Senate Body Reports Wagner-rogers Bill; Measure Suspending Entry Quotas 5 Years Also Backed

The Senate Immigration Committee today reported two bills dealing with immigration, one approving admission of 20,000 refugee children from Germany, the second suspending immigration quotas for five years.

The Wagner-Rogers measure was approved with and amendment providing that the 20,000 entrants be deducted from present quotas of Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria. The proposed ban on immigration would except the refugee children.

Senator Reynolds, sponsor of the bill to suspend quotas, announced that the would “filibuster the refugee bill to death” Another Reynolds measure, providing for the finger printing of al aliens, was also reported from committee.

Senator Wagner announced that he planned to bring up the refugee bill next week. He said he was not satisfied with the amendment but “may have to swallow it to get it through.”

Meanwhile, President Roosevelt asked Congress by letter for an additional $250,000 for the Immigration Service in 1940 to take care of the expected increase in applications of German and other immigrants. Budget Director Harold D. Smith said the $1,069,710 provided in the 1940 Labor Department budget was too little.

A companion measure to a bill offered in the House of Representatives last week by Andrew J. May (Dem., Ky) for admission of political refugees to Alaska, was introduced yester day in the Senate by Senator Ernest W. Gibson (Rep., Vt.). Senator Gibson’s bill proposes admission of colonists from any nation on condition that they can prove they had never engaged in subversive activities in their native countries and had given up all allegiance to any other power. As in Representative May’s proposal, the number of immigrants admitted could equal the unfilled entry quotas to the United States.