. And I do not know whether I have made it clear to the committee or whether I can ever make it clear. Sometimes I get fogged myself.

However, I wanted to tell the committee to-day some of the peculiar problems that arise. Twice I have been called upon by very estimable gentlemen who represent the Christian Science Monitor, which is perhaps one of the most influential newspapers in Americathey come to me and say, "We want to bring into the United States a certain Norwegian gentleman to edit our Christian Science publications in the Scandinavian languages. We have searched the United States high and low and we can not find any man who can meet the qualifications he must have. We must have a Christian Scientist and we must have a Scandinavian and we must have an editor. We can not find such a man in the United States."

I say to these gentlemen: "Well, can you use him for a few months and send him back?" "No; we must have him permanently. He is a married man and has his wife and children abroad. We want him to come into the United States and bring his wife and children with him and have them grow up in the United States and remain with us permanently." I say, "Very well, all he can do is to put his name on the quota list and wait his turn. If you could use him for a few

months and send him back, we could waive the contract labor law upon a proper showing, but you would have to admit him and then send him back." They say, "No; that will not do." Well, that is the case. That is a case which illustrates the situation just as well as any other case. I can cite many others.

A Mr. Akoun, a French-American who has been in and out of this country for many years, a brilliant man, was in to see me last summer. He said: "I have in my employ in New York a man who has been here temporarily. I am in the business of making a peculiar kind of art work. I operate sand blasts-very fine sand blasts-on glass and I am especially making store fronts," and he says it is very beautiful work. Figures are cut out in bas relief in sand blast and afterwards enameled. It is suitable for the ornamentation of all kinds of beautiful building. He says: "I have a fine business and expect to do a quarter of a million dollars this year."

The CHAIRMAN. Sand blast designs in woods have become a real industry in the north Pacific coast. Now, could not the sand blast artists who work on woods develop themselves to be so skilled, as to be sand blast artists on glass?

Mr. SNYDER. I do not know about that. But I know this gentleman was not particularly interested in the sand blast artists, but in the designer; the man who could design artistic effects for the operative to cut out by sand blast.

Another man came to me. As I recall his name, it was Luster. He said to me, "I have in my employ a chemist named Pantke. He is from Germany and is a temporary visitor." He said, "I want to keep him here longer." I said, "Why?" He said, "I am making a product called catelan." He said it is like bakelite, but more useful; used for door knobs, etc.

He said, "It is a process that requires the combination of chemicals in a peculiar way. It has to be cooked a certain length of time and when it has reached a certain point it has to be taken off the fire and cooled in a certain fashion." I said, "What is the matter with the American chemists?" He said, "I have two American chemists and they are learning to do the work, but they have not learned it yet.'

The CHAIRMAN. Who teaches them?

Mr. SNYDER. The German chemist is here teaching them. He will have to go, for the reason that he is here under a temporary arrange

ment.

The CHAIRMAN. If by an extension he was permitted to stay years, if necessary, and in that time, teaches highly skilled, competent Americans to make a substitute for one highly colored glass article, is not the United States getting the advantage of the training and skill of the teacher for the men he is training?

Mr. SNYDER. Very fine. That is all right except the Labor Department is very strict with temporary visitors. We have great trouble with temporary visitors at all times, even those who are not technicians-persons claiming to be bona fide visitors and we admit them as such and when we require them to go, they ask for more time and beg and plead and argue on one ground or another why they should be permitted to stay here, but we get them out as rapidly as we can in good conscience.

The CHAIRMAN. Children are born and other things like that? Mr. SNYDER. Yes, sir; and when general recommendations are made to this committee, I want to make a general recommendation which will perhaps result in some regulation or law to require that our consular officers take greater pains in the issuance of section 3-2 visas to persons of no nationality or unprovable nationality; persons who have no documents which would permit them to return to some other country. There are some great difficulties involved in that. Mr. Box. Could the gentleman, with propriety, state the people who are affected that way?

Mr. SNYDER. The two that give the most trouble are Russians and Armenians. Take the case of the Armenians: We can not return them to their country when they have finished here as students. Mr. Box. Why not?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; why can't you get them back to Armenia? Mr. SNYDER. What is Armenia?

