Speech #610087011

HOY. Registrar. It seems that this commissioner has been drawing a regular professors salary and giving the average number of courses of lectures required of him by the university all the time since he has been a membdr of the Immigration Commission. and. in my judgment. he has not beenf able to render material services to the Government if he has been performing his full duty as a professor at Cornell. I am inclined to think that he was placed upon the Immigration Commission because of his political connection with the university. for the purpose of influencing the students of that Institution to walk in the political way that the party in power would have them walk rather than for any benefit that he could render the Government in the matter of Improving the immigration laws or disclosing the immigration evils that obtain in this country. I am advised that this commission went abroad during the summer of 1907. it sailed May 18 and returned September 7. and that no report of the trip has ever been published and. in my judgment. will not be. for it seems that the trip was a pleasure junket for most of the members of the commission rather than an Informationgathering trip. I am advised that the chairman held no meetings of the commission for making out the programme of the work of their trip until forced to do so by Senator Latimer three weeks after their arrival in Rome. and that he was only induced to have a meeting of the commission for that purpose at that time because of the Senators threat to return home on the next steamer and inform the press. and the Government on the floor of the Senate. that the commission Intended merely to delay immigration investigations. I am advised that after that threat was made Messrs. Latimer. BURNETT. and HOWELL. of the commission. were allowed to go to work. while the chairman is reported to have said in substance to Mr. William R. Wheeler. the shipping association member of the commission. to come with him and enjoy himself. that immigration had been thoroughly investigated by the Industrial Commission. and that only he and another knew the real purpose of the commission. Of course. I can not swear to these facts. because I was not present. but my information in regard to them has been received from a citizen so reliable in his everyday walks of life that I do not think he would -have furnished me with the facts unless he had a reliable foundation for doing so.