The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-25
HARD BLOW AIMED
 AT COMMISSION Inquiry Into Immigration May Have 10 Stop Short APPROPRIATIONS CUT OFF Friends of the Commission Will Have To Come to Its Aid To Get the Money Appropriated Again
 in the Bill.
APPROPRIATIONS CUT OFF

Washington, January 4.-By cutting on a defciency appropriation of s125,0m for the national immigration comnnssloh' the House today lent its support to seN- eral members led by Representative Ma con of Arkansas, who denounced the com mission and it's work and threalened IL with immediate extinction.
 Unless friends of the commission sue ceed in the Senate it will be compelled to suspend for lack of funds. The com mission asks for the $125o0o appropria- ton, which it needed to wind up us work.
 The commission was created by an act of Congress February 20, 1907, and was authorized to make a full inquiry into all subjects dealing with the admission of aliens 1t has brought out a number of interesting reports dealing With con ditions on immigrant ships and the lives of aliens after their arrival in this coun- try. Several other reports on number of allied subjects are in course of prep aration.
 Senator Dillingham; of Vermont is chair man of the commission, the other mem bers being Senator Lodge, Representa- lives Howell of New Jersey, Bennett of New York, Burnett of Alabama and Prof. J. w. Jenks of Cornell university and William R. Wheeler of San Francisco.
 When the paragraph making the appro- priation for the commission was reached during the consideration of the urgent deficiency bill today MT. Macon made point of order against it on the ground that it was not a deficiency. Following this action came general assault against the commission by several members, Mir Macon making a scathing attack on the body. He charged that the commission had gone on a junketing expedition abroad, and spent s697 993 and had &C., complished practically nothing.
 Playing Politics.
 Mir Macon asserted that Professor Jenks, who was also professor of political economy and politics at Cornell univer- sity, devoted the first part of each week to Cornell, an institution which he char acterized as playing politics all the time" He said that MT. William R. Wheeler, who was also secretary of the Merchant Shippers association of San Francisco, drawing 5000 from the asso- citation and s75O from the commission, re- garded the latter office as d political sinecure.
 T am advised said MT. Macon, that this commission went abroad during the summer of 1907 and that it sailed May IS and returned September r and that no report of the trip has ever been pubS lished and in my judgment will not, for it seems the trip a pleasure junket for most of it's members rather than an information gathering trip. The commits sion made no progress until forced to do so by the late Senator Latimer of South Carolina who threatened to return home on the next steamer and inform the gov ernment on the floor of the Senate that the commission intended merely to de- lay immigration investigation.
 Messrs Batimer and Burnett and Howell of the commission were allowed to go to work while the chairman told MT. Wheeler to come with him and en- joy himself; that the immigration prob lem had been thoroughly investigated by the industrial commission and that only he and another knew the real purpose of the commission
 '1 cannot swear to these facts be- cause 1 was not present but my inforrna- tion has been received from a reliable citizen. The members who went abroad were Dillingham;. Latimer, Burnett, How ell and Wheeler and they were accom- panied by their families and two secre- taries, one a MT. Crane, whom l am advised is nephew of Senator Crane of Massachusetts, and the other Mr Hus- band, Senator Dillinghams secretary.
 T have heard that the auditor for the state department has entered a pro test against certain member of the commission for charging up a part of his expense account the amounts paid out by him for laundry, hair cuts, sham poos, automobile rides for pleasure and shoe shines the trip. l understand MT. Bennett and his secretary have been abroad several times at the expense of the commission. He is one of the three members of the steering committee"
 He referred to Professor Jenks' work as influencing students in the political way the party in power would have them walk He declared the commissions re- port contained a mass of material that could be culled at any time from the po- lice courts.
 Mir. Tawney, chairman of the appro- priations committee, which reported the bill, condemned the principle of creat- ing commissions with permanent ap- propriations' but said he had never been able to stop that practice.
 MT. Sabath of Illinois. Butler of Penn sylvania, Burnett of Alabama, who is member of the commission, and oth- ers also spoke against the appropria- ton after which it stricken out on MT Macon's point of order.