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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Americanization Studies

SCHOOUNO OF THE iMBaGRANT.

Fr^mk V. Thompson, Supt. of Public Schools, Boston

America via the Neiohbobhood.
John Daniels

Old WoBiiD Tbaits Tbanbplantbd.

Robert £. Park, Professorial Lecturer, University of Chicago
Herbert A. Miller, Professor of Sociology, Oberlin College

A Stake in the Land.

Peter A. Speek, in charge, Slavic Section, Library of Congress

Immiobant Health and the CcofMUNiTT.

Michael M. Davis, Jr., Director, Boston Dispensary

New Homes fob Old.

Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, Professor of Social Economy, Uni^
versity of Chicago

The IioaoBANT Pbess and Its Contbol.

Robert £. Park, Professorial Lecturer, University of Chicago

Adjusting Lmmiobant and Indxtstbt. (In preparation)

William M. Leiserson, Chairman, Labor Adjustment Boards,
Rochester and New York s

Amebicans bt Choice.

John P. Gavit, Vice-President, New York Evening Post

The Immiobant's Day in Coubt. (In press)

Kate HoUaday Claghom, Instructor in Social Research, New
York School of Social Woric

7SuMMABT. (In preparation)
Allen T. Bums, Director, Studies in Methods of Americanization

Harper & Brothers Pvhlishers

"TrfT'd J ■ ■ ^ - f. ji < *

AMERICANIZATION STUDIES

ALLEN T. BURNa DIBECTOR

AMERICANS
BY CHOICE

, ■>.

JOHN PALMER GAVIT

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBUSHERS

NEW TOBK AND LONDON

1922

^ ^ ^ • ^

; , • • •

>.' . --«•••

• • • • . '

^ ^ /y^E

Americans By Choice

By Harper & Brothers

Printed in the U. S. A.

First Edition

Or-W

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The material in this volume was gathered by the
Division of Health Standards and Care of Studies
in Methods of Americanization.

Americanization in this study has been consid-
ered as the union of native and foreign bom in all
the most fundamental relationships and activities
of our national life. For Americanization is the
uniting of new with native-bom Americans in fuller
common imderstanding and appreciation to secure
by means of self-government the highest welfare
of all. Such Americanization should perpetuate
no unchangeable political, domestic, and economic
regime delivered once for all to the fathers, but a
growing and broadening national life, inclusive of
the best wherever found. With all our rich heri-
tages, Americanism will develop best through a
mutual giving and taking of contributions from
both newer and older Americans in the interest of
the commonweal. This study has followed such
an understanding of Americanization.

497929

FOREWORD

This volume is the result of studies in methods
^ of Americanization prepared through funds fur-
nished by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
^ It arose out of the fact that constant applications
were being made to the Corporation for contribu-
tions to the work of numerous agencies engaged
in various forms of social activity intended to
extend among the people of the United States
the knowledge of their government and their obli-
gations to it. The trustees felt that a study which
^ should set forth» not theories of social betterment^
but a description of the methods of the various
agencies ^igaged in such work» would be of dis-
tinct value to the cause itself and to the public.

The outcome of the study is contained in eleven
volumes on the following subjects: Schooling of
the Immigrant; The Press; Adjustment of Homes
and Family Life; Legal Protection and Correction;
' Health Standards and Care; Naturalization and
Political Life; Industrial and Economic Amal-
gamation; Treatment of Immigrant Heritages;
I Neighborhood Agencies and Organization; Rural
* Developments; and Summary. The entire study
has been carried out under the general direction of

' Mr. Allen T. Bums. Each volume appears in the

\ vu

FOREWORD

name of the author who had immediate charge of
the particular field it is intended to cover.

Upon the invitation of the Carnegie Corpora-
tion a committee consisting of the late Theodore
Roosevelt, Prof. John Graham Brooks, Dr. John
M. Glenn, and Mr. John A. VoU has acted in an
advisory capacity to the director. An editorial
committee consisting of Dr. Talcott Williams, Dr.
Raymond B. Fosdick, and Dr. Edwin F. Gay has
read and criticized the manuscripts. To both of
these conunittees the trustees of the Carnegie Cor-
poration' are much indebted.

The purpose of the report is to give as clear a
notion as possible of the methods of the agencies
actually at work in this field and not to propose
theories for dealing with the complicated questions
involved.

•••

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher's Note v

Foreword vii

Table of Contents ix

last of Tables rvi

list of Diagrams zzi

Introduction zziii

I. Op Theib Own Fbbb Wmt 1

These Are Our Voters^! «

Primitive Attitudes Toward Immigrants 3

t^Legal Position of the Alien 5

What Is an^ "American"? 7

The American Has No Racial Marks 10

Not Racial, but Cultural 1«

Essentials of "Americanism" 14

n. NbW MEliBEBS AND AN OlD GaMB 17

Factors in Immigration 18

Politics Welcomes the Irish 21

They Always Have Been Democrats 21

Early Germans Became Republicans 24

Effects of the Gold Craze 25

Vast Naturalization Frauds 25

First Choice in Politics «0

The Politician Close to Humanity 33

Political Aspects of Social Clubs 35

Politics a Great Americanizing Force 87

CONTENTS

FAOa

IIL CmzENBHip: Undkb This Flag and Othsbs 40

Boots of Political Society 42

Influence of Emigration to America 43

%^e Right to Emigrate 44

The Subject tv. the Active Member 45
Essentiab of Citizenship: Ancient — and Amer-

V^ican 46

TBases of American Citizenship 49

CoDunon-law Definition Taken for Granted 50

Concerning Americans Bom Abroad 51

Children Bom at Sea 52

Question of Dual Nationality 6S

Countries Denying the Right of Expatriation 54

Conditional Recognition $5

Naturalization Treaties with the United States $5

Great Britain 56

Germany 57

Citizenship Takes No Account of Sex 62

"A Woman Without a Country" 63

The American Under Three Jurisdictions 64

IV. Dkvblopment of thb NatuhaiiDsation Law 69

Our " Charter Members " 69

First Naturalization Laws 70

EfforU Toward Uniformity 78

"^ Bars Up Against Alien Anarchists 77

Various Presidents Discussed Naturalization 77

Definite Reform at Last 80

Naturalization Commission Aj^xunted 80

^ What the Law Requires 83

V. Thb Law in Qfbration 89

Restrictions of Race 98

Limitations Regarding Age 95

The Declaration of Intentioa 96

''Declaration Invalid " 98

Should Declaration Be Abdished? 102

Naturalization Judges Fkyor Its Retention 105

CONTENTS

^Hie Seven-year Limitation 107

The Certificate^ Lawful Entry 109

The Vexatious Question of Names 112

^-^ The Petition for Naturalisation 115

Ninety Days' Literval Before H^wng 119

The l^nal Hearing in Court 119

Must ''Speak" the English Language 120

Attached to the Constitution 128

Li the Matter of "Continuous Besidence" 124
The Absurdity of the ''Incompetent Witnan** 126

Judges Denounce the Absurdity 129

Depositions of Witnesses 183

"Good Moral Character" 185

The Final Ceremony--Oath of AI1#>giVnrft 187

Ceremonies of Liitiation 188

VL Personal Equation in Naturalization 148

A Function of Local Courts 145

"Personal Equation" of the Judges 147

Bird's-eye View of the Questibnnaire 154

General Trend <^ Judges' Opinions 158

The Clerks c^ the Courts 161

The Question of Adequate Clerical Force 168
When the Clerk Pockets the Fees ^, 164

Forms of Petty Graft 165
"Personal Equation'' in the Naturalization

Service 167

A Scrupulously Honest Service 169

Need of Unifying Lifluence 170

"Nothing to Litigate ! " 171

Gnifused State of the Educational Test 178
The Craze for "Americanizing" Somebody

Else 177

Extra Responsibilities Self-sought 180

j^ormous Arrearage in Bureau's Work 186

^^The Aliens Support the Bureau 189

Fitness of Candidates 198

"Personal Equation" of the Public 195

CONTENTS

Vn. SoMB Statistics Cco^cebnino LiaaaBANTs,

"New'* and "Old" 197

Paucity of Dependable Information 199

Vast Arrearages in Examinations StiH

Beport of Immigration Commission of 1907 204

Legend of ''The New Immigration" 204

Disparity in Numbers Among Racial (croups 206

The Factor of Length of Besidence 208

The Factor of Language 214

Length of Residence and Earning Power 215

Voting on "First Papers" 217

What Becomes of the Dedarations? 218

VUL Later Statistics — In Which Sobib Twsntt-
SDC Thoxtsand PBnnoNSBS Sfeak fob

Themselves. 225

More Than a Fifth of All Petitioners 226

From Twenty-dg^t Representative Courts 226

In a Reasonably Normal Year 227

The Racial Groups Are Typical 228

Rdative '*Civic and Political Intoest'* 231

How Did These Petiti<Hiers Fare? 281

As Regards **Iinmoral Chaiacter** 284

The Showing as to *'IgUHniiice" 235

Time-intorvals in Naturalizatioo 236

How Do the Racial Groiqs Conqme? 238

niey Are Young Pe<^ 241

Rdative Age and ** Political Interest'* 242

Hie Real Racial Distinction 243

Race and Rdative Age at Arrival 244

At the Beginning of Married Life 247

As for *'StalMlity d Resickiice'' 247

Intdlectual Eququnoit and Occuqpatioii 250

Geneial CondusioDS 252

IX. CrazENBHiP VIA Mttjtart Sebvicb 255

Poatkn of the Alien Soldier 256

RevofaitioDaiy Legislative Action 258

Citiaens at Heart, but ^Ewany Alios'' 260

An Salegoaids Abandoned 263

CONTENTS

CSAPTBB PACOi

All Race Bestriciions Bemoved S65

Ordinary Naturalization Disputed S65

/Statistics of Alien Registration 267

\Jdi€3ia and Military Service 269

Foreign Bom Eager to Serve 272

Austrians Who Were Not for Austria 274

There Was Human War-time Psychology 275

Diplomatic Bequests for Exemption 276
Bedprocal Conscription Among Cobelligerents 278

Of Grerman Descent, but Loyal Americans 278

^'^/esertion, Am<»ig Aliens and Citizens 279

War's Test of " the Melting-pot " 281
An Old Practice with a New Significance . 282

What Some Judges Thou^t of It 283

Here Was "Attachment to Our Principles"! 285

Assimilating the Enemies <^ Tyranny 287

Episodes of Military Naturalization 288

/those Who'Went Without Citizenship 292

A Great Composite Beoord of Loyalty 294

X. The Fobeion-bobn Woman, Heb Home and

Heb Childsen» in American Pouncs 296

Begardless of Qualifications 298

t/Unmarried Women Have Male Bights 298

Dangers of '* Derivative Citizenship" 299

vCnildren of Aliens Here American Bom 801

"Derivative Citizenship" Ahnost Equals the

Direct 802

Woman Suffrage Was Widespread 803

Applicants Came as Young Married Men 804

The Mother Must Be "Americanized " 805

Must Learn Politics by Political Activity 807

Few Women Seek Naturalization 809

Some Courts Notice the Wives 811

Obstacles of Distance and Expense 812

Woman Suffrage Opens a New Era 814

Opinions of Naturalizing Judges 815

650,000 "Derivative Voters" Extant 817

Largely an Ignorant Vote 818

xui

CONTENTS

OHAPm PACnB

Political Indifference Not Peculiar to Fordgn

Bom S^
Many Were Called, but Few Responded 821
Foragn-bom Women Without Political Experi-
ence 823
They Are Good Material 824
How the. Women Can Be Reached 827
A Specific Example— It Works 880
What the Children Did 888

XL The Fobexgn-bobn Voteb in Action 835

Divided by Racial Traditions 838

«^iens Not Without Political Influence 839

There is no "Foreign Vote" 840

Old Evils Abolished 841

Corruption Was Not an Importation 843

Home-grown in Adams County, Ohio! 844

Who Is the Buyer of Votes? 845

Attempts to Find the "Foreign Vote" 847

Response to Progressive Ideas 854

Some Results from Cleveland 857

"Civic Interest" in Grand Rapids 865

Municipal Voters' League of Chicago 86d

Some Other Instances 873

.Xn.^THB FoBEiaN BOBN IN RADICAL MoYEMElNTS 877

The Socialist Press 880

Dues-paying Socialist Members 881

Racial Groups of Socialists 8^3

The Socialist Vote 885

Grerman Influence in Socialism 887

Jews in Socialism 890

Effect of the War on Socialism 891

The Single-tax and Agrarian Movements 893

The Nonpartisan League 897

Ultraradical Movements Nonpolitical 401

The "L W. W." and the Homeless Worker 403

adv

CONTENTS

Xm. Some General CoNsiDERATiOKa ' 410

No Lowering of Standards 416

A Function Administrative or Judicial? 420

Physical Conditions and Dignity 422

Function of the Naturalization Bureau 425

Appendix 429

Index 485

LIST OF TABLES

TABLH PACn

1. Lnmigration from Ireland and Crermany Each Year»

1820-1840 ^%

2. Aliens Naturalized 1856-1867 in two Courts in New

York City 26

S. Applicants for Naturalization in Supreme Court, New

York City in October, 1868 28

4. Number of Replies from Judges in Each District 149

5. Appropriation for the Naturalization Service for each

fiscal year, 190&-1919 185

6. Recdpts from Naturalization fees and disbursements,

1907-1920 190

7. Number of Declarations of Intention and Petitions

for Naturalization issued, 1907-1920 201

8. Per Cent that fully Naturalized Male Employees are

of Total Male Employees who were twenty-one
years of age and over at Time of Coming and who
have been in the United States ten years or over,
compared with the per cent that Male Employees
in the United States ten years or over are of those
here five years and over, by race 207

9. Per Cent of Foreign Bom Male Employees Reporting

Citiz^iship who have been in the United States
each specified period of years, by race 209

10. Present Political Condition of Foreign Bom Male
Employees who have been in the United States five
years or over and who were twenty-one years of age
at time of coming, by race 211

xvi

LIST OF TABLES

TABUB FACn

11. Average weekly earnings of male employees, by race

and specified industries 216

12. Per Cent of Foreign Bom of Voting Age having First

Papers and also per cent in states Permitting
Aliens to Vote on first papers, compared with cer-
tain states not Permitting Aliens to Vote on first
papers for 1900 and 1910 218

18. Number of Declarations filed each year 1908-1912
with Average Number and Ratio of Petitions con-
summating in five-year period ending eadi year 220

14. Yearly Number of Declarations Filed 1908-1912 and

Number of final Petitions for Naturalization As-
sumed to have been based upon those Declara-
tions 221

15. Ratio of Declarations of Intention to Petition for

Naturalization by States 223

16. Comparison by Races of (1) Naturalization Peti-

tioners Studied, (2) Unnaturalized Males twenty-
one years of age or over in nine cities and in the
country as a whole, in 1910 229

17. Compariscm of Causes of Denial for the years 1908-

1918 and 1913-1914 232

18. Racial Distribution of Petitioners Denied 1913-1914,

and the Per Cent Deniab for six Principal Causes 233

19. Per Cent of Deniab due to "Immoral Character," by

Race 235

20. Per Cent of Denials due to "Ignorance," by Race 236

21. Average Time Elapsing between Arrival and Declara-

tion of Intention; between Declaration and Peti-
tion and between Petition and Naturalization 237

22. Average Interval before filing Petition after Attain-

ment of twenty-one years, for those arriving at
ages, 1-14, by Race 239

xvii

LIST OF TABLES

TABUB PAG>

28. Average Interval before filing Petition after Arrival

at Ages 16-20, by Race 240

24. Average Interval before filing Petition after Arrival

at Ages twenty-one or over, by Race 241

25. Number and Per cent of Petitioners for three age

groups 242

26. Racial Distribution of Petitioners for the age periods

" over twenty-one " " 15-20 " and " 1-14 " 246

27. Number of Declarations made in '^ Other" States 249

28. Principal Occupations Represented in Petitions for

Naturalizations filed in seven Cities 1913-1914,
ratio between Number of Petitioners and total of
Foreign Bom White Males in those Occupations in
those Cities in 1910 251

29. Number and Per Cent of Petitioners in Each Occupa-

tion 252

SO. Allegiance of Aliens Registered under the Selective

Service Act 268

81. Fitness for Service of Alien R^istrants 269

32. Neutrals withdrawing from the Service 273

83. Diplomatic Requests for Discharge of and Total

R^istration of Aliens by Coimtry of Birth 277

34. Comparison of Reported Desertions of Alien and

Qtiz^ R^istrants 281

35. Years in which fun and partial Suffrage was Granted

to Women, by States 303

36. MitTimnTn EnroUinent in Citiienship and English

dasses, in United SUtes in 1919 322

37. P« Cent of New Ycrfc City Vote Cast for McCall in

1913, Dix m 1910 by Voters of Native Parentage 350

•••

XVUl

LIST OF TABLES

TABLB PAOB

88. Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast iat McCaU in

1918, Dix in 1910 by Russians and Austrians 850

89. Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for MeCall

in 1918, Dix in 1910 by the Irish 851

40. Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for McCall in

1918, Dix in 1910 by Germans SS^

41. Per Cent of New York City Vote Cast for MeCall in

1918, Dix in 1910 by Italians 95^

4«. Per Cent of Socialist Vote in New York City in 1910

and 1918 by Nationality SSS

48. Distribution of Dominant Nationality in ninety-two

precincts in Cleveland 858

44. Distribution of Democratic and Republican Votes in

Cleveland in 1918-1915 among Certain Racial
Groups 861

45. Per Cent of Certain Races Exercising Second and

Third Choice 86«

40. Vote Cast in precincts of Varying Racial Make-up in

Three Wards of Grand Rapids, 1918, 1919 866

47. Per Cent of Women Registered in thirteen Michigan

cities 868

48. Number of Socialists paying dues eadi year from

1908 to 1915 882

49. Ranks of Race Groups in Relative Socialist Strength 884

50. Socialist Vote for President from 1880 to 1898 885

51. The Socialist Vote for President by States from 1900

to 19^ 886

52. Per Cent Circulation of the German Press in nine

states 888

LIST OP TABLES

TABLB PAOB

5S, Socialist Vote f<« Fresideiit in nine states from 1900

to 1916 889

54. Membership of the Nonpartisan League by states

in December, 1918 898

55. Distribution of Petitions Studied, by Courts 429

56. Sex and Marital Condition of Petitioners 480

57. Petitioners' Children Under twenty-one years of age 481

58. Age of Petitioners at Arrival and Time Elapsing

between twenty-one years of age (or later arrival)
and Petition, 1918-1914 482

59. Number and Per Cent of Petitions Denied for eadi

Cause, by Courts Facing 482

60. Number of Petitions Denied for each Cause, by

Coimtry of Birth Facing 482

61. Distribution of Petitioners, by Country of Birth and

Courts Facing 482

62. Distribution of Petitioners, Length of Time from

Arrival to Petition, by Country of Birth Facing 482

69. Distribution of Petitions, by Occupation and Courts 438

64. Average Number of Years from Date of Arrival to

Date of Petition, by Occupation 434

65. Number of Petitioners, by Country of Birth and

Occupation Facing 484

66. Ratio between Naturalization Petitions filed in 1918-

1914 and Total Foreign Bom White Males ten
years of age and over in 1910, by Occupation for
seven cities Facing 484

LIST OF DIAGRAMS

DIAORAM PAOa

1. Average interval before filing petition after at-

tidnment of twenty-one years (or time of
arrival, if arriving after twenty-one years)
for petitioners arriving at ages of one' to
fourteen, fifteen to twenty, and twenty-one
years and over ^2

2. Average interval before filing petition after ar-

rival at age twenty-one or over by races.
The bars which are in black represent
countries from which the subject people
constituted almost entirdy the immigration
to this country 245

INTRODUCTION

It would require a very long list of names to give specific
mention of all those who have rendered substantial aid
in gathering the information on which this volume is
based. The Commissioner of Naturalization, Mr.
Bichard K. Campbell; the former Director of Citizen-
sliipy Mr. Raymond F. Crist» and the chief examiners
under their direction, have done all in their power
to affoid information and other assistance. Several
himdred judges of naturalization courts in all parts
of the country, took pains to answer our questionnaire
and personal letters on special questions. Students of
immigration and naturalization problems have been
ungrudging in their co-operation.

The tedious and painstaking work of compiling the
information contained in more than £6,000 petitions
for naturaSzation, analyzed in the statistical chapters
of this book, was done more especially under the direc-
tion of Professor Raymond Moley, then at Western
Reserve Unirersity, Cleveland; Homell Hart, of Cincin-
nati; Professor S. C. Kohs, of Reed College, for Port-
land, Oregon; Professor T. T. Waterman, of the
University of the state of Washington, for Seattle, and
Professor L. H, Hawkins, of Clark University, for Wor-
cester, Mass. Aside from the service of these volunteer
assistants, thanks are due in more than perfunctory
manner to the members of the staff of the Americaniza*
tion Study who devoted long hours to this exacting task.

•••
XXUl

INTRODUCTION

Professor Moley compfled most of the material used
in the chapter on the legal aspects of citizenship, and
afforded information of the utmost value woven into
other parts of this volume.

The thanks of the author are due in particular to his
personal associates in the work, Mr. Paul Lee Ellerbe,
formerly Chief Naturalization Examiner at Denver,
and Miss Elizabeth Miner King, then of the staff of
the New York Evening Post, now Mrs. Harold Phelps
Stokes, of Washington, D. C.

John Palmer Gavit

xnv

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

» «

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL

From the point of view of citizenship there are two
kinds of Americans — ^those who are American in-
volmitarily by birth, and those who are American by
choke.

This book devotes itself to those who have become
Americans not by birth, but of their own free will and
accord, by that process of voluntarily adopting a father-
land known as Naturalization. It endeavors to tell
generally what happens to them in that process, and
something of what they do and contribute to our
jHjlitical life after they have been admitted to active
membership in our body politic.

The subject is one much talked about — especially
since the beginning of the World War — ^and little under-
stood save by those who administer, or who in some
way profit by, the operation, the shortcomings, and
confusions of the existing law and the system which has
grown up under it. That system is handicapped and
beclouded by public indifference and by the survival
of ancient attitudes and limitations, and bedeViled by
the theories and prejudices of persons and interests who,
innocently or willfully — often with impeccable inten-
tions — stand in the way of progress or adhere for various

J ' • • , ,

_ : >:;A|^ilXGAN^ BY CHOICE

reasons to ideas and methods long since outgrown, or
in the light of to-day actively mischievous.

THESE ARE OUB VOTERS !

It is a current fashion of unthinking persons, con-
templating the seething masses of inmiigrants congested
in our cities and in certain rural sections, beholding the
polyglot store signs and newspapers, sensing the exist-
ence of languages, manners, and customs unfamiliar
and perhaps grotesque and even outrageous to their
own habits and ideas of propriety, and reflecting vaguely
upon the real and supposed evils of our political
methods and machinery, to exclaim:

"And these are the people who corrupt our politics!
These are the voters who elect our presidents!"

Many who should know better indulge in such
absurdities, and even cite statistics to support them.
A characteristic manner of reasoning would read some-
thing like this:

"In 1910 there were 13,000,000 foreign-bom persons
in the United States, and only a little more than
3,000,000 of them were naturalized!"

Leaving the unreflecting hearer to forget that of the
13,000,000 only about half (6,646,817) were males of
twenty-one years and over; that more than half a
million (570,77£) had declared their intention to
become citizens; that there was no report^as to the
citizenship of more than 775,000; so that the aliei;!
population of voting age, and of the then voting sex,
known to be unnaturalized, was only about one-sixth
of the total foreign bom, or 2,266,535. This was bad
enough in all conscience, and the Woman-Suffrage
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
certainly has i^gravated it, since through it mar-
ried immigrant women were made possible voters

OF THEIR OWN FREE WELL

through the naturalization of their husbands. But
nothing can be gained by exaggerating the facts, or
constructing mare's nests by inferences from false
assumptions. It is worth while to examine the con-
ditions, to observe the extent to which the foreign
bom actually do participate in our political processes,
and on the basis of such facts as are available, to judge
the effect that foreign birth does tend to have upon
the quality of that participation.

There is no disposition here to overlook or minimize
the menace to our social and civic life involved in the
presence of vast masses of imdigested, unassimilated
population of whatever race or kind — even of our own
people, herded in colonies, dominating large com-
munities, illiterate as regards our history and ideals,
ignorant of our language, traditions, and customs. It
constitutes a social problem of great magnitude and
intricacy — ^though probably by no means so menacing
as it is our fashion to believe. But it is not one directly
affecting our political life or the operation of our
political machinery to any such degree as it is the
custom to declaim. There is little substantial evi-
dence in these days that the foreign-bom voter, as
such, is a source of corruption or other evil influence
in our politics.

PRIMITIVE ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRANTS

Whether it is called an instinct, native in animal

psychology, or an inheritance of mental habit and

trsidition handed down from remote times of family

and tribal necessity, the fact is that we all regard the

stranger with a suspicion, diminishing perhaps as we

broaden with years, experience, and culture, but never

entirely lost. Exceedingly few are those great souls

who have no trace of it. Especially if the stranger

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

wears a differently colored skin, expresses his thought
by unfamiliar vocal sounds and inflections, practices
customs of clothing, eating, marriage, religion, differ-
ent from our own; lives in houses of peculiar shape and
use — ^these things all partake, for the average person,
of the outrageous and the dangerous, and usually
subtly offend those habits of group taste which we
somehow feel to have their roots in essential morality
and the nature of things.

From time immemorial, all states and communities
have laid special disabilities and limitations upon the
alien — ^all based ultimately upon this habitual sus-
picion of those who belong to another tribe or clan.
As Edwin M. Borchard says:*

The legal position of the alien has in the progress of time
advanced from that of complete outlawry, in the days of
early Rome and the Germanic tribes, to that of practical
assimilation with nationals, at the present time. In the
Twelve Tables c^ Rome, the alien and enemy were classed
together, the word ''hostis" being used interchangeably
to designate both. Only the Roman citizen had rights
recognized in law. . . . The Germanic tribes, in the early
period, were hardly more hospitable to the alien than were
the Twelve Tables of the Romans.

With the extension of trade and travel, and especially
with the upgrowth of the feudal system, however, the
utility of intercourse with peaceable strangers, and
the advantage of adding their personal prowess, ca-
pacity, and assets to the resources of the community,
came to be more and more recognized, and the stranger
within the gates was accorded an increasing measure
of tolerance, not to say welcome. But this tolerance
was at best of a very limited character; practically, it
was not much more than a rigid systematizing of the

^ Edwin M. Borchard^ The DiploTnoHc Protection of Citizens Abroad,
p, 9S et seq.

OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL

ways of maJdng the immigrant usdful and contributory.
It is not the province ot this report to dilate upon this
branch of the subject. Suffice it to say that to this
day, over nearly the whole earth, the alien is still
subject to marked limitations, and that the exploita-
tion of him is neither a modem nor an American
invention.

As for political rights, let alone any degree of par-
ticipation in the fimctions of government, no nation
ever has contemplated the possibiUty of such a thing —
until a few of the American states, clamoring for
population from any comer of humanity, offered vir-
tually full political participation to the alien immedi-
ately upon his mere declaration of intention to apply
for citizenship — some day! Until the excitement of
the World War brought public attention to the whole
question of the position and influence of the foreign
bom in America, this anomaly remained in force in
at least a dozen states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona,
Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Oregon. Since
then it has been abolished by constitutional amendment
or other legislation in all but two — ^Arkansas and
Missouri.^

LEGAL POSITION OF THE ALIEN

Thus far, from the point of view of international law
and custom, it has been left to each nation to regu-

^ Letters from Attorneys-General of Arkansas and Missouri, as late
as October^ 1921, state that no change has been made. The Attorney-
General of Alabama points out that a careful reading of the state
constitution "discloses that only foreigners who had declared their
intention ol becoming citizens prior to the adoption of the constitu-
tion ol 1901 were entitled to register and vote, and that such person
lost this right if he did not become a citizen at the time that he was
entitled to become such under the laws of the United States."

