IMMIGRATION: Magda Turpitude

In 1926, “moral turpitude” became a national catch-phrase when U. S. immigration authorities used it as grounds for barring entrance into the U. S. of Vera, Countess Cathcart. Countess Cathcart’s moral turpitude consisted of having been named as corespondent in a divorce case. Last week, “moral turpitude” suddenly popped up in U. S. headlines again for the first time in more than a decade. Occasion was the arrival in New York of Mme Magdeleine La Ferriére (“Magda de Fontanges”), Parisian journalist and actress who last spring pinked France’s one-time Ambassador to Italy Count Charles Pineton de Chambrun for breaking up her self-confessed romance with BenitoMussolini (TIME, March 29).

Object of Magda de Fontanges’ visit to the U. S. was to capitalize on her misbehavior by appearing as a show girl at New York’s French Casino cabaret. When the Normandie, on which she had saved part of her first-class expense money by traveling tourist, docked in New York, immigration officials refused to let her disembark. Next day, Magda de Fontanges was whisked to Ellis Island where, in an interview with ship news reporters she declared, “My only interest is to obtain a gainful occupation for the purpose of making an honorable living.” Same day the Board of Special Inquiry, making a delicate distinction between her case and that of Countess Cathcart, excluded her not because of her amours but “because of an admission of a crime involving moral turpitude, to wit, assault with a dangerous weapon.” Unless Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins reverses the Board’s ruling on her fellow working woman, Magda de Fontanges will be sent back to France this week.