tial control, so that excess quotas were confined largely to nonregistration office lines and countries. V As the Percentage Act was enacted for one year, the lines considered these offices to be a temporary affair. But when it became apparent that the Act was to be continued, the lines held a meeting in Brussels on May 5, 1922, and decided to continue and extend their registration system in order that the hardships emigrants encountered in 1921 should not be repeated. Their decision and plan was embodied in a cablegram sent to the New York Conferences. At the same time the Brussels Conference transmitted to the New York Conferences certain suggestions for improving the administration of the law. These were sent to the Chairman of the House Committee under date of May 19 from the New York Conferences before the reënactment of the Act and proposed the following: That quotas be controlled by departures from European ports of embarkation, through United States Government authorities whose duties shall be defined in the law, instead of by time of arrivals; that inspectors be placed abroad to pass upon the admissibility of aliens; that certificates be issued by American consuls to aliens that will serve for indentification and other purposes; that consuls indicate on the passport if aliens are exempt from the quota; that the principle of international law and custom be followed whereby the nationality of the wife and minor children follow that of the father and be chargeable to the country of his birth, or if the father is dead that children be charged to the country of birth of the mother. This last amendment was proposed to prevent the separation of families. The law was reenacted, however, to be in force until June 30, 1923, without any of these recommendations being adopted, and the lines had to carry on their registration as before in a greater number of countries. That this registration system is chiefly responsible for preventing excesses in quotas in 1922 is evident from the fact that most of the excesses have been brought by lines that have refused to coöperate or from areas like Constanti nople where it has not been practicable to establish control offices. VI But the proposal to make this Act permanent and to have the percentage principle become the future policy of this country, without making the necessary provision for its administration, is a grave mistake. The control of quotas in Europe is not a matter for private business to regulate. The present system is a makeshift and rests upon the most insecure foundations. Its continuance depends upon the steamship lines holding together and coöperating in conferences, and this relationship is subjected to very severe strain that is increasing with tension in Europe. A rate war or a withdrawal by one of the big lines, is enough to destroy its existence at once. The fact that certain of the most important lines remain out of the registration system makes it at best an imperfect instrument for the purpose. But the continuance of the registration system depends also upon the good will of countries in which offices are established and already resentment is in evidence. It is not to be expected, as political tension increases, that German lines will regard with favor registration offices by which French lines profit. The changes in Constantinople have made the establishment of a registration office impossible in that area to control Near East immigration. The Greek and Ottoman lines have been driven out and a rapprochement between the Russians, Turks and French has made it possible for a French line, not in the registration system, to bring more than five hundred Russians to the United States via the Black Sea without their being registered through the machinery set up for the for the purpose. But it is also true that the situation has become so complicated that only governments possessing authority can deal with it. The Russian situation furnishes an illustration. Because of the original restrictions against Russians and the fact that American Consuls do not operate in Russia, persons born there and intending to sail for the United States have had to cross the long Russian border into adjacent countries to have their passports viséd. Russians have, accordingly, found themselves in a number of other countries without proper visas and without registration numbers. To meet this situation the lines register Russians in seven countries: at Bucharest, Warsaw, Riga, Kovno, Brussels, Paris, and Berlin. When the annual quotas of Russians were exhausted, two lines that were not in the registration system and had never previously carried Russians, unexpectedly brought in a large number of that nationality. And from the Pacific Coast came a report that a few hundred Russians were expected to arrive there from Siberia. At the same time, it was found that, although according to the number registered there were still available several thousand numbers, the Consul in one of these cities suddenly greatly reduced the number of visas issued daily. Prospective passengers who were moving out of Russia, in all directions, and were awaiting registration in other countries, apparently well within the quota, were suddenly stopped and will be compelled to wait until the next fiscal year. I have indicated in the limits of this article but some of the problems that make it unwise and difficult for steamship lines to undertake to control quotas in Europe, in order to prevent grave abuses under the Act. The only possible humane administration of this Act rests upon the control of monthly quotas through the issuing of visas, thus placing the responsibility for excess in quotas squarely upon the consular service. The new immigration law makes no such provision and should not be permitted to pass without it. And I can not but believe that Congress would be well advised to make a thorough investigation into the present methods of control through visas in Europe; if the administration of this law is to be practicable and humane. That the Percentage Act can ever be fundamentally sound or humane is impossible, since it attacks the foundations of civilized society. But that its administration may possess integrity and efficiency is feasible, and thus its hardships may be minimized. But this is only attainable when the American Government assumes the full responsibility for the humane administration of its own Act through the responsible State Department, which alone can deal with the control of quotas at the source of immigration. FRANCES KELLOR. A MADISON LETTER AND SOME DIGRESSIONS BY EDWIN A. ALDERMAN President of the University of Virginia THE University of Virginia has a pardonable pride in the fact that in 1817 Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe were at the same time members of its governing body, known as the Rector and Visitors of the University. Mr. Monroe was actually President of the United States at the time; and these three men, without intermission, directed the government of the young nation for nearly a quarter of a century. This unusual situation is thus quaintly attested by a brief minute upon the records of the Visitors: Resolved that Thomas Jefferson and John H. Cocke be a committee on the part of the Visitors with authority jointly or severally to advise and sanction all plans and the application of monies for executing them, which may be within the purview and functions of the Proctor for the time being. May 5, 1817. TH. JEFFERSON JAMES MONROE James Madison bequeathed his library to the University of Virginia, and one of the noblest buildings of that institution bears his name. Mr. Morris Schaff, the distinguished historian of West Point and of certain aspects of the decline and fall of the Southern Confederacy, recently found, among the Madison papers in the State Department at Washington, a very interesting letter, a copy of which he kindly sent to the University Library. The letter, hitherto unpublished, affords such a striking and amusing contrast to the present fiscal relations of France and the United States, such testimony to certain characteristics of the human family of whatever race or nation, such proof of the moral slump likely to follow great enterprises or great emotions, and contains, in addition, such a rare compliment to Virginia, and such an unconscious tribute to the moral dignity of that Commonwealth, that I desire to use THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW to share its contents, not only with Virginians, but with thoughtful citizens everywhere, interested in the good name of their country and its founders. Mr. William Short, the writer of the letter, was a young Virginian, then twenty-eight years of age, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, and, at the time of writing, Secretary of the Legation at Paris where Mr. Jefferson was serving as Minister. Mr. Short lived to achieve honorable distinction in diplomacy at The Hague and Madrid, and died in Philadelphia in 1849. The letter, as will be seen, was written from Paris and bears date May 7, 1787. Two days before Mr. Short's letter was written, Mr. Jefferson, who was absent on a long trip through Southern France, whither he had been sent by his surgeon to recuperate from the effects of a dislocated wrist unsuccessfully set, wrote the following letter to Martha Jefferson, his young daughter, then in school at a convent in Paris: MARSEILLES, May 5th, 1787. My dear Patsy-I got back to Aix the day before yesterday, and found there your letter of the 9th of April-from which I presume you to be well, though you do not say so. In order to exercise your geography, I will give you a detail of my journey. You must therefore take your map and trace out the following places: Dijon, Lyons, Pont St. Esprit, Nismes, Arles, St. Remis, Aix, Marseilles, Toulon, Hières, Fréjus, Antibes, Nice, Col de Tende, Coni, Turin, Vercelli, Milan, Pavia, Tortona, Novi, Genoa, by sea to Albenga, by land to Monaco, Nice, Antibes, Fréjus, Brignolles, Aix, and Marseilles. The day after tomorrow, I set out hence for Aix, Avignon, Pont du Gard, Nismes, Montpellier, Narbonne, along the Canal of Languedoc to Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rochefort, Rochelle, Nantes, L'Orient, Nantes, Tours, Orléans, and Pariswhere I shall arrive about the middle of June, after having travelled something upwards of a thousand leagues. From Genoa to Aix was very fatiguing-the first two days having been at sea, and mortally sick-two more clambering the cliffs of the Apennines, sometimes on foot, sometimes on a mule, according as the path was more or less difficult-and two others travelling through the night as well as day without sleep. I am not yet rested, and shall therefore shortly give you rest by closing my letter, after mentioning that I have received a letter from your sister, |