NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 111
reiterated. when the final report was put in later. Furthermore, I
understand on good authority that both Departments of State and
Labor now take the position that they have no opinion as to the
merits of these quotas; and, furthermore, certain well-informed
people hold that those departments are not authorized to express an
opinion in regard to them.
Another point that I recall is that Mr. Mowitz, while a very agree-
able witness, referred to the monumental work of Doctor Hill and
his associates as guesswork. Now, that is a question in which I
should say that a layman such as Mr. Mowitz was not as well quali-
fied to speak as would be Doctor Hill himself. I do not know that
I ought to bother the committee with the quotations, but in his tes-
timony before the House January, 1927, Doctor Hill pointed out
that the margin of error in the national-origins figures was very
small, that is to say, it was 1 in 600 for the whole population, and
when one realizes the further fact that the whole controversy really
revolves around the proportions in the 1790 population, which is a
little less than a half, the margin is even very much less.
Then in his testimony before the Senate, March, 1928, Doctor
Hill, in response to questions from the Senator from Pennsylvania,
stated that he had not heard of a fairer plan than national origins;
in fact, he was impressed by the absence of any other alternatives
except the quotas based on the foreign born of 1890, which, he said,
in reply to a specific question, did not represent with any accuracy
the proposition of nationalities in the present population of the
United States.
I think that it is going too far to say that that great work that the
Assistant to the Director of the Census and the chairman of our
quota board and his associates performed is pure guesswork; and
on that subject I just want to read from another witness. I think
we all know Mark Sullivan and appreciate his shrewdness and his
integrity and reliability. Mark Sullivan, in an article on national
integrity and reliability. Mark Sullivan, in an article in the Nash-
ville Tennesseean on national origins, entitled “ Big Problems Fac-
ing Congress,” wrote as follows:
The selentists who made the computations insist they are right. Some per-
sons who have talked with these statisticians have found them holding their
ground firmly and insisting that the computation is possible and that it has
been made with sufficiently approximate accuracy. It is a fact that some per-
sons who flouted the whole idea of computing national origins huve been moved,
after talking with the statisticians. to assent to the claim that the eommnntation
haa eeiontific fondness.
Now, I want to read a telegram from a gentleman whom we
wanted to have here as a witness. from Chicago. but he could not
rome. | Reading :]
As general manager of American Vigilance Intelligence Federation, with
nation-wide membership, and speaking for that membership also as first genera-
tion from German ancestry native born, the stock that helped pioneer in our
sountry, am lodging a vigorous and earnest protest against further delay in
course of permitting the national-origins clhuse to go into effect as originally
intended when enacted by the Congress. Vicious attacks by alien-minded
hyphenates if successful now will mean a campaign by decent Americans to
‘otally exclude all immigration.
National origins as quota basis is fair to all, discriminates against none, is
possible of more accurate computation than 1890, and is backed by real
American-minded oninion. Unless national origins goes into effect this vear as
