  When we speak of the “personal equation” as an important factor in the adoption or rejection of an alien applicant for citizenship, we are likely to be thinking chiefly of the personality of the petitioner; of his character, intelligence, education, social training and experience; of his general fitness and capacity for assimilation of our language, customs, traditions, institutional relations—what we are pleased to call our “fundamental principles.” But this is only a part, and not always or necessarily the most significant and controlling part, of the situation. There are other “personal equations” to be considered. For while it is true in one sense that the applicant does pass into the maw of a machine, constructed “of law rather than of men,” and governed by more or less precise and automatically operating regulations from whose technic the individuals on either side of the process may not materially depart, the fact is that there is hardly any other legal process in our governmental system in which personality—individual ideas, prejudices, idiosyncrasies—plays so large a part. In no other activity of the courts is the individual petitioner so entirely at the mercy of the court, so completely without recourse in the event of a decision against him. Strictly speaking, the proceeding is judicial; an ex-parte case in an important court, in which a petition is filed with the clerk, comes in due course before the judge The Constitution of the United States gave to Congress exclusive authority “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” From the beginning, in the first general naturalization law enacted after the new republic got under way, the function of admitting new members of the nation has been vested in the courts—a judicial power and activity. So it remains to-day. And with the sole exception of Canada, the United States is unique in respect of this method of naturalization. England, France, and virtually all of the other nations vest the power in some ministerial agency. A FUNCTION OF LOCAL COURTSAt first glance it might seem fitting and wise to confine the function (if to the courts at all) to the Federal tribunals, in the interest of freedom from local political influence, uniformity of interpretation and practice, and recognition of the fact that citizenship is chiefly a relationship to the nation as a whole. Always, indeed, there has been a considerable body of sentiment in favor of such a change in the practice. Many of the state judges would favor it; some for reasons of principle, but most because they would gladly get rid of a body of duty which to many is irksome and a distasteful interference with their ordinary matters of litigation by duties which they regard as properly more administrative than judicial. No Federal judge will hear of any such addition to their already great burden of work. The reasons to the contrary are weighty and thus far have been controlling. In the first place, after all is said, an individual, however national his citizenship in the large sense, is politically a unit of the state in which he resides. He does not vote for any strictly Federal There is another and even better reason, in the fact that the United States courts are relatively few and far between, and the expense of time and travel which would be imposed upon applicants, living elsewhere than in large cities, for having to go (as they do now twice and often more than twice) to the nearest Federal courts would be prohibitive upon all aliens but the most prosperous or those whom some one might have a motive, political or other, for subsidizing in this way. In not a few sparsely settled regions, even as it is now, a petitioner must travel, and take his two witnesses, a total of many hundred miles before he can consummate the process of naturalization and obtain the precious certificate without which he cannot complete his title to his homestead. The existing law, modified in its allusions to territories which since have become states by the various kinds of legislation relative to their statehood, thus describes the courts which are to have the power to pass upon applications for citizenship: United States Circuit and District Courts now existing, or which may hereafter be established by Congress, in any State; United States District Courts for the Territories of Arizona, “PERSONAL EQUATION” OF THE JUDGESAccording to the report of the Commissioner of Naturalization for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, a total of 2,306 courts of all these kinds have exercised naturalization jurisdiction during that year, and a list of judges, compiled by the Americanization Study from information obtained from the Naturalization Service and from other sources, shows that about 1,450 individual judges, Federal, state, and local, preside in these courts. A grand total of approximately 100,000 cases a year—the figure roughly used in estimating the naturalization business of recent years—would give to each judge an average of about 70 cases a year; but since in the great majority of rural districts this business is exceedingly small—in some cases not more than two or three in a year—and since the bulk of it is in the large cities and in particular regions, such as the mining districts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, etc., certain courts have a very large number of cases, in some instances running into thousands. In the last analysis, the individual judge is, subject to certain noteworthy restrictions and interferences, the final arbiter in every case. Upon his “personal equation,” his opinions and prejudices, to a great extent depends the reception which the petitioner experiences when he comes into court for the final stage of his initiation as an American citizen. Obviously, then, it becomes important to ascertain With this in view, the Americanization Study addressed a questionnaire to each of the approximately 1,400 judges throughout the country entitled For example, it is interesting to observe the difference not only in the ratio of replies received to the number of judges questioned, but in the character of the replies as regards general strictness or liberality of attitude, in the various parts of the country. The first point is to be seen in the following list of naturalization districts, with the TABLE IV Number of Replies from Judges in Each District Boston District.—Comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island.
New York District.—Comprising Northern, Eastern, and Southern New York, and Hudson County, New Jersey.
Philadelphia District.—Comprising the Eastern and Middle Districts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey (except Hudson County).
Pittsburgh District.--Comprising Western Pennsylvania, Western New York, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland (counties of Allegheny, Frederick, Garrett, and Washington), Kentucky (counties of Campbell and Kenton).
Washington District.--Comprising the District of Columbia, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky (except the counties of Campbell, Jefferson, and Kenton), Louisiana, Maryland (except the counties of Allegheny, Frederick, Garrett, and Washington), Mississippi, North Carolina, Porto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee (except Shelby County), Texas, and Virginia.
St. Louis District.--Comprising Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Shelby County, Tennessee, and Southern Illinois.
Chicago District.--Comprising Northern Illinois, Indiana, Southern Wisconsin, Jefferson County, Kentucky, Southern Peninsula of Michigan, and Mackinac County, Michigan.
St. Paul District.--Comprising Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Northern Wisconsin, Northern Peninsula of Michigan (except Mackinac County).
Denver District.—Comprising Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, and the counties of Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Bonneville, Custer, Franklin, Fremont, Jefferson, Lemhi, Madison, Oneida, and Power, Idaho.
San Francisco District.—Comprising California, Arizona, and Nevada.
Seattle District.—Comprising Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho (except as assigned to Denver).
