Senators George W. Norris and Burton K. Wheeler today launched an attack on the resolution to transfer the immigration service to the Department of Justice, warning that this action might imperil all civil liberties and the Bill of Rights.
Wheeler said that this was no time “to harass, hound or persecute any person or group. Proposals which may have this as their effect are fundamentally unamerican. If they involve the denial or infringement of the civil rights granted under the constitution, restrictive measures directed against the foreign-born may become as obnoxious to freedom-loving Americans as any disloyal action by a citizen or non-citizen.”
Wheeler said spy hunts which might embrace a roundup of a vast number of aliens “could only furnish cloak to cover up any failure to perform properly the job of apprehending spies”. Norris conducted a blistering attack on the Department of Justice and its chief, J. Edgar Hoover.
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