The CHAIRMAN. I know; it is the prize melting pot of the world, where the people have been pacifists for generations and unable to protect their women.

Mr. SNYDER. We do not recognize the Soviet Republics and have no political affiliations with that so-called country and so we can not get a passport upon which to deport a person who remains longer than permitted.

The CHAIRMAN. Who lets the Russian students in if the conditions are that way?

Mr. SNYDER. We do not have many Russian students. We have some Russian visitors who come in on League of Nations' certificates of identity issued generally from Paris.

The CHAIRMAN. And the League of Nations has no country to which to return them when the time is up?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes; that is so.

Mr. ESTERLY. Why does the department recognize the League of Nations? That is not a country.

Mr. SNYDER. A certificate of identity is often used in lieu of a passport. There are many people in the United States who can not get a United States passport. There are many people all over the world who can not get passports, because some country will not recognize their right to them.

Mr. ESTERLY. If we have a person who is not a native of the United States, he has to go to the League of Nations to get a passport? Mr. SNYDER. He may carry another document in lieu of a passport. I have never heard of any American carrying a League of Nations passport.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean someone who has lost his identity as a national in another country but has not been here long enough in the United States to be a citizen?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes, sir; where the people have no country to return to. That, of course, is aside from the question involved in this bill. Mr. SCHNEIDER. I want to ask the witness in reference to those three last extreme cases he used as illustrations. In your estimation, how many people would be seeking entrance into the country who would have such good excuses as you illustrate, coming in for the purpose of doing particularly skilled work that nobody in this country could do? How many in your estimation, would that involve?

The CHAIRMAN. You mean the percentage?

Mr. SNYDER. Not being a prophet or the son of a prophet, I do not know how many. But I do know this, that this class of persons

The CHAIRMAN. The fact is, however, that whatever we do to aid in these meritorious cases, in building up a new industry, will become a permanent industry of this country?

Mr. SNYDER. I do not know as to that, but we hope so. I have several other cases illustrative of the needs for this legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to get some points on that. In those cases that you illustrated here, those people can be brought in immediately at the present time under a visitor's permit, under a contract waiver and the department can protect us by making certain of their leaving the country by putting them under a substantial bond as to their good faith.

Mr. SNYDER. That is being done, but it is not a satisfactory work. We are not happy about it, as one official put it. It is not a reasonable thing to do. To bring in people outside of the quotas adds to our immigrants.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I do not agree with the department.

The CHAIRMAN. It amounts to a subterfuge.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. They are coming in as nonimmigrants just as our people are required to do when they go to other countries to do work. They must leave the country when the work is completed.

Mr. SNYDER. Suppose there is the necessity for their remaining permanently?

Mr. SCHNEIDER. If that is the case, we should know about it.

Mr. SNYDER. Suppose, in the case of the Christian Science editor, it is desirable, from his standpoint and desirable from the standpoint of the employer and the community, that he remain here for the rest of his natural life. Norwegians become notably good citizens of the United States.

Mr. ESTERLY. Why don't they publish the paper in Norway and send it here?

Mr. CABLE. We had better have a man in here who creates work than have a man come in who competes with the American workman for a job.

Mr. SNYDER. Exactly so. Now, we have men in the oil fields, known as torsion balance experts. Perhaps Judge Box can tell you about it. I never heard of one until last summer when a man came to me and said he must have a certain man in here as a torsion balance expert. I said: "What in the world is that"? He said: "He is a mathematician who interprets certain findings of delicate electrical instruments in reference to geological strata." They are training American engineers to operate the instruments and they say they do splendidly to operate the instruments, but to interpret the calculations that are put on paper as the result of the work of those instruments, they have had to bring in some highly trained mathematicians from Austria and Germany. I understand there are a dozen or more in American oil fields. I do not know how many there are. Those people are coming in and going out. We are requiring the oil companies to send them out.

I had in my office the other day a man born in Sweden whose name is Billner. He was the assistant engineer on the famous Columbia River highway which extends from Portland up the Columbia River.