The Nonpartisan League ... aims at economic and social reforms through political action; the Bolshevists aim at social reforms through economic action. The League does not seek to disfranchise other classes than farmers; Bolshevism disfranchises all other classes than the proletariat.... The League is essentially an organization of farmers, the preponderant majority of the electorate in such states as North Dakota owning the bulk of the wealth of the commonwealth, for the improvement of economic and general welfare conditions by recourse to political action.... It is destroying no fundamental institution, but is reshaping and redirecting certain ones to make them more amenable to the public will.
Without any attempt to assess either the righteousness or the wisdom of the League methods or program, intelligent understanding of its relation to the spirit and purpose of political Socialism, and of the reaction to each on the part of various racial groups among the foreign born, requires that the distinction be carefully kept in mind. The foreign born who participate in the Nonpartisan League are not only citizens of the United States—voters—but they are preponderantly of the races whose mental operations tend to be conservative toward really revolutionary propaganda, and of the property-owning and property-ambitious class, as contrasted with the propertyless, job-holding, wage-earning class generally implied in the term “proletariat.”
This distinction underlies the reason why the strength of the League lies in the rural communities rather than in the cities. The League certainly showed strength in the cities, and the Socialistic character of many of its proposals undoubtedly attracted considerable support from city radicals who were unsatisfied with the range of the platform; nevertheless, the Nonpartisan League represents an agrarian rather than a revolutionary movement. There is a world of difference between a Socialist program calling for the establishment of a wholly co-operative commonwealth, the common ownership of all the machinery of production, distribution, and communication, and the League program demanding:
1. Exemption of farm improvements from taxation.
2. Tonnage tax on ore production.
3. Rural credit banks operated at cost.
4. State terminal elevators, warehouses, flour mills, stockyards, packing houses, creameries, and cold-storage plants.
5. State hail insurance.
6. A more equitable system of state inspection and grading of grain.
7. Equal taxation of property of railroads, mines, telegraph, telephone, electric light and power companies, and all public utility corporations, as compared with that of other property owners.
Adding to these the “national demands”—“that the government refuse to return to private hands ownership or operation of those public utilities owned, operated, or controlled by the government during the war,” and “that the conscription of wealth begun by the government through income and excess-profit taxes shall be continued and increased, that surplus wealth may be compelled to pay the money cost of the war”—the program still falls far short of being revolutionary. On the whole the underlying spirit and purpose are more or less precisely those of the earlier agrarian Free Soil, Greenback, Populist, Single Tax, and Free Silver movements.
The Progressive movement of 1912, given extra “steam” by the magnetic personality of Mr. Roosevelt and the hero worship of his followers, was a far more powerful influence in drawing common support from farms and cities. And its support, like that of the Nonpartisan League, was essentially American, as distinguished from foreign-born Socialistic support. It is interesting to speculate upon the attitude of the people generally toward the Progressive movement, if one could imagine it coming into being during the war. To what extent would its platform and the utterances of its leaders have been regarded as “seditious”?
ULTRARADICAL MOVEMENTS NONPOLITICAL
From the beginning of any really radical movement in this country, its unity of spirit has been broken by profound differences of opinion as to the effectiveness of the appeal to the ballot box. For more than half a century the anarchists and other advocates of “direct action” in the labor movement in America have been telling the more conservative elements that it would be of no use to resort to political measures, to the election of public officers pledged to carry out radical programs.
“The moment you succeed in winning enough votes to elect any considerable number of your candidates, the representatives of the capitalists will throw them out and nullify your victory.”
The great service which the New York State Assembly in 1920 rendered to the ultraradical wing of the Socialists when it ejected legally elected Socialist members of that house of the state Legislature was in the verifying this prediction. It strengthened the hands of the “Reds” not only all over this country, but all over the world. It made it just that much harder for moderates everywhere to convince workingmen that their grievances could be remedied by parliamentary action; that it was really worth while for them to pay any attention to the ballot box.
