Mr. WAGNER. I see your point. We spent almost $500,000 for the transportation and maintenance of aliens last year. We have set aside $150,000 for that purpose this year.

Mr. BYRNS. And you now want $300,000 more, which would make $450,000 altogether?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BYRNS. As I stated awhile ago, I know there was some criticism, I do not know whether it was well founded or not, that the Government was being involved in considerable more expense than it ought to have been involved in under the last administration, on account of delays in passing on these deportation cases, keeping men in jail and keeping them under supervision, etc., while the cases were going through the course of procedure to final decision. If you are not current and propose to keep current during this year, as nearly as possible, why is it necessary to have so much money, because you will save something in the way of maintenance, if the other criticism was justified?

Mr. HUSBAND. We will save something, but how much is a question. The delays in determining cases at the bureau or at the department are expensive, but the instances of long detentions are rather rare in any case. They are usually handled expeditiously. We are current now and we will save a little, but it is not a great amount, and it would be impossible to say how much that would amount to.

The CHAIRMAN. If these people are not deported, I assume the expense of their maintenance while they are kept in this country would fall on the States?

Mr. HUSBAND. They do in public charge cases, and they do in the case of the insane, but there is a certain class of cases where they are not an expense to the State. For example, we take criminals when they have served their term and deport them. If we do not deport them they are not an expense to anyone. They are simply at large. Mr. WOOD. They might become an expense?

Mr. HUSBAND. You can not tell what the expenses might be. The public charges are people who are public charges on private or municipal charities, boards of charity in the cities. That is another thing; I have told the deportation authorities that they must not figure on wholesale deportations after this present month.

PERSONS ADMITTED UNDER BOND.

The CHAIRMAN. You say that you are up current now with the deportation work?

Mr. HUSBAND. In the bureau.

The CHAIRMAN. But they have not been shipped?

Mr. HUSBAND. No, sir.

Mr. WOOD. Where a person is admitted under bond and it is afterwards determined that they should be deported, that does not involve any cost to the Government?

Mr. HUSBAND. It depends on the bond. I think I know what you mean. There are few people admitted on bonds that provide that their departure shall be without cost to the Government. The bond provides that they shall not become a public charge, but only very rarely do the conditions of the bond provide that at the end of the time the person must be taken out without expense to the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Where you admit them on bond and where you have to deport them, the cost is borne by the Government?

Mr. HUSBAND. They are usually deported at the expense of the steamship companies, and the cost on land is borne by the Government. We have each month practically, I think, 10 a year, collecting trains that go from the East along the borders and pick up Chinamen usually who are to be deported to China, and as they get near the Pacific coast they pick up aliens who are to be deported the other way to Europe, and they are finally brought together from the interior to this train which will arrive in New York with 8 or 10 cars sometimes from the last station, which is at Cleveland or Buffalo.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you consider, from the standpoint of the improvement in our citizenship, these expenditures for deportation meritorious?

Mr. HUSBAND. Oh, yes. It is one thing that the alien does not like to face.

The CHAIRMAN. If we make the appropriation we are making it for the advancement of the standard of our citizenship?

Mr. HUSBAND. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. You take the misfits, those who have been failures, tried and found wanting, you get them out. At the same time it is a lesson to the neighbor that it is up to him to behave himself or he will go.

IMMIGRANTS IN EXCESS OF QUOTA-MAINTENANCE.

Mr. BYRNS. Mr. Commissioner, are there many arrivals at Ellis Island and other ports in excess of the 3 per cent quota?

Mr. HUSBAND. There have been up to this month. This month has finally, I think, solved the problem. In June, that was the first month, the excess was around 11,000. Then it dwindled from that to five or six hundred a month, until last month it was very much smaller, some two or three hundred, and this month-I was looking at the figures yesterday-there have been not more than half a dozen, apparently, in excess.

Mr. BYRNS. As I understand, this excess is sent back at the expense of the steamship companies that brought them over?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. BYRNS. Does that include the cost of subsistence here?
Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. BYRNS. It includes all the cost?