2 «

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

late the privileges of, and the restrictions upon» the
alien, with the exception that certain nations strong
enough to enforce it have established in certain coun-
tries held by them to be less than fully "civilized,"
the principle of extra^erriioriality^ by virtue of which
their nationals must be tried bdFore special tribimals
supervised by representatives of their own nation.
Generally speaking, and subject to the rule that aliens
of all races must be treated alike imder processes of
law, a nation may deprive the alien of Uberty of action,
may prohibit or restrict his ownership of property,
may forbid or delimit his employment in certain kinds
of work or enterprises, and may expel and deport him,
at its pleasure. In other words, the status and rights
of an alien are determined almost absolutely by the
municipal law in the country in which he is domiciled.
The only Umitations upon this power are those estab-
lished by treaties, and by the general spread of humane
ideas, and the growing feeling — discouraged, perhaps,
but by no means l^alted, by the World War — of the
solidarity of the human race.

In the United States, the rights of the alien include
personal protection, protection of property already
acquired, and the use of all means of redress and
jucUcial protection enjoyed by citizens.^

The alien's plight in this country has been compli-
cated by the peculiar relation subsisting between the
Federal government and that of the individual states.
For it has frequently happened that the government
of the United States has been practically unable to
enforce the rights of aliens created by treaty when
traversed by state law. On more than one occasion

^ This is subject, of course, to the universal exceptions regarding
alien enemies in time of war; also to such other exceptions as special
statutes in certain states regarding the holding of real property and
other matters.

OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL

threatening diplomatic situations have been created
by the existence of this condition.

This ancient feeling toward the alien, and the
treatment, legal, extra^legat, and illegal, to which he
has been subjected in respect of his person, his ffunily,
and his property, undoubtedly have affected sub-
stantially his sentiments toward this country. Dis-
illusionment about the atmosphere and ways of the
"Land of the Free" is responsible for our loss of the
citizenship of many desirable immigrants. The man
who will not submit quietly to injustice is of the ma-
terial of which our best citizens from the beginning
have been made. The kind of alibis who can accept
without resentment some of the things to which those
ot foreign birth and speech have been subjected within
our borders during very recent times, are not fit to be
Americans! ^

•WHAT IS AN "AMERICAN"?

We are concerned just now, however, with the alien,
not in his general legal or social relations, but as ma-
terial for active membership in our community as an
American citizen, as a voting participant in the
sovereignty held in this country by the people. As
such, he comes to a position unique in all the world.
It is not yet true — ^perhaps it will be very long before
it can be true — ^that there is absolutely no bar to any
person on account of race; for the law and its inter-
pretations exclude from citizenship Chinese, Japanese,
and certain people of India not regarded as "white" —
although the blacks of Africa are expressly admitted.
Nevertheless it may be said broadly that, regardless of
race, the immigrant can come to America and win his

^ See Kate Holladay Claghom, The Immigrant a Day in Court {in
preparaiion).

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

way upon his own merits into the fellowship of
what all the world calls "Americans/*

Now, what is "an American"? What is it that
makes a nation of us if not a distinctive race? What
is it that the immigrant joins, body and soul, when he
becomes "an American"?

Every little while somebody arises with ashes upon
his head and bemoans the threatened disappearance
of what he is pleased to call "the American type."
He never describes it — ^it is exceedingly difficidt to
learn what may be meant by the phrase. This is
not strange, for there is no such thing if a racial type
is meant. There never has been any such thing.

Perhaps we know what the expression might mean
in New England — ^a combination of English, Scotch,
or Welsh, who in turn would be bred of Dane, Pict,
and Scot, Saxon and Norman and Kelt, with perhaps
a strain of French, or maybe of Dutch. In Penn-
sylvania very likely it would be English Quaker —
or Plattdeutsch. The French-Spanish combination
in the Gulf region, the Scandinavian or German
in the Middle West and Northwest, the Spanish-
Mexican along the Rio Grande and in southern
California, and so on, are "American" by a title as
good as that of those who trace their descent from the
Pilgrim Fathers.

John Graham Brooks^ remarks that "our piebald
miUions" are. now so interwoven with all that we are
"that to silhouette the American becomes yearly more
baffling." Says he:

The early writers have no such misgivings. ... In 1889 I
met a German correspondent who had been four times to
the United States. ... He said he brought back from his first
joiuney a clearly conceived image of the American. He was

^ John Graham Brooks, As Others See Us, 1909.

OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL

** sharp-visaged, nervous, lank, and restless/' After the second
trip tiiis group of adjectives was abandoned. He saw so
many people who were not lank or nervous; so many were
rotund and leisurely, that he rearranged his classification,
but still with confidence. After a third trip he insisted
that he could still describe our coimtrymen, but not by exter-
nal signs. He was driven to express them in terms of char-
acter. The American was resourceful, inventive, and supreme
m the pursuit of material ends. "My fourth trip," he said,
"has knocked out the final attempt with the others. I
have thrown them all over like a lot of rubbish. I don't
know what the American is, and I don't believe anyone
else knows."

Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, in an informal address
at Columbia University, imdertook, albeit somewhat
casually, to point out the characteristics which should
mark a good American. He must be loyal, must "play
the game"; must have a local pride not only in the
quality of his country but in his home conmiumty,
feeling and exemplifying a moral and civic responsi-
bility for the betterment of conditions actuated by
a wise and constructive idealism. Recognizing, no
doubt, in the very saying of this, that these things
would mark the good citizen of any nation, he jmx)-
tested that after all was said, and despite the diflS-
culty of precise definition, there was something dis-
tinctive, perceptible, and, in fact, perceived by the
discerning; real, however subtle and elusive, distin-
guishing the true American from all other folk-^^*a
certain sensitiveness to the finer values of life; an
admiration for these things."

Well, certainly the ideal American is, and has, and
does all of this; certainly all Americans ought to be,
and have, and do all of it! But in all candor and fair-
ness it must be acknowledged that it would be in-
vidious and altogether insupportable to claim it or

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

any of it as in any proper sense racially distinctive of
America.

THE AMERICAN HAS NO RACIAL MARKS

We cannot isolate any physical characteristics; We
cannot segregate any particular racial descent; one
may search in vain for any definable hereditary men-
tal or spiritual characteristic that will fit or typify all,
or even many, of the "piebald millions" who inhabit
and vote, attain success and honor, and, at need, enlist
or be conscripted for war, in the varied jurisdictions
of our tremendous stretch of territory between the
ancient French-Canadian colonies of Maine and the
Philippines; between the Virgin Islands and Alaska.
Even local adherence to our slogans of liberty, de-
mocracy, consent-of-the-govemed, and all the rest of
our ecstatic vocabulary, no longer insulates or dis-
tinguishes us in the world. The upspringing democ-
racies of the Old World, to which we have given ex-
ample and inspiration as well as emancipation from
old autocracies, swear by all these phrases as ^oiber-
antly as we, and may even outstrip us in the political
incarnation of the ideals which hitherto we have re-
garded as so peculiarly our own!

H, then, we can distinguish "the American" neither
by any physical attribute cS race nor by adherence to
political forms and f ormube, what is there left for us
to conserve and to boast about — as our very own?

Let us come straight to the fact that tliis absence
of exclusive racial marks is the distinguishing physical
characteristic of the American. True of him as of no
other now or ever in the past, is the fact that he is,
broadly speaking, the product of all races. It is of
our fundamental history and tradition from the begin-
ning that in America all peoples may find destination,

OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL

if not ref uge, and upon a basis of virtual race equality
mingle^ and for good or ill, send down to posterity in a
common stream their racial values — and their racial
defects. Whether we like it or not, this is the fact.
We are not a race, in any ethnic sense. At most, we
are in the very early stages of becoming one.

Prof. Ulysses G. Weatherly, of Indiana University,
said:^

Every great historical race is a composite of originally
separate elements merged into a miity whose ruling char-
acteristic is an increasing integration of culture rather than
of blood. This process of merging is believed by Gumplowicz
to constitute the very essence of worid history.

And he quotes Giunplowicz, in Der Rasaencampf,
to this effect:

Throughout the whole history of men stretches a con-
tinuous process of amalgamation which, beginning with the
smallest primitive synthetic groups and following a race-
bmlding law to us unknown, binds tc^ether and amalgamates
small, heterogenous groups into even larger unities, into
peoples, races, and nations, perpetually bringing them into
conflict against other similarly constituted and amalgamated
peoples, nations, and races, and through this conflict into
ever new fields of conquest and culture, which again con-
solidates and amalgamates the heterogenous elements.

The American people has been and is being made
by exactly this process. We are in the midst of the
making of the '"American." It does not yet appear
what he shall be, but one thing is certain, he is not
to be of any particular racial type now distinguishable.
Saxon, Teuton, and Kelt, Latin and ' Slav — ^to say
nothing of any appreciable contribution by yellow
and brown races as yet negligible in this aspect of the

^ Proceeding» of the American Sociological Society^ vol. v, p. 57,
etc, paper on "The Racial Element in Social Assimilation."

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

question — each of the races that we now know on
this soil will have its share of "ancestorial" responsi-
bility for the "typical American" that is to be.

NOT RACIAL, BUT CULTURAL

Leaving for the long future, then, the evolution of
the hereditary type, is there so soon something "home
grown," some "integration of culture," that is pecul-
iarly our own? Every American knows in his heart
that however subtle and elusive, however difficult of
definition, there is something real that distinguishes
"America."

In the attempt to fix the boundaries for the new
Poland, the Peace Conference sought in vain for some
limits of language or of political unity on which to
base their demarcation. It came down at last to a
simple question:

"Do you want to he Poles?**

And the question was enough.

Who doubts the answer to the question: Do you ward
to be American? There is something more than love
of home, something higher than the liking of a cat
for the warm place under the familiar stove, that stirs
the heart of every normal American when he sees the
Stars and Stripes. The alien who declares it his inten-
tion to become a citizen of the United States may not
be able to put it in words, but he means, and he knows
that he means, something real and vital, recognizes a
substantial distinction, when he says that he wants to
he an American!

There must be, there is, there has been always, in

the midst of the racial chaos which to-day constitutes

perhaps our greatest social problem, something that

may be called nationally even if not yet racially

American; something indigenous on this soil as on no

OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL

other. It belongs to us. Up to a time beginning a
quarter of a century ago, when the so-called "new
immigration" from southeastern Europe and southern
Russia set in in full flood, and now anew in the experi-
ences of the World War, it was and has again become,
a thing shared by all of our racial groups and ele-
ments — peculiarly American. It answers the test set
forth by Professor Weatherly in the paper already
quoted, of the completion of the nationalizing proc-
ess: **. . * when the things of the spirit are held in
common and cherished by all, even if some specific
ethnic or linguistic diflFerences survive." Or, m the
words which he attributes to Renan:

To have a common glory in the past, a common will in
the present; to have done great things together, to desire
to do still greater — these are the essential conditions for
being a People.

Professor Weatherly repeatedly emphasizes the great
point — ^that "it is not suflScient that peoples shoidd
merely have undergone similar experiences" in order
to be knit into a nation; "they must have undergone
them together.** Most of the great modem nations, as
he says, have passed through the same processes of
social change, "but in actual adjustment to such
change each has had its own separate career."

Twenty-five years ago it was true that the term
"American" meant one who, of whatever racial de-
scent, represented something very definite, of tradition,
experience, .and achievement— ^nd of promise, too —
"a conmion glory in the past, a common will in the
present"; "great things done together, and a desire to
do still greater"; unity determined not by external
facts alone, but by sentiment.

Now, dimly as we yet realize it, it is true again.

A baptism of blood and suffering, of sacrifice and self-
is

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

denialy and of common experience in a vast world
emergency, and out of it a vision of better under-
standing and a great work before us to be done, have
gone far to restore that unity of appreciation of "great
things done together** and of will to do still greater
which was our common glory — ^and was getting lost.
We had, we have now, a right to be both proud and
jealous of the heritage left us by our fathers of many
races, and now watered by the blood of our own gen-
^ation, and to look with concern, if not with dismay,
upon what might portend a swaUowing up of this moral,
this sentimental unity, in a great inundation of new-
comers, who, however weU intending as individuals,
have not shared our tradition and experience, and who
seem not to have been fitted by any experience of their
own to assimilate either the tradition of our past or
our aspiration for the futiu^.

^ ESSENTIALS OF " AMERICANISM " ^

There are essentials distinctively American upon
which we can base our definition of "America" and
typify her in the human being who by spirit, vision,
and vigilance best represents our tradition and our
aspiration. Such a definition will hold against the
world — even against those of our own household who
neither exemplify nor understand it. The sum total
of these essentials is not paralleled iiow, nor in history,
anywhere else on earth. For of America alone it may
be said:

That however lamely and insuflSciently we have
lived up to it, our country is traditionally the refuge for
the oppressed of every land.

That here the individual has found a fuller 'freedom
to seek his happiness in his own way. More than any
other nation, America has never recognized a political

OF THEIR OWN FREE WELL

autocracy, has reckoned Man above every considera-
tion of property, dass, or dynasty.

That here only has the indimdual male from the begin-
ning been deemed the vUimate politiixd unit — ""one
man, one vote," The countiy-wide adoption of Woman
Suffrage extends this concept to include women.

That however crudely we have practiced it, we have
aspired to estimate essential justice and the commxm sense
of right relationship— fair play between mah and man-
as tiie final standard a^d appeal of human condu^ct^
over against every claim of precedent and authority.

That from the outset of this nation,rthe distinguish-
ing spirit of America has been a protest against Mili-
tarism and the domination of tfie professional soldier^
against compulsory military service in time of peace.\
Our army and navy, always'^tnought of as instrumen-/
talities of last resort, reserved almost wholly for defense
against aggression from 'without, have on principle
been always under the control and direction of civilians
as suchf and in peace^ time have been recruited by
voluntary enlistment. (This one fact of freedom from
nulitary conscription has been the distinction of Amer-
ica which, more than any 'other thing, has attracted
Europeans to our fellowship^ They have fought for us
and with us, but always with the American motive, em-
bodied in the final great fact, which is America's alone:

That when we have gone to war, our civilians armed

and fighting unth the devotion, courage, and effectiveness

inspired only by the sense of a righteous cause, it has

always been for liberty. At the beginning, in 1776, and

again in 1812, we fought England to free ourselves.

In 1845, despite the motive of the Slave Power to

extend the area of slavery, so far as the motive of the

people in general was concerned we were fighting

Mexico to free our fellows in Texas. In 1861 we fought

a great civil war to maintain our free Union and to

AMERICANS BY (CHOICE

liberate the negro slaves. In 1898 we fought Spain to
free the Cubans, and notwithstanding this, our sole
sin of imperialism, in the long run we shall have freed
also the Fnipinos. In 1917 we participated, no doubt
decisively, in the struggle to free Europe from the
threat of domination by the military autocracy of
Germany. "To make the world safe for democracy"
— ^that was ^le appeal which brought the hearts of
the American people into the war. Of no other great
nation can it be said that it ne^er went to war except for
liberty.

This is "America." This ensemble of tradition and
significance is what makes native and newcomer alike
want to be an American. This is what stirs our hearts
when we see the Stars and Stripes. We prize these
things not alone because they are ours, not alone be-
cause in their power and glory they are peculiarly,
exclusively American; but still more because they are
worthy to be prized, and because they promise the
ultimate incarnation of the dreams of men of good will
since ever man first lifted his eyes from the ground and
visioned Brotherhood.

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

It would be too much to say that the average immigrant
from any country visions when he leaves his home the
"America" outlined in the previous qhapter, or even
that he perceives it when, at some time after he arrives,
he files his declaration of intention to seek citizenship.
Doubtless in the ordinary case he comes merely to
improve his personal, social, and economic condition;
to put it bluntly, to get a better job. [Nevertheless, we
should do ourselves and our long-standing reputation
in the world a great injustice if we did not recognize
and take pride in the fact that the people of all races
turn their faces hither not only with hope of oppor-
tunity to better their condition, but with a stirring of
soul at the thought of what they believe awaits them
in a land of wider libe^ty.^ That they do not always
find us living up to our bc/ast, so far as they are con-
cerned, is the defect not of our tradition or, in the long
run, of our intention, but of our practice,
V At the outset the immigrant does not think about
citizenship at all. The statistics gathered by this
Study show conclusively that the average alien waits
more than ten years before applying for citizenship.
That even if he comes as early as sixteen he waits imtil
he is twenty-eight before he files his final petition. And
the vast majority of the men come between the ages

(rf sixteen and thirty — ^just at the time of life when, it

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

would seem» active participation in the political life
of the country ought to be most appealing, j

FACTORS IN IMBaGRATION

The alien does not come with any direct interest in
citizenship. He comes to improve his status. And
this motive has two aspects; the impulse is twofold —
a push from behind aiid a pull from in front, sometimes
one, usually both. The statistics displaying the fluc-
tuations of what Prof. Frank J. Wame calls "The Tide
of Immigration'' are luminous in their reflection of this
piu^ly human fact. In order to see it stand forth, one
must keep it yividly in mind that these tables of sta-
tistics are not mere exhibits of mathematical digits,
but lists of human beings, inspired by motives precisely
like our own. The 148,093 subjects of His Britannic
Majesty — ^mostly Irish — ^who came to America in 1848
were, each of them, a specific individual human soul,
impelled by the fact that the potato famine, or what-
not else at home, interfered with the adequacy of his
meals; and attracted by the belief that he would
find things better in America. The one lone Russian
recorded in that year presumably represented precisely
the same interplay of motives. The heavy German
immigration in 185£, 1853, and 1854 was made up of
men, women, and children who found conditions in-
tolerable because of the rei»*essions ensuing upon the
revolutionary movement of *48. And so on. On the
other hand, the shrinkages in the figures in various
later periods, in a general way, coincide with the times
of industrial depression, unemployment, etc., in this
country; things were not so attractive here as to offer
substantial improvement upon the situation at home.
The six sources whence we have derived the bulk
of our new population are Great Britain and Ireland;

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

the three Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden,
and Denmark; Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and
Russia — ^in the seventy-eight years from 1840 down to
and including 1918, when inunigration virtually stopped
owing to the conditions created by the World War.
Immigration since then has been subject to influences
so different from those prevailing before, and as yet
so little understood, that intelligent comparisons would
be perilous.^

Students of inunigration have usually built their
generalizations upon totals of inflow, frequently over-
looking the striking disparity of time and numbers
among the various racial groups. Yet there is much sig-
nificance in this disparity. Professor Wame, for ex-
ample, in the Annals of the American Academy of
Political Science (1920), in an analysis generally of the
upward and downward curves of immigration from'
all coimtries during the century since 1820, says:

By studying the yearly figures . . . and relating them to
events of industrial or economic history, we are able to
miderstand what is probably the most significant of all the
operating forces or influences at work behind this great move-
ment of population across the Atlantic. For illustration,
the niunber of immigrant arrivals strikingly decreased from
nearly 482,000 in 1854 to 200,877 the following year, a
decrease of more than one-half. This falling off reflected
the effects of the greatest financial panic ever experienced
in the United States up to that time.

Well enough for a generalization based on totals;
but it is not to be overlooked that at that very point
the then comparatively small immigration from Italy
more than doubled between 1853 and 1854, jumping
from 535 to 1,263, and remained above 1,000 with the
exception of one year, until 1860. Again Professor
Wame;

^ See report of Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1920.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The ensuing industrial depression was followed closely by
the Civil War, and it was not until 1873 that the yearly
inflow again reached as large a volume, the number being
nearly 460,000.

But it was precisely during the hottest and most
critical years of the Civil War that German immigra-
tion increased. It had been relatively low between
1854 and 1865 (in which latter year it was 58,153),
but jumped in 1866 to 120,218, and (with the excep-
tion of 1871, when it fell to 82,554) remained high
until and including 1873, when it almost touched
150,000. It would seem that something must have
been going on in Germany to drive these people out
against the adverse economic conditions prevailing
here.

The year 1873 [continues Professor Wame] marks another
panic, and a striking decrease the following years in the
niunber of alien arrivals is again recorded.

But the Austrian, Italian, and Russian immigration,
which had been relatively insignificant up to 1869
and 1870, was higher in 1870-75 than ever before, and
with minor ups and downs increased more or less
steadily up to the very high figures of the past two
decades, which gave rise to the widely believed legend
entitled, "The New Inunigration."

The question of means of livelihood, of a better job,
is doubtless the chief factor, but it is not the only
factor. Any job at all in a free country is better,
for any man worth his salt, than a far better-paid job
under conditions of oppression. The man who leaves
his homeland to adventure even under adverse condi-
tions, because he cannot tolerate political tyranny,
used to be regarded per se as fit for American citizen-
ship. He is still fit, even though he belong to the

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

traditional "New Immigration"; even though of late
we have tended rather to discourage the idea that
personal liberty is valuable in and of itself. It is still
true that along with our fame as a land where eco-
nomic opportunity is to be found, the men and
women of other lands are attracted by what they
still believe to be our atmosphere of liberty.

POLITICS WELCOBiES THE IRISH

The Irish immigration was earliest in the field, and first
to profit by the hit-or-miss methods of naturalization
which prevailed in the old shiftless days. They oc-
cupied socially at the outset very much the same posi-
tion that the "New Immigration" has occupied during
the past twenty years; but the American politician,
to whose mill any kind of a biped who might vote
was grist, welcomed it, and quickly taught the Irishman
the methods of the game.

How solidly the Irish were installed before the Ger-
mans began to arrive in large numbers appears in
Table I, showing the two streams of immigration
between 1820 and 1840. Prior to 1840 there was no
appreciable inflow from any other countries. It should
be added that it was not until 1854, and then only
for that one year, that the German immigration over-
took the Irish. It did not again equal it until 1867.

THEY ALWAYS HAVE BEEN DEMOCRATS

The traditional fidelity of the Irish to the Democratic
party began forthwith. The elements in the popu-
lation which were Whigs, and afterward became Re-
publicans tended, on the whole, to be the more pros-
perous folk of the community; also they were largely
of the Protestant faith. Very early in our political
3 21

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

history, therefore, there came to be, to some extent,
a division in which both social standing and religion
played a part. Most of the Irish were poor, and nearly
all of them were Roman Catholics. The Democratic

TABLE I
Immigbation FBOif Ibbland and Germany Each Ybab

FROM 1820 TO 1840

Ybab

1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
18S0
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840

Ibbland

Qbbmant

3,614

968

1.518

383

2,267

148

1,908

183

2,345

230

4,888

450

5,408

511

9,766

482

12,488

1,851

7,415

597

2,721

1,976

5,772

2,418

12,436

10,194

8,648

6,988

24,474

17,686

20,927

8,311

30,578

20,707

28,508

23,740

12,645

11,683

23,963

21,028

39,430

29,704 ^

party was rather the party of the poor and the foreign
bom, and when the great influx of Roman Catholic
Irish injected also the religious issue, it was only
natural that a kind of racial allegiance should attach
the Irish to the Democratic party. The Know-Nothing
and Native American agitations of the middle of the

NEW MEMBEBS AND AN OLD GAME

last century deepened the rift, and confirmed the Irish
in their political faith.

Gustavus Myers says, in his History of Tammany
HaU: 1

About the year 1840 . . . Tammany began to be ruled from
the bottom of the social stratum. . . . The policy of encourag-
ing foreigners, at first mildly started in 18128, was now de-
veloped into a system. The Whigs antagonized the entrance
of foreign-bom citizens into politics, and the Native American
Party was organized expressly to bar them ahnost entirely
from the enjoyment of political rights. The immigrant had
no place to turn but Tammany Hall. In part to assure itself
this vote, the organization opened a bureau, a modest begin-
ning of what became a colossal department. An office estab-
lished in the Wigwam, to which specially paid agents or
organization runners brought the immigrant, drilled into
him the advantages of joining Tammany, and furnished him
the means and legal machinery needed to take out his
naturalization papers. . . . Tammany took the immigrant
in charge, cared for him, made him feel that he was a human
being with distinct poUtical rights, and converted him into
a citizen. How sagacious this was, each year revealed. Lnmi-
gration soon poured in heavily, and there came a time when
the foreign vote outnumbered that of the native-bom
citizens.

It is true, but irrelevant, that in an earlier day
Tammany had been as anti-foreign as anybody — origi-
nally it was decidedly aristocratic in tone. Myers re^
cites how, on the night of April 24, 1817, two hundred
Irishmen marched to the Wigwam "'to impress upon
the Committee the wisdom of nominating (for Con-
gress) Thomas Addis Emmett, as well as other Irish
Catholics on the Tammany ticket in the future."

All this had long since become ancient history by
1840. Long before that time the Irish devotion to

^ Gustavus Myers, Hutory cf Tammany HaU, p. 128 et $eq,

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the Democratic party in general, and to TanmiABy
Hall in particular, had become deeply rooted.

EARLY GERMANS BECAME REPUBLICANS

The Germans, who, as has been shown, formed the
second great wave in the "tide of immigration," began
to come in formidable numbers about 1836, passing
the 30,000 mark in 1845. While they were, on the
whole, better educated and possibly more intelligent
than the Irish, they were handicapped, as the Irish
were not, by difference of language; so that for the prac*
tical purposes of the native American politician they
were equally ignorant. And the mass of the immigrants
of both races were peasants without experience in
relation to political participation.

Very many of the Germans, however, had fled from
the repressions at home preceding, accompanying, and
following the revolutionary movements about 1848;
they were to a great extent Protestants, and they were
naturally opposed to slavery — ^though this is not to
say that the Irish ever favored it. Generally speaking,
Germans reacted favorably to the Republican party.

Both races took American politics as they foimd it.
Let it not be supposed that corruption was the ex-
clusive invention or hall mark of Tanmiany Hall!
Even in England, at this time, politics was a dirty
business. The Whigs did their best to beat Tammany
at the game in which it had become expert. Myers says '}

In the fall election of 1838 the Whig frauds were enormous
and indisputable. The Whigs raised large sums of money,
which were handed to ward workers for the procuring c^
votes. About two hundred roughs were brought from Phila-
delphia, in different divisions, each man receiving $1212. . . •
Ex-convicts distributed Whig tickets and busily auctioneered.

^ Gustavos Myen, Eiitory cf Tammany Hall, p. 118.

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

The cabins of all the vessels along the wharves were ran-
sadced, and every man, whether or not a citizen or resident
of New York, who could be wheedled into voting a Whig
ballot, was rushed to the polls and his vote smuggled in.

This was the electioD which made William H. Seward
Governor of the state of New York!

EFFECTS OF THE GOLD CRAZE

The whole situation was intensified during the years
when corruption reached its greatest heights by the
conditions ensuing upon the discovery of gold in
California. The port of New York welcomed ships
from the west coast bringing gold, and ships from
across the Atlantic bringing immigrants. The '" bulge"
in th^ curve of immigration from Great Britain and
Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia in the period
1849-54 imdoubtedly represents preponderantly the
reaction abroad to the tales of gold to be found on
the street comers of America.

And the immigrant stepped into an atmosphere of
corruption in every field — ^including politics. The
whole country was more or less money mad. The
effect of the gold craze, as Myers (page 154) says, "was a
still further lowering of the public tone; standards were
generally lost sight of, and all means of 'getting ahead'
came to be considered legitimate. Politics, trafficking
in nominations and political influence, found it a most
auspicious time.''