The history of the Socialist parties in America is checkered with the ups and downs of the controversy over this question. In every labor organization since the beginnings of the Labor movement in America there has been a continuing warfare between those who advocated political action as the means to social reform, and those who scorned anything except economic pressure and even terrorism. It is a curious fact that in the line-up on this issue, Mr. Gompers and the American Federation of Labor logically belong with the direct-actionists; he and his supporters always have opposed the entrance of the Labor movement as such into politics. It is only fair to add, however, that one of his principal motives was that of keeping the solidarity of labor from being broken by the ordinary appeals and influences of the politicians.
The National Labor Union of 1864, the Knights of Labor of 1869, the International Working People’s Association of 1883, the Sovereigns of Industry of 1874, the Workingmen’s party of 1876, the organizations of brewery workers and miners, the American Railway Union, the American Labor Union, the Socialist-Labor party—in fact, virtually all the general labor organizations from the beginning of them until to-day—have fought back and forth over this question. And the abiding fact which remained after every battle seems to have been that the tendency of the Americans and the foreign born longest in the country on the whole has been to favor action through the ballot box and parliamentary methods generally; the distinctively foreign elements have inclined to favor economic and industrial measures, with the “lunatic fringe” running on toward “direct action,” sabotage, and the methods of the terrorist.
The World War brought this division sharply to a head. It split the Socialist party and drove out of it most of the American-born moderates; it led to the attempt by these moderates and many of the former Progressives to organize the “National party” and the “Farmer-Labor party,” which attracted a small following in the presidential election of 1920. The excesses committed against foreign-born citizens of nearly all racial groups in the zeal of the war spirit undoubtedly drove into the extreme radical ranks a large number of foreign-born citizens who in normal times would have been content with political methods and would have diminished in their radicalism as their economic status improved. Doubtless, also, the period of unemployment and industrial depression following the war, ensuing as it has upon a period of unprecedentedly high wages, has tended to encourage radical thought.
But it must always be remembered that the extreme radical movements have directly relatively little political influence. This for two very good reasons: In the first place, experience has not justified the theory of the “Reds” that terrorism in this country will frighten government into concessions. It has, in America, anyway, quite the opposite effect. It alienates public sympathy and impels the average man, normally sympathetic toward the “under dog,” to approve of repressive measures. Furthermore, the members of these ultraradical organizations, although they may be technically citizens, are not voters in any practical sense.
THE “I. W. W.” AND THE HOMELESS WORKER
This latter consideration is more important than is commonly realized. The rank and file of the Industrial Workers of the World—better known as the “I. W. W.”—for example, is made up of men without fixed abode; itinerant workingmen, largely, though by no means wholly, of foreign birth. They have left their homes and families, if they ever had either. The I. W. W. is the only organization which at least pretends to look after the interests of the homeless, jobless worker. The homeless, jobless worker cannot become naturalized, because the naturalization process presupposes a fixed residence, and witnesses who can testify to that residence over long periods of time. And even if the man be native born or long since naturalized, he cannot vote or otherwise function as a political unit because he has no fixed home from which to register and vote.
A fixed abiding place, a home, is psychologically a sine qua non of real and wholesome civic interest, as well as a legal prerequisite for participation in public affairs. Theoretically, a native-born or naturalized citizen has a membership in and duty toward the United States. Actually, the degree of his participation depends upon the depths of his roots in some locality, and the relation of that locality to the civic unit toward whose welfare the voter contributes, not only his taxes, but his personal interest. A good part of the trouble with city government in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and other great cities is due to the fact that so many fine, public-spirited voters live in suburbs.
Thousands of the best men who participate in the daytime in the life of New York City live in New Jersey and Connecticut, or, anyway, in towns outside of Greater New York. Their real interests are in New York, but they vote in another state. They contribute little to the local welfare in the places Where they live because of their real interest in New York. Consequently their civic vitality, so to speak, is entirely lost to both communities—and to the United States. The foreign-born voter in the crowded East Side of New York is a far more effective citizen, for good or ill, than the presumably more intelligent business man who cannot—or at any rate does not—participate substantially in the political life either of the city where his business and daily activities are carried on, or in the village in another state where he has his legal residence.
