Speech #660290419

I know from my own observation something of the number of hours they repeatedly spend there under the new rCgime. I was told that men in the Customs Service. for example. when it is necessary to stay on board a ship to complete the examination long after the customary days work is done. are permitted overtime allowance. to be paid by the steamship companies through the Government to the customs employees. I was told. also. that right alongside of the customs employees immigration inspectors will be found working in order to clear the ship. This is for the benefit of the immigrants and the steantship companies. Not one of the immigration inspectors is permitted this additional pay. Now. it seems to me that is wholly unjust. and that there is much that can be said for the position of the gentleman from New York in reference to the way the Immigration Service has been treated. I went out into the bay and boarded an incoming liner and watched our inspectors. the medical and immigration inspectors. examine the immigrants as they filed into the room from the first and second cabins. I know how efficiently they tried to do their work. how conscientious and humane they were in the treatment of those immigrants. I later saw steerage passengers examined on the island. One thousand two hundred dollars a year to $2.000 a year is certainly not enough for men in that kind of Government service who have to live in the city of New York. It is outrageous that we should ask men to do that kind of work at the pay they receive. I marvel at their efficiency. On account of the very few maen employed and that are available in the physical examination of the second cabin on board ship and of the steerage at the island. they put the immigrants through just like that [indicating]. Now. they are all skilled. and. considering the speed with which they must work. they make a minimum of mistakes. With the time allowed them. I do not see how they can make a more efficient examination. And I believe that if the emergency immigration bill is not passed during this Congress we will have to increase materially the appropriation for the Immigration Service.