WHEN THE CLERK POCKETS THE FEES
The 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 ... that the United States District Court will be closed all day to-day.” Day after day, during 1918–19, the office of the naturalization deputy clerk in that court was entirely closed, so far as the aliens were concerned, owing to the insufficiency of the clerical force. Generally, an overworked condition of a clerk’s office leads, naturally, to hurry, discourtesy, and inevitable delays, during which applicants and their witnesses will lose day after day of working time in waiting for attention.