VAST NATTJBALI2ATION FRAUDS

It is hard to realize now the public attitude of those old

days on the subject of naturalization. ) There was a

fabulous amount of virgin territory to be opened; new

communities needed population, and especially n^uscle

labor; lavish inducements, including the right to vote,

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

were hdd out to an3rthing in the form of a man who
could be brought to help m the task. It was many
years before citizenship came to be regarded as a
precious thing, to be guarded with scrupulous vigi-
lance. And as both of the great political parties were
guilty of crimes against the ballot box» it was taken for
granted that th^r were inevitable in poUtics.

The vexatious technicalities which now seem so unjust
to many an applicant for citizenship are, after all, only
reaction at the other extreme to the incredible laxity
which characterized the process in the early years.
The population of what was then New York City was
only 515,547 in 1850; 813,669 in 1860; and 942,292
in 1870; but in the eight years, 1860-67, inclusive, more
than 67,000 aliens were naturalized in that city alone.
The naturalizations in New York City in each year
from 1856 to 1867, inclusive, in only two courts — ^the
Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas — an
average of more than 9,000 a year is shown in the fol-
lowing table:

TABLE n

Number of Auenb Naturalize]) Each Year rRoii |
1856 TO 1867 IN Two Courts in New York Citt *

I -

YbaB NUMBM

1856 (Presidential election) 16,498

1857 8,991

1858 6,769

1859 7,636

1860 (Presidential election) 13,556

1861 3,903

1862 2,414

1863 2,633

1864 (Presidential election) 12,171

1865 7,428

1866 13,023

1867 15,476

' John I. Davenport, The Wig and the Jimmy, p. If:

NEW MEMBEBS AND AN OLD GAME

These figures^are taken from a curious pamphlety pub-
lished in 1869 by John I. Davenport, who was United
States Commissioner and Chief Supervisor of Elections
for the Southern District of New York, under the cryptic
title. The Wig and the Jimmy ^ which tells in detail the
story of the debauching of naturalization by these two
courts. The year 1868, however, saw the scandal reach
imprecedented heights. Says Mr. Davenport: ^

. . . Notwithstanding that the yearly average of naturali-
zations had been but about 9,000; that the greatest number
naturalized in a single year never reached 16,500; that three
years had elapsed since the dose of the war in which S5,927
aliens had been made citizens, a yearly average of 11,975,
or an excess of 8,000 per year above the annual average for
twelve years; that the addition of such excess to the diminished
niunbers naturalized in 1862, 1863, and 1864 would preserve
the ratio, and account for those who from fear of being
drafted had refrained from applying during those years of
the war; that the rebellion had reduced the alien population
of New York City, many of wham enlisted, were killed,
died from disease, or after the war found homes elsewhere;
and, finally, that the yearly average of emigration (sic) from
and including 1847 to 1860 — a period of 18 years — ^had been
197,435, while for the four years from 1860 to 1863 inclusive
— and none who arrived subsequently could be legally
naturalized in 18.68 — ^the yearly average of alien arrivals had
be^i but 100,962, or an annual loss of one-half, yet orders
were early in September passed along the Democratic line to
prepare on a gigantic scale for- the naturalization of aliens
during the coming month. The Supreme Court also deter-
mined for the first time to engage in the work of making
citizens. In accordance with this known determination,
there were printed for the use of the courts ... a total of
30,000 applications and 30,000 certificates for the Superior
Court, and 75,000 applications and 89,000 certificates for the
amateur court [Supreme].

^ John I. Davenport, The Wig and the Jimmyp pp. 12^18.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The Court of Common Pleas, which save for a year or two
previous had done the larger share of the work of naturaliza-
tion, did but little in 1868, its total for the year being 3,145,
o( which 1,645 were in October. Justice requires the further
statement that there was no evidence whatever of any fraud
in this court, although all its judges were elected as Demo-
crats, while proof was abundant that the duty entrusted to
it of making citizens of the United States was discharged
throughout with marked propriety and dignity.

In the Supreme and Superior Coiu-ts only were frauds
proven. To what extent we will now consider. The following
table was sworn to as being the daily number of applications
for naturalization on file in the Supreme Court Clerk's office
for 1868:

TABLE m

Appucants for Naturalization in Supreme
Court, New York City, in October, 1868

October 6

** 7

379

668

" 10

717

723

901

528

*' 15

857

721

" 17

633

*' 19

955

944

" 21

773

" 22

675

" 23

587

Total

10.070

The significance of these great totals of applications
for naturalization within a few days before election

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

appears in Mr. Davenport's summaiy of the behavior
of the judges:^

But the essential aid rendered by these judges need not
^ be further detailed. It was mainly comprised of one or more

of the following derehctions of duty:
V I. Hasty and incomplete examination of applicants and

witnesses.
"Ill n. Total neglect at times to examine the one class or the
other.

in. Through negligence, imposition, which mi^t easily
have been guarded against, or direct compUcity, the issue
of certificates in the names of persons who never appeared
in Court, appUed therefor, produced a witness, or took an
oath.

IV. Similar issue of certificates to applicants, persons of
assumed or fictitious names and others, upon the oath of
residence and moral character of persons of assumed and
fictitious names, or of known criminals and persons of im-
moral character.

V. Similar issue of certificates upon "minor applications"
when the persons to whom such certificates issued were known,
or could readily have been ascertakied to be, unentitled thereto
on such applications.

VI. Total neglect or refusal to commit known disreputable
i persons and others whose business it was for pecuniary or

other consideration to act as witnesses, and who in such
capacity repeatedly appeared before them.

Vn. The conducting of naturalization proceedings in a
secret mamier, by causing citizens and others to be denied
admission to the court-room, or ejected therefrom when
observed.

The Judiciary Committee of the New York State
Assembly, in a report upon the first notorious elec-
tion frauds made to that House of the state legis-
lature thirty years before, or on April 6, 1838, already
had registered the fact that this was no post-war

^ John I. Davenport, The Wig and the Jimmy , pp. 17-18.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

state of a£Pairs> and depicted the situation of which the
frauds of 1868 were only cme year's fruit:

Men vote who do not reside id the ward» often not in the
state; aliens are frequently brought to the polls and their
vote imposed upon the inspectors, although many of them
have not been a week in the country; and voters are not id-
frequently taken from poll to poll, voting id three or four
different wards at the same election. These are the frauds
constantly practiced at our elections, to the disgrace of the
state, and to the manifest wrong of the country.

It was partly the sense of the great public danger
ying in such conditions, partly the growing anti-
foreign feeling, and altogether an improving public
morality, that beginning about 1870 and increasing
as the years passed, brought about the cleansing of
public elections and the reform embodied in the natural-
ization law of 1906 which has totally abolished the
situation into which the immigrants cS the mid-century
and earlier stepped as into a swamp. ^ Still survives in
some quarters the notion that the alien is hurried from
the ship to the ballot box, and that he pours therein
some corrupting influence brought with him from
abroad. The latter never was true; he has accepted
and taken advantage of the situation which we ourselves
created and suffered for generations to exist. The
former was true during three-quarters of a century,
but it is true no longer, and has not been true for
nearly two decades.

FIBST CHOICE IN POLITICS

Bear it in mind that the chief motive of the new-
comer is the same as that which usually leads men to
go anywhere — ^the desire to "better himself." It is
notable that a very large number of immigrants arrive
with the notion that the Republican party is the " party

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

of prosperity," of the "full dinner pail»" high wages*
and the other advantages which have been the widely
advertised slogans of that party. Without passing
upon the question of the truth of these slogans, one may
note that what actually happens is that the inunigrant's
real search is for that connection, political or industrial,
which involves employment and other advantages of
a material kind. As soon as the conditions permit, he
joins the penumbra of the political organization which
has jobs to distribute, which controls public contracts
and the wages that go with them. That means Tam-
many and the Democratic party in New York City;
in Philadelphia it means the Republican organization,
which in its day has followed and in some respects
surpassed Tammany in all the ways of political cor-
ruption and machinism. In other cities it has been
to this party or that, as the dominant color shifted,
that the immigrant has swung.

As long as the naturalization process was the sport
of corrupt politics, the political organizations gave
early attention to the alien. With the institution of
the present stringent law and practice, however, and
idso with the vast magnitude of the flood — swamping
all the machinery which had been devised to absorb
the inunigrants — the politicians up to a recent time
ceased to pay any attention to them. One of the
results of this has been a considerable increase in the
lapse of time between the arrival of the inmiigrant and
his first steps in the direction of citizenship. One of
the most enterprising of the younger leaders of Tam-
many Hall said to the present writer some months ago:

We don't pay any attention to the alien until he comes

to us for some favor — ^a job, a peddling license, some help

when his boy is arrested, or assistance in getting out his

naturalization papers. There's too many of 'em. When

they do come, we do what we can for them, and naturally

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

we say: "Well, how about it? Are you going to see the
Democratic organization only when you want something?
Why aren't you a citizen? G^t yourself naturalized and
then come along with us. "

All of which is veiy natural and human, and a good
illustration of the way in which the politician gets his
hold upon the individual voter — ^newcomer or native.
, The war created a new interest in the alien, brought
dew pressure upon him to become a citizen. Private
concerns demanded at least "first papers" as a condi-
tion for employment; labor organizations intensified
their insistence upon citizenship, or at least declara-
tion of intention, as a prerequisite to membership;
laws were passed in many states increasing the dis-
abilities of aliens*) And the political organizations
generally have returned, but in a far better spirit, to
the former search for voters among the foreign bom;
creating committees and biu^aus to assist the alien
in getting naturalization, and resuming the old "hand-
picking" methods of getting the foreign bom into
active participation.

Little attention has been paid to the extent to which
the politicians use private jobs as a part of their
patronage. Not only the petty employments in saloons
and even brothels have been at the disposal of the local
leaders; but places for unskilled labor with street-
railroad corporations and other public utilities needing
the franchises and privileges in the public streets, have
been utilized as the coin-current of local political
traffic. Not infrequently a merchant finds that the
stringency of the enforcement of ordinances regarding
his buildings, blocking sidewalks with his merchandise,
etc., is considerably mitigated after he has acted upon
the suggestion of a district leader as to the employ-
ment of some person as truck hand or watchman.

And the writer well remembers one occasion, many

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

years ago in Chicago^ when the street-railroad com-
panies were keenly interested in an aldermanic elec-
tion, wherein the polling places in certain doubtful
wards wei^ blocked by long lines of obviously foreign-
bom laborers, few if any of them voters, who did not
attempt to vote, but monopolized the line for blocks,
efiFectively slowing down the voting so as to prevent
the real voters from getting to the polls at all!

THE POLITICIAN CLOSE TO HUMANTTT

The secret of the whole business lies in the fact that
political machines, and the political bosses of all sizes
and grades who make up their stafiFs, are powerful
and long-lived in just the measure to which they grow
out of and identify their activities with the rank and
file of the community^ — clear down to the bottom. The
vote of a new-made citizen bom in Galicia or Syria
or Portugal is just as good for his purpose as that of
a Son of the American Revolution — ^vastly more so
if (as sometimes happens) the new voter will follow
his "advice*' and the old one will not! Furthermore,
their vitality, especially in the poorer sections, is
commensurate with the constancy of their activities;
that is, their practical utility to tl^ people all the time»
for all purposes. As William Bennet Munro says: ^

The work which the party organizations lay out to do, and
in large measure actually perform, is extensive and exacting.
It does not, as in Europe, all fall within the few weeks which
precede an election; it is spread over the whole year.

And he goes on to describe, aptly, ^diy this work is
spread over the whole year," and how h; comes about
that the boss, little or big, acquires so great an influ-

^ William Bennet MunrOt OowmmerU cf American CUies, Mac-
millan, 1912, p. 167 et seq,

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

ence in his bailiwick. What he says applies most
aptly to the so-called "poorer districts,", where the
foreign-bom voters live in the greatest numbers:

It seems usually to be forgotten that the evolution of the
boss follows the law of natiu^ selection, which in this case
secures the survival of the man who is most resourceful Id
using to full advantage the conditions that he finds about him.
To gain even a ward leadership and to hold this post requires
industry, perseverance, and no end (^ shrewd tactfulness.
He must not be content with doing the work that comes to
him; he must look for things to do. As his work consists
mainly in doing favors for voters, he must inspire requests
as well as grant them. Therefore he encourages voters to
come to him for help when they are out of work, or in any
other sort of trouble. When a voter is arrested, the ward
or district leader will lend his services to secure bail or to
provide counsel, or will arrange to have the offender's fine
paid for him. Then there are the day-to-day favors which
the local boss stands ready to do for all who come to him,
provided they are voters or can influence voters^

Picturing the boss thus as the district philanthropist,
the description goes on to enlarge upon the more sin-
ister uses to which the power thus gained is devoted,
in punishing disloyalty. And this is even more eflFective
upon those relatively unfamiliar with the niceties, the
ins-and-outs, of public administration:

If a word from the boss wUl get one man employment, a
word will ako, very often, procure another employee's dis-
missal. At a hint from him, the small shopkeeper, the ped-
dler, the pawnbroker, the hackman, can be worried daily
by the police or by the health and sanitary officials of the
city on baseless or imaginary pretexts — ^tactics in which,
as the history of almost every larg» city shows, the ma-
chinery is unrelenting and vindictive.

The affirmative side of the district leader's activity
is the one that makes most impression upon the neigh-

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

borhood. Almost eveiy sort of reformer, who would
bring to the foreign-speaking district a sense of the
need for voting for a different sort of alderman, for ex-
ample, lives in another part of town, represents another
stratum of society, comes into no sort of natural touch
with his foreign-bom fellow citizen. But the latter
knows the district leader — ^last winter he got a job,
a little coal, a bed in a hospital for his wife; his boy
was let ofF by the police after a piece of reckless mis-
chief; or there was some other human favor; and all
the return he is asked to make — cheap enough, to be
sure — ^is that on election day he shall vote as tJie dis-
trict leader who helped him in his need asks him to vote.
What difference does it make to him? Show him a
difference, convince him that something real, something
that he can understand, is involved, and he will
respond. But nobody shows him. "Uptown," whence
comes the reformer whom he does not know, and
whose motives he has no substantial reason to respect,
does not understand his life or its problems; does not
even live in the ward. The district leader does. He
is his neighbor, and he sees him almost every day.

Then, too, the political organization meets him on
the social side, provides a dub, which in the intervab
between elections gives entertainments, has pool tables,
provides cigars; used to provide liquor. A spirit ot
fellowship grows up; the new foreign-born voter gains
acquaintance at the natural point of contact between
his daily life and the politics into which he is being
introduced. The result is obvious.

POLITICAL ASPECTS OF SOCIAL CLUBS

The spontaneous groups of foreign-speaking people of
nearly every race, which have sprung up everywhere in
response to the varied needs of the strangers within

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

our gates — social, insurance, musical, athletic, etc. —
necessarily and naturally take on political aspects.
As President Wilson said once, ^^ politics is human
nature"; there is nothing sinister about this fact. It
is wholesome that groups of folk, coming together
spontaneously about a nucleus of common interest,
should consider together and act together, in regard
to such public matters as they think concern them.
The only thing that is really dangerous in a republic
is stolid indifference; it is on that that corruption and
injustice feed.

In the matter of helping their fellow countrymen to
secure naturalization, these organizations perform a
service of value and importance both to the alien and
to the country. Many of these racial societies devote
much attention to old-countiy politics, and form nests
of propaganda and even more concrete activity whose
effects are felt not so much in this country as "back
home." And when, as in the case of Ireland, Poland,
Italy, and so on, the issues of foreign politics are made
the bone of contention in American political contests,
these German-American, Italian-American, Polish-
American societies may become exceedingly active in
our own affairs, and project lines of division which may
greatly complicate the politician's task, and sometimes
stand him upon his head: ^

It is not too much to say that the power of Tammany
Hall in politics, and that of eveiy other important
political organization in Philadelphia, Chicago, San
Francisco, Boston, or elsewhere — ^induding those domi-
nant in rural districts — grows out of intimate associa-
tion with the people in their daily livesy and could grow
out of nothing else. "Power and patronage," says

^ These activities are well summarized by John Daniels in his
Americanization Study volume entitled Ameriea via the Neighborhood,
New York, Harper & Brothers, 1920, p. 98S et seq,

NEW MEMBERS AND AN OLD GAME

Professor Munro, "provide a cyde hard to break."
True; but "power and patronage" is only a phrase.
Behind it lies the fact that the politician gains^ and
holds his power because he deserves it; through his
organization of the machinery, always "on the job,"
through which human beings, with wives and children
to feed, clothe and shelter, get the means to do it.
The small, unskilled job in the employ of the city, or
of business which can be helped or harmed by political
or official action, is the coin-current through which
the politician controls — so far as he does control — ^the
rank and file of the foreign-born voters. This, and the
small and larger personal human favors that he is in
a position to render.

Here, with the first economic "toe-hold" that the
inmiigrant gets in America, begins his introduction
to our life and to our politics.

POLITICS A GBEAT AMEBICANIZINO FOBCE

Politics, local politics — ^the ordinary interest of the
ordinary citizen; the day's work and the day's life,
are great Americanizing forces, and they are working
every minute. The immigrant generally, especially
he of the so-called "new immigration," comes here
without much if any experience in public affairs.
(Ail the life of all the generations from which he comes
^ has been passed without real participation; government
in the old country went on over his head, in a rarefied
stratum which he never entered and of which he knew
little. That is one reason why, on the average, it
takes more than ten years for him to come to the point
of asking for citizenship. )

Of late some of the very people who declared that
the immigrant comes here with only "sordid motives"
have favored pressure upon him to become a citizen

4 87

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

hy means of refiusing him employment miless he does
become one. The great increase in declarations c^
intention dming the past three or fom* years has been
dne almost entirely to the restrictions adopted f ormaify
or informally all over the countiy confining employ-
menty even in privately owned industries, to those who
have at least taken out "first papers." Even in the
Bureau of Naturalization there was for a time more
than a tendency to pursue this policy of forcing citi-
zenship upon aliens. It was abandoned because no
government can kidnap the subjects or citizens of
another without getting into diflBculty. There is still
a good deal of confusion of thought about this matter.
The importance of it lies in the fact — obvious to
any right thought about it — ^that we want for our new
citizens only those who come of their ovm accord and
free toiU. We want, moreover, only those who are right-
minded. The effort to stamp out the use of every
mother tongue but one, to obliterate all affection for
the old home in Scandinavia, Bavaria, Dalmatia,
Bohemia, not only is futile; we do not want for our
fellow citizens the kind of people who can turn their
back TOthout a qualm upon the memories of childhood.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said.

This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand?

What sort of an American could be made out of one
able in any circumstances — ^worst of all under re-
pressive compulsion — ^to turn his back upon the tongue,
the traditions, and the associations of his fathers? We
are not such ourselves, and Ui our sane minds we do
not want those who join us to be such. The process c^

NEW MEMBEBS AND AN OLD GAME

real Assimilation is a process slow in its nature, reaching
not forms and words, but sentiments of the highest
and most subtle kind.

You cannot beat love of country into any worth-
whfle person with a club-or with a kw.

CITIZENSHIP: UNDER THIS FLAG, AND OTHERS

There is, indeed, such a thing as a ''man without a
country," and it is only a few years since the United
States, even if inadvertently, legislated so that there
may easily be now a woman without one. But the
laws of nations make no provisions for the existence
voluntarily of anyone who may regard himself as
"a citizen of the world." Witi the vanishment of
terra incognita in the final achievement of hmnan ex-
ploration at the two poles of the earth, virtually every
foot of the surface of the globe has come, at least
constructively, under the dominion of some govern-
ment. And with it every man, woman, and chUd on
earth has acquired or had thrust upon him a legal
nationality of some sort, from which, generally speak-
ing, he can escape only by choosing or having thrust
upon him another — ^however feeble or tenuous its
grasp, however slight or contemptuous his perception*
and recognition of it.

The Great War emphatically registered this fact,l
with its ruthless inclusion of friend, neutral, and foe I
within some category of practicable citizenship. Jn \
the United States the Selective Service Act, and other \
legislation as well — ^to say nothing of the extra-l^al I
practices indulged in under cover of the popular state I
of mind — ^permitted no human being to regard himself j
as immune to eflFective classification under some /
sovereignty. The "conscientious objector," the "phil-/

40 /

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

osophical anarchist/* and every sort of philosopher,
however much he previously may have imagined him-
self free to abjure allegiance to government, found
that his property, his food, his sons, his own very per-
sonal flesh-and-blood, were, after all, not his own,
but were subject to conscription by the state. How-
ever much his spirit might be of fellowship with the
saints of his cult or religion, in all material respects
he must render unto Csesar the things that Csesar
said were Caesar's.

From the most primitive times this has been so,
even if in the America of the happy-go-lucky times of
peace it has been lightly regarded or scarcely realized
at all. The "gang spirit," under the sway of which
men always have held loyalty to the local clan to be
one of the chief of obligatory virtues, is of the essence
and fabric of group Ufe, and is the tap-root of patriot-
ism. It embodies an allegiance both to blood and to
locality. Through the warp of all political history are
woven two kindred threads representing these two
allegiances; sometimes one, sometimes the other —
in later development something of both. The lawyers
speak of them as the Jiis Sanguinisy the Law of the
Blood, and the Jus Solis, the Law of the Soil, and dis-
tinguish between them; but both represent the claim
of the community upon the loyalty and, if need be,
the sacrifice and bodily service of the individual.

A classic illustration of the deeply embedded feeling"^
that man cannot separate himself from the virtues, the
sins, and the limitations of his clan, his country, is
the tragedy in the valley of Achor, related in the Old
Testament Book of Joshua,^ wherein it was held that
the sin of Achan the son of Zerah was ipso facto the
sin of all Israel. And for the offense of one man.

^Joshua vi, vii.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

. . Joshua» and all Israel with him, took Adhan the son
of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of
gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his
asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had; . . .
and all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with
fire, after they had stoned them with stones. ^

This, with a vengeance, was a dramatization of the
Jus Sanguinis, the Law of the Blood, by virtue of
which an individual acquires nationality and civic
responsibility through the blood of his ancestry, regard-
less of the place of his birth!

ROOTS OF POLITICAL SOCIETY

The principle was a natural consequence upon the
nomadic life of f amiUes and tribes, of primitive groups
wandering often in strange and even hostile territory,
to whom in absence of fixed abode and boundaries
locality was of little importance, but tribal solidarity
and unity of purpose and allegiance were vital to
defense, to group survival. The family, and after it
the clan or group of blood-related families, were the
beginnings of political society.

Throughout ancient times the Law of the Blood
persisted; the law of citizenship in early Greece and
Rome was based upon the idea of family inheritance.
But with the dissolution of the Roman Empire and
the rise of feudalism, the Jus Sanguinis gradually gave
way to a standard of citizenship based upon locality
— ^to Jtis Solis, under which a child became ipso facto
a citizen or subject of the jurisdiction within which
he was bom, more or less regardless of the nationality
or allegiance of his parents. This was a natural con-
comitant of feudalism; as the conflicts between military
chieftains and groups divided the land into relatively

^Joshua vii: 24, 25.

CITIZENSHIP m VARIOUS LANDS

definite jurisdictions, and the tenure of territoiy and
the stability of boundaries and peace in the reahn
depended almost wholly upon militaiy strength, it
was to the interest of both lord and vassal to maintain
the largest possible forces for defense, and conserva-
tion of population depended chiefly upon birth. Even
to the peasant subject, maintenance of almost any
status quo was comparatively worth while for the sake
of the peaceful enjoyment of such home and happiness
as were his lot.

INFLUENCE OF EMIOBATION TO AldEBICA

Beginning with the period immediately foUowing the
French Revolution — ^which, it should be remembered,
was only the most violent and impressive of the up-
heavals of that general epoch in many parts of Europe
— a distinct reaction toward the Jv^ Sanguinis ap-
peared. This is variously accounted for; but most
historians attribute it to a desire on the part of the
older countries of Europe to offset the serious loss of
subjects threatened by emigration to America, which
had begun to tempt adventurous souls by the oppor-
tunity for individual liberty and initiative and escape
from the tyrannies of feudalism and religious autocracy.

Whatever the reason, the nineteenth century wit-
nessed on the one hand the return of the nations of the
Old World to the Law of the Blood, and on the other
the development in the New World of the Law of the
Soil.

This is a theoretical statement. In point of fact,

in the designation of the mode of acquisition or loss of

citizenship, no two of the nations of the world are

exactly in accord; the most hopeless confusion exists;

but with a constant and increasing effort to harmonize

the procedure, and now with a good hope that in the

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

coming days some measure of uniformity may become
practicable. In matters of secondary importance,
such as the international postal regulations, tde-
graphic communication and sanitary co-operation, it
has been virtually impossible thus far to bring about
a common policy. How much more difficult must it
be to harmonize the principles of citizenship, involving,
as that does, intricate historical and political consider-
ations — ^immensely complicated by the shifts of boimd-
ary due to the war — and the very bases of national
existence in the control by the community of the
allegiance and the industrial and military service <rf
subjects and citizens?

THE RIGHT TO EMIGRATE

Nevertheless, all countries have in some measure
practically recognized the right of the human individual
to emigrate, though there have persisted laws and
decrees expressing the attempt to retain legal juris-
dictiou and allegiance. The strength of these efiPorts
depends largely upon whether the basic theory of citi-
zenship has its roots in the Jus Sanguinis or the Jus
Solis. For it may be said generaUy that the nations
of the world are divided roughly in this regard by
their adherence to the one theory or the other, though
we look almost in vain for a pure example of either;
in some coimtries there are interwoven lines of both, and
in many it is almost impossible to determine which
prevails. For practical purposes, and subject to such
modifications as may be made in the era of readjust-
ment upon which the World War has laimched us, we
may depend upon the following general classification:
The Jics Sanguinis dominates in Austria, China,
Finland, France, Germany, Himgary, Japan, Monaco,
Norway, Persia, Rumania, Serbia.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

The Jus Solis prevails in the canton of Greneva,
Switzerland, and in Argentina.

The Jits Sanguinis combined with the Jus Solis is
found in Belgium, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Russia,
Spain, Turkey.

The Jus Solis modified by the Jus Sanguinis prevails
in most of the states of the Americas, and in Bulgaria,
Denmark, Egypt, Great Britain, Portugal, Sweden,
Switzerland.

THE SUBJECT VS. THE ACTIVE MEMBER

In thought and writing on the subject of citizenship,
two concepts olthe word "citizen" persist, and usually
are treated as to such an extent interchangeable as to
produce a fatal confusion. For they are not inter-
changeable. They differ in essence, and it is of the
utmost importance that they should be clearly dis-
tinguished. In the distinction lies all the difference
between Liberty and Autocracy. Something, if not
all, of this difference lies in the distinction between the
Law of the Blood and the Law of the Soil.

The first and commonest of these concepts is that
which must have colored the thought of the feudal
lord as he looked upon "his" people, belonging to
him because they belonged to the soil which his sword
contrcJled. This concept contemplates the citizen or
subject as invested with the character of a national
body politic, boimd by an obligatory allegiance to it
and its political institutions l>ecause he is there, bom
there, or led there by the circimistances of his life.

The other concept, which we like to think constitutes
the basis of what we call "America," for it is of the
essence of anything worthy of the name of Democracy,
contemplates the citizen as a participant in the fact
of sovereignty, one who owns an undivided and indi-

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

visible share in the community title, and whose right
and duty it is to take a definite part and acknowledge
a definite responsibility in the business of government.
In this study of naturalization and political life of
the foreign-bom citizen it is with this second concept
that we have most to do.