Recapitulation
Percentage of Replies
It would be perilous to generalize from these figures as to the interest of judges in various parts of the country in the study of the problems involved in naturalization. Silence does not necessarily imply indifference; moreover, the courts in large centers of population are overburdened with ordinary litigation, and it is not surprising that there should be procrastination or entire failure in responding to a more or less elaborate questionnaire. Nevertheless, there is food for reflection in the fact that the lowest percentages of exhibited interest are in the East and South—the highest west of the Mississippi River. The judges who did reply to the questionnaire represent on the whole both wide experience and substantial interest in the subject. Of those who state the number of naturalization cases coming before them in an average year, more than 100 passed upon 100 cases or more—not including the very large numbers passed by a few in acceptance of soldiers under the “military naturalization law”; at least as many more had from 50 to 100 cases a year (160 between 10 and 100); only 67 reported less than 10. Upward of 400 judges, each answering for himself, undoubtedly afford a reasonably BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE QUESTIONNAIREThe questions which were asked, and the general nature of the replies to each, give a bird’s-eye view of the principal phases of the problem, and a fair notion of the degree to which the judges may be regarded as liberal or conservative and alive to the situation. The questions and the figures given after each speak for themselves: Do you regard the present requirements for naturalization as too strict, or not strict enough?
What is your policy as to “continuous residence”—how long, if at all, do you permit a petitioner to have been absent from this country during the five years immediately preceding his petition? The answers to this question may be roughly classified to show the general attitude of the judge, as follows:
How frequently do you require the petitioner’s witnesses actually to have seen him during the five years’ period?
Do you require applicants for naturalization to prove that they can read as well as speak the English language? The law does not require ability to read.
Would you favor amending the law so as to permit the substitution of a witness where, in evident good faith, one of the original two appears, in the judgment of the court, to be honestly mistaken in believing that he has adequately known the petitioner for the whole five years? (Under the present practice the petition is denied, and a new one must be filed and a new fee paid.)
Would you favor amendment of the law so as to mitigate the present requirement that two, only two, and the same two, witnesses must swear to personal knowledge of all of the petitioner’s residence up to five years, within the state in which the petition was filed, and thus permit him to cover a part of this residence by depositions, or additional witnesses, when witnesses possessing the qualifications now required cannot be procured?
Would you write into the Naturalization Law a specific educational or intellectual test for admission to citizenship?
Do you favor a uniform required course of instruction for applicants for citizenship?
Would you favor acceptance, as prima-facie evidence of intellectual fitness, of a suitable certificate from schools or class, of the successful completion of such a course?
Would you favor the abolition of the present Declaration of Intention (first papers)? If not, what good purpose do you think it serves?
What have you observed to be the special difficulties in the way of desirable foreigners, hindering them from seeking naturalization?
Would you favor legislation to permit the naturalization of a married woman in her own name, if personally acceptable, regardless of the alienage of her husband, or his failure to obtain or refusal to seek naturalization?
Would you favor reserving to a native-born American woman, if she desires it, the American citizenship which under the present law she sacrifices by marriage to a foreigner?
Would you favor modification of the law so as to admit to citizenship any individual personally fit, regardless of race or color?
Do you believe that the admission of large numbers of aliens under the Act of May 9, 1918, solely on the ground of military or naval service, without the usual requirements of residence, etc., operated on the whole to the advantage of the United States?
Would you favor applying the same standards and tests to all prospective voters, native and foreign born alike, before endowing them with the suffrage; with suitable ceremonies of induction into “active voting membership,” so to speak, in our society?
Would you favor removal of naturalization from all state courts, so as to make it exclusively a function of the Federal courts?
Would you favor placing naturalization in the hands of traveling naturalization commissioners, appointed by and responsible to the courts?
Would you favor making naturalization a purely administrative function, exercised by the Naturalization Bureau, or other appropriate organ of the Department of Labor, or other department?
GENERAL TREND OF JUDGES’ OPINIONSThe returns of this questionnaire, from a sufficiently representative cross-section of the naturalizing agency of the government, self-selected by the operation of substantial personal interest in the problems embodied in the situation (as evidenced by taking the pains to express opinion), make clear the opinion of the judges on several important points, and may be summarized substantially as follows: (1) The judges on the whole believe that the present law requires no drastic amendment in principle; they believe that the naturalizing function should remain with the courts; should not be confined to the Federal courts, and should be exercised in the open courtrooms as it is at present. And this, notwithstanding the fact that the function adds materially to the burden of ordinary litigation. (2) In the matter of attitude toward both petitioners and their witnesses, the judges are in the main liberal and humane, judging of absence during the five years’ probationary period chiefly with regard to the occasion for the absence and the continuing intention to become an American citizen, and the witnesses’ knowledge of the petitioner by the practical facts in the case. (3) An overwhelming majority of the judges favor mitigation of the technicalities now surrounding the proceeding by permitting the substitution of witnesses and the supplying of evidence to convince the court, by means of depositions covering portions of the period of residence within the state in which the petition is filed. It may be added that very many of the judges would accept testimony of the same character as that which they would receive in any other sort of proceeding before the court to establish any fact. (4) A majority of the judges require of petitioners proof of ability to read the English language; some require also ability to write it—although the law requires only ability to speak it. There is a marked weight of opinion in favor of requiring reading; some also advocate writing—even among the judges who do not now require it because the present law does not. The judges are about evenly divided as to the desirability of a uniform educational test. Most of those who oppose it emphasize the fact that, in the selection of citizens, character and general reputation are more important than book learning; that a bad man is made only the more dangerous by education. A majority of the judges would favor a required course of instruction, and would accept as prima-facie evidence of intellectual fitness a school certificate of the successful completion of such a course. Increasingly, such certificates are in fact accepted by courts all over the country. (5) The judges are emphatically opposed to the abolition of the declaration of intention, the ratio of expressions in the negative being approximately three to one. The declaration is regarded by the judges of the widest experience as having a moral value of great importance, and as affording indispensable notice to the government and the public of the alien’s intention to apply for “active membership.” (6) With regard to married women, the judges are two to one in favor of permitting their naturalization as individuals, regardless of the action of their husbands, and nearly as much so in favor of reserving to American-born women their citizenship, notwithstanding their marriage to aliens. As regards the latter point, most of those expressing themselves in the affirmative insert the proviso that the woman must continue her domicile in this country. (7) Opinion is in the negative as regards naturalization of “any individual personally fit, regardless of race or color.” Most of the judges interpret the question as applying to Chinese and Japanese. A Southern judge holds that “since citizenship has been granted to the African race, there is no reason for withholding it from any other.” Those who vote in the affirmative do so on the ground that even membership in the Mongolian racial groups should not exclude persons who can show personal fitness for citizenship; nevertheless, the vote in the negative is more than two to one. (8) The judges are not clear with regard to the suggestion of a standard test for all prospective voters, native or foreign born, by which even native Americans at the age of twenty-one years should pass at least the same examination as an alien applicant before being armed with the ballot. Nevertheless, nearly two to one of those who spoke on that point favor the establishment of such a test. (9) Military naturalization is the subject of grave doubt. The vote is about evenly divided—a shade toward the negative—but nearly as many judges are doubtful or noncommittal as are either favorable or opposed to the measure. It should be said, however, that those most emphatically satisfied with what was done in this regard are those who had the most experience with it. THE CLERKS OF THE COURTSThe clerks of the courts in many ways are not less important in the experience of the petitioning alien than either the judges or the naturalization examiner. Upon the clerk, more than upon anyone else, in the vast majority of cases, depends scrutiny of the declaration of intention; usually he actually makes out the declaration for the alien; if he is careful and familiar with the routine of form and fact he makes it out, or sees that it is made out, correctly; if he regards the whole business as a nuisance, has a prejudice against immigrants as such or against the particular race represented by this particular alien, or doesn’t like this individual, if he has had a controversy with the Naturalization Service or is, for some other reason, in an unfriendly mood, or if, as is more likely to be the case, he is simply careless or unfamiliar with the technic of the business—having very little of it to do—the interests of the alien may suffer accordingly. The courts do not give the alien the benefit of any allowance for clerical or other errors made or permitted by the clerk if they relate in the slightest degree to any material fact; the alien must guard himself against any such error, or bear the consequences alone. In fact, the courts have repeatedly held, as it is expressed in a brief in the case of Mulcrevy vs. San Francisco, in the United States Supreme In most of the rural districts, naturalization business is very light; sometimes there will be only two or three cases a year; there are even courts in which a year or two might pass without any at all. In such instances the labor is trivial; but for that very reason the clerk is not alive to the importance of details, and the ratio of mistakes may be the greater for that reason. In the large cities, where the naturalization business is heavy, there are usually deputy clerks devoting virtually all of their attention to it; they keep in practice, and avoid errors. But it is to be remembered that because this work is not “appurtenant to the office of clerk of court,” neither the United States nor the state contributes anything whatever to the remuneration of the clerk. The alien pays for that, in a manner well calculated to create an undesirable relationship all the way round. The clerk is put in this regard largely at the mercy of the Naturalization Service, and THE QUESTION OF ADEQUATE CLERICAL FORCEThe report of the New York State Commission of Immigration, transmitted to the Legislature April 5, 1909, after the present system had been in operation about two years, dealt with this matter in connection with its comment upon delays in the naturalization business in the courts, especially of New York City, which is attributed chiefly to insufficiency of clerical force, due, in its finding, to the operation of the following provision of the naturalization law: That the clerks of courts exercising jurisdiction in naturalization proceedings shall be permitted to retain one-half of the fees in any fiscal year, up to the sum of three thousand dollars, and that all fees received by such clerks in naturalization proceedings in excess of such amount shall be accounted for, and paid over to said [Naturalization] Bureau, as in case of other fees to which the United States may be entitled under the provisions of this Act. The clerks of the various courts exercising jurisdiction in naturalization proceedings shall pay all additional clerical force that may be required in performing the duties imposed by this Act upon the clerks of courts from fees received by such clerks in naturalization proceedings. And in case the clerk of any court exercising naturalization jurisdiction collects fees in excess of the sum of six thousand dollars in any fiscal year, the Secretary of Labor may allow salaries, for naturalization purposes only, to pay for clerical assistance, to be selected and employed by that clerk, additional to the clerical force, for which clerks of courts are required by this section to pay from fees received by such clerks in naturalization proceedings, if in the opinion of said Secretary the naturalization business of such clerk warrants further additional assistance: Provided, That in WHEN THE CLERK POCKETS THE FEESThe clerk is not required to spend for additional clerical force the portion of the fees under three thousand dollars retained by him. In some states he is required to surrender it as part of the income of his office; but generally speaking he can put it in his pocket if he chooses to do so, and allow the naturalization business to become clogged and delayed. Sometimes he does just that. The Naturalization Service has no redress, although it usually is blamed by the uninformed for the ensuing situation. Of course the alien has none, although he is the principal victim of it. The possibilities of the arrangement are well illustrated in one great Middle Western city, where there are two courts, one state and one Federal, performing naturalization functions. The clerk of the state court is very efficient and interested in the work; he spends more than $3,000 on naturalization business, employing a deputy at $1,800 and a stenographer at about $1,000 a year, and in rush periods having extra force. The service to aliens in that court is courteous, accurate, and expeditious. The clerk of the Federal court does otherwise. He retains his $3,000, but employs an assistant at only $1,200 without any stenographer, and the work is badly delayed. A letter of complaint about this court mentions the fact that “I have been advised by ... FORMS OF PETTY GRAFTThis sort of thing leads also to another evil, inevitable in such an atmosphere. Petty officers of the court, policemen and others having the run of the building, will tyrannize over the crowds of aliens awaiting attention, and will pretend to have, or actually will exercise, the power to put one person ahead of another or otherwise effect an unfair discrimination in favor of those who will pay something for the advantage. In one court there was found a definite arrangement with a neighboring saloonkeeper, who collected the bribes for a guard in the Federal building. The Naturalization Service has been assiduous in its discouragement of this sort of thing, and has had a good measure of success upon the minor grafters; but as the law reads at present it can use only moral suasion upon the clerks of courts to induce them to spend the retained share of the fees for the purpose for which the