STOWAWAYS FOUND ABOARD VESSELS, 1908-1927

Mr. HULL. Mr. Chairman, I want to call your attention to one thing: Running through here has been a question in regard to the stowaways apprehended. I call your attention to a page in the annual report, 236, which is very comprehensive and gives you an idea of the extent to which stowaways are coming into the country. Mr. OLIVER. Suppose instead of putting in the table you give us a summation of it and attach it to your answer.

Mr. HULL. The table is so informative I think that all of it should go in. I can not pick out just what you want to know.

Mr. OLIVER. What does the table show?

Mr. HULL. There is a multitude of figures here. It shows the different number of stowaways picked up at the different ports in the different years, at a large number of ports, such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and so on. For instance, in 1927 the total number of stowaways is 1,906.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Up to what date?

Mr. HULL. That is for the year.

Mr. WAGNER. For the year ended June 30, 1927.

Mr. HULL. You can use any part of it that you want. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

SALARIES, BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION

Mr. SHREVE. Mr. Wagner, I want you to tell us what you intend to do with the $91,840 which is the estimate for 1929, and which is the same amount as the appropriation for the current year? That covers the salaries for the Commissioner General and other personal services in the District of Columbia, does it not?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes, sir. That covers the salaries of 47 employees paid from the appropriation, "Salaries, Bureau of Immigration.”

REGULATING IMMIGRATION

BORDER PATROL ACTIVITIES

Mr. SHREVE. Mr. Hull, we have been theorizing this morning, and now I would like to get down to some concerte facts with reference to the border patrol. In the item for regulating immigration there has been an increase of $340,000. Your current appropriation is $6,535,000 and your estimate for 1929 is $6,875,000. There is also an increase proposed of $207,000 for repairs.

There is nothing in the record so far to show that the money that we have spent on the border patrol has provided a satisfactory service. I find on page 19 of your report some tables with reference to the activities of the immigration border patrol during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1927.

It seems that the miles patroled total 4,559,838, which was divided as follows:

By motor, 3,817,045; by railroad, 279,856; by horse, 74,931; by boat, 7,208; by airplane, 252; and afoot, 380,537.

There is another table showing the number of trains, buses, etc., with passengers on the same, which were examined. It shows that your men have been very active. First, I would like to ask you how many men you have in the service on the borders who are members of what is known as the border patrol.

Mr. HULL. A little less than 800.

Mr. WAGNER. Seven hundred and eighty-one is the total authorized at the present moment.

Mr. SHREVE. I notice that at the bottom of the page you have a table showing that the number of persons apprehended is 19,382, and that 786 automobiles were seized, to the value of $335,252; other conveyances seized numbered 303 and were valued at $77,995. The total number of persons apprehended is split up as follows: Immigration, 17,225; customs, 1,173; prohibition, 232; narcotics, 10; agriculture, 5; justice, 191; Army and Navy, 106; State and municipal, 440.

That seems to me to be a very creditable showing for the work of the border patrol. It is a new organization and has been in operation only for a year. This is its first year's report.

Have you anything more to say about the activities of your border patrol before we take up other matters?

Mr. HULL. I have only this to say in regard to the activities of the border patrol. I want to correct any misapprehension that you may have gotten about the border patrol. It is one of the most efficient governmental agencies in the world. I do not think that

there is any doubt about that. It is honest and efficient and does a wonderful work. The same can be said of the Immigration Service, and it also might be said of the whole bureau. They are all very efficient and doing wonderful work, doing it as well as it is possible for them to do it, but the organization is far too small to do well the work it should do.

Mr. SHREVE. You think, then, that the additional million dollars that we gave you is justified?

Mr. HULL. Absolutely. There is not any doubt about it.

AUTOMOBILES SEIZED

USE OF SEIZED CARS FOR BORDER PATROL

Mr. OLIVER. What does that table show to be the number of cars seized by the border patrol that came back to the border patrol? Mr. HULL. I do not think that it shows any.

Mr. OLIVER. In other words, it shows a very large distribution of the results of their labors to other agencies of the Government; yet we are required each year out of this fund to purchase cars that are very much needed in the service.

