Speech #640301107

I do not think the amount asked by theImmigration Scrvice is justified. No evidence was presented before the committee that convinced me that there was any possible justification for an appropriation of $2.450.000 for this service. The truth is that two things are wrong with the Immigration Service. In the first place. they are overmanned for the existing amount .of immigration. and. in the second place. they have got an extraordinarily high pay roll.. It is the highest pay roll in the Federal service. There is nothing like it anywhere else. Even assistant telephone operators are put down at $1.200 a year. I have never seen such a pay roll. Then they are not able to use all of these people under present conditions in the Immigration Service. and they have $135.000 worth of them running these employment agencies that they have no legal justification for running. They say they are run under a kind of general welfare clause of the organic law of the Department of Labor. They do not claim that this service is restricted to placing immigrants who are desiring service. but anybody. .citizens or otherwise. who applies at one of these employment agencies is taken care ofis furnished with a blank. Whatever else is done for him does not appear. Now. it seems that these employment agencies are always located in towns where the State has an employment agency. and they say they cooperate with the State employment agency. The people who apply at the State agency are sent to them. That is the species of cooperation that takes place. There ought to be a cut of at least half a million dollars in the expense of the Immigration Service. and yet on the face of the evidence we could not find any place where the amount could be cut. I take it that by another year. if the new immigration law goes into effect and there is a greatly restricted :and reduced immigration to this country. these overhead charges -ought to be readjusted to the smaller scope of the Immigration Service.