ESSENTIALS OP CITIZENSHIP: ANCIENT — ^AND AMERICAN

What, then, are the essentials of that citizenship to
which an alien aspires and addresses himself when he
seeks to become an active member in the American
community whose members are something more than
mere chattels of the sovereign?

"There is nothing that more characterizes a com-
plete citizen," says Aristotle, "than having a share in
the judicial and executive part of the government. • . .
He, and he only, is a citizen who enjoys a due share in
the government of that community of which he is a
member." But Aristotle was speaking from the point
of view of a community in which not all individuals
there resident were the sort of citizens he was talking
about. According to that great Greek the best-
ordered states did not include in the term "citizen"
mechanics or others who worked for wages, and utterly
unmentionable in any such connection^ was the great
mass of slaves who had virtually no human rights at all.
Aristotle's "citizen" was one of the relatively few
endowed with political rights and responsibilities. In
the Greek city-states and in the early Roman Republic,
citizenship was at first restricted to certain ot the older
houses (jphylos, genles)^ but with the development of
economic intercourse the few dominant families gradu-
ally lost their exclusive power, and other free inhabi-
tants were included in participation in the afiPairs of

estate.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

In Rome the right of citizenship was conferred at
first upon the leading families in allied cities, and later
upon whole communities. By the year 100 B.C.,
nearly all Italians were citizens. But the Empire
brought about great restrictions in this matter; a
gradual narrowing of the limitations took place; along
with a great extension of the name ''citizen'' came a
great decrease in the actual participation of the ''citi-
zen" in the business of government; so that by the
time the Emperor Caracalla was extending something
called "citizenship" to all Roman subjects, he actu-
ally was doing little more than to make certain intol-
erable taxes universal.

So the old Greek and Roman idea of "citizenship"
will not answer our purpose. We have, however im-
perfect our realization oi the fact, something quite
different to offer, something vastly greater to demand.

In the modern world citizenship has come to mean
membership in a political commimity. It invcdves the
status of an individual with reference to a jmrticular
state. And that status is determined by the laws of the
individual states, for everywhere it is stoutly main-
tained that the right to determine how and when a
parson may become and remain a citizen is one of the
first prerogatives of sovereignty. In a number of recent
works on citizenship the question has been raised
whether the bond of citizenship is by natUEgcontrac-^
tual. The affirmative is held by Prof. Andrew~T?Veiss
of the University of Paris; he declares it to be "gen-
erally recognized that the bond of nationality is a
contractual one; and that the bond uniting to the state
each of its citizens is formed by an agreement of their
wills, express or implied." This view is rejected as
unsoimd by various English and American publicists.^

^ F. T. I^ggott, NatumalHy, London, 1906, and £. M. Borchard,
DipUymatie Protection of CUizeru Abroad^ New York, 1916.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

These writers assert that whatever may be the theory
of the origin of the state, the fact is that the relation
of the citizen to the state is a relation sui generis,
and that the admission of a person to membership in
a state is an act of sovereignty. The law of the state
is supreme.

The reasonable fact is that there is an element of
truth in both of these contentions. The great increase
in facilities for international communication and travel
has made emigration a common thing, and the law
in practice, whatever it may be in letter, has recognized
in varying ways the fact that the human individual
can, does abjure his "contract" with the state whiere
he has lived, and seek admission to one which for this
reason and that he thinks likely to be more salubrious
for the pursuit of what he regards as his happiness.
For, after all is said, the fact remains that men stay
here or go there in that pursuit. A crowd goes home
When it begins to rain not because the crowd is getting
wet, but because each individual of it, in his separate
personal eachness, so to speak, has water running
down his neck and desires to find a place where he
can get dry. Waves of emigration represent countless
individuals each of whom believes that elsewhere, or
in some particular place, he can be more comfortable
in the practices and activities which constitute his
life by day and by night, and maybe find a broader
and richer field in which to grow and raise his family.

The offer of just this kind of opportunity has induced
many hundreds of thousands of human beings from
all parts of the earth to dissolve the bond, contractual
or what you will, between themselves and the land of
their birth or previous habitation, and come to these
shores. We have invited them, and devised elaborate
machinery by which to welcome them into our fellow-
ship. Not only has the invitation been definitely ex-

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

pressed; we have opened wide gates in our bars, and
placed premiums^ upon entrance therein.

BASES OF AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP ^

The bases of citizenship in this country are two, estab-
lished in the Constitution of the United States and
the legislation and decisions explanatory thereof:

I. Every person, of whatever race descended, Ixwrn
in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction,
including children of American fathers born abroad,
is ipso jacU) a citizen of the United States.

n. All* other persons eligible for citizenship in the
United States must acquire that citizenship through
the legal process known as Naturalization.

It was in the great case of Wong Kim Ark^ that
the Supreme Court, in 1897, established the right of
citizenship by birth on this sail, regardless of race or
descent. The question in this case involved a child
bom in California, of Chinese parents who, because
of their race, could not themselves become citizens.
In this decision, a classic in the law of American citizen-
ship, the court set forth the following fundamental
principles to be observed in determining citizenship
by birth iff the United States:

1. The Constitution of the United States must be
interpreted in the light of the Common Law, imder
which every child bom in England, even though of
alien parents, was a natural-bom citizen.

2. The qualifying words in the Fourteenth Amend-
ment^ "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," ex-
clude two classes of persons — children bom of alien
enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic
representatives ci a foreign state. (The latter, from

1 United SUtes vs. Wong Kim Aik, 169 U. S., 649.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the earliest times, both under the laws of England and
in decisions of American courts, had been recognized
to be exceptions to the f imdamental rule of citizen-*
ship by birth within the national jurisdiction.)

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,^
adopted in 1868, incorporated no new rule or principle
into American law. Neither did the Civil Rights Act,
passed in 1866 as a Reconstruction measure, although
it was the first statutory definition in the United
States of citizenship by birth« That Act says:

All persons bom in the United States, and not subject
to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are citi-
zens of the United States and of the States where they reside.

COMMON-I4AW DEFINITION TAKEN FOB GBANTED

The English Common Law, then, is the original source
of our definition. That definition^ taken over with
the formation of the American Republic out of the
English colonies, was so familiar, so much a part of the
nature of 'things political, that nobody thought it
necessary to formulate it — or a new one.

By the Common Law of England, every person bom within
the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English
or of foreign par^tits — and in the latter case whether the
parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning in the
country, was an English subject; save only children of fordgn

1 Fourteenth Amendment — 1. AH persons bom or naturalized in
the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof* are citizens
of the United States and d the State wherein they reside. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, Uberty, or property without due process
of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro-
tection of the laws.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

ambassadors ... or a child bom in hostile occupation of any
part of the territories of England.^

When the Constitution of the United States was
made, a "citizenship of the United States" was recog-
nized but nowhere defined, and it was nearly a cen-
tury before it found specific statutory expression in
the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Meanwhile, not only the courts, but the Executive, in-
variably recognized the validity of the Common Law
Rule, and the Wong Kim Ark decision of 1897 merely
restated it once for all.*

CONCEBNINO AMERICANS BORN ABROAD

There are certain elaborations and modifications of
the two great principles mentioned above, serving both y
to confirm and circumscribe them. Children bom ^
abroad of American citizens in the foreign service of
the United States government are citizens of the
United States, and like citizenship comes by birth
to children ^'born out of the limits and jurisdiction,
whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth
citizens thereof." • But the father must have been
a citizen at the time of the birth of the child, and must
have resided actually in the United States; that is,
it will not do for him merely to have acquired citizen-
ship abroad by the fact of iJie citizenship of his father
without ever having resided in this country.
If the father loses his citizenship after the birth

^ Cockbum, yaitUmcMtyt p. 7.

*See Murray V8. The Charming Betsey* 2 Cranch, 64; Inglis ««.
SaOors' Snug Harbor, 8 Pet, 99; M'Creery va, Somarville, 9 Wheat,
854; see also Instruction of Marcy, Sea«tary of State, to Mason
(1854), quoted in Moor*s Digest qf Intemaiional Law, iii, p. 276.

'Revised Statutes, sec. 1993. See House Document 826, Fifty-
ninth Congress, Second Session.

*-•

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

of the child, it has been held that such child upon
attaining his majority may revive his right to citizen-
ship by establishing residence here. And by virtue
of legislation enacted in 1907, these foreign-bom chil-
dren of American parentage are required, upon reaching
the age of eighteen, to register their intention to be-
come residents, and to remain citizens, of the United
States, and upon attaining majority to take the Oath
of Allegiance to the United States.

The Department of State has been very liberal in
interpreting this provision, allowing the declaration
of intention to be made at any time after the person
concerned has reached the age of eighteen, and before
he has taken the oath, which may be at any reasonable
time after his majority. The main question raised
is that of good faith. Arises here the principle of
"election of nationality"; many countries accord to
a person thus in danger of what might be called "'dual
nationality" the right to choose. This is the case in
France, Spain, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal,
Mexibo, Chile, and Costa Rica. In Portugal, Italy*
and France, failure to exercise this choice operates
as a choice of citizenship there; in Spain, on the other
hand, silence is construed as a choice of the foreign
nationality. This is the purport of the American
practice.^

CHILDREN BORN AT SEA

It is commonly believed that children of foreign par-
ents bom on. the high seas under the American flag
J \ are as a matter of law "bom in the United States and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof,*' but this is not
clearly the case. As Borchard puts it, the child "is

^See discussion of this question by Borchard — The Diphmadc
Protection of CiHssens Abroad, p. 583 et seq., and footnotes.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

probably an American citizen under our law and may
also be a foreign subject jure sanguinis. Hence he
would, upon attaining majority, have a right of
election.

QUESTION OP DUAL NATIONALITY

Can a person gain a new citizenship without losing the
old? (The aspirant for American citizenship is required
in boUi his declaration of intention and his final petition
for naturalization to abjure in most specific fashion
not merely all other allegiances, but most particularly
that from which he has come.\ But the sovereignty
thus repudiated is not always willing to be abjured,
and international diplomacy has been in the past much
occupied with the tangles growing out of the question
of "dual nationality." For one not unconmion ex-
ample, the child of alien parents bom in the United s.
States and thereby under our law a citizen of this '
coimtiy, may be taken in childhood back to his father's
native land, and upon reaching military age may be
summoned to military service. The United States has
not been prone to defend such persons when their
actual residence in the old country was clear, but
it has been maintained that upon the attainment of
his majority such a person has the right to elect and
re-establish his American citizenship.

The most common difficulties arise practically, how-
ever, from the fact that under the terms of his declara-
tion to become a (Citizen of the United States, the alien
repudiates his allegiance to his fatherland and its
sovereignty, but does not gain, and cannot gain, for
at least two years in any circumstances, a new citizen-
ship. He has in most specific fashion flouted the govern-
ment he had, but the government he desires to have

will not protect him. For his practical uses, it is a
5 ^3

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

question whether he has now ttvo nationalities or none!
Moreover, there have been countries and times in
which the right to change allegiance was altogether
denied.

In their attitude on the subject of voluntary expatri-
ation the nations differ widely, and are divisible in this
matter under three heads: those which deny the right
altogether, those which permit it under certain condi-
tions, and those which place no bar in the way./

COUNTRIES DENYING THE BIGHT OF EXPATRIATION

Under the old regime, the Russian imperial govern-
ment laid a heavy penalty upon the Russian subject
who returned to Russia alter having been naturalized
abroad without the imperial consent.^

Turkey, under a law proclaimed in 1869, prohibited
the naturalization of its subjects abroad without the
permission of the Turkish government. The penalty
provided was imprisonment or expulsion.* In prac-
tice, however, expulsion has been the only penalty
inflicted, and the United States has contented itself
with an occasional protest.

The practice of Greece is not entirely clear-cut or
consistent. A law enacted in 1914 requires the per-
mission of the government before naturalization
abroad; in practice this is not given to those who have
not discharged their legal obligations as to military
service.* The practical effect of this attitude on the
part of Greece has been shown chiefly in the failure

^ See Department of State, Circular notice, January 9, 1914.

'In former times, even the American-bom child of parents of
Turkish birth has gone to that country at his peril. This was under
the old conditions; what the postwar reconstruction will effect in
this regard remains to be seen.

' See HaU, Intemaiumal Law, 7th ed., p. 247.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

of Greeks in this country quite generally to seek
naturalization.

CONDITIONAL RECOGNITION

The obligation which these countries commonly require
as a prerequisite to permission is that of military service
for the required period. Perhaps the best example of
this group is France, which has provided by law that
its nationals may divest themselves of their French
citizenship provided they are thirty-one years of age,
and thus may be presumed to have complied with the
conditions of military service.^ The other countries
requiring similar conditions are Italy, the Netherlands,
Serbia, and Switzerland; the usual penalty being
liability to arrest upon return, and the compulsory
fulfillment of the military requirements. But Switzer-
land provides for an annual tax in lieu of the military
requirement.

The United States government has repeatedly sought
through diplomatic channels to secure mitigation of
penalties inflicted by these countries on its naturalized
citizens; in many cases with a greater or less measure
of success; but it has been unable to secure by treaty
with any of these countries an unconditional recogni-
tion of the right of expatriation.

NATURALIZATION TREATIES WITH THE UNITED STATES

The first naturalization treaties which this government
n^otiated embodying recognition of the right cl ex-
patriation were the so-called "Bancroft Treaties** of
1869, with the states of the North Grerman Cotifeder-
atiop — Bavaria, Hesse, Baden, and WUrttemberg. In

^ See Hall, Intemational Law, p. 246.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the four years following similar treaties were concluded
with Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, and Norway,
Austria-Hungary, Denmark, and Ecuador. Since then
ti'eaties of like import have been eflFected with Haiti,
Portugal, Peru, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Uru-
guay, Brazil, and Costa Rica.^ (These treaties provide,
in substance, for expatriation at will, but stipulate that
subjects liable for offenses committed prior to emigra-

V. tion shall continue liable for the same, and that two
years' continubus resimiption of residence in the coun-
try of origin shall be presumptive evidence of renewed
citizenship in the old country. Under oiu* own law,
this loss of acquired citizenship by two years' con-
tinuous residence in the country of origin is specifically
recognized, j And it is also generally provided that
upon return to his former country a naturalized Amer-
ican shall be liable to punishment for the "evasion of
an existing or accrued liability to military service";

f but he is protected against the exaction of what was
at the time of emigration merely (by reason of youth)
a future liability to serve.*N

GREAT BRITAIN

Until the year 1870, England held tenaciously to the
doctrine of the indelibility of national allegiance.
Everyone was free to emigrate at will and live where
he pleased, but wherever he went, and whatsoever he
might do in the attempt to acquire another citizenship,
he was an Englishman still, in the eyes of the British
law inalienably a subject of the British crown. Al-

^ These treaties may be found in Malloy's Treaties, 1910-lS; also
see Edwin M. Borchard, The Dij^omatic Protection of Citizens
Abroad, p. 548 et seq,

* Edwin M. Borchard, The Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad,
p. 549.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

though the author probably did not realize it, there was
a certain grimness underlying the lines in ''Pinafore":

But, in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations.
He is an Englishman!

And although the War of 1812 between the United
States and Great Britain was chiefly provoked by the
insistence of England upon her slogan, ''Once an Eng-
lishman always an Englishman," and her refusal to
mitigate her policy with regard to British-bom saUors
naturalized by the United States, the theory continued
to be stoutly declared as a matter of principle, though
perhaps with diminishing emphasis. Hall says, how-
ever,^ that by 1876 it "had become an anachronism."
And after the report of a British royal conmussion
on the subject. Parliament enacted a statute providing
that a British subject might lose his British nationality
by naturalization in another country. / This long-
maintained attitude of Great Britain imdoubtedly goes
far to account for the failure of many persons of Eng-
lish birth, long resident in this country, and for all
practical purposes except political participation Amer-
icans, to seek formal adoption into our body politic.

GERMANY

Most of the discussion of our citizenship relations with
Germany has centered latterly about the German
Citizenship and Nationality Law, better known as the
"Delbriick Law," enacted in July, 1913 — a year before
the outbreak of the Great War. Attention has focused
especially on Section 25 of the statute, which reads as
follows:

^ Hall, InUmaHonul Law, 7th ed., p. 241.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

A German who has neither his residence nor permanent
abode in Germany loses his citizenship upon acquiring foreign
citizenship, provided the foreign citizenship is acquired as
a result of hb own appHcation therefor or the application of
the husband or legal representative; but in the case of a
wife of one having a legal representative, cuoly when the
conditions exist under which expatriation may be appUed
for according to Sections 18 and 19.

Citizenship is not lost by one who, before acquiring foreign
citizenship, has seciured on application the written consent
of the competent authorities of his home state to retain his
citizenship. Before this consent is given the German consul
is to be heard.

The Imperial Chancellor may order, with the consent
of the Federal Council, that persons who desire to acquire
citizenship in a specified foreign country may not be granted
the consent appUed for in paragraph 2.

It was charged, and widely believed in this and other
countries at war with Grermany, that this law was a
device, deliberately conceived by the Grerman autoc-
racy with the war in view, to enable Grermans living in
other countries malevolently, or with ulterior motives
and mental reservations, to acquire naturalization
there and go through the forms <^ alliance, without
in &ct ever losing, or being able to lose, their German
citiaenship. The text <^ the statute certainly gives m<NPe
than {Jausible color to sudi an inteixnetation.

It may well be doubted wheth^ in normal condi-
tioDs, and apart from the suspicion of G^mai^r's
evny motive, whidi is justified by bar conduct prior
to and during the war, this statute would have recdved
any sudi interpr^^on in the eyes of the rest of the
world; it is difficult to divorce thou^t of things Ger-
man frtxn the worid's state of mind for wfaidi Germany
has only li»sdf to thank. Nevertlidess, it is {wobable
that the law was of normal origin, and apologists for
it assot that its design was to meet oonditioDs emtrng

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

with reference to Russia, Italy, and France, all of which
in some measure denied the right of expatriation in
absence of specific treaty. Section 86 of the Delbriick
Law definitely declares that '* existing treaties are not
afiFected by this Act." And when the law was under
consideration in the Reichstag, the representative of
the Grerman government, upon being interrogated as
to the effect of Sections 25 and 26 upon the Bancroft
treaty between the United States and Germany, re-
plied, in so many words, that the German government
was obliged to look Upon every German naturalized
in the United States as an American and nothing else.^
Space is not available here for further discussion of
the real significance of the Delbrttck Law; suflSce it
to say that it is the subject of considerable difference of
opinion among the authorities.' But it may be said,
in general, that the best American authorities seem
to be of the opinion that the specific renunciation of
each and every former allegiance required by our
naturalization process makes it substantially impos-
sible for the disputed section or any other enactment
to operate as creating a dual allegiance. Such alle-
giance could exist only in theory at most ; in no practical
way could any foreign government enforce it as against
any person living in America. The United States,
under the Bancroft treaty and its own naturalization
law, would not tolerate such an interpretation, and

^See Dr, jur, A Bomen, ReidiM und Staataangehorigkeitagesets^
GuUeniag Sammlung, No. 111.

* A notable discussion of the Delbriick Law is to be found in an
article by T. H. Thiesing, "Dual Allegiance in the German Law of
Nationality and American Citizenship." Yale Reviev}, 27:4 (February*
1919). See also R. Floumoy in American Journal of IntematUmal
Law, 8:480 (July, 1914), and the Meyer Reichs-undrStaatsangehorig^
keiUgesetz vom S2 Juli, 1913. Berlin, 1918, p. 168-E.; also Edwin M.
Borchard, The Di'pUymaiie Protection cf CiHssena Abroad, p. 576; also
HalL IntematUmal Law, revision by A. Peaice Higgina, pp. 245-£46.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

as the "War Encyclopedia" of the American Commit-
tee on Public Information said, "it would be impossible
for a German applicant for citizenship in the United
States to avail himself of this section [Section ^ of
the Delbriick Law] without committing perjury."
/So far as the "declarant" of any nationality is
concerned, it should be added that our Department of
State has always sought to maintain that a declarant
is in a position different from that of the ordinary
X alien, has extended a limited degree of protection^ and
now issues passports under the authority of an Act
passed March 2, 1907 — ^provided he has resided in the
United States for three years;] at the same time pro-
tecting itself from imposition by such persons by limit-
ing the validity of such passports to a term of six
months, and providing that an extended residence or
domicile abroad shall be construed as an abandonment
of the declared intention. Moreover, the naturalizing
judges and the Bureau of Naturalization examine with
great strictness the reasons for any absence whatever
from the country after the declaration, and usually
construe "intention" with regard to continuous resi-
dence with emphasis against the applicant. \Many
judges permit no absence, however brief, some going
. so far as to rule against any absence from the very
county in which the applicant resides.^ And dining
the European War the issuance of such passports to
natives of the belligerent countries was altogether
suspended.^

y The United States was early conunitted not only
by specmc utterances and practices, but by the whole
psychology and tradition of its being, to the principle

^ The status of declarants in this and other relationships is fully
discussed by Edwin M. Borchard, in The DipUmuxHc Protection of CiH-
sens Abroad, pp. 501 d aeq. and 568 el seq,, with elaborate footnotes
citing authorities and precedents.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

of free expatriation; nevertheless, great confusion ex-
isted in the interpretation of the right as it related to ^
efforts of American citizens to become citizens or sub-
jects of other countries. The policy was finally crystal-
lized in the Act of March 2, 1907^ which provides /
definitely that ^^any American citizen shall be deemed^
to have expatriated himself when he has been natural-!
ized in any foreign state in conformity with its laws,'
or when he has taken an oath of allegiance to any
foreign state." This is the Act which, in the same sec-
tion, provides for the extension of naturalization by
presumption upon two years' residence in "the country
from which he came," or upon five years' residence
"in any foreign state." But it is provided that "such
presumption may be overcome on the presentation of
satisfactory evidence to a diplomatic or consular officer
of the United States, under such regulations as the De-
partment of State may prescribe." /^It is stipulated,
however, that "no American citizen shall be allowed to r
e^cpatriate himself when the country is at war.^ ^^

f During the Great War many American citi^ns im-
periled, and in fact technically lost, their American
citizenship by entering the military service of the X,
various belligerent nations. After the entry of the
United States into the conffict this was remedied by
the enactment of Section 12 of the Act of May 9, 1918,
in which it is provided that ,

• i . any person who, while a citizen of the United States
and during the existing war in Europe, entered the military
or naval service of any country at war with a country with
whidi the United States is now at war, who shall be deemed
to have lost his citizenship by reason of any oath or obliga-
tion taken by him for the purpose of entering such service,
Tmay resume his citizenship by taking the oath of allegiance
to the United States prescribed by the naturalization law
and regulations;\ . .

1 61

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

such oath to be taken here or abroad, before any state
or Federal court authorized to naturalize aliens, or
before any United States consul.

CITIZENSHIP TAKES NO ACCOUNT OF SEX

(

Basic citizenship in the United States takes no account
of sex.\ Every child^^male or female, white, black, brown,
red, or yellow, *(bom in the United States and subject
tb the jurisdiction thereof," is ipsofddo a citizen\ And
every unmarried woman of that nativity is, aiia con-
tinues to be such, as long as she remains unmarried.
U pon marriage she takes forthwith, whether she will
orn5, so far as our law is concerned, the nationality of
her husband — even if he be an alien. It is the unbroken
tradition of our law, and of the laws of nearly all other
nations — ^in so far as they recognize women as being
individual citizens at all — ^that the nationality of a
wife follows that of her husband. Of that tradition
was bom a section of the law of 1907 which seeks to
confer upon any American woman marrying a foreigner

f the nationality of her husband. (When an alien man
becomes a citizen of the United States by naturaliza-
tion, hi fiL-wifg , in ordinary circumstances, becomes a
citizen with him; the law says specifically that "a
woman who is now, or may hereafter be married to a
citizen of the United States, and who might herself be
lawfully naturalized, may be deemed a citizen.'' But,
generally speaking, she must, unless herself American
bom, be resident in this country :\ The practice in
this regard has not been wholly consistent; the State
Department has held repeatedly that the naturalization
of a husband does not reach the wife if she continue

V to reside in the old country; but a very uniform line
of decisions is to the effect that her husband's natural-
ization makes her a citizen wherever she may be, and

6«

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

that she remains a citizen even after his death unless
she takes action to repatriate herself. The Act of 1907
makes it necessaiy for such a foreign-bom widow
resident abroad to roister with a United States consul
within a year after the termination of her marriage;
otherwise her citizenship lapses. )

The phrase, "who might heraelf be lawfully nat-
uralized/' has given rise to much controversy, and its
significance has not been definitively declared. Some
authorities hold it to apply only to the Oriental races
excluded as such from citizenship; others hold that
it should be interpreted to call for an examination
of the wife as to her views on the subject of anarchism,
polygamy, etc. But the general tendency seems still
to hold that the family is one, and the husband thai one;
that, therefore, any sort of wife comes into citizenship
automatically with the naturalization of her husband.

"a woman without a countby"

(The nonresident American-born wife of a foreigner
may, upon his death or the termination of the mar-
riage in any other legal manner, resume her American
citizenship by registration with a United States consul,^

v^.But«what of the woman, bom an American citizen,
married to an alien who continues to live? The United
States statute of 1907 undertakes to expatriate her —
"any American woman who marries a foreigner shaU
take the nationality of her husband." But, in absence
of specific treaty, or of legislation in the husband's
country to that effect, that pronouncement is without
force or validity outside of the United States; Con-
gress has no power to confer or inflict the citizenship
of any other nation upon anybody. "The operation of
this statute might easily deprive a woman of her

American citizenship — even if she had it by right of

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

birth — ^and leave her with none." ^ It seems rather
extraordinary that of all the judges of American
naturalization courts replying to the questionnaire of
the Americanization Study, whose results are discussed
elsewhere in this voliune,- not one referred directly
to this aspect of the citizenship of the American woman.
The person without a coimtry is an alien everywhere
his foot may fall — no matter under what roof or flag
he may seek shelter. He is subject to the local laws
and limitations governing aliens; but he has no home-
land whose flag he may call his own; no government
anywhere to which he may appeal for protection; he
is dependent without recourse upon the hospitality,
grace, and mercy of the public authorities and the
people of the land where he chances to make his
habitation.

THE AMERICAN UNDER THREE JURISDICTIONS

In notable contrast with this dismal prospect, (the
American citizen, native or naturalized, is quite other-
wise. He is subject to three concmrent jurisdidbions.j
This fact is a source of great puzzlement to many an
applicant for citizenship, and constitutes one of the
stumbling-blocks which beset him in his initial under-
standing of our system of government.
(^First, the nature of his relation to the United States)
In the case of Minor vs. Happerstett,^ decided in 1875,
the Supreme Court of the United States said:

Before its adoption, the Constitution of the United States
did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the
United States, yet there were necessarily slich citizens with-

1 See Edwin M. Borchard, The Diplomatic Protection of Citvsena
Abroad, pp. 19, 591.
• See chap, vi, p. 148 et seq,

< 21 Wallace, 162.

(

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

out such provision. There cannot b^ a nation without a
people. The very idea of a political community, such as
a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promo-
tion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons asso-
ciated becomes a member of the nation formed by the asso-
ciation. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection.
All^iance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal
obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; alle-
giance for protection and protection for allegiance.

For convenience it has been found necessary to give a
name to this membership. The object is to designate by a
title the person and the relation he bears to the nation. For
this purpose the words "subject," "inhabitant," and "citi-
zen" have been used, and the choice between them is some-
times made to depend upon the form of government. "Citi-
zen" is now more commonly employed, however, and as it
has been considered better suited to the description of one
living under a republican government, it was adopted by
nearly all of the states upon their separation from Great
Britain, and was afterward adopted in the Articles of Con-
federation and in the Constitution of the United States.
When used in that sense it is understood as conveying the
idea of membership of a nation, and nothing more.

