THE
WESTERN
m erican
(continuing The Northman)
A MAGAZINE OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
Devoted to the Cause of
Americanization, Assimilation and Group Elimination; Pointing the way to a Constitutional
Americanism, to Equality in Citizenship, and a better understanding
between Native born and Foreign born.
Vol. 1
Ä"oua 19
Number 4
JANUARY 1923
SAFEGUARDING OUR NATURALIZATION LAWS
EASY ROADS TO CITIZENSHIP MUST BE CLOSED
T F THE AMERICAN people who are clamoring for
| a higher standard of citizenship and demanding
■stringent naturalization laws and their enforcement,
made it their business to attend the naturalization
■hearings two or three times a year, they would, by
■their presence at least, convince the courts and the
■examiners that they had as much interest in the court
proceedings dealing with the admission of aliens into
citizenship as they have in the trial of a bootlegger,
a burglar, or a felon. When a case is called for trial
■the judge and the attorneys in the case may well
ijudge the importance of their case, so far as the
public is concerned, by the number of spectators pres
lent. If the benches in the rear of the court room set
»side for the public are well filled, the judge and the
■attorneys will be alert and conscious of the fact that
■the public for some reason or other is vitally inter­
ested in the proceedings; if the benches are empty
■hey are equally certain that the case under consid­
eration is of no public interest and such a trial
becomes dull and uninteresting to courtattaches,
judge and barristers.
I If you ever chanced by accident to walk into a court
■oom where naturalization proceedings were in pro-
feress you probably felt an immediate urge to walk
right out again before you should become smitten
with the drowsy feeling prevailing in the court room,
jn variably the judges of the courts have in the past
Booked upon the naturalization proceedings as mat­
ters foreign to their courts and the hearings have
■jy many judges been looked upon as an injury to
■he dignity and importance of the bench. For that
■eason the judges have in a large number of cases
shown their indifference by hunching down in their
chairs letting the chin rest heavily on the breast and
the jurist’s slow breathing would indicate that the
court had taken a mental recess, leaving the exami­
ner and the clerk of the court to expedite matters.
Had the public evinced an interest in these proceed­
ings and filled the spectators’ rows in the room the
examinations of applicants for citizenship should long
ago have become important court proceedings and the
alien misfits who hold United States citizenship today
should not alone have been minus their claim to pro ­
tection against deportation, but thousands of the tax­
payers’ dollars that have been spent for their care and
custody in feeble-minded institutions, in houses of
correction, in hospitals for criminally insane and in
state prisons, would have been saved, besides that
many innocent American boys and girls who have
followed these vermin on the primrose path would
possibly have been leading clean, respectable and
useful lives.
♦
♦
♦
Under the naturalization regulations it is required
that the names, address and nationality of the appli­
cants for citizenship and the names of their wit­
nesses be posted conspicuously for ninety days, be­
fore the final hearing, in the United States clerk’s
office, so that the information shall be available to
all citizens interested in safeguarding against those
being admitted whom they may know to be unfit for
citizenship. It is safe, however, to say that not one
citizen in a thousand takes the time to drop in and
look over the list between naturalization hearings.
Citizens not alone have the right to object to