Imperial Valley press., 1921-10-15
ROAST
Of VEHICLE
ORDER At
BORDER
Senseless Restrictions I'M
posed by Old Rules Still
Annoy and Harass Calex-
leo Business Men Crossing
Line

The load of grief imposed on the
CaleXico merchants and business men
by the onerous restrictions regulating
vehicle traffic placed on them by the
border customs collectors continue to
annoy and harass them, and without
any apparent headway in securing the
withdrawal of the new orders.
The matter has apparently gotten
on the nerves of the border line re-
porter for the Calexico Chronicle also.
for yesterday he dipped his pen in
vitriol, heated to boiling point over a
birthstone fire, and grabbed a sheet of
asbestos paper ratified off the follow
ing, anent the situation:
There was no change this morning
in the border regulations and the good
100 per cent American citizen was in
the same class as an alien enemy in
war times or crook under suspicion
of smuggling or being an automobile
thief. That's exactly what it amounts
to.
Here's another angle of it: When
a man goes over if he isn't recorded
in the foolish book, he may not be
able to get back without going to the
American consul and invoking his Off
cial aid to return to his own country
with his own automobile.
Under the orders under which the
customs officials here are operating
it appears that this good, loyal, law
abiding American citizen, who may
have been through the Argonne or
left leg at the Marine or have bought
Liberty bonds when the nations neeC
demanded. or have toiled for the Red
Cross, is in the same category as the
smuggler and auto thief and cannot
get back to his own country without
unwinding bolt of official red tape.
The registration book is outside the
office, but that is only matter Of
courtesy on the part of the local Off
cials. They could keep the book in
side and make the people walk in after
it going and coming.
To man up a tree-that is putting
it one way-it looks very much as if
some swivel chair bureaucrat with
about as little knowledge of real con-
ditions as it is possible to crowd into
"a mans head, is trying to make cross
ing the border 80 burdensome that no.
body will try to cross at the port.
This will be fine. 1t will stop them
crossing at the port, but they can
cross along with the dope and hootch
runners and automobile thieves and
petty larcency crowd some place along
the thirty-mile unprotected zone. The
swivel chair man isn't wise to this
course, for his eye can only focus
Heffernan avenue and if he can sue
cessfully block traffic there he'll be
satisfied
More than $12,OOO,OOO worth of ag-
ricultural products came in across this
border two years ago-products that
were largely the result of good Amer
lean citizens while at the other ports
Los Angeles and San Diego included
imported little over $3,000,000. This
i is big productive industry that is be-
! ing hampered and threatened with de-
struction by the absurd, unnecessary
and altogether useless regulation tha.
has been put in force.
The statement was made this morn
ing that nobody objects to having
strangers or tourists register. No,
body here is interested to great de.
gree in that feature of the case, but
they are interested in the business af
fairs of the border.