Over against this anomalous condition put the case of the well-meaning citizen, native or foreign born, who works for a certain mining corporation in Illinois. The town where he lives belongs absolutely to that corporation. It so happens that a part of the mining property of that corporation lies in Illinois and a part in Indiana. Under stress of business and mining conditions the company suddenly moves the whole population, men, women, and children, over the state line. What must happen then to any possible civic interest or enthusiasm—supposing any to exist—on the part of American citizens, voters, who had begun to think about the public interests of the state of Illinois? What happens to the naturalization proceedings begun by any alien to make himself a useful citizen of his adopted country? How can any real civic interest live under such conditions?
It is common to sneer at the city workingman because he stays in town unemployed when he might get a job in the wheat fields or at mining or fruit picking where labor is scant. Laying aside the question of any desire on his part to stay with his family, or any doubt in his mind about his ability as a hodcarrier or a tailor to make good as a farm hand, or any reluctance on the part of the railroad to assist him with the gift or loan of transportation to some distant and practically most uncertain job—what becomes in such a hop-skip-and-jump sort of industrial—and social-existence, of any interest in civic affairs? To a newly made citizen, who has faithfully memorized, if you please, the Constitution of the United States, who knows just how Senators are elected and what is the relation between the functions of the President and those of the local dog-catcher, and who can sing, duly standing uncovered, all the stanzas of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” it must appear that his intellectual equipment for citizenship is more or less extraneous to the practical and immediate task of feeding his wife and babies!
It is this sort of experience, of shifting employment and residence and the conditions that go with it, that has given momentum to the I. W. W. and kindred movements. “Stag towns” in the Far West, matching “women towns” in New England; permanently separated families; the utter impossibility of getting and keeping wives or maintaining any sort of decent, not to say normal, domestic life, are major factors that have brought into such organizations not only foreign-born wanderers, some of them naturalized, but a surprisingly large number of native Americans—the latter particularly among the leadership.
On the other hand, the I. W. W. from its beginning[176] has paid close attention to the immigrant. Fifteen years ago, at the second convention of the I. W. W., it was urged that propaganda should start in Europe before the immigrant left the homeland, so that he would be prepared upon arrival in this country to join the organization. This was not done, but even so early there was a large issue of printed matter in foreign languages, and the whole machinery was conceived on the presumption of a polyglot membership. Moreover, the I. W. W. always has taken the most liberal position as regards any form of race prejudice. At the opening of the first convention William D. Haywood took a strong stand against discrimination against the negro by craft unions, and the organization never has tolerated any distinction of race, color, nationality—or sex. Even with regard to the Japanese of California, at the third convention a delegate from that state declared that “the whole fight against the Japanese is the fight of the middle class of California, in which they employ the labor faker to back it up.”
The Communist party, into which to a considerable extent went the extremists from the older movements when the effects of the war brought division to their ranks and made it impossible for moderate and ultraradical to abide under the same roof, at first became a nucleus for the spread of the extreme form of Communist doctrine. It embodies the essentials of the platform of the Third Internationale. The ruthless suppression of this organization by the public authorities may well prevent its having any but a fugitive life. The I. W. W., too, seems, for the time being, at least, to be under effective handicap. But whether these, or either of them, survive or perish, or whatever other organization may be the residuary legatee of their existence, the fact remains, and it is a most important fact from the point of view of this Study, that such movements have no room under their ægis for what Americans understand as political action. They seek revolutionary change not only in the form, but in the nature of government—would, in fact, abolish all government as we know it, and substitute the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as it exists—or has been supposed to exist—in Russia. Their theory has no use for our present parliamentary methods, for representative government in our understanding of the word; they scoff at and would utterly destroy what we mean by Democracy. They would not leave a recognizable vestige of our Constitution, our courts, our legislatures. They would provide no political function for the voting citizen as we visualize him. And—what is most important—they would bring about these basic changes by compulsion. The ballot box has no substantial place in their program.