Mr. HUSBAND. No, sir. We have a real leak in our expenditures. The immigration law says that the cost of maintenance on land of these people held for examination or who are detained until they are admitted, shall be borne by the steamship company or the transportation company which brought them. Always up to the present time it has been construed that the cost of maintenance on land is the cost of food. Soap, water, and service of that kind is not included and never has been in the cost of maintenance on land, except in the hospitals. I went into that carefully, at least I got them at Ellis Island to do so, to try to see what they could add that would be a fair and reasonable addition to the cost of maintenance on land. They have decided now, as I recall it, that the cost is about 55 cents a day over and above the cost of food.

The CHAIRMAN. And you are going to assess them?

Mr. HUSBAND. Now, we have, say, a thousand aliens-we had last night about 1,900 at Ellis Island, and often it costs from nine hundred to a thousand dollars a day, which, I think, the steamship companies ought to pay. I think that is right, even if it is necessary to change the law in order to bring it about. I think that we ought to not only charge for the food, as we do now, but for the towels and soap and the other things which we hope to add to it.

The CHAIRMAN. If that is not maintenance, what is it?

Mr. HUSBAND. I do not know why it is not maintenance. I know that it has never been regarded as maintenance. I suppose we keep the people outside of the hospital at an expense of 50 cents a day.

Mr. WAGNER. It costs 80 to 90 cents a day at some places; 18 to 19 cents a meal.

Mr. HUSBAND. I am speaking of New York. Fifty to sixty cents a day we are charging the steamship companies for the cost of maintenance. Canada has a special rate, I understand, of $1.75 a day to cover everything.

The CHAIRMAN. That would cover the proportionate expense of maintaining the buildings?

Mr. HUSBAND. That is it.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it should.

Mr. BYRNS. And if they come over in great numbers the extra personnel required?

Mr. HUSBAND. I think so. I am working now on a plan, which may result in turning over the maintenance of all aliens to the contractor who now feeds them.

The CHAIRMAN. Including everything?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir. We would charge him a nominal rent for the quarters and we would charge him a nominal fee for the service of guarding, heating, and everything of that sort, if I can work out what I want to.

The CHAIRMAN. If you made a contract to cover that, then you would be entitled to a full return?

Mr. HUSBAND. Then if we contract with him we will let him do business with the steamship companies and will bill the steamship companies direct.

Mr. BYRNS. You anticipated the question that I intended to ask. That would also have the effect of making the steamship companies even more careful than they are now?

Mr. HUSBAND. It would. The steamship companies, if they have to deport an alien, want to deport him right away, take him right back; but it frequently happens that an alien is ready for deportation, he is ordered deported, and he goes upon the boat for deportation, and then there is pressure brought to bear upon the department to stay the deportation for 10 days for the introduction of additional evidence. That means taking him off the boat, bringing him back to the island. You can not deport him in 10 days. It may be a month or two months before another ship of that line is going out. Consequently he is held at the cost of the steamship company all the time, but not for the steamship company.

The CHAIRMAN. Not altogether at the cost of the steamship company under the plan which you say has been in vogue?

Mr. HUSBAND. It is all right up to date. They are getting a bargain even if we keep the people six months. They have no com

plaint, and they do not complain, as a matter of fact. Once in a while some one does. If we were to charge the actual cost of maintenance on land to the steamship company, I think it would be fair where the alien's friends or some Member of Congress or some Member of the Senate is responsible for our detaining a person for any additional time, after the case is all settled the service ought to be charged for, but the alien's friends ought to pay it.

The CHAIRMAN. Ought to bear the burden?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. If you can not work that out in any reasonable time, please let us know, so if any legislation is needed we can get it through.

Mr. HUSBAND. They had that up with the law division, and at first there was some question about it, but it seems to me I am not a lawyer that the words "cost of maintenance on land" mean more than the three meals a day which they have.

