Imperial Valley Press

TIME TO FINGERPRINT
ALIENS, CITIZENS
(Oroville Mercury-Register)

The democracies have been muddling
along and just getting by for centuries.
but in the past decade a new order has
come up from nothing to challenge them
and very likely to annihilate two of the
largest of them. The remaining democ-
racies must become extremely efficient
in short order to meet the new challenge.
and that means us.

We have heard a number of sneers
directed at Britain and France for their
inefficiency, but it may as well be admit-
ted that they have done better than our-
selves, though of course their danger was
more imminent. We have been so idle
asleep to our duty and responsibilities.

One of the first steps we should take
is universal fingerprinting of all citizens
and aliens. It would be a great help in
countering fifth column activities. If we
haven't reached the point where we are
willing to fingerprint all, then we should
at once fingerprint all aliens.

We asked a British subject recently
how England would go about tracing
down the disloyal subjects in the British
Isles. The difficulty will not be so great
as one living in America might imagine.
he said, for the British have a world of
data to go on, touching lives of all their
people who have been moving about. Any-
one who enters a lodging house and
this has been true since shortly after the
world war—must not only register but
must state where he spent the previous
ight. How different in this country
where we have absolutely no check upon
the movements of anyone not already un-
der probation.

We have been toying with the finger
printing idea for many years and have
done nothing about it except fingerprint
those under arrest. That is good as far
as it goes, but it is like locking the barn
door too late.

A few who object to the proposal say
it is an attack on our liberties and could
be used by an evil government to control
the people improperly. That sounds a
lot like the arguments subversive ele-
ments in Britain have been using since
the Nazis came to life. If we don't be-
gin soon to check up on ourselves we
won't have any liberties left to guard.