Intermountain Jewish news., 1926-09-23

from Russia.
Mrs. Szejva Waldman and her
three daughters arrived in the United
States at the end of August, 1929,
having escaped from Proskurow in
the Ukraine at the end of 1920, where
they had lived through the worst of
the terrible Ukrainian pogroms, in
which 1000 Jews were killed and GOO
wounded including twenty-five of
Mrs. Waldman's relatives. After six
months temporary stay in Lemberg,
they reached Warsaw. and remained
there a year until 1929, pending wise
of passport and securing places under
the quota.
Had Ordered Deportation
On arriving at Ellis Island, she was
excluded as an illiterate, and her chill
dren with her, particularly as the
youngest was also lame. On appeal
to the Secretary of Labor, he directed
new test in both Hebrew and Yid-
dish, and on the mothers failing to
pass these, oil were ordered reported.
Habeus corpus proceedings followed.
which the District Court decided
against them, but on appeal to the
Circuit Court of Appeals they were
admitted into the United States on
the ground that the test had been i'm
properly administered in both lam
guages and new right Of appeal to
the Secretary denied. The u. S. Su-
preme Court, on the governments ap-
peal, held. however, that while it
agreed with the lower court as to the
Irregularities in procedure having
taken place, this did not give these
aliens right of entrance, without an
affirmative finding that they were
eligible, but that the fundamental
question was whether they were fugi-
tives from religious persecution, be-
fore a literary test was authorized.
and it could not be inferred that this
question had been decided against
them, in the absence of finding to
that effect on their claim of exemp-
| ton.
! The Secretary was directed by the
Court to pass on that question and if
his ruling was adverse, to decide as
to new test. Meantime Mrs. Wald-
man was subjected to new test in
her home in Providence, while the
case was awaiting Supreme Court ac-
ton, and it was announced that she
had passed the test and deportation
proceedings against them had been
dropped, but the immigration authori-
ties declared that this determination
was reached merely because the Su-
preme Court decided to entertain the
Government appeal, and that the Sec
retary had not adopted the new test
Judge Bondy sustained this claim
Mrs. Waldman declined to take new
literacy test, until the main question
had been decided as to her exemption
and the Secretary has finally decided
that she and her daughter We're re-
ligious refugees, when they landed
here, but the youngest daughter is re-
quired to give bond against becom-
ing a public charge and that she will
continue her schooling until 16 years
old.
The case rs interesting and impor-
tant, not merely because of the ex-
treme unwillingness of the immigra-
ton authorities to exempt aliens from
the literacy test, but because the pro-
vision q the law was availed of, to
introduce new evidence as to religious
\ persecution to the Secretary of Labor
direct, which was not before the
Board of Special Inquiry. In the in
term between the Ellis Island tests,
and the one in Providence, new read
ing matter for testing was furnished,
in consequence of a determination of
the United States Circuit Court of
Appeals that tests based on the use
Of difficult and unusual Biblical pas
sages were illegal.