What I Saw In America

One of the questions on the paper was 'Are you an anarchist:?' To which a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, 'What the devil has that to do with you?' Are you an atheist?' along with some playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitues an apnx{Greek: arche } Then there was the question, ' Are you in favour of subverting the government of the United States by force?' Against this i should write, 'I perfer to answer that question at the end of my tour and not the beginning.' The inquisitor in his more than morbit curiosity, had then written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to this is. 'Not such a fool.' according to our experience of the other sex. But perhaps a better answer would be that given to W.T Stead when he circulated the rhetorical question, 'Shall I slay my brother boer?' _the answer that ran, 'Never interfere in family matter.' But among many things that amused me almost to the point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip into America with officials papers under official protection, and sitting down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you all ans wish to destroy you.' Or, 'I intend to subvert by force the government of the United States as soom as possible, sticking the long sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into Mr. Harding at the earliest opportunit.' Or again. 'Yes I am a polygamist all the right, and my forty -seven wives are accompany me on the voyage disguised as secretaries.' There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these answer; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and they are certain to tell no lies.  Now that is a model of the sort of foreign practice, founded on foreign problems, at which a man's first impluse is naturally to laugh. Nor have I any intention of apologisting for my laughter. A man is perfectly entitled to laugh at it as incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he comprehended it. The very fact of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking about the deeper causes that very fact of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking about the deeper causes that make people so different from himself, and that without merely assuming that they must be inferior to himself.

My interpretation of the quote is that for someone who is foreign to this country and has to apply for  a passport  application will be wondering how does the question pertain to that individual. It presumes that the clerk wants to know your country background and your beliefs. By making general questions on the application one can know if your  Anarchist,  which  participant in anarchism. While a polygamist believes in many wives and atheist doesn't believe in any form of religion or goverment structure. Therefore the government of the U.S has the right to deny you of official documents.

I've chosen this quote because in today's society people are denied passport access due to a number of red flags while applying based on the answers to the questions.