IMMIGRATION: Moral Turpitude

The steel may strike the flint many times before a spark ignites the tinder. Two hundred and fifty-one times in the past year, by actual count, the immigration section of the Department of Labor had denied admission to the U. S. to persons ineligible according to law —to persons who admitted having committed a crime or misdemeanor involving “moral turpitude.”* On the 252nd time the tinder went up in lurid flames.

It so happens that some decades ago†, it is unnecessary to say how many, a female child was born into an English family. She was christened Vera, and in due course of years she married and became the Countess Cathcart. The action of the story now comes to a time about five years ago. The Countess, leaving her wedded husband, took a journey to South Africa with the Earl of Craven. In due course Earl Cathcart divorced the Countess, naming the Earl of Craven as corespondent. There was, however, no “ever after” clause in the elopers’ contract, and after a time the Earl of Craven returned to his wife and was reconciled with her. The details of the story may be left to romancers and moralists. Last fall the Earl of Craven and his wife came to the U. S. and took up their residence with friends amid the fleshpots of Manhattan. The Countess Vera, pretty and petite, became an author, wrote three novels and a play, and also became engaged to a young English playwright, one Ralph Neale. Then, quite recently, Mr. Neale’s fiancee decided to come to the U. S. to supervise the production of her play, Ashes.

On board ship the ubiquitous immigration officers questioned her. She said she was divorced. They asked “Why?” She told them. Instead of being allowed to land with the other cabin passengers, she was sans ceremony inclosed on Ellis Island. A board gave her a hearing and decided she must be deported. U. S. courts had held that adultery is a crime. She admitted what is at least equivalent to adultery. The officials opined that adultery involves moral turpitude. She appealed to Secretary of Labor James J. Davis. He granted the appeal, considered for several days, and decided he had no choice under the law but to deport her. She then went to court through her attorneys and succeeded in postponing her deportation.

Meantime a number of things had happened. She asked, “What about the Earl?” and U. S. women echoed the cry: “What! A double standard?” It was not a case of double standard. The immigration officials simply had not discovered that he was guilty of moral turpitude. He was questioned in Manhattan, was quite open about what had taken place five years back. Next morning a warrant was issued for his arrest, but by that time he was in Montreal. The Countess indicated that the Earl was a craven; she was not going to leave the U. S., even if only Ellis Island, until ejected.

She ejaculated before reporters: “Thank God, this isn’t British justice. In England a person is not guilty until proved guilty. Here he is guilty whether he is innocent or not.

“Thank God, they couldn’t put me in the electric chair. I dare say Mr. Davis would like to if he could. Poor little me, why did they consider me a dangerous woman?”

Finally and quite unexpectedly the Countess was allowed to go free for ten days by the immigration authorities under her own personal bond of $500.

*Other “moral turps” cases of prominent persons have not resulted in deportations. In 1924, Luis Angel Firpo, so-called Pampas bull, arrived in Manhattan. There was talk about him and a young woman on shipboard. She was not admitted because she did not have a passport. Moralists endeavored to have Firpo excluded, but the immigration authorities found no evidence against him. In 1922, Pat Somerset, English divorced actor, came to the U. S. with Edith Day, a musical comedy star. Her husband protested and Somerset was ordered deported. But the husband relented and Mr. Somerset and Miss Day were living at different hotels, and eventually Mr. Somerset and Miss Day were married and the case was dropped. Still earlier (many years before the present law), Maxim Gorky famed Russian writer, and Karl Burrian, Bohemian opera tenor, came to the U. S. with ladies not their wives, as it later developed, but they departed before getting into trouble with immigration officers.

†The exact date according to the person concerned, although her knowledge is only hearsay, was May 14, 1894.