The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-12-15
Hardly a County in Country
Escapes the Taint.
Government Inspector Says 1t
Is in Every Shape.
Investigation Reveals a Rotten
State of Affairs.

Washington, Dee 9.-The full extent
of the naturalization frauds perpetrat
ed in the United States have been re-
vealed for the first time in an official
report made by c. V. c. Van Dusen, a
special examiner of the department OF
justice. They are colossal
Naturalization frauds, Mr.. Van Du-
sen says, "have grown and spread with
the growth and spread of the alien pop
ulation in the United States, until there
is scarcely city or county seat or town
i'll the United States and territories
where some form of these frauds has
not from time to time been committed.
Naturally the greatest number and
kind of frauds have been perpetrated
in the large cities, where the alien
population forms large majority. Thus
New York, Chicago, Brooklyn, Boston,
st. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans, Gin
cinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadel-
phia, Denver, Butte, Helena, Birming-
ham, Atlanta, Providence, San Francis
co, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Detroit and
other cities have contributed their quota
to the grand total, which staggers the
imagination, while such communities as
Pella, Iowa, and other small agricul-
tural and manufacturing towns have all
been inoculated at various times with
the virus of this all-prevalent crime
against the institutions and integrity of
the nation at large"
This is a terrible indictment which af-
fects not only all the people in general
but the 100000 OF naturalized citizens
who claim to be American because of
the papers they hold.
Mr.. Van Dusen has found that the
kind and character of naturalization
frauds are of every conceivable form.
They include false impersonation, per-
jury, the sale and use of false, bogus
altered and counterfeit certificates OF
intention and naturalization; the issue
of certificates of naturalization by
clerks of courts without authority OF
the court and without the appearance OF
the alien in court or before the clerk
the unlawful issue of certificates by
courts having no authority to issue
them and the issue of certificates of in
tention and of naturalization to aliens
not entitled to become citizens.
Mr.. Van Dusen says there is no pos
sible way in which the number of certi-
ficates of naturalization based upon
perjury and false presentations can be
estimated, but the number must rep
resent a large percentage of the total
number of certificates issued.
As an indication of the truth of this
statement he cites the fact that out of
1876 certificates issued from the st. Louis
court of appeals in three days-or rath-
er nights-of October, 1902, over four
hundred have been proved to have been
issued through fraud.
An investigation which has been il
progress in New York during the last
two years by the federal authorities
has developed several thousand cases. A
special investigation of $4,000 cases in
New Work of certificates recorded in
the register of electors of six assembly
districts, used at the election of 1902.
disclosed that nearly 10 per cent were
not of record in the courts from which
it was stated they had been issued, this
indicating the number of fraudulent GER
tificates in use in the New York cleo
tions in that year at $4,000