Senator Wagner, Speaking at Annual Hias Meeting, Attacks Motive Underlying Passage of Alien Registra

A vigorous attack on the motives underlying passage of the alien registration bills now pending in Congress, and a denial that they could succeed in the purposes for which they are declared to be intended, was made by United States Senator Robert F. Wagner at the twenty-first annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America (Hias), held Sunday afternoon at the Hotel Astor.

“All these bills are expressions of the prejudice that the immigrant must be received, not with sympathy but with suspicion, that during his residence in this country, he must be in some manner marked off and set apart from the rest of the population and subjected to special watchfulness on the part of authorities; and that as far as it lies in the power of bureaucracy, he must be harrassed, annoyed and molested,” Senator Wagner declared.

“The original plan was to make the registration of aliens compulsory,” he continued. “A bill carrying such a plan into effect is now pending in Congress. It was proposed as a device for apprehending the aliens who are illegally in this country. But the idea of compulsory registration was not well received by the public. The administration has therefore now proposed voluntary registration as a substitute. If the new measure is genuinely voluntary—if it is really true no one will be forced to register, directly or indirectly, then, obviously, it will not accomplish any useful purpose.

“If the new bill is voluntary in appearance only,” he asserted, “but is in fact coercive and compulsory, it is subject to all the criticisms of the original bill and those who sponsor it must have but little regard for the government to make it a party to a transparent subterfuge.

“Compulsory registration is dangerous. Voluntary registration is either useless or dangerous. There is no alternative.”

He then criticized the bills on the ground of effectiveness and declared the procedure involved in registration contrary to American principles.

The alien registration bills were also the subject of comment by Abraham Herman, president of Hias, in his annual report.

“Let there be no illusions as to the conditions that confront us,” Mr. Herman declared. “The temper of the people of our own country, the United States, is decidedly unfriendly to the foreign-born. Much as we may regret this, it is nevertheless a fact. There is a constant harassing of aliens which finds expression in the introduction into Congress of bills which, if passed; will make it still more difficult, not only for aliens to be admitted into the country, but for those already here.”