The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1923-06-14

Ellis Island After lettering about the
station all. day one of the Chicago busl-
ness men made this statement:
''If there is an immigration problem in
America to-day it lies solely in the fact
that Ellis Island is too much aloof from
what is going on upon the mainland Of
the United States"
To a person who has served as a
news gatherer on Ellis Island every day
since immigration was resumed after
the world war; who has crossed the bay
every morning at o'clock with the Of
fetal family of 600 employees and re-
manned until o'clock in the afternoon;
who has become familiar with every
letter of the law by seeing it in actual
operation; who has stood face to face
with the incoming denizens from Europe
and seen them weeded out by the selec-
tive tests-to such a person the obser-
walton of the business man from Chi
cag0 seemed to hit the nail squarely on
the head and leave nothing unsaid.
Ellis Island is little world to itself,
with so or 100 inspectors of authority
stripped entirely of any power to dis
tribute the immigrants they admit to
the needs of the country.
But how can the immigrants be dis
tributed?
The answer to that question is some
thing that not one American citizen in
a thousand knows, namely: There is a
provision in the statute (Section 800 for
Division Of Information - whose duty
it shall be "to promote a beneficial dis
tribution of aliens admitted into the
United States among the several States
and Territories desiring Immigration. ;"
But this provision is a dead letter, be-
cause the Division Of Information no
longer exists. Conducted for time
upon a lick and promise basis, it has
been entirely abolished under the pres
ent Administration at Washington after
Congress withdrew all appropriations for
its maintenance.
They shall not pass" has come to be
a mania with the restrictionists. This
slogan has been tackled UP over the
gates of the United States at every port
OF entry, and every commissioner every
inspector in the service to-day goes to
work in the morning keeping time to
the rhythmic ritual Keep 'em out :;
keep 'em out"
Now that another national election
is nigh at hand and the general i'm
migration question will be more Of an
issue that it ever was before, some per-
sons of power are pointing apologetfc-
etIAy " tAAC AeCl that the ldSC EL6puD-
lican platform contained a plank pledg-
ing the present Administration to re-
stricted immigration 1t is further urged
by the restrictionists that the Repub-
lican party was the only one which put
such plank in it's platform.
But when business men from various
parts of the country are found on Ellis
Island in search of workmen to keep
alive the reviving industries of the land
with no means whatever of laying their
propositions before incoming immigrant
workers, the desirability of bringing
Ellis Island more closely in touch with
the country is the real immigration is
sue, whether in or out of politics. Those
Chicago meB of big induetries could not
understand why the Government is
doing absolutely nothing to place it's
immigration service on basis of sound
business, whether the administration
feels that it was pledged by the Repub-
lican platform to restricted immigration
or not. The truth of the matter is that
the platform was written at time when