Such propaganda, such programs, appeal only to those who have and who, however mistakenly, believe they can have, no stake in our present civilization. To such as these, citizenship in the sense in which we have here discussed it has no meaning; the “America” which has been built up, by native and foreign born together, since the landing of the Pilgrims, arouses no enthusiasm.
It is not surprising that such movements as the I. W. W. and the Communist parties appeal to the wandering, homeless folk of any race. And when their propaganda tells such folk (as it does) that the actual fruit of their labor is a product of sixty dollars a day, and that the difference between that figure and what they receive is the measure of what the capitalist class is appropriating, it is small wonder that the ignorant and reckless, without attachment to any home or land, smarting under concrete conditions about whose reality—whoever may be to blame for them—there can be no dispute, follow such leadership and look to it to bring them into better conditions.
From the moment of his arrival in this country, every hardship that the immigrant of any race suffers, every injustice practiced upon him by his own countrymen or other foreign-born persons who preceded him hither, by the police and other local officials (to him the embodiment of government), by landlord or employer or others in more prosperous circumstances, every hour of unemployment and privation, every enforced separation from his family, every disillusioning experience, contributes just so much to his readiness of mind to accept the “Red” teachings and promises. Revolution finds no hospitality in contented minds. Injustice, real or fancied, is, in the last analysis, the only agitator we have to combat.
Every particle of information coming to the Americanization Study on the subject of the mental attitude of the immigrant of any race in America confirms the fact which ought to be obvious as a matter of ordinary common sense: that the opportunity to work, at fair wages, under anything like decent conditions of home and social surroundings, and from that work to gain a place to live, the means of maintaining and supporting a family and making a reasonably comfortable and happy home, establishing a real stake in the community, assures the making of a good citizen and a well-meaning voter, a valuable active member in our body politic.
XIII
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
The one thing that emerges most clearly in the results of this or any other candid study of the naturalization and political activity of the foreign-born citizen of the United States is that admission to active membership in our political society should be based upon the personal qualifications of the individual.
No sound basis is disclosed for discrimination on the ground of race or color, religious beliefs or political predilection. Even the statutory bar against belief in anarchism or polygamy is obviously ineffectual, because the anarchist theory per se involves, if not virtual atheism, at least repudiation of government and a disbelief in the sanctity of an oath. And a declaration of disbelief in polygamy, so far as it may be assumed to imply anything concerning personal morality, conveys no assurance of chastity in any sense of the word. Furthermore, what is the practical use of inquiring into a person’s beliefs to-day, when there can be no guaranty as to what they will be to-morrow?
The educational test assures no safety as to character. The ability to speak, read, and write English or any other language, intelligence and general or even exact information as to our form of government and the “high spots” of American history, are little in the way of assurance of loyalty or usefulness as a citizen. The most noxious propagandist that we could import or admit to citizenship could pass the most rigid intellectual test. During the debate on the naturalization law in the House of Representatives in June, 1906,[177] Representative Steenerson of Minnesota said:
... The qualifications that we have required of people in the past who intend to become citizens is that they be men of good moral character and that they are attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States.... They may be men of good moral character and attached to the principles of the Constitution, and yet be unable to comply with this requirement. Ability to write the English language.... If, for instance, an elderly man like President Fallières of France should decide to emigrate to the United States, he cannot be naturalized, because in all probability he would not be able to learn the English language within five years; whereas Count Boni de Castellane, who has undoubtedly had opportunities in the past ten years of learning the English language, could be naturalized, because he could speak and write English....
It is not from the immigrants who come here to settle on our public domain, who come here to abide permanently and to build homes and raise families, that we may expect frauds upon our election laws or danger to our free institutions. Such immigrants should not be denied citizenship because of inability to speak and write English. They may, notwithstanding, be as loyal and as patriotic as any. Nothing has been shown that connects inability to speak English with any of the evils complained of. There is no relation of cause and effect between them. The frauds and perjury against naturalization laws were committed by persons proficient in English.