retention obviously was authorized—the bona-fide employment of the extra clerical force needed to handle the naturalization business. The “moral suasion” business, however, has its limitations. While the chief naturalization examiners, in charge of the districts in the field, usually are on cordial terms with the clerks of their various courts, Penalties are provided by law against clerks who fail to send punctually to Washington the required periodical reports and duplicates of papers. The Naturalization Bureau has been reluctant to attempt enforcement of these penalties—it is a bit drastic to fine a clerk $25 for a little delay in transmitting papers—and usually has been content to send an examiner to the court to get the material. But the correspondence growing out of such delays, and out of the effort to induce clerks to spend their retained share of the fees for clerical assistance, has added acerbity in many instances to the irksomeness of a task “not appurtenant to the office of clerk of court.” Small irritations also add friction. For example, the clerk is required to send his reports and papers by registered mail; there is no provision to reimburse him “PERSONAL EQUATION” IN THE NATURALIZATION SERVICEThe executive arm of the government has the right to appear before courts exercising naturalization jurisdiction, for the purpose, as the law says: of cross-examining the petitioner and the witnesses produced in support of his petition concerning any matter touching, or in any way affecting, his right of admission to citizenship, and shall have the right to call witnesses, produce evidence, and be heard in opposition to the granting of any petition in naturalization proceedings. This perfectly breathes the spirit exhibited as a general rule by the representatives of the Naturalization Service. The alien petitioner, having passed muster in respect of the clerk’s office, confronts the representative of the government, presumably familiar with every detail of technicality, in far too many cases bent upon preventing his naturalization if by any possibility it can be done. Judge after judge, in all parts of the country, answering the questionnaire of the Americanization In the original instructions issued by the Commissioner of Naturalization on June 30, 1909, when the field service was taken over by the Department of Commerce and Labor—of which the Naturalization Bureau then became a part—he said to the division chiefs: There is one point which I desire especially to call to your attention, and through you to the attention of those under your charge and direction, and it is a point upon which I must insist. The service is largely one not alone of an investigating nature, but of an advisory and instructive character as well; it furnishes the courts, the clerks of the courts, and the general public with information—especially that part of the general public directly interested in acquiring citizenship, or indirectly interested, as witnesses to those who are seeking naturalization. Referring particularly to applicants, he said, also: They should further be made to understand that the substantial effect of such exactions [requirements of the law] upon your part is to protect them, after they once secure naturalization, from the disappointment, embarrassment, and distress which must ensue in case they secure naturalization without having complied with the law. These excerpts from the Commissioner’s instructions were quoted by authority in a letter dated August 15, 1919, from one of the district chief examiners to the writer; therefore they may fairly be taken to represent not only the initial policy of the Naturalization Service in beginning its work, but the policy to-day. As a statement of general policy and attitude they leave nothing to be desired. Furthermore, any fair consideration of the naturalization system must take into A SCRUPULOUSLY HONEST SERVICEAs it already has been made sufficiently clear, prior to the enactment of the law of 1906, naturalization in the United States was not only a chaotic but a scandalous thing. Many persons believe now that it is “easy to get naturalized,” that upon payment of a few dollars, or in consideration of political subserviency, promised or expected, any alien can go, as it were, straight from the vessel that brings him to the naturalization court and thence to the ballot box! It used to be almost like that, but with the enactment of the law of 1906 a revolution set in, and the condition now, generally speaking, is quite otherwise. The pendulum has swung to the other extreme. It is as difficult now to be naturalized as it used to be easy. And it is quite natural that it should be so, in the reaction of public sentiment from the old happy-go-lucky days, with the law’s administration in the hands of a corps of men who, from top to bottom, answer any test of honesty and zeal. In all the wide inquiry upon which this volume is based, there was no hint anywhere of any manner of corrupt practice on the part of anyone in the service. Such faults and shortcomings as may be attributed to the Naturalization Service are of an entirely different character. At the outset, the principal function performed by the government was that of investigation; the group of men who pursued the inquiries about aliens petitioning for citizenship was little more than a corps of detectives, bent upon ferreting out something, anything, that would show the applicant to be unfit. To begin with, this work was done under the direction of the Without implying any dereliction of intention on their part, then or now, it may be said that few of them had legal training or were otherwise fitted to conduct the government’s part in court proceedings. The training of the examiners always has been of the most haphazard, inadequate character. Even under the operation of the Civil-Service laws, it was held that the kind of experience a man ought to have for the field service was that of general contact with the public—that of policemen, street-car conductors, and the like. Yet, as the practice has grown up, these men have to appear in important courts virtually in the guise of attorneys for the government; they must know the law, not only as set forth in the statutes, but as interpreted in innumerable decisions of Federal and state courts. NEED OF UNIFYING INFLUENCEThe chief examiners have done their best, but differences of “personal equation” have resulted in a very wide diversity of policy and attitude. There never has been any adequate unifying influence in the service; supervision has been conducted largely by correspondence, and the correspondence has not always been self-consistent. Even in the matter of transmitting to the chief examiners the decisions of courts in naturalization matters, there has been a strong tendency to In the majority of the courts, particularly those far from the great centers and having relatively little naturalization business, the judges regard it as more or less of a nuisance, do not keep posted about the law and decisions, and, looking upon the naturalization examiner not only as the accredited representative of the government, but as an expert in this field, follow his recommendations and contentions; and here, again, there being no one in court to represent the frightened or embarrassed petitioner, the point of view of the examiner becomes that of the judge, and the law is handed down accordingly. On the other hand, a few judges have taken the attitude that they would not recognize an examiner who was not an attorney admitted to practice before those particular courts. “NOTHING TO LITIGATE!”The Bureau of Naturalization has contended that a naturalization hearing is not a “case”; that there is nothing to litigate; that the examiner is present not as an attorney, but as a friend and informant of the court, with which abides the final responsibility. It holds that the petitioner does not need an attorney, the judge being assumed to be of course as solicitous to protect the interests of the petitioner as those of the country’s citizenship. No allowance is made under The operation of the system certainly leaves the petitioner frequently, at least, in a most unsatisfactory and perilous posture; as witness the matter of the seven-year limitation upon “old-law declarations.” The crisis came in September, 1913, and there was a decision soon afterward in the United States District Court in New York ruling out all “old-law declarations.” A policy in regard to these declarations should have been made then—a unified policy, applicable throughout the Naturalization Service. Nothing of the sort was done; the decision was heeded in some districts and ignored in others, for five years!