The CHAIRMAN. Have you ever given any thought as to the advisability of requiring that foreigners must be able to read and write in the English language before they come over here? Mr. NORTON. Yes. Not a great deal of thought to it. The CHAIRMAN. I mean before they land on our shores? Mr. NORTON. I have been interested, as all citizens are, in that problem in a general way; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. When you say "illiterate," you mean they can not read or write in any language, do you? Mr. NORTON. Yes. That is, if they can write in German or French or Italian, for instance, they are not included in this figure. Those are some of the outstanding figures dealing only with people born in foreign countries. I have a series of tables dealing with this problem in all the States, arranged by States. If you wish the exact facts as based on the figures of the census, you can get them from these tables, which will also appear in the record. THE AMERICANIZATION PROBLEM The following four tables give figures pertinent to a consideration of the Americanization problem in the United States. TABLE I.-Number of foreign born, by States TABLE IV.-The States and the Americanization problem among native-born adults, 1920 census, Volume III Here is another chart. This gives the foreign-born population by states. You will notice here that New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and some of our northern States have the bulk of the foreignborn problem. None of those States have any choice as to whether they shall accept foreigners, the Federal Government determines that. In New York they have nearly 3,000,000; Pennsylvania has 1,392,000; Illinois, 1,210,000 foreigners; Massachusetts, a little over a million; California, about three-quarters of a million; New Jersey, three-quarters of a million; and so on. This indicates somewhat the size of the Americanization problem. The CHAIRMAN. Have you given any attention or consideration to the idea of having this Americanization work done by the Department of Labor in connection with the naturalization law? Mr. NORTON. Well, I understand the Department of Labor has done some work in that direction. The CHAIRMAN. Of course no constitutional question would arise there because the Federal Government has absolute control over the admission of aliens to this country, and to citizenship. Mr. REED. The work, however, that has been done by the Department of Labor, is not very comprehensive, is it? Mr. NORTON. No; the Americanization problem has not been adequately dealt with in this country in any State, even in the State of Massachusetts, which has made an attempt at it, they have not really touched the whole problem, they have only skimmed it. Mr. REED. The policy they have pursued was more to enable a person to get by the court? Mr. NORTON. I believe that has been one of the main considerations, and that has been rather easy to do in many cases, perhaps easier than it should have been. The next chart will deal with teacher training. Mr. ROBSION. Before that, just a minute. I notice this Table No. 2 of the last batch you handed around shows New York as having 2,825,375 foreign-born population. Mr. NORTON. Yes. If you will look on Table No. 1 you will find the same figures. Mr. ROBSION. On Table 2, however, you have 2,786,112. Mr. NORTON. No; that is not what Table No. 2 says; Table 2 says, if you look at the heading of Table 2, the number of foreign born from countries where over 25 per cent of population is illiterate. That is, of those 2,800,000 foreign-born residents in New York, 1,700,000 come from countries in which somewhere between 25 and 80 per cent of the total population is illiterate. Mr. ROBSION. But in your last column you say "Total foreignborn population," and I am reading from that, "2,786,112." Now, I would like to know how that discrepancy arises. Mr. NORTON. I can explain that discrepancy. I would have changed that if I had had time to do it. If you will notice on Table No. 1 Mr. ROBSION. And a similar discrepancy as to Pennsylvania. |