To determine, then, who were the citizens of the United
States before the adoption of the pPourteenth] amendment
it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated
themselves together to form the nation, and what were
afterward admitted to membership.

The eflFect of this decision, and of the Fourteenth
Amendment whose meaning it declared, was to de-
termine definitively that National Citizenship is para-
mount to State Citizenship^ But it did not entirely
absorb the latter into the former. In the famous
"Slaughter House Cases''^ the Supreme Court three
years before had held that there might be citizens

^ Butchers' Benevolent Association ««. Crescent City live Stock
Company, 16 WaOace, S6.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

of the United States who were not citizens of any
state, and that the Fourteenth Amendment applied
particularly, if not solely, to the privileges and im-
mimities of citizens of the United States, as such,
and did not necessarily limit the right of a state to
inflict disabilities upon its own citizens.

The distinction between the two citizenships was
thus stated in the Slaughter House cases :^

The distinction between citizenship of the United States
and citizenship of a State is clearly recognized and estab-
lished. Not only may a man be a citizen of the United
States without being a citizen of a State, but an important
element is necessary to convert the former into the latter.
He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it,
but it is only necessary that he should be bom or naturalized
in the United States to be a citizen of the Union. .It is
quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United
States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct ft*om
each other, and which depend upon different characteristics
or circumstances in the individual.

It is therefore decided that while a State may no longer
decide the question of, who shall be or become its citizens,
the citizen of the United States must, before becoming a
citizen of a State, take up his residence within the State.
The term of residence is nowhere fixed, but a permanent resi-
dence or dcmiicile is understood, ''with intent that it shall
continue until subsequent removal with the intent of aban-
doning such residence and acquiring another."

These momentous adjudications did not, however,
address themselves to the matter of political partici-
pation. Although a state might not determine who
should constitute its citizen body, there was no cur-
tailment of its full authority to determine what polit-
ical privileges should exist, or who should enjoy them.
Neither Federal nor state citizenship, per se, entitles

^ McCIain, ConsHtuHonal Law in the Untied States, p. 276.

CITIZENSHIP IN VARIOUS LANDS

a man or woman to vote or to hold office; these are mat-
ters of state legislation and a number of states have
accorded, and two still accord, to aliens who have
merely declared their intention to seek citizenship,
the right to vote. Moreover, respected authorities^
hold the opinion that, while no state can prevent a
citizen of the United States from becoming a citizen
of the state, a state may grant its own citizenship to
one who is not — ^perhaps to one who cannot become —
a citizen of the United States.* But the Act of Con-
gress, May 6, 1882, expressly prohibits the naturaliza-
tion of any Chinese person.

The courts from the beginning have recognized the
existence of two concurrent, if not more or less sepa-
rable, citizenships. In the Cruikshank case in 1875,'
the Supreme Court said:

The people of the United States resident within any State
are subject to two govemmeDts; one State and the other
national; but there need be no conflict between the two. The
powers which one possesses the other does not. They are
established for different purposes, and have different jurisdic-
tions. Together they make one whole, and furcish the people
of the United States with one government, ample for the
protection of all their rights at home and abroad. True, it
may sometimes happen that a person is amenable to both
jurisdictions for one and the same act. . . . This does not,
however, necessarily imply that the two governments possess
powers in common, or bring them into conflict with each
other. It is the natural consequence of a citizenship which
owes allegiance to two sovereignties and claims protection
from both. The citizen cannot complain because he has
voluntarily submitted himself to such a form of government.
He owes allegiance to the two departments, so to speak.

^ See T^oughby on the Constitution, i, p. 272.
* See in re Wehlitz, 16 Wisconsin, 44S.
> United States vs. Cruikshank, 02 U. S., 542.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

and within their respective spheres must pay the pen-
alty which each exacts for disobedience to its laws. In re-
turn he can demand protection from each within its own
jurisdiction.

There is still another jurisdiction to which citizens
must give attention, and to the foreigner it is an added
perplexity in the understanding of our system: the
purely local laws, ordinances, and rulings of city,
health, police; of coimtry, town, and village; Trad
sometimes these seem to run counter to one another,
and leave him in a maze of fear and uncertainty — ^to
say nothing of those mysterious exceptions, exemp-
tions, and immunities which seem to be accorded for
the benefit of those who, by political loyalty or sub-
serviency, favoritism — ^and even cash payments upon
occasion — ^have got themselves "in right," as the
saying goes.

The problems of national solidarity and loyalty
raised so acutely all over the country by the exigencies
and conflicts of the war have made the mass of the
people of the United States keen as never before about
the standards and technical tests of citizenship. The
tendency, very marked now, is to establish and uphold
the uniformity of conditions which beyond a doubt
shall represent the spirit, if not the letter, dF the law.
We are now to consider the machinery and the process
which the aspirant for citizenship confronts as he
knocks at our wicket.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATUBAUZATION LAW

( Natukalization, the legal ceremony by which the
iiative or adopted citizen <^ one country acquires
citizenship^ another^ is in its significance and essen-
tials very ancient — ^it goes back to the blood transfu-
sion and other primitive cer^oionials by which those
of other kin were admitted as brothers to full standing
in family, dan, or tribal membership. It registers and
eflFectuates two distinct things — a divorce and a new
marriage, so to say. (ThCTe are two parties to the two-
fold process: the petitioner, who on his own account
renoimces the old allegiance and professes his desire
and his intention to assume the new; and the adopting
government which, on its part, accepts the applicant
and upon him confers the standing and privileges and
imi>oses the responsibilities and obligations attaching
to citi2^nship under its protecti(Hi and authority.^)
This is precisely the na^ire of the process through
which must go every foreign-bom person who becomes
an active member of the United States.

OUB "CHABTEB ICEMBEBs"

As in the case of other new organizations, we had at
the beginning what might be called 'Xharter Mem-
bers." We were not fussy about it. There was no
prejudice then against the newcomer — ^we "needed
him in our business!" The Constitution of the United
6 60

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

States in its inception took in as a matter of course
everybody then resident here who by any color of
law could be construed to be entitled to membership.
Even the provision requiring native birth for the
Presidency limited it only to one natural bom, ^*or
a citizen of the United States at the time of the adop-
tion of this Constitution." ^ Martin van Buren was
actually the first President bom an American citizen.
The seven who preceded him all ware bom subjects
of the British crown.

Prior to 1700, few immigrants who were not British
subjects had sought homes in the American colonies;
the few of other nationality found no difficulty in
being accepted as feOow citizens with thode who pre-
ceded them. For obvious reasons, the Colonial gov-
ernments were liberal in granting civil rights to new-
comers of almost every sort. It was absolutely vital
to the preservation of the new civilization here that
there should be an increasing number of men to assist
in conquering the wilderness and in defending the
fringe of settlements against attack. How could the
pioneer nation have maintained itself, much less have
advanced and spread westward until its feet were
stopped by the Pacific, without these adventiu*ous
souls of every race?

So the sieve was of coarse mesh.

FIBST NATURALIZATION LAWS

Generally speaking, except where a colony had legis-
lated independently in the matter, the British law
was in effect. Under this, an alien might be natural-

^ This exception is said to have been included prindpally to aUow
digibility to Alexander Hamilton, who was bom in the West
under the British flag.

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

ized by the Act of Parliament, or given partial rights
by grant of the king, in ^'Letters of Denization/'

Prior to 1740, a number of naturalization laws were
passed by Colonial legislatures. General laws were
passed by New York and Pennsylvania in 1683, South
Carolina in 1696, and Virginia somewhat later. The
use of the private Act of Naturalization was veiy com-
mon, especially in Penni^lvania and New York. The
graieral Act of Pennsylvania was in fact revoked by
Queen Anne, and from that time until 1840 all nat-
uralizations in that colony were by private or special
ilation.
Probably the first naturalization of aliens in the

few World was the collective acceptance of the Dutch
inhabitants ot New Amsterdam (New York) by the
articles of capitulation in 1664} by which they with
their territory passed under the British flag. (Two
years later Augustine Herman of Prague, with his
family, was naturalized by Act of the Maryland As-
sembly. This appears to have been the first naturali-
zation law enacted in America.^

vThe rights conferred by all of these Colonial Acts
were limited strictly to the colony in which each was
passed. ^ Political rights varied in the different colonies,
chiefly according to voting qualifications in force in
each. But since most of them provided for a property
qualification, the permission to foreigners to own land
usually carried with it the right of suffrage. However,
in some of the colonies the naturalized citizen was not
digible to public office. For all practical purposes
of social standing, the ownership of land sufficed, and
since that could be passed down by inheritance, and
it was always admitted that a child bom on this soil
was a citizen regardless of his racial descent, the re-
strictions were hardly irksome at that time.
I In 1740 the English Parliament passed an Act for

\ 71

(

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

providing tw naturaUzatioB in the American colonies^
of "foreign Protestants." Persons natiu*alized under
tiiis statute might enjoy all civil rights except that of
holding certain offices. A residence of seven years
was required, and certain oaths and rites were imposed,
including partaking of the sacrament of the Hdy
Communion in accordance with the ritual of the Church
<rf England. Quakers, and Jews, howev^, were the
r subject of exemption; Quakers were permitted to
affirm, rather than to swear, and Jews were permitted
to omit the words, "on the faith of a ChristianV* /This
Act remained the basic law of the American pFOvmces
until the Revolution, when all British statutes were,
at least constructively, superseded by Acts <rf the
Congress of the United States of America.* ]

Among the grievances recited against the govern-
ment of George III was the treatment of this subject
of naturalization. It is thus set forth in the Declara-
tion of Independence:

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these
States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturali-
zation of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage
their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new
Appropriation of Lands.

Under the Articles of Confederation, which served the
new republic until the adc^ion ot the Constitution,
no specific action was taken by the Congress to pro-
vide for the naturalization, although certain provision
was made for an oath ot allegiance for office-holders,
and to facilitate desertion from the British ranks by
offers of land and of citizenship. After the Revoluticm

^ 18 George II, cbap. 7 — ^Ruffhead's Statuies-^tt^Large, vi, p. 384.

*See Chanjiing's Higtory of the United States, vol. ii, pp. 413-416;
also A. H. Carpenter, '^Naturalization in En^^and and the Colonies*"
American HiHorical Review, vol. ix, p. £88.

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

a number of individual states enacted naturalization
statutes: Massachusetts, 1783-89; Delaware, 1788;
Maryland, 1779; New Ywk, 1789; South CanJina,
1784; Virginia, 1779-85, These Acts generally pro-
vided very easy methods for the acquisition of citizen-
ship — usually requiring only an oath of allegiance,
without any specific length ci residence; though Vir-
ginia required a f(»*mal declaration ot intention to
remain h^re, and South Carolina insisted upon a previ-
ous residence of at least one year.

EFFORTS TOWABD TJNIFORMITT

( The obvious and constant embarrassment arising from
different requirements under diverse jurisdictions was
recognized and discussed before the making of the
Federal Constitutioii^ James Madison, for example,
in 1782, urged the necessity of a uniform practice./* So n(
general was the recognition of this need that the Con-
stitutional Convention took it fo|* granted, and almost
without discussion adopted the provision)which still
stands, and under which all subsequent legislation
has gained its authority: ^

Congress shall have power ... to establish an uniform
rule oC naturalization . . .

And almost immediatdif (1790), President Washing-
ton having urged it in his message in January of that ^
year. Congress enacted a general Naturalization Act.' ^

The considerable debate in Congress concerning this
measure not only throws an interesting light upon the
policies prevailing at that time, but shows that while
the new government realized the importance of desir-
able immigration, there was full realization of the

^ ConsHMum cf the United Statee, art i* sec. 8, 4.
* United States Statutee-at^Letrge, vol. i, pp. 108-104.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

diflSculty of so adjusting the process oi naturalization
as to facilitate this while at the same time protecting
the essentials of the American spirit and institutions
from the insidious influen^ces feared from certain types
of newcomers. ( The conflicting attitudes of the highly
liberal Quakers in Penn^lvania and the austere Puri-
tans of New England — ^visible in many ways in all the
legislation of the early years in the contrasting juris-
dictions of the northern Atlantic colonies, appears
clearly in the debates, from which emerged the Act
of 1790, whose essentials were as follows:

I. Naturalization to be conferred by any court of record.

n. A requirement of two years' residcDce in the United
States, and one year within the State.

m. Proof required of good moral character, and oath to
support the Constitution of the United States. ^

(

This Act was repealed in 1795 by another^ intro-
ducing the declaration of intenti<m to become a citi-
zen, and extending the period of required residence from
two years to five. This Act has been the basis of our
naturalization system ever since. Its main provisions
were these:

I. A preliminary dedaration of intention to become a
citizen of the United States, to be made at least three years
[the present law specifies two years] before final application
for citizenship.

n. Naturalization jurisdiction was vested in any ''su-
preme, superior, district or circuit court'* of the states or of
the territories northwest or south of the River Ohio, or a
a circuit or district court of the United States.

m. Five years' residence in the United States, and cme
year's residence in the state in which the application was
made.

IV. An oath of allegiance.

1 Unikd States SUOuUHoi-Large, vol. i, pp. 414-441.

^ United States Statutee^i^Large, voL ii, pp. 153-155.

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

Aliens then lesidmg in the United States might be
naturalized after iwo years' residence. ^

This Act was fathered by James Madison, then a

Timber of Congress. )
President Jefferson, in his first message to Congress,
advocated a revision of the Naturalization Law, to
the end that ''the general character and capabilities
of a citizen be safely communicated to everyone mani-
festing a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and
fortunes permanently with us.*'

Accordingly the Jeffersonian Congress of 1802 re-
pealed the Act of 1795, and enacted one^ which re-
mained substantially in force for more than a century.
Its provisions, in the main, were as follows:

I. Naturalization jurisdiction was vested in the supreme,
superior, district and circuit courts (a district court meaning
any court of record having common-law jiuisdiction) in the
states and territorial districts and in the circuit and district
courts of the United States.

n. The Declaration of Intention was still required, with
the three years* interval before final application.

m. Five years' residence in the United States and one
in the State was still required.

rV. Oath of allegiance to the United States, with specific
renunciation of former allegiance.

V. Pioof of good moral character and attachment to the
principles of the United States.

Under this Act the children of persons duly natu-
ralized were, if resident in the United States, to be
considered citizens, and those bom elsewhere were to
enjoy the same status, provided that the citizenship
should not descend to children whose fathers never
resided in the United States.

An Act passed in 1804 slightly modified the regula-

AMERICANS BY CHCHCE

tioh in favor of aliens isesiding in the United States^
between 1798 and 180d> and provided also that in case
a '* declarant" should die before his naturalization
had been consummated, his widow and miuOT children
should be deemed citi2sens upon taking the prescribed

rtiJ )
During the second war with England^ in 1818, an Act
was passed requiring the five years' residence to be
absolutely unbroken by any absence whatever from
the United States, and prescribing penalties for forgery
or sale of naturalization certificates.* Later in the

y same year another law was passed to permit the
naturalization of alien enemies (then Englishmen)
who had declared intention prior to June 18, 1812.' j
Another important amendment was made in 1816.^
( In 1824, following a period of agitation for earlier
naturalization. Congress passed an Act, the most im-
portant provision of which^ reduced from three to two

y years the minimum interval between the declaration

f( of intention and final naturalization.^ It is interesting
to note that this agitation for more liberal conditions
came, as might be expected, at the time of the initial
influx of aliens to the East^n cities, and the b^in-
nings of the political exploitation of th»'' foreign vote."
Further slight changes were made in 1828,* and

\ after twenty years more, in 1848, Congress abolished
the restriction of 1813 which f^bade any absence what-
ever from the country during the five years' period of
''continuous residence.^' ^ Biit during all of the period
between 1820 and the Civil War there was an increasing
''Native American" agitation for narrower, rather
than more liberal, restricti<»is, even to the pmnt of
abolishing naturalization altogether. Innumerable bills

^ United States Staiutes-aJtrLarge, vol. ii, pp. 292-298.
« /Wd., p. 811. » Ibid,, vol. iii, p. 53. * Ibid,, voL iii, p. 269.
• lUd,, vol. iv, p. 69. • Ibid,, vol. iv, p. 810. ' Ibid,, vol, ix, p. 240.

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

were introduced reflecting this agitation; but, owing
both to the increasing importance of the foreign-bom
element in politics, and to the underlying realization
that the nation must have a constant accretion of
population, no such legislation reached the statute
books. The three minor amendments enacted during
and immediately after the Civil War were designed
to meet conditions arising out of the state of war.^
fin 1876 the Act of 180^ was amended so that the
dedaration of intention could be made, as it is now,
before the derk of any of the courts having naturaliza-
tion jurisdiction.^ And in 1872 and 1894 provision
was made for the easier naturalization of the United
v)^ States soldiers, sailors, marines, and merchant sea-
men, about whose permanency of residence there was
embarrassment.^

BABS UP AGAINST ALIEN ANARCHISTS

The assassination of President McKinley, in 1901,
by a professed anarchist brought to a head the feeling
against foreign ultra-radicals, and resulted in the enact-
ment in 1903 ^ of the restricti<m against the admission
to this country of persons believing in the abolition
of organized government or the removal of public
officers by violence.^ This test is widely applied now
by judges and by the Naturalization Service in the
examination of applicants for citizenship.

VARIOUS PRESIDENTS DISCUSSED NATURALIZATION

The impcHtance of the subject of the absorption of
foreign-bom persons into our life is reflected all through

^ United States 8tatute9-<xt-Large, vol. zii, p. 597.
* Ibid., vol. xix, p. it,

* ' Ibid,, vol. xvii, p. 268, and vol. zxviii, p. 124.
« Ibid., vol. xzxii, pt. 1, p. 1222.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the records of the government; allusions to it may be
f omid in a large proportion of the messages of the Presi-
dents to Congress. John Adams found occasion to
erpress abhorrence of '' intrigues of foreign agents to
alienate the affections of the Indians and to arouse
them to acts of hostility."

The liberal sentiments of Thomas Jefferson appeared
in his early recommendation of a revision of the law
requiring fourteen years' residence: "Shall we refuse
the refuge extended to our fathers," said he, in sub-
stance, "to the unhappy fugitivies from distress arriv-
ing in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no
asylum on this globe?" But at the same time he re-
marked that for admission to certain offices of trust,
a residence should be required sufficient to develop
character and an appreciation of the design of our
institutions.

James Madison's interest in the Subject was ex-
hibited throughout his administration, and especially
in his activities on the floor of Congress.

President Buchanan insisted upon the full status for
naturalized citizens.

Our Government is bound [said he] to protect the
rights of our naturalized citizens everywhere to the same
extent as though they had drawn their first breath in this
country. We can recognize no distmction between our
native and natiualized citizens.

Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson touched upon
the question of the French and Russian claims upon
immigrants who came here merely to escape military
service; Lincoln pointing out that there should be
a time limit beyond which the United States would not
attempt to protect persons who came here for that
reason and then returned to their native countries
claiming to be American citizens; Johnson, on the

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

other hand, emphasizing the effect ci naturalization
in absolving the individual from all former allegiance.
President Grant urged Congress to define the condi-
tions of expatriation, and to regulate by law the status
of children of aliens becoming naturalized, and that ot
American women manying noncitizens. He also drew
attention to the growing evil of fraudulent naturaliza-
tion, and urged the establishment of a ^stem of uni-
form certificates and records.

President Arthur also called for a central bureau of
registry, and for a general revision of the naturaliza-
tion law, pointing out that much of it now had only
historical interest, that the provisions regarding chil-
dren of naturalized parents were ambiguous, and that
the constitutional authority to establish ""an uniform
rule'' called for a dear definition of the status of
^'persons bom within the United States subject to a
foreign power, and minor children of fathers who
have dedared their intention but have failed to perfect
their naturalization."

( President Cleveland devoted a good deal of atten-
tion to the subject. He, too, emphasized the need
of centralized Federal control over the records, and re-
-peatedly called for a general revision of the law, insist-
ing that the ^* privilege and franchise of American
dtizenship" should be granted with scrupulous care.
He gave warning against *'the ea^ and unguarded
manner in which certificates of naturalization can
now be obtained,'' and the growth of a dass of
persons who availed themsdves of it tor political
purposes. )

^ Benjamin Harrison emphasized the need of an in-
vestigation of the moral character of the applicant for
dtizenship, to make more certain the existence of a
"good disposition toward our government"; calling
also for a more particular ^stem of court hearings, with

(

-I

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

proper opportiinity for representatives of the govern-
ment to appear. He declared that '^ avowed enemies of
social order" dbonld be denied not only citizenship^
but even domicile here. He also adverted to the evils
of fraudulent naturalizaticm.

DEFINITE REFOHM AT LAST

It was the growmg reaUzation of this general condition,
of the notorious ease with which naturalization could
be acquired; the wholesale issue and sale of fraudulent
certificates; the debauching of elections through the
manipulation of the "" foreign vote/' and the general
cheapening of the franchise, that brought the subject
to a head.) It was common knowledge that these
frauds were^ prevalent wherever there were large num-
ber of foreign-born people, and that both of the great
political parties vied with each other in exhausting
ingenuity to devise methods for the exploitation of
the alien population. Which party excelled in the
business d^>ended almost entirely upon which was
dominant in ai^ particular community. The situation
was a scandal in any event, and the sober sentiment
of the nation realized increasingly that something
must be done about it.

NATURALIZATION COMMISSION APPOINTED

/ It was not until the administration of President Roose-
velt, however, that definite steps were taken. During
the years 1903-05 the Department of Justice became
very active in unearthing and prosecuting violations
of the naturalization laws. Hundreds of cases of
fraudul^it naturalization were discovered, and nearly
seven hundred convictions were obtained?^. A special
examiner of the Department of Justice, /A. C. van

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

Deusen, made an extensive report oo the subject in
1905.1

By Executive Order, March 1» 1905» Presid^it
Roosevelt created a special conunission, consisting
of Milton D. Purdy, Assistant Attorney-General
representing the Department of Justice, chairman;
Gaillard Hung, chief of the Bureau of Citizenship
in the Department of State, representing that depart-
ment, and Richard K. Campbell, attorney fo^ the
Immigration Bureau in the Depaitment of Commerce
and Labor (now Commissioner of Naturalization in
the Department of LabcH*), ^Ho investigate and report
on the subject of naturalization in the United States,''
and ta recommend changes in the naturalization laws.*
The conunission's report is invaluable in any study
of the subject of Naturalization Law and Procedure.
( The average citizen scarcely realizes how comjdetely
the Naturalization Law of 1906, which was the fruit

^ of the labors of this commission, has revolutionized
the whole business. ^Whatever may be the defects of
the law, or of the practice which has grown up under
It, they are in the main due to "leanii^ over backward"
in the honest effort to dean and keep clean the flow
of new blood into our citizenship. (Generally speaking,
it is to be said that the enforcement of this statute has

. SL abolished most c^ the evils of fraud and exploitation
which before that were a scandal and a menace in

rnerican political life.)
By this act the Naturalization Service ^as estab-
lished and an absolutely new era initiated. As Mr.
Campbell, who forthwith became chief of the Division

^ Extracts from tliis report may be found in the Reffort cf the
President's Commission on Naturalizationt Ftfty-ninth Congress, First
Session, House Document 46.

' The report of this commission is available as House Document 46»
Fifty-ninth Congress, First Session.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

of Naturalization in the Bureau of Immigration,^ said
in his report tor the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, the
process of becoming natiuralized as an American citizen

. . . has acquired (even after so short an <q>eration of the new
system) a formality and dignity which is in some measm^
commensurate with the importance of the Act and the gravity
of its consequences; it is no longer possible to *' railroad"
aliens in groups to the naturalization courts, in defiance of
the law and in disregard of even an appearance of propriety;
the courts which have jurisdiction are no longer such as are
*' devoted largely to the trifling and indecent affairs of the
community," and the conferring of citizenship is, in this re-
spect, no longer '* ranked with disturbing the peace or keeping
an unlicensed dog," as it was expressed by a judge of a court
in describing the conditions under the old law.

And in his seventh report, for 1913-14, to the Sec-
retary of Labor, Mr. Campbell remarked that

To those who will take the trouble to compare the chaotic
and disorderly conditions which characterized the pro-
cedure for more than a century of our national existence with
4- the dignity, uniformity, and regularity of the present system,
it must appear to be a matter of inexplicable carelessness
that the reform should so long have been delayed.

In the same report, the Commissioner of Naturaliza-
tion points to one reform embodied at least potentially
in the present sfystem, which alone would have justi-
fied it:

There is, too, for the person naturalized, a security of
title to his political or national status never b^ore enjoyed
by him. The title to citizenship is the recorded order of the

^ yfiik the creation of the Department of Labor, in 1918, out of
the former Department of Commerce and Labor— Commerce becom-
ing a 8q>arate d^artment — ^the Naturalization Service became a
Bureau of that department, headed by a Commissioner responsible
to the Secretary of Labor.

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

court. * The certificate is simply the conclusive evidence of
such order. If there was no written record made, as was
often the case, or if that record was destroyed, as happened
not infrequently, the title to citizenship hung by the slender
thread of a piece of paper carried by the owner and subject
to all the risks attendant upon such possessions. If lost,
to all practical intents his citizenship was also lost. Now the
duplicate ?mtten record, one in the court and one in the
Bureau [of Naturalization]* is an ample defense against all
such acddents.

It would he, indeed; but what if in course of time
these records in the Bureau should have come into
such condition* owing to inadequate clerical force and
increasing absorption of the Bureau in other activities,
that the record there could not be traced!

However, any criticism or consideration of the present
system, to be intelligent or fair, must take into account*
first, the incredibly chaotic conditions which formerly
prevailed, and second, the fact that never — ^not even
now — ^has the naturalization system* as a problem in
public administration, received even sup^cial atten-
tion of the public.

WHAT THE LAW BEQUIBES

Before we proceed to consider the naturalization proc-
ess as in action it has affected annually upward of one
hundred thousand human beings seeking admission
to citizenship in the United States* let us see the prin-
cipal provisions of the law with which they come into
contact. Section 4 of the Naturalization Law^ pro-

^ Act <^ June 29, 1906 (84 United States Statutes-^it-Large, pt. i,
p. 596), as amended by Act of March 4, 1909 (S5 Stat., pt. i, p. 1102),
as further amended by Act of June 25, 1910 (86 Stat., pt. i, p. 880),
as further amended by Act of March 4, 1918 (87 Stat., pt. i, p. 786),
as further amended by Act of May 9, 1918 (Public No. 144, Sixty-
fifth Congress, Second Session).

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

vides that an alien may be admitted to become a
citizen of the United States in the following manner
"and not otherwise."

First. He shall declare on oath before the clerk of any
court authorized IBy this Act to naturalize aliens, or his
authorized deputy, in the district in which such alien resides^
two years at least prior to his admission, and after he has
reached the age of eighteen years, that it is his bona fide
intention to become a citizen of the United States and to
renounce forever all allegiance and fideUty to any foreign
prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty* and particularly, by
name, to the prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of which
the alien may be at the time a citizen or subject. And such
declaration shall set forth the name, age, occupation, per-
sonal description, place of birth, last foreign residence and
allegiance, the date of arrival, the name of the vessel, if
any, in which he came to the United States, and the present
place of residence in the United States of said alien: Pro-
vided, however, that no alien who, in conformity with the law
in force at the date of his declaration, has declared his inten-
tion to beccmie a citizen of the United States, shall be re-
quired to renew such declaration.