—until the Supreme Court of the United States, sustaining the holding of the District Court in New York, at one stroke guillotined, so to speak, thousands of declarants under the old law. In many other matters there is still not only uncertainty, but variety of interpretation and practice; a regrettable lack in effect of the “uniform rule” contemplated by the Constitution. In many courts the point of view of the judge and that of the naturalization examiner are at variance, and this leads in some cases to open bitterness. Some examiners quibble and irritate the judge with trivial objections; some judges constantly ignore important provisions of the law urged upon them by the examiners. Between such extremes the petitioner is a helpless shuttlecock at the time, and later the victim of cancellation proceedings. There are “too many cooks,” too little supervised and unified, and among them the petitioner’s broth is spoiled. One of the crying needs of the Naturalization Service is a permanent law officer, able and willing and vigilant to watch the making of the statutes and decisions all over the country, and to CONFUSED STATE OF THE EDUCATIONAL TESTIt shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court that, during five years at least immediately preceding the date of his application, he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same. Such is the substance of the law. It requires also that he must be able to speak the English language, and that each of his precious two witnesses shall, of their own knowledge, certify that he is “in every way qualified, in their opinion, to be a citizen of the United States.” The barbed entanglement of technicalities through which the petitioner must grope before the questions of substantial qualification can be reached, we already have seen. Now, what does it mean to be “attached to the principles of the Constitution”? What manner of intellectual display is required to prove one “well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States”? Around these two rather indefinite phrases rages the whole storm of “Americanization” as it affects the alien seeking to become one of us. Whether common sense, the notion of the man-in-the-street, the average, plain-spoken layman, shall prevail, or the ideas of a hypercritical “nativism,” depends upon the “personal equation” of the judge, the clerk, the naturalization examiner—or, rather, the diagonal of forces produced by the concurrence or conflict of all three, aggravated or modified by that of the petitioner and his witnesses. A considerable—one might almost say an overwhelming—literature has grown up about this part of A judge in Missouri, who has “possibly two, not over,” of naturalization cases in a year, holds that an applicant should have “not merely an educational or intellectual test—for the more of either a man has the worse he may be for the country—but I would establish one of sentiment or principle, about as follows”: Every applicant shall satisfy the court that he is familiar with, and attached to, such sentiments as are expressed in such writings as “A Man Without a Country,” “America,” “Declaration of Independence,” etc., and that he is possessed of reasonable opinions on necessity of government and duty An Iowa judge says: “Search the heart for the truth.” The chief thing is to have the heart right—to have love and attachment for liberty, justice, and humanity, and to be ready to die, if need be, for the maintenance thereof. It might be well to have a uniform course of instruction for applicants for citizenship, but I would not adhere to it too strictly, if the heart proved to be right.... No good man, a true lover of liberty, justice, and humanity, should be rejected, unless he utterly fails to meet the other requirements of the law. A Pennsylvania judge thinks little of educational requirements; that they would exclude many desirable applicants. The principle test that I apply is as to the honesty of the party. Under an intellectual test many honest, hard-working men would fail, while men who had the advantage of education would secure naturalization.... Where men are required to support a family and labor hard they have not much time to study. A judge in Nebraska, who handles some 200 cases a year, declares: The intellect is not a test of good citizenship. I know many people with insufficient intellect to procure much education, who cannot read nor write, who are excellent citizens; and many others who are highly educated and too crooked to make good citizens. A California judge avers: My observation has been that many of our best citizens are those who possess no extended education, and some of A judge in central New York, who has large experience with naturalization, says: Too much stress is laid upon information concerning the details of our governmental system, and not enough upon the candidate’s personal record, endeavors, and results. An Italian laborer who has been unable to learn the number of Houses into which Congress is divided, but is hard-working, steady, possessed of a desire to own his home and bring his family up in our ways, is more useful to us than some of more intelligence. He holds that the principal difficulty with which desirable immigrants have to contend, in seeking naturalization, is the fact that “too much technical information is demanded by the young men who represent the Bureau of Naturalization.” Over against such expressions as these place the opinions of one of the Ohio judges, who, after the fashion of the Know-Nothings of the ’40’s, would require twenty-one years’ residence before naturalization and “add to, rather than diminish, the present requirements,” admitting “only heads of families, with children”; or those of the Arkansas judge who avowedly “construes everything against the applicant,” and would admit a German under no conditions until after fifty years of residence. Such a diversity indicates the sort of difficulty confronting the alien in court, and the need of some unity of standards to be created by law, and a great simplification of the tests and examinations. A letter was addressed to a number of experienced judges, known for their wisdom and humanity, asking for a tentative set of questions designed to disclose the knowledge thought to be essential to embody “attachment to the principles of the Constitution.” Replies THE CRAZE FOR “AMERICANIZING”—SOMEBODY ELSE!When the Great War burst upon the world, with its various kinds of hysteria, many Americans suddenly awakened to a passion for what has come to be called “Americanization.” Every sort of foreign-born, foreign-speaking—or even foreign-looking—person was seized upon as a subject or victim of this vague and little-ordered movement, with results as various as the degree of intelligence involved on the part of the Americanizers and the kinds of treatment inflicted; but to a great extent mischievous and tending to arouse hostility rather than “Americanism”—whatever the much-abused term might mean—in the breasts of the bewildered immigrant. Some of the effort, to be sure, was intelligent, considerate, and constructive. It is to the credit of Richard K. Campbell, Commissioner of Naturalization, and Raymond F. Crist, his alert and enterprising deputy, that they were prompt in seeing the bearing of the Americanization movement upon their work. It is very easy now to criticize, from various points of view, the energy and enthusiasm with which the Bureau of Naturalization entered upon and increasingly absorbed itself in this activity, and to fan flames of jealousy between it and other organizations, governmental and what not, which have worked in this field. The fact is that, with all credit to others to which they may be entitled, the Bureau of Naturalization early saw, not only the essentials of this question, but With its report for the year closing June 30, 1915, begins the recounting