The CHAIRMAN. There is a medical charge added sometimes?

Mr. HUSBAND. That is on a cost basis. They pay $2.75. If we put a person in the hospital, they have to pay for that.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would keep us in touch with the situation, because I should very much like to see that put into operation. Mr. HUSBAND. I think that would be only fair. But we ought to expedite deportation wherever it is possible.

REFUND OF IMMIGRATION FINES.

The CHAIRMAN. We have two or three other items which seem to be formal matters?

Mr. HUSBAND. I will just read this: Expenses of regulating immigration, 1923, $1,000. For refund of immigration fines erroneously assessed and collected from the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. This fine was assessed for an alleged violation of section 10 of the immigration act. After a review of the evidence, the Secretary of Labor found that the fine was not incurred, and so notified the collector of customs at Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. Unfortunately, a c ange of collectors was made while the case was pending before the department, and through inadvertence the new collector covered the deposit into the Treasury to the credit of "Miscellaneous receipts." Mr. WAGNER. They transferred those items from 1922. We had that originally on the 1923 estimates.

Mr. HUSBAND. Expenses of regulating immigration, 1923, $40. For refund of immigration fine erroneously assessed and collected from the Whitney-Bodden Brokerage Co., Mobile, Ala. This money was inadvertently covered into the Treasury as an immigration fine by the special deputy collector of customs, district No. 19, Mobile, Ala., said sum having been deposited with him pending decision by the Secretary of Labor for failure of the master of the American schooner Coniscliffe to furnish a report of four alien members of this In this instance the Secretary of Labor decided that no fine had been incurred.

crew.

Expenses of regulating immigration, 1923, $50. For refund of immigration fine erroneously assessed and collected from Alfredo Sabordo, master Cuban tug Caibarien at Tampa, Fla. This item represents a deposit of $50 with the collector of customs at Mobile,

Ala., to cover a fine, if assessed by the Secretary of Labor, for failure to present a proper crew list of five alien members of the crew of said vessel. The Secretary ruled that no fine had been incurred, but through inadvertence the collector of customs covered the amount into the Treasury.

The CHAIRMAN. After the money had been covered into the Treasury it was not possible to rebate it without an appropriation? Mr. HUSBAND. No, sir.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1921.

WOMEN'S BUREAU.

STATEMENTS OF MISS MARY ANDERSON, DIRECTOR, AND MISS LILLIAN LEWIS, CHIEF CLERK.

TRAVELING EXPENSES AND PER DIEM EXPENSES OF FIELD AGENTS.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you be kind enough to give your full name and position?

Miss ANDERSON. My name is Mary Anderson, and I am director of the Women's Bureau under the Department of Labor.

The CHAIRMAN. You are asking for

Miss ANDERSON (interposing). For a deficiency of $1,800.

The CHAIRMAN. You are asking a deficiency of $1,200 for 1920 and $600 for 1921 ?

Miss ANDERSON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How did those deficiencies occur?

Miss ANDERSON. The deficiency of $1,200 occurred in the month of June, and it is on account of the railroad fare and per diem allowance of agents in the field. The other deficiency occurred, also, because of railroad fares and an underestimate on account of the retirement fund. That amounts to $600.

The CHAIRMAN. Was there a balance in this appropriation for 1920 turned back into the Treasury, or would there have been sufficient money in the appropriation to pay these bills if they had been presented before the end of the fiscal year?

Miss ANDERSON. I think not. I think there was a very small item turned back into the Treasury.

The CHAIRMAN. These are claims that are already audited and approved?

Miss ANDERSON. Yes, sir. We were on an investigation at the time and could not possibly call in our agents, and we had to finish that investigation. In June last we called in our agents for two weeks, but the other deficiency was due to a miscalculation in regard to the retirement fund.

The CHAIRMAN. In what way?

Miss ANDERSON. We had persons on our staff that were not ac counted for in the retirement fund.

The CHAIRMAN. You had more on your staff than were appro priated for?