NORRIS OPPOSES TRANSFER OF IMMIGRATION BODY
Norris Opposes Transfer Of Immigration Body Senate Approves Change With Only Four Dissenters Washington, D. C.—With only four dissenting votes, the Senate last week gave its approval to a...
...It is time for us to stop calling each other names...
...This happened...
...Neither can we preserve liberty and justice by denying It to others...
...This is not a time to harass, hound or persecute anyone, no matter what his station in life may be, whether It is high or whether it is low...
...George W. Norris (Prog., Neb...
...Norris Opposes Transfer Of Immigration Body Senate Approves Change With Only Four Dissenters Washington, D. C.—With only four dissenting votes, the Senate last week gave its approval to a reorganization proposal of Pres...
...Wheeler asserted, at a time when J. Edgar Hoover was in the Department, and associated with him were the notorious Gaston B. Means, who died in the penitentiary, and the late William J. Burns, who made a fortune out of his labor-spy agency...
...sounded a warning that the way may be opening for a repetition of "the famous Palmer raids following the last war which were a disgrace and a blot on the pages of American history...
...Same Plan The result of the transfer, Norris contended, "will be that the same men, with the same plan which is nwo in force, will operate upon thousands and thousands of poor, ignorant, helpless people...
...Agents of the department, he said, raided his office, stationed detectives around his home to harass his family, and to shadow him and Mrs...
...Thomas J. Walsh, with the object of attacking his character —a mission that completely failed...
...In support of the charge, he cited the recent arrest of C. J. Carlson, Nebraska citizen, for an offense he had not committed...
...Although Carlson was an ex-service man and a respectable, inoffensive citizen, and the crime for which he was arrested was one which could be handled as routine by any "cop," two G-men were sent to arrest him and before they acted they called in a sheriff...
...Roosevelt transferring the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice...
...Wheeler wherever they went...
...They tried to besmirch the character of everybody who in the slightest degree disagreed with them," he said...
...Shortly after he came to Washington...
...The spirit of a free people," Wheeler declared, "is not made any more free by knocking nut the props from under freedom...
...Norris insisted that "harsh and humiliating" tactics have been employed by G-men in arresting persons for relatively trivial offenses, to balloon the cases out of all proportion to their importance...
...Wheeler recalled, he launched an investigation of the Department of Justice when it was under Harry M. Daugherty, and the notorious "Ohio gang...
...So long as there are millions of unemployed we cannot afford to compel people to work longer hours or to i.ecept lower wages...
...Wheeler said some of the men responsible for these disgraceful proceedings are still in the Department, and he entertained no hope that either their purposes or methods have changed...
...Notorious Means Had Post "A lot of cheap, two-by-four detectives," Wheeler said, were sent into Montant to "get something on" the late Sen...
...Norris charged, and Wheeler agreed with him, that Hoover has already invaded the civil liberties of the people...
...Burton K. Wheeler (Dem., Mont...
...Before this action was taken, two of the Senate's outstanding members —Sen...
...Those of us who have been familiar Willi the activities of the Department of Justice in the past, and particularly during periods of hysteria," he said, "cannot help but be fearful lest the same Bureau of Investigation resort to the same tactics which It has used on previous occasions, particularly when one of the same men is in charge of those activities...
...Quite the opposite is the case...
...Letters Demand Anti-Lynch Action NEW YORK CITY —Because the war situation has heightened the American people's sense of danger regarding the preservation of civil liber-lies throughout the country, Washington correspondents point out that congress is receiving thousands of letters demanding passage of the antl-lynching bill, and Anti-poll lax bill and other measures dealing with civil libci In...
...Same Men...
...Wheeler conceded the immigration service should be taken away from the Department of Labor, but he insisted the Department of Justice is the last place to lodge it...
...Mistakenly identified as another Carlson who was accused of having impersonated a Federal officer and with passing a "phoney" check for a few dollars, the Nebraska Carlson, Norris said, was arrested and handcuffed in the presence of his family, dragged off to Jail and locked up, after being denied the right to consult with friends or an attorney After hLs innocence was established, Norris said, Carlson was told by federal detectives he must regard himself as still in custody...
...Both senators recalled that when those raids were "perpetrated," J. Edgar Hoover, now director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was assistant attorney general, and in charge of the raids...
...and Sen...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 24
