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 Study, describes the naturalization examiner as a zealous young man, intent upon straining every technical point to its utmost—against the petitioner.
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 account generously the background and historic perspective of this business.
A SCRUPULOUSLY HONEST SERVICE
As 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 Attorney-General of the United States. All naturalization proceedings, in fact, were in charge of special assistants to the various United States district attorneys, the examiners operating under them as field investigators. The politicians had a good deal to say about the selection of examiners. Many, if not most of them, were former pension examiners. Some had been in the postal service; some had had no experience at all in the government employ.