One of the naturalizing judges in Kansas, long familiar with the workings of the law, said in his answer to the questionnaire of the Americanization Study:
My judgment is that this government has occasion for greater fear from many of the educated foreigners than from the uneducated foreigner. More stress should be placed upon the character of the man and his loyalty to this government, and his willingness to abide by its laws and uphold its Constitution than upon his mere educational qualifications. My observation has led me to conclude that one of the chief difficulties with the administration of our naturalization laws is that the Department seems inclined to apply to all foreigners the same test; whether the applicant has been a resident of the community for twenty-five years, leading an exemplary life, upholding all the institutions, interested in all the efforts to upbuild the state physically, mentally, and morally, or whether he be a unit in the slum hordes of the city. The Department seems to have conceived it to be its duty to force all of them into the same strait-jacket.... I have in mind cases where the Department has endeavored to withhold citizenship on the merest technicality from men who for years have been our best citizens, thoroughly loyal and devoted to the best interests of the state. We seem to have gone upon the theory that the educated foreigner, by reason of his education alone, will necessarily be a good citizen, and that the ignorant foreigner is necessarily an undesirable citizen.
An educational test, such as that to which petitioners for naturalization are subjected by some judges and some naturalization examiners, applied at the ballot box to all who would vote, would wreak havoc upon the enrollment of both native and naturalized. It is safe to say that not one out of a hundred of native-born citizens, even college educated, could pass respectably the examination. A very small proportion of American-born citizens of any age or of either sex have read the Constitution of the United States or have even a superficial knowledge of its contents. The present writer has derived some amusement during his conduct of this investigation from asking of more than ordinarily intelligent acquaintances some of the questions to which applicants for naturalization have to respond in various courts. The ignorance of even fundamental matters displayed by these scions of the “old stock” has been almost invariably both ludicrous and lamentable.
One of the questions which the Americanization Study asked of the naturalization judges was whether they would favor a standard intellectual test for both native and foreign born as a prerequisite for admission to the ballot box. Of 326 judges who answered the question a substantial majority (180) answered, “Yes,” and 44 were not sure but that it would be a good thing. The best answer that the 102 who opposed the idea could make was valid enough—i.e., that the native born have had 21 years of residence in the atmosphere of American institutions, and may be assumed to have a general intellectual fitness. The other objections were legalistic; but they all came out to the same fact—that fitness for citizenship and the ballot is a question of personal character and general attitude toward the public welfare.
At first glance it might seem simple enough to devise an oral or written examination by which to test the individual equipment of an applicant for citizenship—or a native-born citizen seeking access to the ballot box; actually it is impracticable. A set of questions would permit memorizing and recital by rote; to leave it as at present to the wit of the examiner or the judge means that no two applicants will be subjected to the same test. The naturalization judges say frankly that they cannot outline an examination, though they think that somebody might!
The Merchants’ Association of New York appointed a committee on immigration and naturalization which gave considerable study to this subject, and came out where everybody else comes out:
In recommending that unnecessary obstructions and technical difficulties be eliminated from naturalization procedure your committee does not believe qualifications for citizenship should be lowered. On the contrary, it believes they should be raised. In addition to present requirements concerning residence and moral character there should be an educational qualification requiring proficiency in English and reasonable familiarity with our history and government. Your committee will not attempt to enumerate the details of such requirement, but recommends that a suitable and well-defined educational standard for citizenship be fixed by statute.