Mr. HULL. Yes; and we turn them back to other services.

Mr. OLIVER. Mr. Hull, if Congress should give approval to a proviso whereby the agency to which you now turn over these cars were authorized or required to return such number of these cars to the border patrol as might be needed in that service, would it not save a large part of your appropriation and greatly strengthen your border patrol?

Mr. HULL. It unquestionably would do so. We are at present confiscating a great number of cars and turning them over to other activities of the Government, because there is no law by which we can hold them. We could hold the car and use it in our service. Just how much it would save is hard to tell, but I believe it is a safe conclusion to say that we would save probably $50,000 a year and make our force more efficient.

Mr. OLIVER. Our information, gathered from traveling around the border, was that many of these cars were splendid cars.

Mr. HULL. Yes.

Mr. OLIVER. With speed and reliability.

Mr. HULL. Yes, sir.

Mr. OLIVER. And that you needed just that type of car in order to serve efficiently as a border patrol. Is that your opinion?

Mr. HULL. That is my opinion.

You have that angle of it absolutely correct. It is a terrible thing to us that we have to turn over to other Government agencies that do not need and can not use automobiles when we are buying automobiles new. It is a very inefficient way of doing business, but it is because there is no law by which we can hold the car.

We cooperate with every other Government agency in the enforcement of the law. We are not jealous; we are not trying to build up any organization. We go just as far as we can in enforcing the law against narcotics, prohibition-in fact, everything. If we find in patroling the border anybody coming over with illegal articles, contraband, we confiscate them.

Mr. OLIVER. I do not think there is any disposition on the part of other agencies of the Government to deny these cars to you. What they would like to have is authority to turn them over, and if you will have the solicitor consider some proviso whereby, if Congress gives its approval, these cars could be lawfully turned over to you, the committee would be glad to give consideration to it and would probably present the matter to Congress for their consideration. Mr. HULL. We shall be very glad to do that.

Mr. SHREVE. And its is your estimate that that would save the Government about $50,000 a year?

Mr. HULL. I do not think that we should turn them over at all if we confiscate them, but just hold them and use them, and in my opinion it would save over $50,000 a year, besides making the service more efficient.

NUMBER OF AUTOMOBILES CONFISCATED, 1927, AND NUMBER USED BY PATROL

Mr. GRIFFIN. For instance, last year, as indicated in the report at page 19, you confiscated 786 automobiles. Would it be practicable for the border patrol to use all of them in any one year?

Mr. HULL. Certainly.

Mr. GRIFFIN. You could use the entire number, 786?

Mr. HULL. We could use such of them as are serviceable.

Mr. GRIFFIN. You appear, according to this statement, to have turned 49 of those cars over to your own bureau. Under what cirsumstances was that done?

Mr. WAGNER. None was turned over to the Immigration Service. Mr. GRIFFIN. I am referring to your table in this annual report. Mr. HARRIS. That was a temporary transfer, together with their drivers, and what not, to the immigration administrative officers, but they were not held any longer than was necessary to go thoroughly into the cases and determine then what disposition should be made of them.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Who turns them over?

Mr. HARRIS. The patrol officers turn them over to the immigration officers.

Mr. GRIFFIN. What authority have they got to do that?

Mr. HARRIS. That is within our own service; it is merely a transfer temporarily of the cars.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Why could you not do that with all of the cars that you capture?

Mr. OLIVER. Mr. Griffin, here is what I understand is the situation: The patrolman who captures a car is directed to turn it over to the immigration commissioner, who must have a reasonable time to determine whether the facts under which it was seized justify holding it. He makes this preliminary survey before he turns it over to the Treasury officials. This number here represents the number of cars held temporarily for the purpose of making further inquiry into the attendant facts connected with the seizure.

Mr. GRIFFIN. So that we are to understand that these 49 cars mentioned in the table held under those circumstances were held temporarily only until the rights of capture were adjudicated? Mr. OLIVER. Yes.

Mr. HULL. That is correct.