of activities of the Bureau in the new field. In so many words it is there recognized as a new activity—“a broadening of policy,” with a suggestion of justification, not to say apology, in the allusion to the Act of March 4, 1913, confirming the Bureau in charge of “all matters concerning the naturalization of aliens.” As early as the latter part of 1913, the Bureau was discussing methods of encouraging classes in citizenship, and “the elimination of the known evils attending some of the private organizations seeking, under the guise of instruction, to exploit the ignorance of candidates for citizenship as an easy means for the acquisition of a lucrative income” was referred to as one of the reforms that would follow a co-operative activity between the public schools, the public generally, and the Bureau of Naturalization. It was seen that the influence of the Bureau for the betterment of citizenship could be extended to every hamlet in the United States through the expansion and extension of the naturalization laws. This plan proposed But it was not until the period covered by the 1915 report that the Bureau began to be greatly engrossed with this policy. In that report, which directed attention to the growing interest of naturalizing judges and others in the mental training of aliens for citizenship, and their co-operation with the Bureau “in arousing the interest of the public,” and thus operating upon the local school authorities to establish courses of training in English and in civics for alien residents who purpose to become citizens, the Commissioner himself utters a caution about the scope of business: It has been pointed out to the state authorities that the government cannot undertake, even if it were one of its appropriate functions, to institute and operate training schools in good citizenship; that the making of a citizen of the United States is also the making of a citizen of the state in which the petitioner resides; and the results of such action are more immediate and more frequent in their effects upon state than upon Federal interests. At that time the work of the Bureau force consisted chiefly of sending to the school authorities lists of aliens residing in their respective districts who had filed declarations of intention and petitions for naturalization, with intent that they should secure the attendance of The extent and character of this course of mental training must depend upon the enlightenment of the school authorities which experience alone can give. From this time on, however, the Commissioner’s reports are characterized by an increasing emphasis upon the educational aspect of the Bureau’s work, the things to which it had formerly devoted itself diminishing in emphasis; while, at the same time, both in the reports and in activities not therein disclosed, the Bureau was seeking wide extension of its scope and powers, although its normal work was suffering from the shorthandedness of which it had complained ever since the Bureau was established. EXTRA RESPONSIBILITIES SELF-SOUGHTIt has been the habit of the responsible heads of the Bureau of Naturalization, in reply to any suggestion that the Bureau was “overextending” itself in the assumption of educational functions, or that there was confusion and conflict between the activities of the Bureau and those, for example, of the Bureau of Education in the Department of the Interior, to revert, as in the Commissioner’s report for 1916, to the fact that the law imposed upon the Naturalization Bureau “charge of all matters concerning the naturalization of aliens”; to declare that it is “only complying with the law,” or “endeavoring, under great difficulties, to perform the duties laid upon us by Congress.” This is plausible enough on its face; but the fact is that, generally speaking, no duties have been laid by Congress One of the most striking examples of this appeared in the so-called “King bill,” of the Second Session (1918) of the Sixty-fifth Congress, introduced by Senator King of Utah, with the purpose of establishing in the Department of Labor “a Bureau of Citizenship and Americanization, for the Americanization of Naturalized Citizens,” etc.: The province and authority of this Bureau [says one print of this bill] shall be the Americanization of persons seeking American citizenship by naturalization, and of native and naturalized citizens, for the purpose of arousing a higher regard for the privileges and responsibilities of American citizenship in the minds of all citizens and permanent residents of the United States, and the administration of the naturalization laws and Americanization work throughout the United States. The bill would have authorized the Director of Citizenship, therein provided for at a salary of $5,000 a year, to make diligent investigation into the conditions and environment of permanent residents and citizens; to ascertain their sentiments of loyalty to the United States, their progress in the knowledge of American institutions, and the use of the English language; their relations of a social and commercial nature with their neighbors and fellow citizens, and to promote the betterment of that loyalty, knowledge, use, and relationship, and afford them such advice as may be of benefit to them and tend to increase their regard for our institutions of government, and to do such other things as may be prudent and wise in laying a foundation for a strong The bill was not so much to create a new bureau, as to transmute the Bureau of Naturalization; the Commissioner of Naturalization was to become a subordinate of the Director of Citizenship, the entire personnel, machinery, and functions of the present Bureau of Naturalization being absorbed in the Bureau of Citizenship and Americanization. That the scope of this revolutionary creation, with its extension of jurisdiction over all citizens, their social and commercial relations with each other, and their personal loyalty, was no inadvertence of exuberant language, is clear to an examination of an earlier version of the measure, which specifically confined the supervision and missionary espionage to “naturalized” citizens, “including the attitude of such citizens whose native tongue is foreign ... and their relations of a social and commercial nature with their neighbors and fellow citizens who are natives of this country or who have become thoroughly Americanized.” But even so early the scheme was designed “to the end that there shall be a thorough assimilation of all who permanently reside within the jurisdiction of the United States.” Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this proposal is that it has the specific approval of the then However that be, and whatever might have been the views of the Secretary of Labor upon further consideration of the proposed legislation, the ambitious scheme died aborning. But it had a resurrection in another form, equally abortive, though still exhibiting the appetite of the Bureau for enlarged responsibility. At the instance of the Bureau there was inserted in one of the tentative drafts of the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill before Congress in the spring and summer of 1919 ... The authority to promote instruction in citizenship and English, now being exercised under the supervision of the Director of Citizenship, is hereby extended to include soldiers and sailors and all persons of the age of eighteen years and upward, and those in penal institutions.... In discharging this responsibility, the Director of Citizenship shall disseminate information regarding the institutions of the United States government in such manner as will best stimulate loyalty in those institutions, and secure the aid of civic, educational, community, religious, racial, and other organizations, and shall compile statistical information as to aliens A fairly large order! This adventure, like the previous one, failed of consummation; but, nevertheless, there was (until a very recent time when the illegality of the whole business was brought to attention) a Director of Citizenship, even though Congress had given him neither status nor powers, and he was in being only by a vigorous stretching of legislation intended, if one may judge by what it says, for quite another purpose. Section 11 of the law of