Every applicant for citizenship—including the wives who now are swept in regardless of their own fitness by the naturalization of their husbands, or kept out by their rejection or failure to apply, should be considered in the light of his own personal character and record of behavior during the preliminary-period residence here. And character and behavior should be proved as any other material facts are proved—by preponderance of evidence. The present practice is quite otherwise. The whole procedure would be revolutionized if the applicant were required, or permitted, to produce a body of reasonable and competent evidence sufficient to convince the court or its representative assigned to take the testimony. His neighbors, his employer, his pastor, the school-teacher, his fellow workmen, by word of mouth or affidavit—in short, all those who know what sort of person he (or she) has been during the five years of required residence—could readily satisfy the court as to the essential fact. The judges themselves in most cases would welcome this change. As it is now, the whole business is wound up with red tape, and thousands of persons have been excluded on the flimsiest technical grounds, simply because the evidence presented to the court must be, in the typical case, that of two witnesses, only two, and the same two throughout the whole proceeding. If anything can be found amiss with these or either of them, the application must be rejected.
It may even be argued that the presumptions and the benefit of doubts should be in favor of the applicant; that the burden of proof should lie upon those who oppose admission. During the whole period, 1908–18, in the whole United States only 14.3 per cent of all denials of petitions for naturalization were for reasons involving the personal fitness of the applicant—“ignorance” and “immoral character.”[178] This means that if every alien who applied for citizenship during those eleven years had been granted his certificate of naturalization without investigation or formality, the proportion of “ignorant” and “immoral” admitted would have been only 1.7 per cent—less than two in a hundred!
Whatever might have been the merits, real or imaginary, of the hairsplitting, meticulous policy which has governed the operations of our naturalization system since the Act of 1906 swept into ancient history the scandals of the previous years, that policy was effectively junked during the war. Since the beginning of the fiscal year, 1918–19, under the operation of the military naturalization plan, more aliens have been naturalized on the sole ground that they were in the war service—practically without regard to race, declaration of intention, previous residence, educational or moral qualifications—than the ordinary naturalization of any year since the beginning of the present system. These are direct admissions; we have no means of knowing how many “derivative” citizens these soldiers and sailors carried in with them, or have made by marriage to alien women since their naturalization.
This wholesale letting down of all the bars, however necessary and innocuous it may be deemed, at least has reduced to absurdity the policy of hand picking and superscreening practiced in the ordinary cases. It furnishes a sound and logical starting point for a new, more reasonable, and more humane system, under which the alien may know with greater certainty what he must do and prove in order to establish his right to join us; a system which will give him a different impression of our common sense and efficiency, as well as of our attitude toward him not only as a petitioner for fellow citizenship with us, but as a fellow member of the human race.
NO LOWERING OF STANDARDS
There is no argument here for lowering the standards of admission. The applicant should be able to speak intelligibly the English language. This is not very important practically, because in the years which ordinarily elapse before the average alien files his petition he will have learned to speak English anyway. There is good ground for requiring also the ability to read English. The intelligent participation in the politics of this country requires some knowledge of current events and political argument; the voter should be able to read the English-language newspapers. We are unable to follow those who would enforce also a requirement of ability to write in English. Such ability probably will exist in a majority of cases, anyway. It is no sine qua non of either intelligence or character.
Theoretically, one might argue for a distinction to be made between the general rights and responsibilities of bare citizenship (such as diplomatic protection, the right to own property, exemption from taxes imposed upon aliens as such, etc.) and the specific right to vote. This, however, is almost completely academic, because, except for the limitations of age and residence for a period prior to election which apply alike to all citizens, our Constitution—especially with the Nineteenth Amendment in force—assumes that citizenship includes the ballot. It is difficult to see any reason for requiring of the naturalized citizen, as a qualification for voting, educational attainments other than those required of the native born. It is equally difficult to see how even a native-born citizen can be an intelligent voter if he cannot speak and read the language in which the issues of elections are discussed. Our own statistics of illiteracy, in states where the proportion of the foreign born in the population is negligible, call for educational measures having no exclusive reference to the foreign born.
There is a growing custom in the courts, properly urged by the Naturalization Bureau, of accepting, in lieu of any other educational test, a certificate of graduation or proficiency from teachers in public and other schools. The Naturalization Bureau now supplies the forms for such certificates. A majority of the judges who answered the questionnaire of the Americanization Study not only favored this practice, but declared that it was their own. A good many, however—a full third of those who expressed themselves on the subject—insisted upon their own right and duty to examine the petitioner themselves, or minimized the importance of the educational test altogether. It seems obvious, however, that the certificate of properly accredited American schools should be accepted for this purpose. Whatever may be said in favor of having no educational test whatever, and of admitting a petitioner who has no such certificate, there seems no reason for not giving the petitioner the benefit of the extra credit implied in his having attained such a graduation.
