THE
UNITED
m
erican
A
A MAGAZINE OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
Devoted to the Cause of
Awiericamzatton, 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“OU819
September, 1923
Number 12
INEQUAL ENFORCEMENT OF AMERICAN LAWS
ROLLING UP CONVICTIONS AMONG FOREIGN BORN
T N THE statistical compilations of infractions and
1 violations of the prohibition amendment and the
Volstead act, in the American city, state and nation,
it is a much lamented fact that the alien people, or the
foreign born in America, (commonly referred to as
foreigners), are furnishing America its chief grief in
this respect, making up the bulk of violations, arrests
and convictions.
That a large number of the foreign born have
little respect for the American laws, and particularly
the prohibition laws, of that there is no question, and
the nationalities who are most backward in adapting
themselves to an American standard and who are not
so keen for learning very much neither of the Amer­
ican language nor of the American institutions, are
seemingly very quick to learn how to evade the Amer­
ican laws and get the American dollar through unlaw­
ful methods.
Without looking behind those figures and the com­
piled statistics, those who are engaged in inforcing
these laws towit: the village marshals, the county
sheriffs and their deputies, the city and county con­
stables and their deputies, the city police and detec­
tive staffs (supported and aided by innumerable stool-
pigeons), the special state officers and the federal
government’s prohibition enforcement retinue, would
have things pretty much their own way, but a little
close examination behind the scenes will convince any
I fair minded citizen that if these overlapping agencies
were 100 per cent “square shooting” both in their per­
sonnel and in their pursuit of law violators, the native
born would furnish quite a staggering quota and pos­
sibly make the awful “foreigners” look a little less
terrible as a whole.
It has come to be a pastime with some native Amer­
icans to blame the foreign born in America for every­
thing, except possibly an earthuake, a solar eclipse,
drought and weather conditions. With the present
current of agitation, manifest among all the native
elements, except possibly among the native American
Indians, it is not difficult to discern in the records of
“investigations” the silent testimony of a tacit under­
standing, — we might put it bluntly in the following
language:
“Arrest the native born, particularly Catholics and
Jews, if you must; but arrest, by fair means or foul,
the foreign born on the slightest provocation and on
any pretext, under any and all circumstances.”
This does not mean that either of these law enforc­
ing agencies, as such, are corrupt or dishonest, or that
all of those connected with these agencies are crooked
and enemies of all the foreign born, but it means that
it is beyond the control of any law enforcing agency
to guaranty impartial application of the law on the
part of the men who are sometimes elected, but more
often appointed, to exercise the authority vested in
them under the law, where men live and labor, toil
and frolic.
To escape arrest and conviction it is quite obvious
that a man must either live according to the pro­
visions of the law or he must seek protection from
the law enforcement agency according to certain un­
written formulas. It is very frequently said of the
man who is taking what is called “the fool’s chance”
that he deserves his fate because he went into “busi­
ness” without knowing h'ow to “climb the ropes.”
Just to illustrate—for the benefit of the man who
is still honest and within the law, possibly justly
peeved and somewhat jealous because of a neighbor’s
seeming financial “success,” ease and comfort, in re­
turn for pursuing an illicit trade—the situation in a
specific locality, might help to make the case clear,
aside from its potentiality as a wholesome factor in
squaring the honest man with himself, vindicating