Second. Not less thaaJbdL^eai^* nor more than seven
rears, after he has made such declaration of intention he
shsoT make and file, in duplicate, a petition in writing,
signed by the appHcant in his own handwriting and duly
verified, in which petition such applicant shall state his full
name, his place of residence (by street and number, if pos-
sible), his occupation, and, if possible, the date and place <^
his birth; the place from which he emigrated, and the date
and place of his arrival in the United States, and, if he enta*ed
through a port, the name of the vessel on which he arrived;
the time when, and the place and name of the court where he
declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States;
if he is married he shall state the name of his wife and, if
possible, the country of her nativity and her place of residence
at the time of filing his petition; and if he has children, the

name, date, and place of birth and place of residence of

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

each child living at the time of the filing of his petiUon:
Promdedy That if he has filed his dedaration b^ore the pas-
sage of this Act he shall not be required to sigh the petition
in his own handwriting.

The j>ejjtiQnj3halLafit forth that he is not aiUahfiliever in,
or oppose d to.^ orjp nized government, or a member of or
affiliated with any organization or body of persons teaching
disbelief in, or opposed to, organized government; a polyg-
amist or believer in the practice of polygamy; and that it
is his intention to become a citizen of the United States and
to r**nf^iim»<> ftt^fl/^|jj^i>ly and f orevcr all allegiance and fidelity
to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, and
particularly by name to the prince, potentate, state, or
sovereignty of which he at the time of filing <^ his petition
may be a citizen or subject; and that it is his intention to
reiude permanently within the United States; and whether or
not he has been denied admission as a citizen of the United
States, and, if denied, the ground or grounds of such denial,
the court or courts in which such decision was rendered, and
that the cause for such denial has since been cured or removed ;
and every fact material to his naturalization and required
to be proved upon the final hearing of his application.

The petition shall also be verified by the .affidavits of at
least t wo credible w itnesses, who are citizens of the United
States, and who shall state in their affidavits that they have
personally known the applicant to be a resident of the United
States for a period of at least five years continuously, and
of the State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, in which
the application is made, for a period of at least one year im-
mediately preceding the date of the filing of his petition, and
that they each have personaT knowledge that the petitioner
is a person of good moral character, and that he is in every
way qualified, in their opinion, to be admitted as a citizen
of the United States.

At the time of filing his petition there shallbe filed with

the clerk of the court a cfiili^cate from the^epuiment of

Labor,lrChe petitioner arrives in the United States alter the

passage of this Act, stating the date, place, and manner of

his arrival in the United States, and the declaration of inten-
7 85

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

ticrn of such petitioner, which certificate and dedaraticm
shall be attached to and be made a part of said petition.

Tliifd. He_^ball, before he is admitted to citizenship,
declare on oath iiLopeQ co urt that he will suppor t tiie C on-
stitution of the United States, and that he absolutely and
entirely renoynceajUEld abjiires all alje^ance and fidelity to
any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, and par-
ti(Hilarly by name to the prince, potentate, state, or sover-
eignty of which he was before a citizen or subject; that he
will s uppOT t and defend- the Constitution and laws of the
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,
and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.^

Fourth. It shall be made to appea r to the satisfaction
of the court admitting any alien to citizenship that immedi-
ately-preceding the date of his application he'Eas resided
continuously within the United States five j^^^sTtTeasl,
and within the State or Territory where such court is at the
time held one year at least, and that during that time he
has behaved as a maoual.gQod moral character, attached to
the principleauitJjie^CoastitutJon sjj. the United States, and
well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.
In addition to the oath of the applicant, the testimony of
at least twi^witnesaeiy citizens of the United States, as to
the facts of residence, moral character, and attachment to
the principles of the Constitution shall be required, and the
name, place .of residence, and occupation of each witness shall
be set forth in the record.

Fifth. In case the alien .applying to be admitted to citi-
zenship has borne any hereditary title, or has been of any
of the orders of nobility in the kingdom or state from which

^The Oath of Allegiance usually imposed in these proceedings
reads as follows:

I hereby dedare on oatkp thai I absoltUely and entirely renounce and
allure all aUegianee and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, etate, or
sovereignty, and particidarly to [name of sovereign of country] of whom
I hate heretofore been a subjeat; that I will support and defend the
Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all
enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same, ^

THE NATURALIZATION LAW

be came, he shall, in addition to the above requisite, make
an express renunciation of his title or order of nobility in
the courtTorwhteh~hlS"appli<5ati6n is made, and his renuncia-
tion shall be recorded in the court.

Sixth. When any alien who has declared his intention to
become a citizen of theTTmted States dies before he is actu-
ally naj^ijgcalizfidJl^.widow and minor diildren pf jsruch aUen
may, by complying with the oiler provisions of this Act,
be naturalized without making any declaration of intention.

Section 8 of the Naturalization Law gives still further
requirements:

That no alien shall hereafter be naturalized or admitted
as a citizen of the United States who ^nnnt °pp«»ir *h^ F.i^g-
lish language: Provided, That this requirement shall not
apply to aliens who are physically unable to comply there-
with, if they are otherwise qualified to become citizens of the
United States: And provided further. That the requirements
of this section shall not apply to any alien who has, prior to
the passage of this Act, declared his intention to become a
citizen of the United States in conformity with the law in
force at the date of making such declaration: Provided
further. That the requirements of section eight shall not apply
to aliens who shall hereafter declare their intention to becx>me
citizens and who shall make homestead entries upon the
public lands of the United States and comply in all respects
with the laws providing for homestead entries on such lands.

The final hearing must be public, in open court, and
the judge must pass upon the petition personally:

Section 9. That every final hearing upon such petition
shall be had in open court before a judge or judges thereof, and
every final order which may be made upon such petition
shall be imder the hand of the court and entered in full upon
a record kept for that purpose, and upon such final hearing
of such petition the applicant and witnesses shall be examined
under oath before the court and in the presence of the court.

Attention needs to be drawn especially to the fol-
lowing section, which, however innocuous in appear-

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

ance, has given rise to a vast deal of vexation and in-
justice, and has caused the exclusion from citizenship
of a large number of persons otherwise perfectly quali-
fied and desirable:

Section 10. That in case the petitioner has not resided
in the State, Territory, or the District of Columbia for a period
of five years immediately preceding the filing of his petition
he may establish by two witnesses, both in his petition and
at the hearing, the time of his residence within the State,
provided that it has been for more than one year, and the
remaining portion of his five years' residence within the
United States required by law to be established may be
proved by the depositions of two or more witnesses who are
citizens of the United States, upon notice to the Bureau of *
Naturalization.

It will become evident as we proceed that the inter-
pretation which has been placed by the courts and the
Naturalization Service upon the distinction between
the phrases, "two witnesses," "at least two witnesses,"
and "two or more witnesses," has in practice caused a
palpable absurdity from the point of view of common
sense, and inflicted crying hardships and wrongs from
the point of view of bare justice. Upon the humanity
and good sense of the court, interacting with the same
on the part of the representatives of the government,
has depended to a very great degree the sensible inter-
pretation of these and other provisions of the law;
but in general both are bound by its letter, and in
niany instances they have been forced to reject peti-
tions which, on the sane merits of the case, should have
been accepted.

THE LAW IN OPERATION

CoMBOssioNER CABiPBELL» in his annual report for the
fiscal year ending June SO, 1914» described in some
detail the operations of the field service of his Bureau
in the handling of the applicant for citizenship:

The headquarters of the various districts are located in
the large cities, where the greatest number of aliens apply
for naturalization, and in the public buildings or in dose
proximity to the courts.^ In many of the cities where the
examiaers are in the same building with the court, it is the
practice of the alien to appear with his witnesses first in
the office of the chief examiner. Here an examination is
made in advance of any work in the office of the clerk of
court The examiners, specially trained in the work, first
ascertain whether the alien arrived in the United States
prior to the passage of the Act of 1906. If he arrived prior
to the passage of the Act, the examiner then ascertains,
before assisting him in taking the second step in the process
of naturalization, whether the alien has a declaration of
intention that has matured.' If he has arrived subsequent

^The division offices are located in Boston, New York, Phila-
ddphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, St. Paul, Denver, San Fran-
cisco, Seattle, and Washington, D. C, the last named being a divisi<m
field headquarters, with a chief examiner in charge, as well as the
site of the general headquarters of the Naturalization Bureau itself.

' That is to say, has been extant for at least two years, and, pre-
sumably, whether it has not expired by reason of having been extant
for more than seven years — ^in which event it would be invalid l^

ixpiration.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

to the passage of the Act, he ascertains whether the alien
has been notified by the Bureau that the certificate of arrival
required by law to be filed with the clerk of court at the time
of filing the petition for naturalization has been placed there
by the Bureau. It may be stated here that when an alien
applies for a certificate of arrival, the Bureau notifies him
when it has been obtained and forwarded to the cleric of
the court selected by the alien in which to file his petition for
naturalization, and he is directed to proceed with the filing
of his petition at the earliest practicable moment.

Upon learning that the certificate of arrival has been ob-
tained, the examiner interrogates the candidate to learn his
qualifications for citizenship and records the results of his
examination. He then examines the witnesses to be reason-
ably certain that they are American citizens, that they are
credible and of good character, that they have personally
known the applicant for the statutory period, and can intel-
ligently testify both as to his residence and good behavior
during the period required by the statute to be ascertained
and shown to the satisfaction of the court.

The examiner also sees that the blank form furnished by
the Bureau for setting forth the statements required to be
embodied in the petition for naturalization is correctly pre-
pared. When the examiner finds affirmatively in all of these
respects, he marks the filled-out blank with his initials and
sends it with the petitioner and his witnesses to the office
of the clerk of the court, where nothing further is to be done
than the simple clerical work of filling in the petition, origi-
nal and duplicate, from the blank, securing the signatures and
affidavits of the petitioner and his witnesses, filing the tripli-
cate copy of the declaration of intention and the certificate
of arrival with the petition, and notifying them as nearly
as may be of the date of the hearing.

This method prevails in large cities where the examiners
are located in the buildings with the courts. The advantage
to the residents of these large cities, in the saving of time and
money to the petitioners and their witnesses, is readily dis-
cerned when it is considered that probably fifty thousand

applicants for citizenship annually might follow this course

THE LAW IN OPERATION

if the conditions in each large center admitted of its bdng
done. The advantage to be derived from having the candi-
date and his witnesses appear before the naturalization
examiner in advance of his appearance before the clerk of
court were early recognized by one of the United States
district courts, where a large number of petitions for natural-
ization are filed annually, and an order of court was entered
accordingly. In other courts, while the practice has not
received this formal recognition, the consistency with which
it is observed is none the less definite. This practice prevails
in at least one city where the office of the chief examiner is
not located in the building with the court.

Further emphasizing the advantages of this practice,
the Commissioner remarks that it enables the examiner
to dispose of a large number of cases, and tends to
obviate denials on such grounds as ''that the petitioner
is aheady a citizen"; "incompetent witnesses," "in-
sufficient residence," "no certificate of arrival," "decla-
ration invalid," "premature petition," etc. — "unless,
as is sometimes the case, a petitioner is obstinate and
insists on taking his chance of admission by the court
against the advice of the examiner." The Commis-
sioner goes on to say:

In some cities, by reason of the lack of proximity of the
oSSice of the examiner to that of the clerk of the court,* the
system does not prevail of having the candidate appear first
before the examiner, . . . but efforts have constantly been
made to augment the prevalence of the practice, and since
the great bidk of the naturalization work is in the large
centers . . . the plan described, with the restricted means pro-
vided therefor, admirably accomplishes the effective dis-
posal of the mass of work arising under the operation of the
law wherever it has been adopted.

Referring to the work in regions apart from the great

cities, the Conmiissioner said, in his report for 1912-13:

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

In a few of the districts there are what may be called
sub-stations, where an examiner is located by his chief to
attend to work in the vicinity of such sub-station, ... to re-
duce the travel expense and to bring the service in actual
personal contact with the public and the courts as intimatdy
as possible.

For the rest, and the far-outlying, sparsely-settled
regions, where a person d[esiring citizenship must
travel with his witnesses perhaps even hundreds of
miles not once, but twice in any event, and in some
cases several times, to and from the court having juris-
diction over the territory in which he lives, the situ-
ation is not so simple. To persons completing by
the essential of American Citizenship their title to a
homestead on the public lands — ^necessarily and char-
acteristically in such sparsely settled regions — this
item of travel, expense in both money and time for
three persons, to say nothing of other hardships and
exasperations involved in the meticulous technicalities
of the law and practice, not infrequently is a raw
tragedy. Neither provision by Congress nor adminis-
trative arrangement or concession in enforcement by
the Naturalization Bureau or the courts has materially
mitigated the hardships involved in such cases.

RESTRICTIONS OF RACE

(Not every alien, whatever his character or good disposi-
tion toward the "good order and happiness" of the
United States, or his willingness to "support and
defend the Constitution and bear true faith and
allegiance to the same,'' can become a citizen of the
United States. He, or she, must be either white, or
black — or, in the case of the American Indian, red.
And if black, he, or she, must be of African descent.

A long series of decisions has been necessary to define

THE LAW IN OPERATION

exactly what races are excluded; with the result that
( it is now» for practical purposes, well established that
naturalization cannot, under existing laws, be granted
to Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians,^Burmese, or the
black or brown natives of India, y t

It is not our province here to discuss the merits
either of the racial limitation or of the somewhat
vague definition that has been arrived at; it must suffice
to outline the situation. The Naturalization Law of
1870 limited natiu*alization to ^'aliens being free white
persons; and to aliens of African nativity and to per-
sons of African descent." This was enacted in the
tense days of Reconstruction after the Civil War, and
was a natural but wholly unnecessary fling at the
South. All American negroes are citizens of the United
States by virtue of their birth in this coimtry, and
those who come here from Africa are likely to be in-
capable of passing the naturalization tests. (Congress
never has enacted a clear definition of the term,
^* white person,'' and endless confusion has existed.
Hawaiians, Afghans, Chinese, Syrians, Turks, and
^ Kji Islanders, all have been admitted by some courts
and excluded by others.) The Commissioner of Natu-
ralization at one time directed the field force to oppose
vigorously the admission of any Asiastic. A non-
Mongolian Turk, married to a white woman literally
Caucasian, would be surprised to have his son excluded
as not a white person; but such folk, and many others
white by any common-sense definition, were excluded,
the courts usually accepting as the judgment of experts
the contention pf the naturalization examiners; imtil
QnaUy the ruling was rescinded/ and the matter has
since then been left largely to the discretion of the
courts, which have substantially settled the question
so far as it may be settled in absence of a clear con-
stitutional or legislative definition^\ such as exists

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

specifically in the Act of 1882 excluding the Chinese
by name. As the law and decisions stand now» the
same definition which will admit an African deck-
hand or cook excludes a Japanese prince or a Hindu
university graduate.^

As for the Filipinos, it was held, in 1915, by the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, that a
Filipino is neither an alien nor an African, and that,
therefore, he did not come within the provisions of the
law limiting naturalization to white aliens, or black
ones of African descent; that the Filipino then before
the court could and would be naturalized imder the
section providing:

That all the applicable provisions of the naturalization
laws of the United States shall apply to and be held to author-
ize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens
who owe permanent allegiance to the United States, and who
may become residents of any State or organized Territory
of the United States.

In another case (not, however, involving clearly the
question of racial color) a native of the Philippine
Islands, of full Spanish paternity, but of half-breed
blood on his mother's side, was admitted by the same
court.*

There was a dubious situation regarding Porto
Ricans; for it was held at first that, when the United
States acquired Porto Rico and the Philippines by
the Spanish War, these peoples came under the "pro-
tection" of the United States, but did not thereby
acquire status as citizens. The Act of Congress, March

^ See Van Dyne, Naturalization, pp. 42-50; Moore, Digest of Inter-
national Law, vol. iii, p. S29.

* In re Lopez, imrepoFted; Supreme Court, District of Columbia,
December 18, 1915. In re Fernandez, unreported; same court,
September 24, 191S.

THE LAW IN OPERATION

2, 1917, cleared up this situation, however, declaring
permanently resident Porto Ricans to be citizens,
unless they owed allegiance to a foreign coimtry, or
within six months after the passage of the Act specifi-
cally refused American citizenship. This Act created
the judicial "district of Porto Rico," and definitely
vested natiu*alization jurisdiction in the United States
District Court for that district, declaring residence in
Porto Rico to be tantamount, for naturalization piu'T
poses, to residence anywhere else in the United States.
The Act of May 9, 1918, which swept into eligibility
for immediate citizenship upward of two hundred
thousand aUens serving m the army, navy, marine
' corps, and merchant marine, definitely extended the
privilege to several classes, including Filipinos and
Porto Ricans, regardless of every consideration other
than miUtory service, and it has been interpreted in
favor of even Chinese and Japanese in those branches
of the national war employ.^

LIMITATIONS REGARDING AGE

\The present law says clearly that an alien may not
make a declaration of intention imtil he is eighteen
years old.'j The old law contained a provision to the
eflFect that anyone who arrived in the United States
before the age of eighteen could, after he had been
here the required five years, become naturaUzed by
virtue of one proceeding, which was held to constitute
both declaration and final petition. Otherwise, noth-
ing was said in the old law regarding the age required
for declarat]on( an alien must be twenty-one, however,
in order to be naturalizecL There was a good deal of
uncertainty and confusion on this point, both the

^ See chapter iz, on Military Naturalization.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Naturalization Service and the courts taking varying
and inconsistent positions from time to time and in
various jurisdictions. This is of only academic interest
now; but the situation is still somewhat dubious,
I because an alien can file his declaration at the age of
^eighteen, and in a strict construction of the law he
can file his petition two years later at the age of twenty.
Some courts have so construed it. ) It is generally cus-
tomary, however, for the courts to insist upon the age
of twenty-one before granting citizenship ;^lthough one
should bear in mind that citizenship does not neces-
sarily involve the suffrage, andfall states of the United
States require attainment of twenty-one years b^ore
the citizen can vote. ^

THE DECLARATION OF INTENTION

So far as anything in the law goes to prevent, the
immigrant can make his way immediately from the
vessel that brings him, after the immigration authori-
ties have admitted him to these shores, or across the
Canadian or the Mexican border, to the clerk's oflSce
in ""any court having a clerk, a seal, and jurisdiction
over actions at law or equity, or law and equity, without
limit as to amount," and within an hour of arrival file
his declaration of intention to become an American
citizen. Of coiu'se, he doesn't do that — ^unless in very
rare instances. The available statistics go to show
that, in the average case, he waits nearly seven (6.8)
years,^ But whenever he files it, it will be good (unless
some blimder of the clerk, or some technical defect
whidi the clerk overlooks, makes it invaUd from the
outset) for seven years. It cannot be made the basis
of a petition for citizenship until two years after its

^ See p. f237, this voliime.

THE LAW IN OPERATION

date, and there must have been, before or after its
date, at least three years' additional residence in the
United States to make up the required five years, and
the last year of the five must have been passed *' con-
tinuously'' within the state or territory in which the
filial petition is filed.

Mr. Alien would better be very careful that his
declaration is properly made out, on the identical
printed form furnished by the Bureau of Naturaliza-
tion; he must file it in the office of the clerk, and not
deliver it to him at his house or on the street comer.
He may not hear anything about this at the time;
but seven years afterward he may be brought up
standing by the fact that it is. invalid because of just
such a defect. In the case in re Brefo (217 Fed.,
131-184} it was held, in 1914, that a declaration other-
wise correct, but in typewriting, not on "the form fur-
nished for that purpose by the government," was a
"l^al nullity." Were such an enormity permitted,
the court said, there would be "an end to uniformity";
government control and supervision could not exist!
And in the case in re Langtry (31 Fed., 879), as
long ago as 1887 the court declared that the clerk had
no authority to take acknowledgment of declaration
oS intention at the home of an alien. Numerous other
cases in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, North Caro-
lina, Florida, have settled the fact that the clerk's
office, or open court, is the only place where a valid
declaration can be filed.

If the clerk is without the proper blank forms,
because he neglects to keep himself supplied, or be-
cause the Naturalization Bureau at Washington fails
to heed his request for them, there is nothing for the
would-be declarant to do but go home — ^perhaps many,
or in some cases as much as two hundred and fifty

miles — and subsequently try again.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

As has been said, he must be very particular about
the words that he or anyone else writes on the blank
when he does get it. IS he files his declaration in a
court which has much naturalization business, it is likely
that the clerk or his deputy will see that it is letter-
perfect; but if it is his fortune to reside in a district
where naturalizations are few, or where the clerk
regards the whole transaction as a nuisance, he may
be permitted to make a fatal mistake or omission and
remain in blissful ignorance of that fact for anywhere
from two to seven years — until he goes before the
court with his final petition and finds that because his
f declaration was from the beginning technically defec-
y tive he must file a new one and wait at least two years
more. \

"declaration invalid"

^ \This, in fact, has been a very common occurrence./
During the period 1908^-18, 8.5 per cent of all denials
of naturalization petitions in the United States were
on the ground of "declaration invalid"; that this
percentage is made up of figures* tragically high in
some districts may be recognized in the fa^t that in
Nebraska it was 23.8, in Indiana £1.3, in Oregon 18.7,
in Kansas 18.6, in Massachusetts 14.4, in Montana
1S.2, in Iowa 12.5, in Arkansas and Idaho 11.3, in
Washington 10.9, in Oklahoma 10.4. The petition
of an Englishman applying for citizenship in Colorado
was denied upon motion of the government's represent-
ative, because in his declaration seven years before he
had renounced "King Albert," when, in fact, the name
of the then potentate of Great Britain was "Albert
Edward*'!* As the court in that case truly said:

^ Compiled from the reports of the Commissioner of Immigration.
' District Court for Washington County, Colorado: In re William
Wallace Mackey (1914). Unreported.

THE LAW IN OPERATION

The act of renouncing the allegiance which one owes to a
government or sovereign, and taking upon himself a new
allegiance, is too solemn and important an act to be loosely
performed, or to be surrounded by any imcertainty or doubt.
No presumptions are indulged with respect to it. . . . The
declaration of intention must in all material matters comply
with the strict letter of the Act.

The court may not rectify nunc pro tuncy as in most
other kinds of litigation, technical blunders made in
good faith or inadvertently by the declarant, or even
by the clerk of the court in which the declaration was
filed. All the responsibility lies upon the alien.

In the unreported case of John Pollock, in the Phila-
delphia Court of Quarter Sessions, in 1915, the peti-
tioner had honestly believed himself to have acquired
Cierman nationality from the flag of the Oerman ship
on which he was bom, en route to the United States,
of Russian parents coming here with intent to abandon
their Russian nationality, and in his declaration had
forsworn the German sovereignty; but the court held
that the honesty of his mistake could not avail him —
^* Unfortunately it is impossible to amend his declara-
tion; . . . the application must be denied.'' Through
a misunderstanding of the intricacies of political geog-
raphy in the then Austria-Hungary, a petitioner who
actually was bom under that sovereignty erroneously
renounced the Grerman Emperor. In that case, when,
three years later, upon his final petition for naturaliza-
tion, the court undertook to amend the declaration,
its power to do this was denied upon the government's
appeal.^

Five Austrians went in a body to the office of the
clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in Hudson County,
New Jersey, to file declarations of intention. Doubt-

1 In re FriedL 202 Fed., 800.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

less they were very glad, and very grateful, to have
the clerk on duty fill out the required blanks for them!
Two years or more later, when they marched proudly
and anxiously into court to complete their citizenship,
their petitions were denied — "declaration invalid,*'
because, forsooth, as the court in its decision ex-
plained:

. . . The dark who filled out their papers assumed them all to
be Germany and noted this in the declaration accordingly.
The applicants contend that the error was a clerical error on
the part of the clerk, and that their renunciation also in-
cluded other sovereigns, rulers, or potentates. This, however,
is not sufficient imder the statute.

There are many other cases, in widely separated

jurisdictions, to similar effect, showing, in general, that

the courts sustain the contention of the Naturalization

/Service that the law does not permit the rectification

Y^ of even innocent blunders in the declaration, no matter

by whom or in what circumstances they are made^

Who, then, is to see that the technicalities tnus
insisted upon in the enforcement of the law as it reads
are duly and truly observed? Surely not the alien!
His care of his own interests is, in the nature of the
case, ill-informed, and under the existing conditions,
improved as they are in comparison with those pre-
vailing in former times, he is at the mercy not only
of the sometimes careless, begrudging, or perhaps
well-intending, but better-informed clerk of couji:,
but of many kinds of extra-legal assistants who,
whether with good or with sordid motives, imdertake
to give, or maybe to sell, advice or instruction — ^to
say nothing of pretended "influence" which, any-
where up to seven years later, when the mischief can-
not be remedied, may turn out to have been worse
than worthless.

100

. , ' ,• •'

THE LAW IN 0PEitAii<3N'-

Of vital importance and significance, far beyond what
would be gleaned from a superficial reading of the
words» becomes in this connection what the Com-
missioner of Naturalization said in his annual report
of July 1,1912:

The great bulk of the work of the Division [now the Bureau
of Naturalization] consists of the examination of the natural-
isation papers filed in or issued out of the courts. It has
never been possible, with the clerical aid supplied, to keep
abreast of this work. Concluding the first year with a large
number of papers not examined, that condition has grown
more and more serious. ... At the present time it must be
stated that no examination of declarations of intention has
been made since October, 1910, and not more than 80,000
certificates have even been examined. Correction of errors
in the latter papers, [final] certificates of naturalization, are
perhaps less necessary, but the declarations are used as the
basis of petitions for natmalization, and defects in them may
result in the denial of such petitions and a further delay oi
two years to the applicants for citizenship. Beginning with
October, 1912, declarations which have not been examined
wHl mature, and these aggregate 298,000 in number.^

That the Bureau of Natiu*alization is aware of the
desperate importance of this matter to the aliens
appears not only in so many words in the Commis-
sioner's own utterances, but in legislation proposed by
the Bureau which would tend to remedy it. In the
same report (1912), after describing tiie strenuous
efforts of the clerical force to catch up in particular
cases with the dates of final hearings. Commissioner
Campbell said:

To any easy assumption that errors in a declaration may
be corrected at the hearing of the petition, the answer is

^ By July 1, 1919, this total number of dedarations unezamined
had grown to 1,011,676. (See Commi8sumer*s Annual Report for
fiscal year ending June SO, 1919, p. 25.)
8 Wl

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

plain — ^that no change can be made if the declaration was
filed, as it frequently is, in a court other than that in which
such hearing is held. It has also been decided judicially
that a declaration, complete in every respect, cannot be
changed because of even conceded error in its averments.
It is therefore important that the discovery by prompt
administrative examination, of a defect, either in the way
of omission or error, be brought to the attention of a declar-
ant and the clerk of the court in which his declaration is
filed, so that either the paper may be corrected or the declar-
ant may file a new declaration, and thus save time, expense*
and ultimate disappointment.

All of which has the color of mockery in the light of
the fact that at the date of that report there lay in the
files of the Bureau nearly three hundred thousand un-
examined declarations, all of which would mature within
the ensuing three months!

The legislative proposals to remedy conditions so
far as inadvertent errors in the declaration are con-
cerned, include, for instance, a proposed amendment ^
to Section 4 of the Naturalization Law» providing that

any averment required to be made in the declaration of inten-
tion that may be shown to have been made erroneously, but
with no intention to violate or evade the requirements of the
naturalization law, may be corrected by order of the court
in which the declaration was filed, or by the court in which
it is presented as a basis for a petition for naturalization.

SHOT7LD DECLARATION BE ABOLISHED?

