Mr. EBEY. No; but she could come as the wife of an American citizen even though her husband were a laborer.

The CHAIRMAN. How was the law written so that the wife of a laborer was not admitted to the United States?

Mr. EBEY. Wives were not mentioned in the act, as I have said before. If the wife of a laborer wished to come to the United States, and she herself were a member of an exempted class, as, for example, if she were a merchant, she had the same right to come in as a man would have, but she could not come in as the wife of a laborer, But being the wife of a laborer and also a merchant, she could come in.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you tell why so many more Chinese men than women come to the United States?

Mr. EBEY. The Chinese came to the United States for industrial reasons. The young men who had enterprise enough or who were forced to step out and make a living elsewhere came here. They did not bring their families with them, as very few immigrants have brought their families when they first came. The Chinese came here as laborers before there was an exclusion act, and they seeped into the United States after there was an exclusion act, but the exclusion act eut off the laborers and no more laborers came except those who could slip through the bars. Women can not slip through the barriers the same as men. They can not come as sailors.

Mr. Fung told you about a peculiar situation they have in China among the women. Those women are very conservative. They remain in their homes and do not associate with men. They do not step out like the women of America and other countries. There became established in the United States a population of Chinese laborers or men making their living here whose families were not in the United States. If we did not have any law at all, not as many women would come here-Chinese women-as men, because of that feeling toward womanhood in China. There never has been anything in the statutes which shut off women because they were women prior to the act of May 26, 1924, and the decision of the Supreme Court construing the act to mean that wives of citizens may not enter the United States if they are of a race ineligible to citizenship. Mr. DYER. You stated about the families in the United States. The CHAIRMAN. The situation will arise, based on different causeswith the arrival of the male Filipino. If in some movement there should be an exclusion of Filipinos and leave those now in the country here, the time will come when they will make the same claim that is being made for the native-born Chinese of the United States to-day.

I wish you would place in the record a list of these decisions in Chinese cases that we have in mind.

Mr. EBEY. There is the case of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark (169 U. S. 649); the decision of the United States v. Mrs. Gue Lim (176 U. S. 459); Chang Chan v. Nagle (268 U. S. 346); Cheung Sum Shu v. Nagle (268 U. S. 336); Weedin v. Chin Bow (274 U. S. 657). Mr. FUNG. I would like to have the privilege of making just one more statement. I wish to direct the attention of the committee to the printed transcripts of the hearings held on H. R. 6544, Sixtyninth Congress, and H. R. 6974, Seventieth Congress, both introduced

by Mr. Dyer, and which contain illuminating statements concerning the present problem. These transcripts also recite in detail the different types of hardship suffered by the Chinese-American citizens with reference to the separation of their wives.

(Mr. Dyer submits the following substitute bill for H. R. 2404:)

Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., March 5, 1930.

Chairman Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR COLLEAGUE: On yesterday, March 4, I appeared before your committee in support of the bill H. R. 2404. From testimony brought out at the hearing it appears that subdivision (a) of section 4 of the immigration act of 1924 has been materially amended since I first brought this legislation to the attention of your committee.

In view of that, I wish to suggest to you and your committee that the bill, H. R. 2404, be amended by your committee, in case you decide to give it favorable consideration, by substituting for that bill the following, to wit:

66

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That subdivision (e) of section 13 of the immigration act of 1924, approved May 26, 1924, as amended, is amended by striking out or before (3),' and by inserting after section 3' the following:or (4) is the wife of an American citizen.'"

I will reintroduce the bill, making the changes indicated, and will send to your committee copies of it.

Very truly yours,

L. C. DYER.

[H. R. 10524, Seventy-first Congress, second session]

A BILL To admit to the United States certain wives of American citizens

Bit it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That subdivision (c) of section 13 of the immigration act of 1924, approved May 26, 1924, as amended, is amended y striking out "or" before (3)" and by inserting after " section 3" the ollowing: "or (4) is the wife of an American citizen."

The CHAIRMAN. Let us go into executive session for a few minutes. (Thereupon, at 11.55 o'clock a. m., Tuesday, March 4, 1930, the Committee went into executive session.)