Speech #660243331

We all know that a resolution is being considered in the Rules Committee which might lead to a resolution of Impeachment. Every Member of this House knows that impeachmeni charges are not lightly made. that they are of the highest privilege. and must be handled with dignity and the greatest fairness. To bandy the word " anarchist" about and charge it against any officer of the Government is to do just what that officer charges that Congress has done in its immigration laws. he charges that the law makes the word " anarchist" a verbal brickbat. I do not think the law uses the word in any such way. I think Mr. Post has read into the law what he should not have done. I do not want my valiant friend from Texas to charge me with being weakkneed simply because I want any part that I may have in the inquiry to be a fair one. The work of the Immigration Committee will go on. There is much yet to do in that committee. regardless of what may be done by the Committee on Rules. I do say that in my opinion the Assistant Secretary is too sympathetic with attorneys for revolutionary. alien clients who strive day and night against this Governmeit. The Assistant Secretary Is reached by personal visit or by telephone or otherwise. and in such cases the deportation warrants of such aliens are held up and very often decisions reversed after the statement has been made that the alien should be deported. The decisioA of the Secretary of Labor is supposed to be final. but it is not. apparently. In some of these cases no new evidence is offered. We may get a few deportations of aliens of the anarchistic classes some day. On the Buford last December went 241. all properly deported. About 20 more have been sent. A few more are ready to go. Some one will really represent the Government one of these days and morewill go. It was presumed that on next Saturday a party of Russians would pass out of New York on a vessel for Odessa. Lo and behold. however. the ship that sails that day is not a ship of the United States. but is a carrier which goes only to Constantinople. and there the authorities would have to transship these deportees to Russia. Strange as it may seem. whatever Government rules at Constantinople now declines to have these alien anarchists who have been picked up in the United States within the limits of Constantinople for a single day. We have had many difficulties through the hairsplitting of our laws in getting these anarchists up to the point of deportation. and now they are not to go. Perhaps they will be released on nominal bond. for that has been a custom.