The Pittsburgh Press (August 26, 1940)
Enrollment Offices for Campaign Will Open Here Tomorrow
It will be “women and children first” when alien registration offices open in the Pittsburgh District tomorrow morning.
At least, that’s the hope of postal officials who are seeking to map a schedule which will prevent any jam in the process of enrolling and fingerprinting an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 aliens here before next Christmas.
Registration Supervisor Reed Fowler announced:
So that aliens who have jobs will not have to lose any time in registering, we should like to have women and children report during the earlier hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
In this manner, we would be able to devote the remaining hours of 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. strictly to the registering of employed aliens.
However, Mr. Fowler said, should job-holding aliens find it “absolutely impossible” to enroll at any time during the daily 10-hour period, they should notify the nearest post office and arrange to have a convenient time set for them.
If necessary, we’ll send a registrar to their homes.
Mr. Fowler, who is assistant superintendent of mails in the Pittsburgh District, is supervising the alien registration here, although Postmaster S. A. Bodkin is in official charge.
Registration and fingerprinting of all aliens 14 and over before Dec. 26 is required by the Alien Registration Act. Aliens under 14 must be registered by a parent or legal guardian.
Those who fail to do so will be subject to a fine of $1,000 or six months in jail, or both.
The registration process will require about 30 minutes. To speed up the process, aliens have been asked to go to the nearest post office today and obtain a preliminary blank, which they must fill out before reporting personally to be enrolled.
No “proxies” will be permitted to register for any alien 14 or over, officials said. Those unable to speak English should be accompanied by an interpreter.