Another means of obviating danger from our growing immigration is the enactment of legislation to prevent the degrading of the electorate through the unlawful naturalization of aliens. Undoubtedly such naturalization is now often granted upon very insufficient evidence of the statutory period of residence, a looseness in the practice of the courts which is fostered by the heat and zeal of partisanship in political contests. It rests with Congress to prevent such abuses, and the consequent distrust in the popular mind of the purity of elections, by establishing additional requirements to be complied with by aliens seeking the privilege of citizenship. Within the past year the Bureau has established at the various ports of entry a card-index system, by reference to which the date of the arrival and personal identity can be readily verified. To require every alien applicant for naturalization to produce a certified copy of such record, attested by the signature and seal of the custodian thereof, would substitute for the oral testimony of professional witnesses written evidence of an entirely reliable character. In addition to the new legislation recommended, I have to suggest that Congress be urged to strike out from section 1 of the act approved March 3, 1903, the words which exempt transportation companies from the payment of the head tax for aliens brought by them, respectively, who profess to be merely transits to foreign territory. It is believed that that provision was retained in the act through a clerical error, and its elimination is recommended because of the embarrassments, both to the transportation lines and to the Bureau, in its enforcement. The amount saved to the passenger carriers is too trivial to justify the labor and delay involved in ascertaining who are actually transits, and under the law not properly subject to the head tax, and who are merely professing to be such. The new law referred to above has not been in operation long enough to enable the Bureau to point out specific defects other than that one just cited; but it was so carefully drawn and so aptly embodies the results of the Bureau’s experience in the ten years of the latter’s existence, that the best results are anticipated.