The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-02-03

of the commission, except Burnett ana
Howell of New Jersey, took a private
secretary along to do such work as
was absolutely necessary to be done
while they, the commission had fun.
After denying that he was accom-
panied by secretary Mr.. Bennett ex-
planned that the commission was ac-
companied by some employees and
said:
eve took first Mr. Husband the
secretary of the commission, man
from Vermont, appointed, | think, on
my own suggestion, because he had
been the clerk of the Senate Commit
tee on immigration and was the most
proficient man that | knew of person
ally in Washington in relation to inn
migration"
This is certainly a high compliment
to Mr. Husbands ability.
Regarding the appointment of Mr..
Wheeler of California, Mr.. Bennett
remarked:
"Mr. Wheeler was appointed without
any solicitation on his part, on tele-
graphic request of the President, to
accept this position on the coast, leav-
ing the head of a business at $4,000
year to accept position on the
commission at $500, and without
knowledge of his being able to get
back on the same plane-an initial
loss of $500 a year Now, what did
he do? He equipped himself thor
oughly with an investigation of the
law, particularly in relation to Chin
csc. He slept nights in the mountains
of southern California, watching the
system of importation of Chinese peo-
pie. His efforts resulted in an entire
reformation of the immigration SER
vice there, and the importation of
Chinese from Mexico is almost entire
ly broken up. Then he came here
and took a position as Assistant Sec
rotary of Commerce and Labor, with
out increase of compensation. and,
with the knowledge that he had and
the knowledge that he gained there,
redrafted the entire immigration stat
ute. and in particular the entire Chin
ese exclusion law, worth time after
time the whole of his compensation,
for we spend annually under the Chin
ese-exclusion act 100000 a year. We
only get proper legislation"
In his speech Mr.. Macon had said:
81 am advised that the chairman
held no meetings of the commission
for making out the program of the
work of their trip until forced to do
so by Senator Latimer three weeks aft
err their arrival in Rome, and that he
was only induced to have a meeting
of the commission for that purpose
at that time because of the Senator's
threat to return home on the next
steamer and inform the press, and the
Government on the floor of the Sen
ate, that the commission intended
merely to delay immigration investi-
cations"
To this Mr.. Bennett replied:
"The gentleman from Arkansas says
that this is on information and belief
Whoever told the gentleman from Ar
kansas that told him a wicked, cruel,
malicious, deliberate lie. (Applause)
We commenced to make our plans on
the steamer. ] would like to have the
gentleman put in the record the name
of his informant; the name of the man
who gave him that letter from the reg
istrar of Cornell University; the name
of the man who insults and ISLANDERS
Senator of the United States upon
the floor of this body | would like
the gentleman to put 1t in the record
"Then, Furthermore, the commission
never was in Rome three weeks, and
the gentleman could have found that
out easily The meeting at which we
were assigned to duty was held the
very same night that | got back to
Rome from the trip through Calabria
1t is a lie out of whole cloth, and
whoever did it must have had some
malicious purpose; and before l get
through / will try to name the man
who was the source of the information
of the gentleman from Arkansas, and
his reason, and what he had done pre-
viously along the same line. The gen.
tleman says that this commission was
criticised on the floor of the Senate
and that a resolution was drawn; but
the gentleman does not say what he
might have said if he had looked VI
the Congressional Record of that day
that the resolution as adopted was
framed by the Senator from Vermont
(Mr. Dillingham;, the chairman of the
commission, and adopted at his re-
quest, because we wanted to give that
information to Congress, and that was
the first chance we had to do it, and
/ that the report came from the commits
sion because of the resolution drafted
! by the Senator from Vermont.
Zone thing more. The gentleman
from Arkansas says
"The white-slave-traffic report
made by the commission, out of which
they are trying to get so much CAPT
! tai, am advised, was practically TAX
en- from United States court records
police court and police commissioners
reports of the large cities Of the coun'
try and that much of it had appeared
! in the Congressional Record before !
appeared in the report
"Another falsehood out of whol'
cloth, absolutely. Men, and womel
too, risked thej,' Ives to get so NJ %
the facts hat AN III the white slave
! traffic repor- Of The Immigration Com
mission to this House. We start =! on
public WORK, =, tar as the courts
were concerned III the city of Chica
go and almost simultaneously in tn
city of New York. There were n in
dictments and II convictions and plea
of guilty, and the fines and forfeited
bail bonds paid to the United state
as the result of the work of the I'm
migration Commission in Chicag
alone amounted to $125,000; and, a
| am reminded, our information is nov
being used by the grand jury IN IN