The declaration of intention (to become a citizen) should be retained, notwithstanding the opinion of many persons, including some attentive and discriminating students of the subject favoring its abandonment. But the declaration in its present form and practice is not satisfactory from any point of view. The procedure surrounding it is now far too casual. It should be protected by substantial safeguards and attended by a far greater degree of solemnity. Its sufficiency in form, its technical correctness, should be certified at the time of its issue by the officer of the court before whom it is attested. There should be a preliminary period of residence in this country before the declaration is made.
The identity of the declarant should be clearly established; he should have and present a certificate of “lawful entry” into the country; there should be no confusion or doubt about the name under which he goes; his photograph, fingerprints, signature, or other means of unmistakable identification should be attached; all of the essential facts concerning his nativity, previous residence, marital, status, occupation, and other things germane to an application for so vital a change of relationship should be set forth clearly and suitably attested. As at present, copies of the declaration should be in the possession of the declarant, and on file in the court and in the Naturalization Bureau.
It might well be required that the declarant should register with the court or with the Naturalization Bureau every change of residence, so that the record of his movements and behavior during the entire period of his “probation” would be available.
The fact of the making of the declaration should be publicly posted, so that not only the court and the government, but the general public, should be put upon notice that a “new member” is applying for admission. And when it comes into court at last as an indispensable part of the record in the case, its sufficiency as a document should be taken for granted. The responsibility for technical errors in it should lie upon the officer who accepted and attested it; substantial errors of fact should exist only under penalties as for other kinds of perjury. The burden of proof against its validity should lie upon the government or any other person attacking it.
Under the law as now enforced, the declaration of intention expires at the end of seven years; but there is nothing to prevent its renewal, and in those states in which formerly declarants had the right to vote, all the politically important rights of citizenship could be, and in many cases were, kept alive, as it were, perpetually by such renewals without any other test or ceremony. Even now, the other privileges of citizenship may be thus perpetuated by persons who on no theory could “get by” in a naturalization court. It should be made at least much more difficult to renew a declaration once expired. The burden of proof should rest upon the alien to show why he did not make final application for citizenship within the period during which his declaration was valid. A judge in Oregon, expressing the opinion of many judges on this point said:
Declarant should not be permitted to renew his declaration of intention. Too many use the declaration as a means of escaping something or obtaining employment; after expiration, the old declaration is surrendered and a new one requested. The declaration should disclose the scope of the educational attainments of the declarant and a willingness to attain practical working knowledge of the English language, as well as an insight into our system of government and the names of public officials, their manner of election and most important duties.
Let it be borne in mind that this is a very different matter from the question of restrictions upon immigration, literacy, and sanitary tests for mere admission to the country. The declarant is making his initial application for fellow membership with us; he desires to become flesh of our flesh, to share our sovereignty. The essential value of the declaration of intention is that it registers as of a certain date a state of mind toward our country and its citizenship. It has a moral value for the declarant in putting him on notice that he has definitely determined to put off his old allegiance; it ought to warn him also that he is passing under scrutiny by his neighbors and by the government; that his behavior has become in a special way important to him and to the community. It is conclusive evidence of at least two of the necessary five years of residence. Rightly safeguarded and estimated, it would be a most precious possession.
But the corollary of this is that the process of final naturalization should be greatly simplified. The great number of denials for “want of prosecution” is in itself an index of the degree to which the procedure is surrounded by vexatious technicalities, delays, expense, discouragements which drive the petitioners and their witnesses out of the business, mostly during the ninety days’ interval between the filing of the petition and the time for the final hearing. In the normal case, the witnesses should appear once for all; the record should come before the court complete, in writing, and once for all, except in disputed or appealed cases when a deeper inquiry is called for. Make the standards of admission as severe as you please—the procedure of complying with them should be simple, direct, as inexpensive as possible, and readily understood by anyone of ordinary intelligence.
