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 that it was at bottom a question of education, and set itself to the task of inspiring the public-school authorities to adapt themselves to the situation, and of placing at their disposal, at least theoretically, the unique material embodied in the archives of the Bureau. It is regrettable, though hardly surprising, that, in doing so, it allowed itself to become both swamped in the magnitude of the job, and obsessed by a sense of proprietary precedence in the field; reaching out beyond rhyme or reason for sweeping powers and responsibility which it is ill-adapted to exercise, and, in that reaching out, neglecting to carry on the important functions normally attaching to its own business, and indispensable to the intelligent carrying out even of its own ambitions.
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 the organization of the public schools, with the Bureau of Naturalization, into an active unit for the development of American ideals of citizenship in the student body; the assembling together, on stated occasions, in the different metropolitan and other centers, of naturalized citizens and candidates for citizenship; the conduct of patriotic exercises, including addresses, the singing of national anthems, and a conferring of citizenship.[88]
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 such aliens upon public-school courses of training in good citizenship. The Commissioner pointed out that
The extent and character of this course of mental training must depend upon the enlightenment of the school authorities which experience alone can give.[89]
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-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.