EXTRA RESPONSIBILITIES SELF-SOUGHT
It 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 upon the Bureau from the beginning save those which it has urgently sought; virtually all legislation affecting it—especially that legislation relating to “Americanization”—has been drawn by the Bureau and actively lobbied for in Congress by representatives of the Bureau. More than that, the Bureau has been exceedingly and notoriously aggressive in seeking widely extended scope and powers.
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 sense of loyalty and dedication to our institutions of government on the part of all permanent residents, candidates for naturalization, and citizens; and to show their progress in the adoption of the language and customs of the United States in reports from time to time upon the work of the Bureau to Congress and the Secretary of Labor, together with recommendations to Congress for further legislative measures to enlarge the province and effectiveness of said Bureau for the Americanization of such citizens and permanent residents, and to insure their attachment to the institutions of the United States.
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.”[90]
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this proposal is that it has the specific approval of the then Secretary of Labor, Mr. William B. Wilson, in a letter dated September 12, 1918, to Senator King, in which, over his official signature, it is declared that “the measure has been carefully considered,” and that the Department approves “the main objects of the proposed legislation.” That letter refers directly to the first draft of the bill, last quoted above.[91]
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[92] the following provision for an enormous addition to the jurisdiction, duties, and responsibilities of the Bureau of Naturalization:
... 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 in their relations to citizenship, and for expenses incidental thereto, including the rental or purchase of motion pictures and the transfer of any motion-picture negatives from branches of the government organized especially for war activities, remaining in the possession of the government, and such transfer to be without charge upon any appropriation. Credit for such transfers shall be given on the records of the Treasury Department in the final accounting by such specially organized branches of the government.
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 large extension of its work, and for much-needed augmentation of its efficiency in the field, and for establishing the extra-legal position of Director of Citizenship, with more or less obvious functions. This would explain the somewhat cryptic allusion in the proposed amendment to the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill quoted above, to the “authority now being exercised by” rather than imposed by law upon “the Director of Citizenship,” etc.
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
| 1908{1} | $193,000 |
| 1909{1} | 150,000 |
| 1910 | 150,000 |
| 1911 | 152,861 |
| 1912 | 175,000 |
| 1913 | 200,000 |
| 1914 | 225,000 |
| 1915 | 250,000 |
| 1916 | 275,000 |
| 1917 | 275,000 |
| 1918 | 305,000 |
| 1919 | 675,000 |
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,[93] introduced by Representative Johnson of the state of Washington, which would have provided, among other things:
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.