Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/254

250 .The order recited, as a reason for the revocation, the fact that the fees had not been paid. In many instances I found that it was common knowledge that clerks of courts had issued, in the aggregate, hundreds of certificates of citizenship to aliens who never appeared in court, and afterwards forged the court records to make it appear that they had been admitted in open court.

Other clerks have furnished certificates blank as to names of aliens, but bearing the seal of the court and official signatures to members of his political organization, who have filled in the names of aliens, the clerk subsequently entering them in the court records as having been admitted in open court.

Mr. Van Deusen in summing up the situation makes the following statement and prediction: "These evils and frauds have existed for years, exist to-day, and will continue to exist and multiply until radical and stringent changes are made in the naturalization laws, and a strict supervision of their administration imposed."

It is unfair to charge to the alien the political corruption, and cheapening of the rights of citizenship, resulting from this condition of fraudulent or careless naturalization. The fault is in our laws, and to an even greater extent in the lax administration of them.

The attorney general, in his report for 1903, outlines a plan for legislation which would undoubtedly prove effective in eradicating these evils. He presents the following recommendations:

1. The omission from the statutes as they now stand of the question of intent and guilty knowledge where an offender has in his possession a fraudulent certificate of naturalization unlawfully obtained in any manner whatever, or where a fraudulent certificate so held and obtained is used for any purpose whatever. Such a change would permit prosecutions for the possession of a fraudulent certificate unlawfully obtained, or for the use of a fraudulent certificate irrespective of the intent of the oath of the applicant and witness on the certificate, which is to be regarded as presenting merely a question of fact.

2. That the law be amended so as to compel an alien at the time of applying for citizenship to present from the appropriate immigration authorities a certificate showing his age and the date of his arrival and containing also his physical description similar to that in a passport. This certificate should form a part of the court records, like his application for citizenship.

3. The petition and application and all certificates should be uniform throughout the United States, and the final certificate of citizenship issued by any court throughout the country should contain a physical description of the applicant and holder on the back thereof, for the purpose of identification and to avoid substitution.

4. The certificates should be printed in Washington under government direction, containing a watermark similar to United States obligations, and the unlawful possession of or counterfeiting of such certificates should be made an offense against the United States. The blank certificates should be distributed to the various courts on requisition, and each one should be properly numbered and recorded.

5. The power of issuing certificates of naturalization should be withdrawn by congress from the various state courts and should be restricted to United States courts.