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of immigration at New York, a commissioner of immigration at Baltimore, a commissioner of immigration at San Francisco, at Seattle, at a great many ports. That was a very top heavy thing, because that official really didn't do anything. He was a supernumerary in every place, and he was invariably a political appointment. He never knew anything about the work of either the Immigration Service or the Naturalization Service, except that some individuals would be quite good people and would acquire a good deal of knowledge.

The offices were established, of course, before the days of rapid transports and communications. The theory then was that a political officer in New York of Boston would serve to make decisions where the immigration inspectors might be doing something too rigidly, or not drastic enough, and so forth. They would bring political wisdom to bear upon a particular case or upon a particular program or pattern of administration. To a certain extent that was so.

William Williams, when he was commissioner of immigration in the Port of New York a good many years ago, long before I was even in the Department of Labor in New York, was there for all those long years when Republicans were Presidents. He was a very good man. He really did clean up Ellis Island, by which I mean he insisted on paint, paper, scrubbing, respectable beds, not separating families, a good