ELLIS ISLAND

Evening Star, Issue 18394, 1 October 1923, Page 5

ELLIS ISLAND

AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

WASHINGTON, September 29. The. Secretary of Labor (Mr J. J. Davis), in answering Sir Auckland Geddes’s recent criticism on Ellis Island, states that if tho British Government would limit its passports to immigrants hound to the United States to 10 per cent, of the quota number per month and only to such of its nationals who are physically, mentally, and otherwise qualified, there would he no occasion for Britishers to spend time, on Ellis Island. The finest palaco in tho world would become distasteful to one who was a prisoner there. It was only natural that those persons who were detained on Ellis Island because they could not be admitted would find it an unpleasant place. Ellis Island was not intended to l>o a place of detention, but a gateway. The cause of the conditions on Ellis Island wa.s congestion, which was not due to America’s making. Every country in tho world thoroughly know the immigration laws of the United States, and an alien who, because the authorities in his own country grossly disregarded the American laws in issuing him a passport, found himself detained on Ellis Island for days and weeks, naturally suffered.—A. and N.Z. Cable.