Speech #700011872

The flow can not be stopped unless a sufficient appropriation is made to provide practically a 24hour service on every highway leading from Canada. Good work is being done with the force at hand. but we ought to be honest with ourselves and honest with the country and provide a sum sufficient to enforce the law and give it effect. Our immigration officials are lacking equipment. furniture. and supplies. Filing cabinets. transfer cases. even chairs and desks. are needed. A better type of automobile should be provided to cope with the highpowered cars of the smugglers. Time and time again. when requisitions are made. the officials are informed that the appropriation is insufficient to provide for their purchase. The Government has never provided sufficient funds for the regular service or for the border patrol along the northern border of Vermont. Another thing I wish to call to your attention. The Customs Service and the Immigration Service are not well housed. At Derby Line. where 400.000 people pass every year. until two years ago the necessary examinations were made on the piazza of a country hotel. I succeeded In interesting some publicspirited citizens. who saw the shame of this great and rich country doing its business in that way. in the acquiring for the services of respectable quarters at a low rental. At North Troy. where more than 200.000 pass every year. a room 10 by 15 in one end of a railway station served as an office where five men worked in the winter and eight in the summer. It was also used for the detention of immigrants and for the storage of captured liquor. There. too. publicspirited citizens had to come to the rescue of the Government. and as a result a building has been erected for the transaction of the business of the Government. I look ahead with hope to a day when the United States will erect at the border a uniform type pf