HIGH COST OF CITIZENSHIP
Barnes, Harry Elmer
High Cost of Citizenship By HARRY ELMER BARNES It is more Important to register an alien than to make him a citizen of the United States? The action of the United States government would make It...
...There would seem to be little rhyme or rea...
...Then a man taking out citizenship papers must be accompanied by two witnesses who will rwear that they have known the person In question for five years...
...Many feel that they must consult an attorney for advice...
...The action of the United States government would make It appear so...
...That this increased cost of becoming a citizen has markedly reduced the number of those applying for citizenship papers rinre July 1929...
...The charge • for second papers was increased from $4 to $10, The actual cost of taking out papers and becoming a citizen may easily run to $50...
...They already have to face the greatest difficulties in getting adjusted to American life and institutions...
...At the same time we have recently put into operation a ruling which greatly increases the cost of taking out citizenship papers...
...Statistics show a decided falling off in applications in the closing six months of the year 1929, as compared with the last six months of 1928...
...Why extol the virtues of American citizenship and then place a financial wall bet-ween the alien and naturalization...
...The man applying for papers feels that he should remunerate his witnesses for the time they have 'ost from their working day...
...the cost of first papers for prospective citizen...
...Forty or fifty dollars may mean little to the middle and upper classes, but to the hard-preyed alien It may mean serious temporary privation...
...on to any such procedure...
...Congress is now seriously dlscusHng a bill to compel the resistra'inn of all aliens within our borders...
...is definitely proved by Harold Fields, executive director of the League for American Citizenship, in article in the New York Times...
...On July 1, 1929...
...Why add this additional tax on trie lowest income group in the country...
...Bounties to aliens who will become citizens may well be frowned upon, but a financial penalty Is even more Indefensible...
...We are slashing our tax rate to the rich and returning hundreds of millions in tax refunds...
...was increased from SI to 85...
Vol. 1 • July 1930 • No. 32
