Law and Discretion

The U. S. has immigration laws forbidding access to the country to persons advocating or practising polygamy, advocating the overthrow of constituted government, etc. The immigration officers of the Department of Labor have authority in enforcing these laws. A portion of the authority is also vested in the State Department through the power of its agents abroad in granting or denying visas for the passports of alien visitors.

That authority was exercised recently in refusing a visa to Shapurji Saklatvala, Communist member of the British Parliament. Last year it was exercised in a different manner: Countess Catherine Karolyi, wife of the onetime President of the Republic of Hungary, had been admitted to the U. S. Soon after her arrival she was taken down with typhoid fever and her husband was summoned from England (TIME, March 2, 1925). In granting him a visa the State Department extorted from him a promise that he would make no political speeches, since he was believed to be a Communist. He arrived in the U. S. in January, and after a time his pledge transpired and a great hue and cry arose over his "gagging." In April he and the Countess left, going home by way of Canada. Once over the Canadian border he said all he had to say and got all the publicity he could desire in the U. S.

Last week another Karolyi incident arose. It became known that the State Department had authorized its consul in Paris to refuse a visa to Countess Karolyi, who had planned returning to this country for a lecture tour. It seems that she had planned to make a lecture tour and incidentally pay a social visit to her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Beaver Strassburger of Norristown, Pa. Finding that the State Department objected, she canceled her lecture engagements, thus making her visit purely social. It does not appear that the State Department had any official notification of the change in her plans, nor is it evident whether such knowledge would have made any difference in the Department's action. The State Department has been silent.

Not so Ralph Beaver Strassburger. Mr. Strassburger is a person of some activity in Republican politics in Pennsylvania. When ho heard of the State Department's action he rushed down to Washington. He had an interview with President Coolidge and was doubtless respectfully treated. He had an interview with Secretary Kellogg and got no satisfaction. He told the Secretary of State that the Countess had canceled her lecture tour. He asked the Secretary of State on what grounds Countess Karolyi was refused a visa. Mr. Kellogg replied that the State Department had confidential information and refused to disclose it. Mr. Strassburger had little faith in the State Department's confidential information. He went to Senator Borah, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with his troubles. Mr. Borah evidently was sympathetic with him. Mr. Borah has all along objected to the law and the discretion exercised under it by the State Department. Then Mr. Strassburger went to Secretary Mellon, another person active in Republican politics in Pennsylvania. From Mr. Mellon he apparently got sympathy but small hope.

After all these interviews, Mr. Strassburger had one more, with the press. Said he: "I was quite emphatic in my interview with Secretary Kellogg and I told him I could not see how it was possible for our American institutions to be hurt because a cultured woman of Hungary was coming here to be a guest at my home. The attitude of the Government in this matter seems to me to be most unduly arbitrary, and our failure to get any redress, even after explaining the situation as it really exists, is most unusual. The most tyrannical thing about it is the refusal of the Government to submit any evidence which the Department may have against Countess Karolyi.

"Countess Karolyi is not a Bolshevist. She lived last summer in her own villa at Deauville, where Mrs. Strassburger and I also had a summer home. Bolshevists and Communists, you know, do not summer at Deauville."