Speech #630435518

Chairman. I move to strike out the last word. The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization frequently has before it questions relating to the deportation of Chinese who are unlawfully in this country. Here Is an appropriation of $2.450.000 for the general purposes of the Immigration Service. which includepreventing the unlawful entry of Chinese into the United States by the. appointment of suitable officers to enforce the laws in relation thereto . expenses of returning to China all Chinese persons found to be unlawfully in th United States. Including the cost of imprisonment and actual expense of conveyance of Chinese persons to. the frontier or seaboard for deportation. It would appear from that. and from the general powers conferred upon the Department of Labor and the Immigration Service. that about all the department desires for the treatment of the Chinese In the United States. including their immigration hither and their deportation from this country. is provided for. that is to.say. we nake an appropriation equal to all their requirements. or all their demands. and to cover this specific service. Complaints are constantly made to the committee with respect to Chinese. and a number of bills are now under consideration looking to the further deportation of Chinese. to the registration of such Chinese as are in the country. and to the broader question of exclusion. There are some who would like to exclude all Chinese absolutely from the United States. But it would seem. as I say. that in appropriating $2.450.000 we appropriate about all the money that the Department of Labor desires for the purpose of dealing with this question. Yet in the act approved August 23. 1912. to create the Commission on Industrial Relations. which came to this House for an appropriation a few days ago. we find that a part of its provinceI will not say its duties. because it was without any particular responsibility. but a part of the work which it has taken to itselfwas to inquire into the scope. methods. and resources of existing bureaus of labor and into possible ways of increasing their usefulness. into the question ofsmuggling or other illegal entry of Aslatics into the United States or its insular possessions. and of the methods by which such Asiatics have gained and are gaining said admission. and shall report to Congress as speedily as possible. with such recommendations as said commission may think proper to prevent such smuggling and illegal entry. With respect to the Bureau of Standards. a moment ago I raised a question as to the duplication of Government work and the duplication of expenditure for Government work in these times of economy. It would appear that we h*ave just appropriated $100.000 for the Industrial Relations Commission to do the exact work that has already been conferred upon the Department of Labor in the Immigration Service. It may be that the Industrial Relations Commission will stir up something or learn of some conditions somewhere of which the Department of Labor itself does not have knowledge. But so far as all we know in the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. the Department of Labor is as fully informed upon this subject of the Chinese. and the existing. Immigration Service is as fully informed as if there were a thousand industrial relations commissioLs going over the country at the expense of $500.000 for three years. The Department of Labor is In charge of this work. and yet we are called upon to make an additional appropriation of $100.000 to give a handful of men the opportunity to travel over this country. Imaking an investigation at the public