A FUNCTION ADMINISTRATIVE OR JUDICIAL?
It may be debatable whether the whole function of naturalization should be taken out of the hands of the courts and made a purely administrative activity of the executive department of government. A good many students of the subject favor such a course. The present study has not led to this conclusion. The judges generally, while they would be glad to be relieved of a peculiarly exacting and vexatious duty, do not favor it. From the beginning of our history the function has been judicial, and very sound reasons should be advanced for making so radical a change. It would require the establishment of an enormous machinery at a time when every consideration cries out for the simplification of the government. The present Naturalization Bureau, if adequately manned and properly directed, and required to attend to its own business rather than to expand itself into an educational institution, could save the time of the courts to a great extent, and at the same time save to the situation the dignity and solemnity purporting at least to abide in the judicial atmosphere.
There has been a proposal to create a system of traveling naturalization commissions, sitting from time to time at the various county seats and passing upon petitions. But it is vitally important to the petitioners, who are almost always folk of limited means and time, that the place to which they must go shall be as near at hand as possible, and the necessary traveling for themselves and their witnesses as little as is absolutely necessary.
Another consideration, too often overlooked, especially by those to whom the naturalization problem is seen chiefly from the point of view of the great cities, lies in the fact that in the rural districts the judges have a wide acquaintance, and are likely to know, or to have direct means of knowing, all about the petitioner. Once we rid our minds of the current impression that ignorant immigrants rush from the landing port to the ballot box, and remember that in the average case the petitioner has been in this country more than ten years, and in a vast majority of cases has lived for five years in the same state, if not in the same community, the matter takes on a wholly different aspect. It is quite conceivable that in the great cities a special court, or a special term of court, might be set aside for the consideration of naturalization cases.
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND DIGNITY
What is most needed is a better arrangement for taking care of this business—a physical as well as an administrative arrangement. The physical surroundings leave much to be desired. Merton A. Sturges, Chief Naturalization Examiner at New York, thus describes[179] the conditions under which final hearings are conducted in some of the courts.
... In many instances the court-room has a seating capacity for less than half the number of persons notified to appear, and often there is barely space enough to crowd the applicants and witnesses into the court-room in a standing position.... The applicants and witnesses are sometimes rushed through as fast as one hundred cases in half as many minutes. The natural query, especially on the part of witnesses, is, “Why have we been brought here and kept standing in a crowded court-room for hours for no apparent reason?”
Of course, in connection with a small percentage of applications, some question arises which it is desirable to present for determination by the judges, but aside from these few instances there is no good reason for witnesses to appear in court, except that the law requires their appearance....
The oath of allegiance is administered in anything but a dignified and impressive manner. In fact, the whole proceeding is lacking in that solemnity and impressiveness which should be the characteristic of so important a ceremony. Would it be a great innovation to inaugurate and maintain orderly and patriotic ceremonies for the conferring of final naturalization? Invite the applicants to appear in court, accompanied by members of their family; have the certificates prepared in advance; provide an appropriately decorated court-room with seating capacity for as many as are present; call the applicants and their families in groups by nationality before the judge’s bench; have the judge administer the oath of allegiance to each group in a fittingly dignified manner, and present the certificates of naturalization to each new citizen; have the judge, and perhaps one other prominent and esteemed citizen, deliver addresses dealing with the responsibilities and duties of good citizenship.
The tendency in the past few years has been in the direction indicated by Mr. Sturges. Increasingly, all over the country, judges have awakened to the need of a greater solemnity in the conferring of citizenship; a few judges have, at their own expense, furnished a printed address or book of instructions to the new citizens, and even a small American flag which is enormously prized by the recipients. In one court in North Dakota the judge serves upon each declarant, at the time of his filing of his declaration of intention, the following formal notice under seal of the court: