Show prom from our correspondent at washington naton lb D C operation ol of Ini immigration migration law attacks on the 3 per cent immigration law lav are being made with the specific intention of 0 discrediting the law according to secretary ot of labor davis labor department officials say that efforts to bring the law into disrepute are more than likely to result in congress shut shutting off immigration entirely reiterating the statement i made by president harding in a letter to representative siegel of new york that much of the trouble was caused by dishonest steamship lines bringing over more than the monthly quotas ot of each nationality tiona lity the secretary ot of labor declared that many pitiful stories of the hardships worked by the law were circulated with the intention of discrediting the law will refuse to passports american consuls abroad have received instructions not to vise passports from a country when that count rys annual admission quota to this country under the temporary immigration law has been exhausted it was said unofficially at the state department that this policy would relieve much needless suffering among aliens who were seeking to come to the united states the steamship compa companies nies it is understood are in certain instances pay ing small attention to the law and are luring aliens to obtain passage without regard to the annual or monthly quotas in several countries the quotas for the year have already been exhausted wholesale prices paces in august wholesale prices of 0 many important foodstuffs showed a strong upward tendency during august according to information gathered by the department of labor through the bureau of labor statistics among articles showing decided pr price lee advances were butter cheese milk eggs rice meats r ugar sugar fruits and potatoes ces meat animals including cattle and hogs also averaged higher in august than in july of 0 commodities or series of quotations for which comparable date for july and august were obtained increases were found to have occurred occurred for 99 commodities and decreases tor for commodities in cases no change in price took place in the two months the battle against hooch federal prohibition directors have been reporting to washington that certain communities do not furnish them support in their attempts to clean up the violators of the laws As a result the government has asked its agents through throughout cut the country to submit reports on prohibition conditions including the attitude of juries in federal and state courts the attitude of the press and the nature of local operation cooperation co are also to be scheduled in the battle against booze the federal feder al agents get along pretty well where they have local support and in such instances they depend on this class of support the survey will show the points where there is need for federal raids of the most drastic type and those communities will sooner or later be brought to think that something has broke loose in 1 their midst where merit wms whis in postal system postmaster general hays has published figures showing that under the harding administration practically all of the appointments of postmasters in the first six months of his regime had bad been based on merit more than halt half of the appointments tobe to be exact were promotions within the service men who had bad served for years some of them starting as c carriers and clerks had been raised to the highest positions available four hundred and fifty two appointments to presidential offices were made as the result of civil service examinations mr rr hays zi ald oa that out of the r of f such appoint ments in cases the man standing number one had been nominated for office of the other nominees 75 stood number two and 33 number three in many cases those appointed from number two and number three positions were former service men population by color and race the bureau of census has issued a statement giving revised figures for the composition of the population of the united states according to color or race as shown by the census t taken aken as of january 1 1920 1910 the total population of the united states comprises 94 white persons negroes ue groes indians japanese chinese filipinos 2507 hindus 1224 koreans and others siamese hawaiians Hawaii ans malays balays laoris maoris and samoans Sa moans the rates of increase tor for the principal races during the decade were total population per cent white 16 per cent negro 65 per cent japanese per cent the indian population decreased by 80 per cent and the chinese population by per cent the rate of increase in the white population during the recent decade 16 per cent is considerably less than the corresponding rate for the period 1900 1910 which was per cent this decline is accounted for mainly by the great reduction in the volume of immigration during the period of the world war an estimate based on the excess of births over deaths and on the excess of immigration over emigration yields a total differing by only a fraction of I 1 per cent from the total white population beumer enumerated the rate of increase in the negro population which is not perceptibly affected by immigration or emigration is by far the lowest on record such data as are available in regard to birth and death rates among the negroes indicates that the birth rate has decreased considerably since 1900 while the death rate has not changed greatly conviction under war Time statutes there are two hundred cases where federal prisoners were convicted for violating wartime war time statutes the greater part of these show that the prisoners W were ere sentenced to from ten to twenty years for h having obstructed the draft or other cases held equally grave since the beginning of the harding administration an investigation of all these cases has been in progress in the office of the attorney general naturally the greatest interest centers in ih the case of eugene V debs and a pardon for him and most of the theother other prisoners is looked for following the ratification of the peace treaty with germany it will be recalled that former attorney general palmer recommended om mended the pardon of debs and submitted a lengthy brief in support of his position president wilson returned the with two words written acro across s it simply stating that the pardon was refused the harding administration has had bad the debs case under advisement since its first days but there has been no precipitate haste to make the pardon |