Mr. President. may I say that it seems to me it is very unfortunate that the Senate. in passing this measure. did not know the attitude of the State Department or the Labor Department. and it is perhaps unfortunate that the debate now taking place at the luncheon hour does not include any more Senators than the Senator from Alabama referred to yesterday when he succeeded in getting a small handful to listen to what he had to say on Muscle Shoals. because the matter is one of really great importance. To continue with what Mr. du Bois said: All of the maritime governments seem to see in it something beyond and behind the enforcement of the restrictive immigration policy of the United States. They sense an attack on the existing operating methods of their merchant marines. From the viewpoint of our foreign relations. the worst feature is the apparent departure from the timehonored practice of considering a foreign ship in our ports as a bit of the territory of its flag. Under existing international practice. any undesirable alien arriving in a foreign port is detained aboard the ship and leaves with the ship if the government of the country considers he can not be landed under its laws. This bill violates international comity in that it proposes to enforce a domestic law by taking seamen off foreign ships in our portspresumably by force if necessaryand sending them home on another ship. There
Keywords matched
immigration undesirable alien