Speech #660331898

Mr. Chairman. I have asked permission to address the House to call attention to these two telegrams. and to say that I think it is unfair for the commissioner of health for New York City. or for the head of the Immigration Service at Ellis Island at this late day to undertake to "pass the buck" to the United States Public Health Service. As far back as the first week of this session of Congress. in December. typhusafllicted persons were arriving in tile United States. That was known to the authorities at Ellis Island and to the public health authorities. and on the floor of this House. December 13 last I called the attention of the Members of the House to the arrival of the steamship Adriatic with a case of typhus from Cherbourg. We were voting on the immigration suspension measure that day. and reports from our consular agents abroad were presented by your Committee on Immigration to show that we might soon expect just what is now happening. Further. Mr. Chairman. the Public Health Service on January 19. this year. called the attention of the State Department to the necessity of taking advantage of the quarantine laws which have been in existence many years in an effort to stop the sending to the United States from certain ports in Europe of not only actually diseased but dangerously dirty and liceinfected immigrants. The State Department took notice of that complaint. which was dated January 19. and on February 1 issued orders to consular officers at certain ports forbidding the departure of ships without clean health manifests. That order. to prevent the coming of. immigrants from diseased places in Italy. Poland. and elsewhere in central Europe. caused protests to come from New York. Business must not be interfered with. Immigration must not stop. To even check immigration is cruel. inhuman. Those were the cries. New York knew of the danger.