A strong plea for the adoption of Congressman Dickstein’s six bills for alleviation of the hardships of the present immigration law was made yesterday at the hearing on the bills before the House’s Immigration Committee, by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Bernard Deutsch, on behalf of the American Jewish Congress, Max J. Kohler for the American Jewish Committee, ex-Congressman Perlman, Grand Master of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham, Congressman Celler, and Dr. S. Margoshes, editor of “The Day.”
Rabbi Wise in his appeal, which left a deep impression on the Committee, said: “We earnestly importune you to pass this proposed legislation, which does not contravene the underlying policy of restriction that you have set up. We appear before you to ask you, upon whom responsibility rests, to temper justice with understanding. We are not applying to you for charity nor in a low sense for pity or for favors, but to correct and cancel those inequities which fall so hard on those persons whom they effect.”
During the course of his address to the Committee, Dr. Wise made several striking statements and was once interrupted by a member of the Committee, who asked whether he objected to a cross-examination. To this he replied “no, I am not afraid of a cross-examination. The Jewish people are accustomed to bear crosses.” The high point of his speech was reached when he diverted from a specific discussion of the bills before the Committee to make a bitter attack against the general growing hostility toward the foreign born, illustrated by the prevalent use of the term “alien” instead of “foreigner,” formerly employed.
“I am foreign born myself,” he said, “and I indignantly resent being considered an alien. I warn you members of this Committee and your associates that you have been enacting into law a lamentable spirit of inhospitality. There has been too much talk about aliens being lawbreakers. You have no right to deal with the foreign born as if they belong to the criminal classes.”
Referring to the bill to admit refugees of 1924 granted visas but later refused admission because of the enactment of the new immigration law, Rabbi Wise said that the consuls’ visa under the seal of the United States was a national obligation which cannot be annulled by retroactive legislation. He also made a vigorous reply
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