REPORT

OF THE

COMMISSIONER OF NATURALIZATION.

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,

BUREAU OF NATURALIZATION,
Washington, July 1, 1913.

SIR: The administration of the naturalization law during the past fiscal year is a record of increasing harmony and unity of work among the three agencies to which it has been committed-the courts, the clerks of courts, and the Federal naturalization officers. It was not unnatural that, in the beginning, a provision of the law which conferred a supervisory power upon Federal officers over the records of courts, especially of State courts, should be viewed by the clerks with some jealousy as an innovation without precedent, nor that some of those clerks, ripe in years and experience, should have felt some opposition to the interference, even for helpful purposes, of young officers ignorant of the work of the clerks and not long embarked upon their own course. This feeling of resistance has gradually lessened, under actual experience of the usefulness to the clerks and the courts of the work of the naturalization officers and as a result of the personal association between them, as well as the embarrassments resulting from lack of aid from the latter to the former. Perhaps, too, the courts and court officers are beginning to distinguish their duties, under the general laws, as tribunals to settle disputes between contending parties, and their limited statutory authority to admit, upon informal and ex parte petition, duly qualified aliens to American citizenship. Then, too, they are beginning to perceive the necessity to a uniform operation of the law, or rule of naturalization, of a Federal supervisory office clothed with authority sufficient to insure such uniformity. These various causes are contributing to produce the satisfactory conditions stated in the opening sentence of this report, as characterizing in steadily increasing measure from year to year the administration of the law.

For the purpose of condensation and to reduce the length of this report the results of the work accomplished during the year under consideration have been, as far as practicable, summarized in the form of tables, with appropriate titles, and such comments have been added as seem necessary to make them apprehensible.

Before considering in detail the various branches of the naturalization work, it seems best to present tables showing the total number of naturalization papers prepared by the courts and sent to this bureau during the year; these comprise copies of declarations and petitions filed and certificates of citizenship issued, and represent the results in general of the combined labors of these several branchesadministrative and judicial.

B.-PETITIONS FOR NATURALIZATION FILED-Continued.

C.-CERTIFICATES OF NATURALIZATION ISSUED.