May 9, 1918, devoted entirely to the subject of naturalization of alien enemies, contains a provision: ... that the President of the United States may, in his discretion, upon investigation and report by the Department of Justice, fully establishing the loyalty of an alien not included in the foregoing exemption [relative to the apprehension of alien enemies], except such alien enemy from the classification of alien enemy, and thereupon he shall have the privilege of applying for naturalization; and for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this section, including personal services in the District of Columbia, the sum of $400,000 is hereby appropriated, to be available until June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and nineteen, including travel expenses for members of the Bureau of Naturalization and its field service only, etc. Out of this emergency appropriation, made under stress of war conditions, for the declared purpose of dealing with enemy aliens, the Bureau provided for a But just because it was an emergency appropriation, the new Congress showed no disposition to renew it, and in its absence the whole extra-legal structure under the direction of the Director of Citizenship was imperiled, and in order to save it from complete destruction very serious economies became necessary. The bearing of so large a windfall upon the general work of the Bureau may be inferred from this list of the appropriations for the Naturalization Service in each fiscal year since, and including, that ending June 30, 1908, during which the service was established: TABLE V Appropriations for the Naturalization Service for Each Fiscal Year from 1908–1919
note 1: The field force was under Department of Justice during 1908 and 1909. A further instance of the desire for additional powers, which characterizes the “personal equation” of the Naturalization Bureau, appears in a bill which was before Congress in the winter of 1919–20, Sec. 4. That the promotion of the public schools in the training and instruction of candidates for citizenship, now being carried on by the Division of Citizenship Training of the Bureau of Naturalization, is hereby extended to include all persons of the age of eighteen years and upward, who shall attend classes of instruction conducted or maintained by any civic, educational, community, religious, racial, or other organization, under the supervision of the public-school authorities, and the provisions of the ninth subdivision of Section 4 of said Act are hereby made applicable to this added authority. In discharging this additional authority the Director of Citizenship is also authorized to disseminate information regarding the institutions of the United States government in such manner as will best stimulate loyalty to those institutions, making use of the means heretofore provided, and through the use of motion pictures. The motion pictures and motion-picture negatives in the possession of the various branches of the government shall also be available for these purposes. In this work the aid of civic, educational, community, religious, racial, and other organizations may be secured by the Division of Citizenship Training, in which statistical information shall be compiled as to aliens in their relation to citizenship. The foregoing shall apply to the residents of the Panama Canal Zone. ENORMOUS ARREARAGE IN BUREAU’S WORKFrom the very beginning of the activities of the Bureau, it has complained of its inability properly to perform Commissioner Campbell, in his annual report to the Secretary of Labor, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, said: At all times the clerical force has been insufficient, even with the aid of temporary assignments from other offices of the Department, to keep up with current work. This has resulted in large undisposed accumulations of official papers; mortifying delays in making responses to letters from private individuals and public officials, the continuous exaction of labor from the clerks for long periods after the conclusion of the ordinary official hours, on holidays, and even on Sundays; and, consequently, impaired the accuracy and quality of the work actually accomplished. The report for 1913 declares that such increase of personnel as had been allowed had “not been sufficient to accomplish anything in the way of bringing up the arrearages which have been steadily accumulating ever since the service was organized in 1907.” These arrearages were described as consisting of “unindexed and unexamined certificates of naturalization and declarations of intention,” and this condition prevailed, notwithstanding an average daily overtime estimate in hours, as equivalent to full time, of more than two persons (2.36). The report for 1914 acknowledged an increase of nine clerks, but stated that “the arrearages of work continued to increase.” So it goes on, the following report (1915) disclosing an arrearage of 346,762 declarations of intention and 395,719 certificates of naturalization unindexed, and thousands more of each unexamined. In the following year’s report is acknowledged The seriousness of this curtailment of records at Washington—all but fatal to the individual alien who wants to prove something about his naturalization case by reference to such records—took on a public aspect with the operation of the Selective Service Act (the so-called “draft law”) when aliens, desiring exemption as such, began to assert to the local exemption boards that they never had declared intention to become American citizens. “The assistance of the Bureau is constantly invoked by the draft boards throughout the country for official report on the claims to exemption from military service by aliens who profess to have made no declaration of intention to become citizens,” says the opening page of the Commissioner’s report of July 1, 1918, notwithstanding the more ingenuous—not to say more truthful—confession of a year before that “The unavoidable abandonment of indexing declarations has made it impracticable to furnish information sought in regard to aliens claiming exemption from military service.” At the date of that report, there were, unexamined, in the Washington office 247,373 declarations and 480,553 certificates; one year later—owing, perhaps, largely to the vast and sudden addition of alien soldiers naturalized, and the business incidental thereto, if not quite as much to the absorption of the Bureau in its increasingly ambitious educational campaign—the arrearages Not even by means of a complete, current, and up-to-date index of declarations could the Naturalization Bureau have proved whether or not any given alien ever had filed a declaration whose existence would indubitably entitle the United States to his military service, unless it included the absolutely impossible feature of a reference to every old, as well as new-law declaration. But such an index as might have been kept of declarations under the “new law” would have helped enormously. As it was the field force did its best, and ran down many cases through the records in the district offices and local courts. THE ALIENS SUPPORT THE BUREAUIn point of fact, the Bureau of Naturalization is, as the Commissioner more than once has pointed out, completely self-supporting. Bare good faith to the petitioner for naturalization would seem to demand that the money he pays in in fees should be used by the government to afford adequate service in his behalf. In every year, except 1918–19, since the present system was established, the receipts from naturalization fees have, by a wide margin, exceeded the amount appropriated for the Naturalization Service; the amount representing that margin has simply gone into the general receipts of the United States, subject to appropriation by Congress. Those receipts, and the margin referred to, which might well have been devoted to improving the Naturalization Service, have been, according to the Commissioner’s reports, as follows: TABLE VI Receipts from Naturalization Fees and Disbursements from Various Appropriations for the Enforcement of the Naturalization Law for Rents, Supplies, and Miscellaneous Expenses, Fiscal Years 1907 to 1920{1}