Some belated survival of Commissioner Campbell's
earlier belief, as a member of the Naturalization Com-
mission of 1905, that the declaration of intention should
be abolished as superfluous and as a prolific source of

^ See biU (H. R. 9949) of Representative Johnson of Washington,
Sixty-sixth Congress, First Session. October 15, 1919.

102

THE LAW IN OPERATION

etroTSy appears in his concluding paragraph under this
head, wherein, after alluding to the increasingly urgent
appeals for more clerical assistance, which had char-
acterized virtually every one of his reports since the
establishment of the Naturalization Service, he adds:

If the object to be obtained does not justify the additional
expenditure that it involves, then the declaration, as a mat-
ter of conunon justice to applicants for citizenship, if not
for the practical reasons stated ... in the Report of the Com-
mission of Naturalization to the President, dated November
8, 1905, should be stricken from the law. It may be suggested
that the effect of such action upon the exercise by alien de-
clarants of the elective franchise in certain states would be
merely to cut off future supplies of such voters.

It is indeed true that many careful, experienced,
and judicious students of the naturalization problem
have on many grounds favored the abandonment of the
declaration of intention. The arguments in this behalf
are plausible while there are states in which aliens
holding "first papers" (declarations of intention) are
entitled to vote. As for the others, the reasons to
the contrary seem to the present writer to outweigh
them. Regardless of the suffrage, in many states
the declaration entitles the holder to certain property
rights; many employers, and even municipalities, re-
quire at least the declaration before they will permit
employment. The best reason of all, regarded by a
majority of the naturalizing judges as of vital impor-
tance, is that the declaration, and the interval of at
least two years which must elapse before the declar-
ant can file his final appeal for admission to citizenship,
afford a period of probation, not only of substantial
psychological value as affecting the alien himself, but
giving the government opportunity to observe the
conduct of the individual and to investigate his ante-

103

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

cedents, and the person's neighbors and the public
generaUy due notice that he is an aspirant for active
membership in the community.

On more than one occasion Mr. Campbell, who
more than perhaps anyone else might be regarded
as an expert on the subject of naturalization, favored
the abolition of the declaration of intention. As late
as 1910, testifying before the Committee on Immigra-
tion and Naturalization of the House of Bepresenta-
tives, he said:

I think I am on record as advocating the abolition of the
declaration of intention, anyhow.

That this is no longer his view, or that of the Bureau,
appears somewhat emphatically in the following ex-
cerpt of the annual report bearing his signature, for
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1917: ^

Many theorists in the United States, when there was no
Federal supervision of the naturalization law, conceived the
idea that the declaration of intention was a purely super-
fluous act; that the certificate of the declaration of intention
was a superfluous dociunent. Many of them still retain that
idea, having made no advance in their studies, or being
unacquainted with the experience of the Federal adminis-
trative force. There is nothing that has arisen in the experi-
ence of the Bureau of Natiu*aIization, in the ten years of
Federal supervision, that justifies this idea that the declara-
tion of intention should be abolished.

The Americanization work of the Bureau, based as it is
upon the declaration of intention, is the only point of con-
tact .the Federal Government has with the individual alien
from the time he lands upon our soil. The use of the declara-
tion of intention by the Bureau in sending the names to
the public schools and bringing the aliens of ev^ry com-
munity into close relationship with them has forever settled
the question of the value of the declaration of intention.

^ Report of Commissioner qf itaturalizaiion, 1917, p. 75.

104

THE LAW IN OPERATION

This is only a new use to which this "first paper" (an
instrument which is peculiarly an American institution)^ has
been put. If this were the only use to be made of it, it would
justify its continued existence. As it is» it is used and inter-
woven into the administrative fabric of the Government in
its contact with aliens throughout the United States. It
is a means of identification by which the alien makes known
his right to take up Government land; by which he may
secure employment in municipalities and in State improve-
ment work; by which membership in many organizations
may alone be secured. It is the indication of the announced
purpose of the alien to forswear his allegiance to his sover-
eign and to choose the Constitution of the United States
as his new allegiance. It is woven throughout the warp and
woof of our national laws and our social and economic
organizations.

NATURALIZATION JUDGES FAVOR ITS RETENTION

Of 323 judges of naturalizing courts all over the United
States who answered definitely on this point the ques-
tionnaire of the Americanization Study, 241 opposed,
more or less emphatically, the abolition of the decla-
ration of intention, only 82 favoring its abolition on
one ground or another, but principally because they
were aware of no good purpose served by it.

One United States district judge rather picturesquely
described its function:

This country cannot afford to have it said that we are
urging citizens of other countries to renounce their allegiance
and take up citizenship with us. That would be wrong from
evety standpoint. On the other hand, if they do want to
become American citizens, it is our duty ... to help them fit
themselves. If you take away the declaration of intention
you will destroy our opportunity in that regard. The
young lady who meets a young man and likes him, would be

* Mexico appears to be the only other country in which any such
prdiminary declaration and extended period of probation is required.

105

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

very much out of place if, without any other tie between
them, she began to tell him what she wanted him to do,
what she wanted him to study, and how she wanted him to
study, what she wanted him to drink, and how she wanted
him to dress. It would be very immodest and impolite,
to say the least. If that young man had made her a proposal
of marriage, and she were considering it, these suggestions
from her would be entirely proper, and she would be perform-
ing her duty to the young man and to herself. This illustrates,
I believe, the proper limits within which our country can
guide, advise, and direct aliens who through the declaration
of intention have made, as it were, a proposal of marriage,
with reference to preparation for citizenship.

Sound objections to abolition of the declaration
appear also in connection with the property rights as
regards homestead entry and other matters under both
Federal and state laws — ^a complicated matter in addi-
tion to the great confusion existing by reason of the
laws of those states which conferred the right to vote
upon holders of so-called "first papers." With the re-
moval of this right, much of the objection to the
declaration of intention disappears. As it was, under
such laws, an alien might file a declaration of intention
every seven years as they expired seriatimy and, without
any proper inquiry, judicial approval, or supervision
whatever, retain his right to vote — citizenship for all
practical purposes.

Many of the judges would permit no renewal of a
declaration after the expiration of the first; some would
substitute registration upon entry, annual, or even more
frequent reports by the alien regarding his whereabouts
and behavior, and constant governmental espionage.

The declaration of intention, particularly if it be
properly guarded and solemnized, puts everybody, at
least constructively, upon notice that a new member is
applying, and requires the declarant himself to keep
that application in mind for two years. He cannot

106

THE LAW IN OPERATION

suddenly decide, by reason of some special condition
or inconvenience, to apply for citizenship and con-
summate the process in three months, as he could do
if the declaration were abolished without extending
the interval between petition and certificate. The
defects in the present system are found in the fact
that he can file his declaration anywhere at will, in a
form so defective that two years or more later it nulli-
fies his petition; he can be grafted upon and bled ad
libitum by all manner of exploiters claiming to be able
to assist him. However valuable in theory, in practice
it is far too hit-or-miss.

The declaration should be surrounded by a very
much greater degree of care and solemnity than at
present. Not only should it be made under oath
and on properly guarded printed forms; when it is
filed it should be scrutinized and accepted as to sub-
stance, apd by no means be subject long afterward to
rejection because of clerical or other technical errors
which ought to have been detected at the outset.

The St. Louis office of the Naturalization Service
has taken a long step in this direction, by securing
the co-operation of many of the courts in that district
in the estabUshment of a custom by which the declara-
tion is accepted for filing only after it has been vis6d
by the naturalization officers. This has no authority
in law, but it nevertheless is a wholesome practice,
chiefly in the interest of the aUen declarant; incidentally
it goes far to put out of business the various kinds of
parasites who exploit the ignorance and helplessness
of the aspirant for citizenship.

THE SEVEN-YEAR LIMITATION

The law of 1906 limited the life of a declaration of
intention to seven years. Prior to that there was no

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

limit, and even after the passage of that Act it was
held in practice that it did not apply to declarations
made previously. But in 1913 the question was
raised, in the United States Court in New York City,
whether it was not the intent of Congress to apply the
seven-year limitation to all declarations. In 1914 the
court ruled that it was. The effect of that decision
was to invalidate all declarations made prior to Septem-
ber 27, 1906, notwithstanding the express provision
in the law that "no aUen who, in conformity with the
law in force at the date of his declaration, has declared
his intention to become a citizen of the United States,
shall be required to renew such declaration.*'

This decision was soon aflSrmed by the United
States Circuit Court of Appeals; but even then it was
not uniformly observed, until January, 1919, when the
United States Supreme Court put an abrupt stop to
the practice of accepting "old-law declarations" by
affirming the decision of the District Court at New
York.

The effect of this iBnal ruling by the highest comrt
in the land was tragic. Hundreds, if not thousands,
of pending petitions, of aUens altogether fit from every
other point of view, forthwith became invalid simply
because bas^ upon "old-law declarations" blighted
by the newly applied seven-year restriction. In one
session of the State Supreme Court in New York
Coimty a batch of more than seventy otherwise accept-
able petitions was denied for this reason alone. TTie
question of the effect of the decision upon certificates
of naturalization granted theretofore between its date
and September 27, 1913, was met by Congress in the
Act of May 9, 1918, by the following provision:

Section 3. That all certificates of naturalization granted

by courts of competent jurisdiction prior to December SI,

1918, upon petitions for naturalization filed prior to January

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THE LAW IN OPERATION

31, 1918, upon declaration of intention filed prior to Septem-
ber, 97, 1906, are hereby declared to be valid in so far as the
declaration of intention is concerned, but shall not be by
this Act further validated or legalized.

THE CERTIFICATE OP LAWFUL ENTRY

Assuming, now, that our alien is of the proper racial
descent, the accepted age, and that his declaration of
intention will pass muster; that he has lived in the
United States for at least two years since the declaration
was filed, and at least three years besides that — ^a total
of not less than five years in all, including the final
fifth year in the state — ^what must he do, and what
may be done to him, when he comes up at last with

is request for admission to Active Membership?
If he arrived in this country since Juqe 29, 1906,
he must produce a Certificate of Arrival. ^jQi theory,
at least, all arriving aliens are registered at the port
of entry by the Immigration Service of the Department
of Labor. [Under existing law they cannot get in at
all if they are of certain excluded races and classes;
if they are imder contract to get a particular job; if
they are insane or afflicted with certain diseases; if
they are recognizable as anarchists, pojlygamists (or
believers in either anarchy or polygamy), criminals, or,
in the opjuiion of the immigration authorities, likely
to become a pubhc charge — a burden upon the com-
munity. They must, with certain exceptions for age
and family relationship, be able to read and write in
s^e language.^

vAliens may properly enter the United States only
through some officially designated port of entrj^)*
designated by the Commissioner of Immigration; if
an alien enters elsewhere along our enormous border
line he is deemed to be "unlawfully present," is subject

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

to deportation, and when he tries to become a citizen
he must give a very good excuse for having "climbed
up some other way." A good many Canadians and
Mexicans have found very embarrassing, eventually,
the fact of their ignorance or evasion of this requirement.
The Act of Congress, approved June 29, 1906, went
into eflFect in most respects on the 27th of Septem-
ber following, but this provision was to take eflFect
immediately:

That it shall be the duty of the Bureau of Immigration
to provide, for use at the various immigration statiors
throughout the United States, books of record, wherein
the Commissioner of Immigration shall cause an entry to be
made in the ease of each alien arriving in the United States
from and after the passage of this Act of the name, age,
occupation, . . . and the date of arrival of said alieu, etc.

Unfortimately for the aliens subsequently embar-
rassed by the fact, the books for record of entries wctc
not promptly installed, and in some instances since
they were instaUed the immigration officials at the ports
of entry have not always been scrupulous in the making
of the required entries.

No certificate is given to the alien at the time of
his an?val, even if he is properly registered; nothing
of the sort is required of him anywhere; he does not
have to show it when he makes his declaration of inten-
tion to become a citizen, nor at any other time or for
any other purpose — ^until after he has been here at
least five years and comes to the point of filing his
petition for final naturalization. Then he must have
it — unless he arrived before June 29th, 1906; in that
event it is not required of him.

, He is not to go for it to the Immigration Service.

^He must get it in the most roimdabout fashion. He

must address a written application, through the clerk

110

THE LAW IN OPERATION

q{ the court in which his petition for naturalization is
to be filedy to the Commissioner of NaturaUzation, ^^
who in turn requests it of the Immigration Service.
The Immigration Service, if it can find the original
witry (and sometimes — quite frequently in fact — ^it
cannot), sends the certificate to the Conmiissioner of
Naturalization, who sends it to the clerk of the court,
at the same time notifying the alien that now he may
proceed to file his petition.

But what if the arrival entry cannot be found?
What if the alien cannot remember the name of the
vessel, or other important facts relating to his entry,
and thus give the necessary clews for the search?
What if it was his misfortune to arrive at a port after
the law took effect and before the registry system was
in operation? Both the Immigration and the Natu-
ralization Service take a good deal of pains to care
for such situations; but frequently without success.
All this involves delay, not only vexatious and dis-
couraging, but likely to prove fatal in the case of an
alien whose declaration is at the edge of expiration.
Not infrequently an appUcation for certificate of
arrival is bandied back and forth between the two
Bureaus for months.

There was a case in 1919 in which the aUen described
himself as having arrived on a certain date and vessel
at New York; the immigration records showed no
such arrival, and, what was worse, no such vessel enter-
ing New York at that time. After long delay it turned
out that the aUen did arrive on that date and vessel,
but at Boston, whence, upon admission, he came by a
domestic coastwise vessel from Boston to New York.
Many other cases are by no means so simple.

A petition accepted for filing without the requisite

certificate of arrival is regarded as incomplete, and

may not be completed subsequ^itly by attachment of

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the certificate, but must be marked "spoiled"; the
four dollars paid as fee may be returned to the peti-
tioner by the clerk, or can be applied to the filing of a
new and suflEicient petition. It has been the practice
of the Bureau of NaturaUzation, after it appears im-
possible to find record of the applicant's admission to
the country, to refer him to the nearest immigration
inspector for what is known as a nunc pro tunc in-
spection, for the pmpose of satisfying the inspector
that the aUen should not be deported as "unlawfully
present." If the inspector is satisfied, he issues what
is known as a "provisional certificate of arrival,"
whose acceptance as suflScient for purposes of natu-
ralization is subject to the discretion of the court.
This would appear a reasonable way out; but in the
case of petitioners living a very long distance from the
office of an immigration inspector, it involves an extra,
and perhaps prohibitively expensive, journey to the
distant city for that purpose alone, and this difficulty
has in fact been to some extent reheved by permission
to handle such cases by correspondence and affidavits.

THE VEXATIOUS QUESTION OF NAMES

Another obstruction goes to the question of our treat-
ment of the foreign-born laborer in industry — especially
if he bear what we choose to regard as a "queer"
name, difficult for us to spell or pronoimce. The coiuls
have, properly, no doubt, no patience with assumed
names — ^particularly in a case where the alien cannot
remember the name imder which he entered the coun-
try. But it is a very common practice, in concerns em-
ploying a large number of immigrants, for the minor
officials of the company, superintendents and foremen,
to attach a name to a job, and insist upon calling the

man who occupies it, "Mike Murphy," or what not

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THE LAW IN OPERATION

else, because that was the name of the first incumbent,
and it is easier to pronoimce than "Bahaoud," "Beh-
rensmayer," or "Przybykki." This, and the even
more common practice of calling a man by a number,
rather than a name, results in a vast deal of confusion,
in a substantial discouragement of self-respect, and
in the ultimate establishm^it of the neighborhood
identity of a polysyllabic Greek or Armenian, perhaps,'
with a fine old Irish name. This will not do in the
naturalization court. The petitioner must come in
under at least the same name that he bore when he
entered the country, and there must be no suspicion
as to its not being his own.

But he does not have to keep that name. It is pre-
scribed as lawful for the court in its discretion, "at
the time and as a part of the naturalization of any
aUens, . . . upon the petition of such aUen, to make a
decree changing the name of said alien." The fact
of which the court must be convinced is that the peti-
tioner is not attempting to conceal his real identity
for the purpose of escaping payment of just debts or
punishment for crime. Many aliens do thus change
theh- names, and there have been cases in which the
judge virtually compelled them to do so.

A naturalization judge said to the writer:

I have heard of a high-handed old judge, somewhere in
the Northwest, who was in the habit of ''suggesting" to
every alien who came before him with a complicated mouthful
of name that he change it to ''Abraham Lincoln," "Benja-
min Franklin," "Greorge Washington," or "Grover Cleve-
land." No doubt you could find many a Pole or Swede
naturalized as "Thomas Jefferson" or "Alexander Hamilton,"
whose father, living in the same town, was known as "Kon-
rad Kowalewski," or "Die Johanssen."

Each nationality has in this country name-compU-

cations of this character peculiarly its own. The

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Swedes, for an example, have a habit of taking for
their own surname the Christian name of a favorite
aunt, imcle, or other relative, upon reaching the age of
twenty-one years. Sven Svensen — ^which means " Sven,
the son of Sven"— may imdertake to compliment his
uncle Olaf by calling himself Sven Olafsen. Suppose
he came to this country under the name of Sven
Svensen, before he was eighteen; but for several years
before filing his declaration came to be known to every-
body — ^including himself — ^as Sven Olafsen, and re-
garded his old name as a ^'childish thing" of no con-
sequence to anybody. He applies as Sven Olafsen
for his certificate of arrival, the inmiigration and
naturalization bureaus have great difficulty in finding
it, and when it does come along it is in the name of
Sven Svensen. Often names are adopted in aflFec-
tionate memory of the town from which the alien
comes. Many ItaUans, for convenience, drop oflF a
couple of syllables of awkwardly long names. Among
the Greeks a typical case would be that of one, "Har-
ris," whose old-coimtry name was Harralabopoulos.

Another kind of complication appears in the case
of an alien whose true name was Isaac Brody; but he
came on a steamship ticket issued to, and in the name of ,
his uncle, Isaac Boovris, and was recorded imder that
name by the immigration authorities. When he filed
his declaration of intention he was advised to file under
the name Boovris, to facilitate his certificate of arrival
when that should be required. When he filed his final
petition, after living and doing business for several
years in this country imder his true name of Brody,
he asked to be naturalized imder that name. The court
refused, requiring him to file a new declaration as
Isaac Brody and wait two years longer, calling atten-
tion to the penal statute which makes it an offense to

apply for naturalization under an assumed or fictitious

114

THE LAW IN OPERATION

name; remarking that the court might have changed
the name or amended the petition "if the error in the
original d^laration had been clerical, or had been
innocent." *

A Pennsylvania court said in the case of one Wicenty
Pilipos, who after arrival informally changed his name
to William PhiUips:

We may concede that any person may change his name,
and be naturalized under his new name; yet, if he does so,
he must petition the court for that purpose, so that the
record will show the whole transaction, and identify him
as the person who has discarded his original name, under
which he landed in this country. This is especially necessary
to prevent any other person from perpetrating a fraud, by
being naturalized und^ the discarded name.'

THE PETITION FOR NATURALIZATION

There are other technicalities with which the alien
occasionally collides — such, for example, as the question
of jurisdiction where there is a difference of definition
m the term "judicial district," or where boundaries may
conflict between states, counties, or other distinct
municipaUties, with reference to the aUen's place of
residence; or where the court to which he could natu-
rally and conveniently repair by the shortest Hne of
travel is in another jurisdiction, and he and his witnesses
must journey perhaps even hundreds of miles to the
court to which the letter of the law compels him to go.
Such cases are numerous, but comparatively uncom-
mon. Let us assume that he has reached the right
court, has successfully unearthed, through the clerk,
the NaturaUzation Bureau and the Imnugration Serv-

1 In re Boovris, 205 Fed., 401.

>/n re William Phillips (1918), Court of Common Fleas for
SchuyDdn County, Pennsylvania. Unreported.

115

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

ice, his proper certificate of arrival, and has a valid
declaration of intention. What next?

In large cities or other places reasonably convenient
in respect of distance, the clerk is Ukely, as the Com-
niissioner of Naturalization says in his report already
/quoted, to send the aUen to the oflSce of the Naturaliza-
^ tion Service; there is filled out the "^actsji^rm," as it
is called, on which the final petition for naturalization
is to be based. The petitioner is closely interrogated
as to his general eUgibility , and the principal business is
under way. If the naturalization office is far distant,
the petition is filled out by or in the presence of the
clerk.

As required by the law quoted at the beginning of
this chapter, the petition must set forth the full name,
residence, occupation; date and place of birth; port of
emigration; name of vessel, if any; port of arrival; date
and court of declaration of intention; whether married,
single, or widowed; wife's name, nativity, and present
residence; number, names, birthplaces, and residences of
minor children; assurances that the applicant is not a
practicing or believing anarchist or polygamist; inten-
tion to renounce former national allegiance and make
permanent residence in the United States; attachment
to the principles of the Constitution; ability to speak
the English language; dates upon which began residence
in the United States and in this state or territory;
assertion that this is his first petition for citizenship, or,
if a former petition was denied, the reasons for denial
and the fact that these reasons have since been cured or
removed.

In addition there must be the affidavit of two wit-
nesses (each of whom must swear that he is himself a
citizen of the United States), who must declare on his
oath that he knows the petitioner to have been a resi-
dent of the United States at least since a certain speci-

116

THE LAW IN OPERATION

fied date five years ago, and of the particular state at
least since a certain specified date not less than a year
ago; and that he personally knows the petitioner to be
k person ci good moral character, attached to the prin-
ciples of the Constitution, well disposed toward the
good order and happiness of the same, and generally
qualified in every way to be admitted as a citizen of the
United States.

To the petition at the time of filing (that is rigidly re-
quired by the law and the decisions of many courts)
must be physically attached the declaration of intention
made at least two years before, and the certificate of
arrival.

For filing the declaration of intention the ali^i will
have paid to the clerk a fee of one dollar; upon filing
his final petition he has to pay another fee of four
dollars. There are strict penal provisions in the law
for the pumshment of clerks who charge or collect any
more. Under the law* one-half of each fee is retained by
the clerk, ostensibly for the purpose of reimbursing him
for such additional clerical assistance as the naturaliza-
tion business may necessitate, but not always used for
that purpose. This subject is discussed elsewhere.

The petitioner, with certain exceptions noted below,
must sign his petition in his own handwriting. It is,
however, usually permitted him to sign it by "his
mark," properly witnessed, and even this was not
required of those who filed their declarations of inten-
tion before the passage of the Act; but lapse of time has
made that no longer a practical exception. It has
usually been held that a signature, even in another
bnguage, such as Arabic, is sufficient. There has often
been controversy as to .whether the extraordinary
arrangement of marks constructed by the petitioner
is in fact a signature, the author insisting that he has

achieved one when it is utterly illegible to both judge
9 117

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

and naturalization examiner. In this, as in a host of
other details, the fate of the petitioner hangs upon the
intelligence and humanity of the judge, who has to
choose between a strict insistence upon the technicality
and a more generous adjudication — ^in a case, for ex-
ample, in which a poor old deaf woman homesteader
might lose all she has in the world simply because he
cannot see an intelligible "signature" in the con-
glomeration of hieroglyphics which she intends to
represent her name.

The law requires the petitioner to state the name,
nativity, and residence of his wife, if any, and each of
his minor children. The wife, if she herself can lawfully
be naturalized, becomes ipso facto a citizen of this
country by virtue of the naturalization of her husband.
It is the practice of many naturaUzing courts to decline
to admit to citizenship men whose wives are still in the
old country, seeing danger in conferring the status
upon women who may never come to the United States,
or who, coming, may turn out to be imdesirable.

The petition must disavow belief in the so-called prin-
ciples of anarchism; under the law no one can be nat-
uralized who himself believes in or teaches or belongs
to any organization or groups believing in or teaching
"the duty, necessity, or propriety" of abolishing organ-
ized government, or "the lawful assaulting or killing of
any officers, either of individuals or officers gener^^Uy,
of the government of the United States, or of any other
organized government, because of his or their official
character." Some judges of naturalizing coiuls recog-
nize Uttle distinction between "anarchy" and "Social-
ism." The United States Circuit Court of Appeab,
however, was more discriminating, reversing the nat-
uralizing court in the somewhat famous case of Leonard
Olsen at Seattle, who was rejected, ostensibly, on the

ground that he was not "attached to the principles of

lis

THE LAW IN OPERATION

the Constitution," but really because he avowed him-
self a Socialist. There had been a somewhat similar
case in Texas, in 1891, but the Olsen decision settled the
question of the lawfulness of Socialist views as affecting
naturalization.^

Both the declaration of intention and the petition for
naturalization are made out in duplicate; the original
becomes a part of the record of the court in the clerk's
office; the dupUcate is sent to the Naturalization
Bureau at Washington.

NINETY days' INTERVAL BEFORE HEARING

Notice of each petition must be posted in a public and
conspicuous place in the office of the clerk for at least
ninety days before the hearing is had in open court.
The Naturahzation Biureau will have been informed
directly by the clerk; the purpose of the posting is, of
course, to give the public notice, so that anyone who
desires to do so may appear with objections. In actual
effect, the posting is without much value, because the
public does not visit the clerk's office except upon busi-
ness of its own, and there is no other publication of the
petition, save in such rare cases as local newspapers
make it a matter of news. It may be injurious to the
petitioner, because a good many hearings have been
postponed simply because the clerk forgot to post the
notice at all!

THE FINAL HEARING IN COURT

Petitions may be heard only upon stated days, fixed by
rule of the court, so that the government and the public

*See ex parte Sauer, in note to 81 Fed., 855 (District Court,
Uvalde County, Texas, 1891). See also United States m. Olsen
196 Fed., 562.

119

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

may attend the open hearings which are required by
the law. This works smoothly and well enough in the
great cities, where most naturalizations take place; but
there are districts, in sparsely settled regions, where
there is but one term of the court in a year; whidi, in
practice, means that the judge cannot be sure of being
at any given point on any days determinable in advance,
except the opening day. In such cases a great many
courts will have but one hearing period in a year —
usually on the first, and perhaps the second, day of the
term. Two hardships may arise from such a situation;
the alien and his witnesses may be uncertain as to the
length of time they must wait after a long journey to
the county seat, and if the clerk is careless and fails to
notify the petitioners that their cases are to be heard
(a thing which happens all too often) the judge and
examiner are on hand, but no one appears to be natural-
ized, and another year is lost before the cases can be
disposed of. Th^t this can be a matter of very serious
import to the alien may be illustrated by the fact that
a group of Poles were classed as "nonresident aliens,"
and subjected to the very heavy income tax collected
of such, simply because the clerk of the court in which
their petitions for naturalization were pending failed
to notify them of the hearing day.

MUST "speak" the ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The applicant must be able to "speak the English
language^' — ^this is required by the law. It is enforced
with a great variety of degrees of strictness. Many an
alien can understand what is said to him in English long
before he has gained facility in speech. Also, in the
majority of cases, especially where he is confronted by
a stem and perhaps hostile judge, or one disposed to
treat immigrants with contempt or ridicule, and a

120

THE LAW m OPERATION

fiercely zealous naturalization examiner bent upon
having the petition denied if possible, he is promptly
tongue-tied by stage fright. It is common for the peti-
tioner to tell the court, through his witnesses or the inter-
preter, that he kdows what a certain question means
and the answer to it, but cannot express it in English.
Many of the questions call for a simple "Yes" or
"No,'* but a frightened or unintelligent applicant, who
has learned certain things by rote, may glibly answer
Yes" to the questions which ought to be answered by
No," and vice versa. There was a fellow in Lead-
ville, Colorado, who for a long time occupied the status
of witness for nearly all the Austrians who applied in
that place for naturalization, and who to a large degree
superintended their training for the examinations. After
a while it was discovered that he had a system by which
he dictated the answers to the questions, kicking the
petitioner in the ankle when the answer should be
"Yes," and nudging him with his elbow when it should
be "No."

