Evening star., 1946-09-15
By Sidney Post Simpson

tape ana Qelay. But the farther We get
from this part of the North American
continent, the harder it is to travel
either from or into the United States
II you want to take a trip south of
the Rio Grande and see something of
the other American republics, you must
first get United States passport In
the language of official travel guides,
this resembles "a small green-covered
notebook the first three pages
containing a photograph and descrip-
ton of the bearer. The remainder of
the pages left blank for visas"
And there are enough of these blank
pages to make up good scrapbook.
The passport takes some time-and some
trouble to obtain and costs $40. But
it is after you have got it that the
trouble really begins with vengeance.
First, you have to apply for the proper
forms on which to request visa from
the consulate of each country you want
to visit. Sometimes you're required to
appear in person, and getting to a con-
sulate is not always an easy trick if
you're starting from the Midwest or
South, or from small town. Then
you fill out these forms-lots and lots
of forms, different ones for every
country.
Depending on the country you're going
to visit, it may also be necessary for the
consul to cable (at your expense) his
Department of Foreign Affairs for au-
thority to issue your visa. Again-it
may take weeks. Nobody knows exactly
why that's done. 1t just is. After that,
you may have to pay visa fee: $3.50
for Bolivia; for Chile, $3.50 if you're
on business, $1.70 if you're tourist;
$3.50 for Uruguay, etc. How these par
ticular sums were arrived at is any
body's guess, but no two of them are
alike.
Numerous Photos Needed.
When you are getting vlsas, you have
to supply photographs. Visas for a
business trip to all parts of South and
Central America, for instance, require
10 photographs, and 13 of these-no
more, no less-have to be taken in pro-
file for our friends in Venezuela. The
number required for a pleasure trip is
not quite so large, but you had still
better put in stock of fullfaces and
profileS before you start your rounds.
After you have filed your application
and your photographs and have got
your visas, you still haven't complied
with the necessary red tape. Twenty
two of the countries in the Western
Hemisphere require that you have a
health certificate; 20 require smallpox
or vaccination certificate in addition,
and 10. a police certifiacte of good
conduct.
OF course, any one could manage to
get health and vaccination certificates,
and in most cases no check is ever made
as to whether they have been given by
a doctor. Any one without criminal
record can get q police certificate,
frequently from a bewildered chief of
police who never heard of such thing.
ANY one with serious police record
wouldn't get a passport, anyway.
Leaving Also Involved.
But your troubles are not over after
you have actually got into the countries
you wish to visit. There are still all
sorts of red tape about getting out AS
one American businessman recently
wrote me:
90 on leaving (most Latin Amer
ic rAHy tn
permiso de salir,' or exit permit
which means that one has to make the
rounds of set of government Offices
where the documents may lie anywhere
from one to seven days. Therefore a
14-day visit to Brazil, for example, en-
tails at least four days of visits to gov
ernment Offices in Brazil. One might
therefore ask of what use are air trans
port facilities when so much time is
spent in complying with red tape"
One may well ask, indeed. Unless
things are changed, with postwar air
travel it will take twice as long to get
out of Brazil as it will to fly from Rio
de Janeiro to New York. But we must
remember that here again we norte-
americanos live in a glass house, too.
For one of our good neighbors to leave
the United States to go home, he must
have Treasury sailing permit, form
1040-D-it sounds like the income tax,
and 1t is-and either an aliens certifi-
cate of nonresidence. form 303, or a
selective service permit, form 351.
These requirements, which are worse
in Europe and Asia, are very expensive
nuisances. But they are much more
than that. They are positive barriers
to world trade, world understanding and
world peace. The sooner the worst of
them are gone, the sooner we can begin
to work with real effectiveness for one
peaceful and prosperous world.
Some regulations will no doubt be
necessary for long time to come and
adj nations are not equally interested
in abolishing them at this time. In
Europe, particularly, there are some who
prefer to maintain the artificial pro-
lection which passport restrictions
afford. But if we in the United States
have serious desire to foster inter-
national travel, trade and understand
ing it is imperative that we show our
TI~IT1~ Dahl