note 1: Department of Labor, Annual Reports for 1920, p. 799, Table 24. note 2: Included in these expenditures are appropriations to the Department of Justice for maintenance of field force prior to the transfer to the Department of Commerce and Labor—to wit, fiscal year 1908, $193,000; fiscal year 1909, $150,000. The Commissioner puts his finger on the ethical point involved, when he says, as for example in his report for the fiscal year 1918–19: It is interesting and highly suggestive to note from the next table that, notwithstanding the “hard-luck story” told The aggregate of such surplus items, which cannot be regarded as other than a trust fund in essence, and even deducting the amount expended for military naturalizations amounts to $539,446.80. It would easily have been much more if the clerks had been furnished to serve the aliens who desired to become citizens. The burst of public sympathy for, and interest in, the young alien who entered our service to make the “supreme sacrifice” for democracy which found expression in a special appropriation of $400,000 to pay the cost of making these young heroes citizens in law, as they already are in heart, over a period of 13½ months, did not, in fact, cost the people of this country as a whole anything. As long as over half a million dollars of the fund contributed by the newly made citizens from civil life remain unexpended for the purposes for which it was paid, it would appear to the ordinary observer that they, and not the general body of American citizens, gave the $400,000 to pay for the cost of giving free of charge the well-deserved “priceless heritage of American citizenship” to the young alien soldiers who fought for liberty and this country. The government of the United States is making money out of the business of admitting aliens to citizenship, and is not keeping fairly or efficiently its end of the transaction. In the period since the enactment of the Naturalization Law, as Commissioner Campbell has said, aliens in pursuit of citizenship—even though thousands of them did not get it!—have paid fees to an amount exceeding by more than half a million dollars the total cost of the Naturalization Bureau—a margin itself larger by more than $200,000 than the This money, if devoted to the purposes to which morally it belonged, would have been ample to supply the supervisory and clerical force in the Bureau necessary to make prompt and effective examination of declarations, petitions, and certificates, and to maintain a proper and complete system of records, and of indices by which those records could be made available for reference by the alien, the government, and the public. Provided always that the Bureau did not permit itself to be diverted and swamped by extraneous and self-assumed functions in the field of public education which it is not adapted, either by the logic of good administrative organization or by the nature and aptitudes of its personnel, to perform. It has never been within arm’s length of keeping up with the business committed to it by law, and by the nature of its function; nevertheless, during the past decade at least, it has taken on voluntarily and, with increasing exuberance of ambition, sought additional legislation to authorize activities and functions of an extraordinarily inclusive and far-reaching character in the domain of education—apparently even of native-born persons—beyond any possibility of effective accomplishment without very great increase of expenditure for personnel and material change in the “personal equation” of the present force. It is no doubt agreeable to compile and publish statistics purporting to show the degree of “co-operation” between the public-school authorities and the The Naturalization Bureau, in the fundamental nature of its function, has in all conscience enough to do! A “man’s-size job” is to be found in the scrutiny of the petitioner for citizenship, from the day when he files his declaration of intention to that when he receives, or is refused for good reason, his certificate of naturalization. The natural business of the Bureau is to be the disinterested but vigilant informant of the court as to the facts regarding the applicant; the watchdog of the standards by which aspirants for our active membership are judged—also the keeper of records minutely accurate and in cross-referenced detail up to the minute. FITNESS OF CANDIDATESThere is great need of a better method for ascertaining the fitness of candidates for citizenship than obtains at present. Various suggestions have been made to improve the practice. One is the creation of a system of “traveling commissioners,” appointed perhaps by the courts, who would hold sessions at convenient times and places. Another is that the function of naturalization should be removed from the judicial to the administrative sphere, so that examinations and admissions There is much to be said in support, especially, of the latter suggestion. But there seems a weight of reason in favor of maintaining the peculiarly American practice of lodging this solemn function in what is, on the whole, our most impressive organ of government—the court. As a rule, the courts are performing the function with increasing sense of the importance and dignity of the proceeding. It would be simple, and require little either of new legislation or additional personnel or duties, to make the Naturalization Examiner now in being and on duty, already equipped with honesty and zeal, something in the nature of a Master, representing the court in the taking of testimony, and reporting thereto his findings and recommendations. Thereupon the judge could pursue such further inquiry as he thought proper, accept or reject the findings, and enter his order accordingly. In the great preponderance of practice this is what actually happens now. The proceeding should be the subject of sufficient stenographic record, to be attached to the papers on file in the court and in the Naturalization Bureau at Washington, and the index, certainly at Washington, should be so minutely exact, prompt, and accessible, that the record of every case, from declaration to final adjudication, would be available like any other public record upon a moment’s notice. Further than that: Every alien who lands upon our shores should receive at the time his suitably detailed and descriptive certificate of lawful entry, with finger prints, if you please, duplicating a permanent record in the office of the Immigration Service; this certificate, and the record underlying it in case of its loss, should be the prerequisite to the declarations and all other proceedings “PERSONAL EQUATION” OF THE PUBLICIn consideration of all this business of naturalization, and the various projects for improving its conditions, it must be remembered that it is only within very recent years—virtually only since the beginning of the World War with its suddenly aroused or anyway suddenly accentuated excitements of interracial friction here in America, and of ebullitions of loyalty to the various fatherlands engaged in that struggle, on the part of foreign-born residents here—that the people of the United States, of this generation at least, have taken any interest in the behavior, affairs, and assimilation of the alien. It is two-thirds of a century, more or less, since the subsidence of the last important uproar on the subject. A few social-settlement workers and missionaries in the great cities, a few writers on sociological subjects, here and there some more than ordinarily facile and entertaining writer in English among the foreign born themselves, have tried to draw public attention to the seriousness and magnitude of the problem growing within our national life. These have pleaded for a better understanding of the people of other races coming in vast floods to make their homes with us, and for better conditions to govern their assimilation. But Americans generally pursued their self-absorbed, happy-go-lucky way, giving little attention to these Meanwhile, most of those who have recognized the existence of a menacing problem have acquired, generally on the foundation of the subtle race-prejudice to which most of us are subject, a vast deal of misinformation on the subject—some of it in the form of widely accepted misinterpretations of official and quasi-official “statistics.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
