Speech #680078792

I agree that without the amendment we will make provisions whereby the American consul will have arbitrary powers and such powers as have only been vested in the Czar and the former Kaiser of Germany. One of the preceding speakers has stated that it would give the alien the right to appeal before he entered this country. Under our immigration laws today. an alien has a right to appeal to the Secretary of Labor. if perchance he is turned down at the port of entry. Therefore. if it Is right and lawful to grant him that right under the existing immigration laws. I think It would be just as proper and lawful and constitutional to grant him the .right when he is over there. I want to have faith In all our Government officials. but granting there is no American consul who would use his high office to discriminate against an alien. what would happen if we had in some of these consular offices in the near future men of the caliber of some of the former public officials who have been exposed in recent investigations. especially Teapot Dome. One gentleman has stated on the floor his version of discrimination. I differ with him. The bill is discriminatorynot that our Nation is discriminating against the foreigner. but discriminating as between the prospective immigrants of the different foreign nations. I think that this amendment should be incorporated in this immigration bill. I do not believe in vesting in any one person arbitrarily. the authority. perhaps to determine who shall come and who shall not unless provision is made for appeal from his decision. They talk about its being unconstitutional to grant the right of appeal. I think the Constitution has been stretched during the late war when our Government sent soldiers to Russia. whose immigrants are being discriminated against in this bill. when they sent our soldiers to fight side by side with the Czars troops and the Russian Cossacks. I do not find any provision in the Constitution which authorized our soldiers to be seat to Russia. as they were. to fight side by side with the remnants of the Czars autocracy and the Russian Cossacks.