Both judges and examiners vary greatly in their in-
terpretation of what constitutes ability to "speak
English." Some give the petitioner the benefit of doubt
and make large allowance for natural embarrassment
and fright. Others, as one judge frankly says, "con-
strue everything against the applicant," on the ground
that citizenship is a precious privilege which should be
accorded to as few as possible, and only to those about
whom there can be no question. The court may accept
a grunt, a shrug, a gestiure, a shake of the head, as in-
dicating a sufficient understanding of the question.

Generally the judge is humane. There was a case in

Arizona in which a mild-looking Mexican insisted that

he was both an anarchist and a polygamist — plainly

showing that he imagined the terms, about which he was

sharply asked, to represent qualities which he must

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

possess. The judge knew the man; that he was of good
conduct, conventional ideas, and married to one wife.

"How many women are you married to?" he asked.

"Oh, only one!" cried the man, adding for good
measure, "maybe one is too many!"

"Would you kill a man you didn't like? Would you
blow up a house, or shoot a sheriff? "

"No, no, no! Me never kill nobody! Me never blow
up nobody's house ! Me never hurt nobody ! "

Between the morning and afternoon sessions of the
court the Mexican was quietly interrogated and read-
justed, and the court admitted him. In thousands of
cases, not so picturesque, the applicant called upon for
relatively elaborate views about theories of government,
and even more abstruse matters, is either bewildered or
on general principles deems it safer to remain silent; in
which case the impression of the court, and his action
upon it, depend very much on the personal equation,
the humanity, and common sense of the judge.
/ A deaf-mute is exempt from the requirement of
ability to "speak" English; so is an aUen who has made
entry for a homestead on the public lands. The latter
can make his entry immediately upon filing his declara-
tion of intention; but he cannot complete his title until
he is fully naturalized. A few courts virtually ignore
this exemption, and require the homesteader to speak
English and pass the other educational tests. Generally
the judges are lenient with such people.
/ The law does not require the applicant to be able to
read English; but there is an increasing tendency in the
courts to require it regardless of the law. After all, the
judge is the final arbiter; he must be satisfied that the
applicant is "in all respects qualified to be a citizen,"
and, if he chooses to regard a person who cannot make
sense out of a current newspaper as not thus qualified,
he can deny the appUcation on general principles. The

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whole matter of educational qualifications varies widely
in different jurisdictions, largely because of the absence
of a definite standard of knowledge, intelligence, and
general ability established either by Act of Congress or
by the Naturalization Service.

ATTACHED TO THE CON8T1T UTION

The applicant must be '* attached to the principles of
the Constitution," and "well disposed toward the good
order and happiness of the United States/' Can a man
be "attached to the principles of the Constitution"
without having read it? If not, then the vast majority
of the native-bom citizens of the United States are not
so "attached," for it is a matter of the most notorious
fact that very few Americans, not professional lawyers,
ever have read it or could pass the most rudimentary
examination upon its substance. There is, however, a
widely prevalent tendency on the part of the courts to
require petitioners not only to swear that they have
read the document, but to pass a pretty stiff examina-
tion, either before the naturalization examiner who may
certify the fact, or even in open court. And it is upon
the phrase "attached to the principles of the Constitu-
tion" that the Naturalization Bureau has erected its
whole elaborate and ambitious campaign of education
for citizenship. But its interpretation is so vague and
unsettled, so subject to the whims, theories, prejudices,
and intellectual limitations of the individuals upon
whom its enforcement devolves, that it seems highly
desirable for Congress to establish by law definite and
simple requirements embodying the minimum quali-
fication to be demanded of applicants for citizenship
to demonstrate both their understanding of our form
of government and their "attachment to the principles
of the Constitution."

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

One of the classic anecdotes of the Naturalization
Service has to do with this matter of attachment to and
widerstanding of the Constitution. In the court of a
judge who insisted upon every petitioner having at
least read it, an Irish petitioner at the morning session
of court was ordered to read the Constitution, or have
it read to him, and to come back in the afternoon for
further hearing.

"Well, did you read the Constitution to him?" demanded
the judge of the citizen who was acting as mentor of the
petitioner.

"I did, your Honor; I read it to him — all of it."

"Is he ready to swear that he b attached to the principles
of it?"

"He is, your Honor; when I got through readin' it to him
he said he thought it was a blame fine Constitution."

What more could be asked — even of a native?

An Italian petitioner in one of the Southern courts
exhibited a good knowledge of current political history,
and at the same time a realization of his own limitations.

"Who is the President of the United States?" asked the
judge.

"Mist' Wilson."

"Who is the Vice-President?"

"Mist' Marsh'."

"If the President should die, who would take his place?"

"Mist' Marsh'— he's ready for that job."

"vVery good, Tony, and quite correct. Now, let me ask
you something else. Could you be President of the United
States?"

"Oh, no! no! Judge, please! " cried the dismayed petitioner,
"you have to excuse me! I'm too busy!"

IN THE BiATTEB OP "CONTINUOUS RESIDENCE*'

The fact of continuous residence within the United
States for five years, and within the particular state for

THE LAW IN OPERATION

<me year next preceding the filing of the petition, must
be established to the satisfaction of the court. To the
layman this would seem simple enough; but there is
hardly anything connected with the process of natural-
ization about which there has been so much variety of
interpretation. What constitutes ** continuous resi-
dence" ? It is said that a court in Utah disqualified an
applicant because once during the five years he stepped
across the Canadian border far enough and long enough
to buy a sandwich! Shall a man lose his "residence"
because of a walk across the International Bridge at
Niagara Falls? Suppose he is a carpenter, or a farm
hand, and goes over into Canada, or Mexico, for the
summer months, or long enough to build a house? Sup-
pose there is an estate to be settled up in the old
country, or that the alien's aged mother is dying in
Copenhagen or Buda-Pesth, and yearns to see her son
once before she goes. Shall that invalidate his resi-
dence? There are many judges who will not tolerate any
absence whatever from the coimtry, on any pretext.

In the great bulk of practice, however, it has sim-
mered down to the question of "intention." Reason-
ably carried out, as in other matters, it meets the aver-
age case. If the petitioner always, and everywhere,
during the five years maintained his intention in good
faith to become a citizen, and especially if he preserved a
specific residence, both the courts and the Naturaliza-
tion Service on the whole have waived the literal words
of the requirement. But within that general situation
there are degrees. There are judges who will permit an
absence as long as two years, if "intention" is clear;
some set a limit of one year, others of six months.
Generally speaking, any absence in excess of six months
is viewed with suspicion.

Th»« are two reasons, as the law stands, for insistence
upon residence virtually continuous. In the first place

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

there is the wcmling and evident intention of the law,
which must be obeyed in spirit, anyway. In the second
place, in case of any protracted absence, the witnesses
hardly can know what he has been about, and certainly
cannot swear, as they must under the statute, to the
fact of continuous residence. If the petitioner has been
out of the ken of his witnesses in some other part of the
United States, he can prove good conduct and American
residence by depositions; but the law does not con-
template depositions regarding his conduct on any
foreign soil, however legitimate his reason for being
there. And if he has been in other parts of the same
state^ he cannot prove anything about it, by witnesses,
depositions, or otherwise.

THE ABSURDITY OF THE "INCOMPETENT WITNESS**

This brings us to one of the most extraordinary pro-
visions of the law — ^that regarding the proof of eligi-
bility by witnesses and depositions — ^a provision re-
sponsible for the exclusion of thousands of perfectly fit
persons, and for a vast deal of wholly unnecessary
hardship and injustice.

During the eleven years 190&-1918 inclusive, accord-
ing to the statistics given in the annual reports of the
Commissioner of Naturalization, of 107,484 petitions
for naturalization denied, more than one in four —
£8,262, or 26.3 per cent — ^were denied on the ground of
"mcompetent witnesses." The percenta^ in many
states is very much larger than that: Illinois, 38.3;
New Jersey, 37.2; Michigan, 36.5; Iowa, 36.4; Ne-
braska, 36.0; Kansas, 35.9; Colorado, 32.8; Arkansas,
32.4; Oregon, 32.2; North Carolma, 31.9; Indiana,
31.1; Wisconsin, 31.0; Missouri, 29.5; New Mexico,
29.3; Kentucky, 28.8; Montana, 28.4; Utah, 27.0.
The low states in this respect are few — ^Rhode Island,

126

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5.9; New Hampshire, 8.0; Connecticut, 9.0; Vermont,
9.1; Massachusetts, 9.2; South Carolina, 11.4;
Florida, 11.5.

Now, what does this mean in human terms? To
begin with, a petitioner for naturalization may not prove
his eligibiUty, as he would prove any other set of facts
in court, by such an exhibit of evidence of various
kinds as would satisfy a reasonable judge or jury. He
cannot bring a group of neighbors who have known him;
his employer, his priest or pastor; the village school-
teacher who teaches his children; a sheaf of affidavits
from people who have known him in various places
where he has lived in the state. His exhibit of evidence
is rigidly and most absurdly restricted, and the restric-
tion is of no benefit to anybody — except, perhaps, the
Naturalization Service in somewhat simplifying their
work of investigation.

His petition must be accompanied by the affidavits
of precisely two witnesses, who must accompany him
personally when he files his petition, and must accom-
pany him again, ninety days or more later, when his
case comes before the court for hearing. Ttoo^ only ttoo,
and the same two. Only in case one of them dies, or
moves out of the jurisdiction of the court, is he allowed to
substitute. Each witness must be a native or natural-
ized citizen of the United States, and must swear to
that fact. And each must swear that he has known the
petitioner during the whole period of five years of
residence within the state, or of one year in the state if
he lived previously in other states, and satisfy the
court that he has seen the petitioner frequently enough
to know that his residence has been continuous and his
conduct such as to warrant his admission to citizenship.
Some judges require the witnesses to have seen the
petitioner virtually every day, "constantly, as a

neighbor'*; "at least once a week," for five years. The

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

examination of the witnesses is frequently more severe,
if possible, than that of the petitioner himself; for the
law requires them to be "ciedible." If a witness can
be shown by the naturalization examiner to be of
dubious moral character, the court probably will deny
the petition verified by him, and leave the petitioner
with only one witness. He must have two, and he can-
not substitute a better one!

In a state which has allowed aliens to vote upon their
declaration of intention, innumerable foreign-bom per-
sons have in good faith believed themselves to be citi-
zens. If such a person appears as a witness for a peti-
^ tioner, thS'petition is denied — ^properly enough, except
that the petitioner might easily produce a substitute
who could not be objected to; but no, he must have
not only exactly two, but the same two, throughout the
proceeding. Or, if one or both of these particidar
witnesses turn out to be honestly mistaken in thinking
they have known the petitioner for the whole five years;
if, for example, it turns out that they could not have
known him more than four years and nine months —
the petition is denied; "incompetent witnesses.'* In
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1918, more than 2,300
petitions were denied for this cause, and it is safe to say
that, in a very large majority of the cases, the witnesses
were acting in perfect good faith.

The practice cuts very close. In re Welch (159 Fed.,
1014), decided in 1908, reports a case in which it was
shown that a witness had not known the petitioner
for five years at the time of the filing of the petition,
but had known him for five years by the time the hear-
ing was had. In that case the court permitted amend-
ment of the date of the petition, but required a fresh
posting.

Congress took note of the difficulty an alien might
labor under if he were obliged to move about from

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state to state during the five years' period, and provided
that four years of the time, in the event of inability to
bring witnesses who could swear to knowledge of the
whole period, the applicant might prove residence, etc.,
in other dates by deposition. This helps a good deal,
as far as it goes; but in any event the last year, the
year of residence required to be within the state
where the petition is filed, must be covered by "two
witnesses" — twoy only twoy and the same two. Suppose
the case (and there have been many such) of a Metho-
dist minister, an EngUshman if you please, who, during
the five years preceding his petition, has been assigned
to two or more pastorates within the same state at
points more or less distant from each other. He could
produce almost any desired array of witnesses to cover
his residence in each of the several places, and affi-
davits galore; but he must not. There is virtually no
chance at all of his being able to find two, only two,
and the same two, who can testify to personal, neigh-
borly knowledge of his residence in all places. What,
then, of an average immigrant who has been obliged
to shift about in search of employment, resident all
through the year in the state, but never staying long
enough in one place to establish intimate relations with
possible witnesses under such restrictions?

JUDGES DENOUNCE THE ABSURDITY

The judges are all but unanimous in their denimciation
of this system. The comment of a United States dis-
trict judge in the Middle West represents the senti-
ments of most:

I do not think it tends to raise the standard of citizenship
or to do anyone any good to have the requirements such
that, if a petitioner has lived in the state for the full five-
year period, he must prove that entire residence and his good

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

character and reputation during that entire period by the
two petitioning witnesses. The two petitioning witnesses
should have known him for at least a year, and be able to
make a showing for at least the last year of the period. I
know of nothing so sacred about a state line that this great
diifference should be made between the petitioner who moves
here from another state and the petitioner who moves here
from a distant part of the same state.

A Michigan judge gives a striking example of the in-
justice of the discrimination:

The greatest copper mines in the world are in the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan. The greatest automobile factories
in the world are in the city of Detroit in the same state.
These sturdy miners of Houghton and Keweenaw counties
in the Upper Peninsula hear of the automobile industry in
the city of Detroit, and after three or four years' residence
up there, move to Detroit and take up residence there. Under
the present law, they must find two witnesses who have
known th^n for the entire five years. You will recognize
how difficult it will be for them to find two witnesses who
knew them in the Upper Peninsula, moved to Detroit when
they did, and have known them ever since. The copper
mines of the Upper Peninsula are five or six himdred miles
from Detroit. Can anyone suggest any good reasons why these
petitioners in Detroit should not be permitted to prove their
Detroit residence by two witnesses who sign their petitions,
and their Upper Peninsula residence by depositions or other
witnesses? Why pimish so unnecessarily the man who con-
tinues to reside for the full five years in the same state,
while we justly permit another man, who moves here from
another state, perhaps a distance of fifty or a hundred miles,
to make his proof as to that state by deposition?

Mind you, I would make them prove their residence in the
particular city or county ... for the full period of their resi-
dence there, by the two witnesses who signed the petition;
and, of course, I would require them to have resided in such

municipality for at least a year.

130

THE LAW IN OPERATION

Says one judge:

In the far West, wh^« the distances are so great and the
expense of travel such a hardship, the matter might readily
be handled on a mileage basis, so that the petitioner would
prove a year's residence by the witnesses who attest his
petition, and a previous residence within the same state more
than, say fifty miles, from the place of holding court, by
depositions.

Of 334 judges of naturalizing courts in all parts of
the country who specifically addressed themselves to
this question in reply to a questionnaire of the Amer-
icanization Study in the summer of 1919, only 34 were
content with the present system; 289 specifically fa-
vored amendment of the law for the reasons, and to the
ejSfect, substantially as suggested above.

A clerk of court in Arizona who handles the natural-
ization business, and in his letter displays a keen and
intelligent interest in the human aspects of the ques-
tion, says:

I have had numerous petitioners who, for ordinary pur-
poses, could prove every day of their residence in this state;
but for naturalization purposes were unable to prove their
residence, even though the entire five years may have been
— and in some instances has been — in this one county!
I consider it inequitable for the reason that the man who
travels from mining camp to mining camp may reside four
or more years in any number of states, and at any number of
camps in each state; but, if he then removes to another state
and resides in that state one year, he may obtain citizenship.
Yet the rancher who resides five years in one state, or even
in one county, but during the five years resides in two dif-
ferent localities of the state, or even on two different ranches
in one county, may be (and under the present law frequently
is) deprived of citizenship for the reason that two witnesses,
only two, and each of these two, must prove the continuous

five years' residence.

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

I some time ago became convinced that tins provision of
the law was not equitable, and in January* 1919, wrote to
our Congressman in the hope of convincing him and getting
a bill introduced to remedy it. He thought it too late in
the session to attempt it, and that it would be useless to
attempt it without the approval of the Department of Labor,
which approval was withheld.

Nevertheless, it is to be presumed that the Bureau of
Naturalization did approve (since the proposal was
embodied in the same bill containing one of its attempts
to secure a notable extension of its powers)^ a measure
of concession in the matter of witnesses.' A proposed
amendment to Section 10 of the Naturalization Law
would provide:

That in case the petitioner has resided in two or more
parts of the county in which he resides at the time he files
his petition, and for this cause is unable to procure two wit-
nesses, who are citizens of the United States, who are qualified
and competent to establish the entire period of his residence
in such county, he may establish his residence at eadi of
the places in such county by the affidavits and testimony
of at least two witnesses, citizens of the Umted States, to
each place of residence, both in his petition and at the hearing.

The same bill would have mitigated and, so far as it
went, humanized the restriction upon substitution of
witnesses by adding to Section 4 a subdivision providing
that

Where either or both of the original subscribing witnesses
to a petition for naturalization, or those giving evidence by
deposition in support thereof, shall be found to be incompetent
or not qualified to establish the proof of residence, good moral

^ These efforts of the Bureau to augment its scope and authority
are discussed in this volume, p. 180 ti seq.

'See H. R. 9949, introduced by Mr. Johnson of Washington,
Sixty-sixth Congress, First Session.

132

THE LAW IN OPERATION

character, or other evidence required by law, the petitionet^
may substitute other qualified and competent witnesses at»
or prior to, the final hearing. The hearing of the petition
may be continued for this purpose and the names of the
substituted witnesses may be ordered publicly posted, in the
discretion of the court, if such posting shall be deemed
necessary. Any petition for naturalization may be amended
to correct manifest errors appearing therein and made in
good faith.

DEPOSITIONS OF WITNESSES

Mr. Raymond P. Crist, then Deputy Commissioner of
Naturalization, in testimony before the House Com-
mittee on Immigration and Naturalization, prior to
the enactment of the Act of May 9, 1918, stated that
the Naturalization Service was habitually represented
at the taking of the depositions by which a petitioner
is permitted to prove his residence in states (^her than
that in which the petition is filed. This must have been
a slip of the tongue, for it is very far frcmi being in
accordance with the facts. Such a course would be a
physical impossibility, especially in the present and
past short-handed condition of the field service. As a
rule the notaries public who attest these depositions are
designated by the several chief eicaminers; but many
of them are in small places, to which examiners never
go. In point of fact, in most cases, the depositions are
not visM in any way whatever, so far as the naturaliza-
tion machinery is concerned, or eicamined at all until
the judge reaches the particular case. They go direct
from the notary to the court in which the petition is to
be heard, in a sealed envelope which is not expected to
be opened imtil the day of the hearing — ^unless the
court has, by specific order, authorized the naturaliza-
tion officer to open and examine them, A very con-
siderable number of them — one person f amifiar with the
practice estimated the percentage as high as 75 per
10 l«8

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

cent — ^are defective in some particular; the same au-
thority thought at least 40 per cent of them would be so
defective as to render them^ under strict construction,
inadmissible as evidence. For example, they will fail
to assert that the deposing person has known the peti-
tioner during the required period of time; or will not
say, categorically, that the affiant is himself a citizen
of the United States. As a rule, it is not until the affi-
davits are examined in open court by the judge or ex-
aminer that their insufficiency is disclosed, for the first
time, to the petitioner. He may not be admitted until
the papers have gone back for correction, or a new set
prepared. That sometimes means a delay of six
months, a year, or even longer — ^a very serious matter
to a petitioner upon whose naturaUzation may depend
his title to a homestead. There is nothing in the law
prescribing the method of handling this matter; it is
subject to regulation by the Bureau of Natiuralization
in its discretion; and inasmuch as the NatiuraUzation
Service declares itself, and ought indeed to be, the
friend of the petitioner, guardmg him agamst errors
which may invaUdate his whole effort and lead to the
cancellation of his certificate even after he gets it, it
ought to devise some procedure for examining every
deposition. No petitioner should be allowed to come
into court until his papers have been scrutinized, at
least for technical defects. In certain districts of the
NaturaUzation Service this has indeed been the practice
in an informal way and to a limited extent. It would
seem that it ought to be invariable. The Service has
done excellent work in shutting out all manner of
runners, professional witnesses, and other kinds of
pseudo-assistants to the aUen; this has left him in the
matter of depositions, as a general rule, without well-
informed, disinterested, or inteUigent guidance, with

the result that he has no adequate warning against

134

THE LAW IN OPERATION

defects, either important or trivial, which may vitiate
his application. When he comes into court, all of his
papers should be perfect, and all the facts cleared of
technicaUties, so that the judge may pass exclusively
upon the merits of the case.

An applicant for naturalization must state in his
petition whether or not he ever has filed a previous
petition, and if so, what became of it. There have been
instances in which a former petition was granted, but
for some reason the record of it cannot now be found.
In such a case the petitioner would have the greatest
difficulty in getting proofs of his citizenship. His new
petition may be denied on the ground that he is "al-
ready a citizen," but it leaves the record in an unsatis-
factory condition; although his copy of the order of
denial, stating that he is a citizen, serves fairly well for
most purposes to certify his citizenship.

"good moral character"

It is customary for naturalizing courts, in denying
petitions, to add some phrase governing a later renewal;
such as "without prejudice to renewal" ; or "with
prejudice to renewal brfore the expiration of five years
from the date of this order of denial." In absence of
such a phrase the court passing upon the second peti-
tion — especially if the former denial was on the ground
of "immoral character" — ^requires the lapse of at least
five years and exceedingly good proof of reform. The
law requires that the petitioner must show affirmatively
not only that during the whole period of five years
immediately preceding the date of his petition he has
behaved as a person of good moral character, attached
to the principles of the Constitution, etc., but that he
is at the time of the petition such a person. Courts
have been known to deny petitions for acts committed

135

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

brfore the beginning of the five-year period, on the
ground that they involved ineradicable moral turpitude.
Judges have shown much liberality on this point, how-
ever; there was a case of an old homesteader who had
spent several years in the penitentiaiy; but the judge
inquired far enough into the history <^ the matter to
learn that the man was convicted as the result of a con-
spiracy on the part of certain neighbors who wished to
get his homestead.

The latitude of the courts in this respect is very wide,
and interesting slants are to be found in the decisions.
There was a saloonkeeper in Chicago who participated
in the then general custom of keeping liquor saloons
open on Sunday in violation of the law, the policy of
the city administration at that time being that of non-
enforcement. There came a time when public senti-
ment required enforcement of the Sunday-closing law,
and thereupon this man promptly obeyed the orders of
the police to that effect. When his petition for natural-
ization came up, it was held that the consent of the
authorities to his disobedience of the law was no excuse;
a person who would accept the benefit of an evasion of
the law could not be of "good moral character."

Said the court:

If a rule were laid down that it is inmioial to knowingly
and willfully violate the law in a community where public
sentiment approves the law, but not immoral in a community
where public sentiment does hot approve the law, it would
be most disastrous to the good order and well-being of society.
. . . That public officers charged with enforcement of the law
do not do so cannot change the effect upon the moral char-
acter of a man who willfully and habitually violates it. ^

This was a case in which the government succeeded
in canceling a certificate already granted, and it shows,

^ United States V9, Gerstein.

136

THE LAW IN OPERATION

as do many others, what a severe gantlet the petitioner
must nm, and how his past is combed over before he
can show that he is altogether quaUfied. Gerstein was
required to wait before filing a second petition; the
court said:

The order and decree of naturalization of the Superior
Court [of Cook County, Illinois] is reversed and the applica-
tion of appellee for citizenship denied, without prejudice
to his right to file another application when time Juu removed
the disqtudificaHon,

THE FINAL CEBEMONY — OATH OP ALLEGIANCE

The law requires that the Oath of Allegiance shall
be taken in open court as the final act of the petitioner
before being formally admitted to citizenship; thereupon
the decree is entered and certificate issued; but the
Naturalization Service is forbidden by its regulations
to issue the certificate until the judge's signature is
upon the order. Sometimes the clerk rattles oflf or
mumbles the oath very indistinctly, and the petitioners,
often a large number of them, hardly understand a
word of the solemn ritual. It is becoming more common
for the judge to require everyone in court to stand
while he delivers the text of the oath loudly and clearly.
In some courts where there are many applicants, and all
concerned are pressed for time, the persons to be nat-
uralized are kept in one part of the room until the
docket is cleared, whereupon the oath is administered
to them in groups of nationality; each nationality
group standing with upraised right hands while the
clerk or judge reads the words, and names the par-
ticular "prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty," alle-
giance to whom, or to which, is to be abjured. Some-
times this ceremony is a very hurried, perfunctory, and

undignified performance; sometimes a very solemn

137

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

and impressive one. During the high-pressure process
of naturalizing great numbers of soldiers in the army
encampments during the war, it was sometimes the
custom to have all nationalities stand at once, the
clerk naming all the sovereignties concerned in one
series, with the presumption that each individual
would mentally isolate the one which he was supposed
to have in mind. There were occasions when this
helter-skelter method was pursued for the benefit of
as many as 1,200 petitioners together.

CEREMONIES OF INITIATION

There is a growing movement in favor of having
pubUc ceremonies of "initiation," in which the whole
community is represented, to welcome the new citizens;
to impress upon both the newcomers and the people to
whose fellowship they are being welcomed, the impor-
tance and solemnity of the occasion. An increasing
number of judges are carrying out this idea in their
naturalization proceedings; adding to the formalities
required by the law a speech either by the judge himself
or by some representative citizen, or both, in which
the momentous significance of the act in which the
alien and the court have joined is emphasized. Some
judges make a practice of giving to each new citizen a
small flag, a special certificate, a leaflet or brochure
setting forth the sentiments appropriate to the occasion.
Much more common is it becoming for public-spirited
citizens to organize a meeting of the same import.
Here, for example, is the program of such a meet-
ing, . held in the Music Hall at Fall River, Massa-
chusetts, on May 7, 1919, following a naturalization
session of the local court, designated as "Reception
and Welcome to Fall River's Newly Naturalized
Citizens":

188

THE LAW IN OPERATION

PB06RAM

Hon. Henby F. Nickebson, Presiding

Music Orchestra

Singing — "America" Auiience

Address of Welcome Hon, Henry F, Nickeraan

Response by a naturalized citizen. Jame^ B. Kerr

Selection Orcheitra

Address Rev. Everett C. Herrtck

Pledge of Allegiance — Led by Boy Scovte:

*'I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the
country for which it stands; one nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Presentation of Certificates of Naturalization

M. B. Irish, Sec. Fall River Immigrant Committee

Prayer Rev, Vincent Marchildon

Singing — "Star-spangled 'BajmeT'\Atidienoe

Informal Reception

Here is another programL — of the "Americanization
Meeting in honor of those who were admitted to citizen-
ship April 19, 21, 22, 1920," held in the Union High
School at Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 30, 1920,
under the auspices of the Grand Rapids Board of Edu-
cation and the Americanization Society:

189

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

PROGRAM

Henry E. Cbow, President (A the Board of £ducatioxL»

Presiding

John W. Beattie, Supervisor of Music,

Song Leader

Song — "America" Audience

Address Christian GMmeyer, Mayor of Grand Rapids

Folk Games Pupils Sibley ScJiool

Directed by Miss Ila Krumheuer

Address Fred J. SchhtfeUU,

Chief Naturalissation Examiner, Chicago, lU,

Songs Audience

Presentation of Citizenship Certificates.

Judge Willis B. Perkins, Circuit Court

Pledge of Allegiance to Flag — Audience, led by Boy ScotUs:

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to
the country for which it stands; one nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Address to New Citizens A. P. Johnson,

Publisher Grand Rapids **News**

Songs Audience

Address Raymond F. Crist,

Director cf Citizenship, Bureau of Naiurcdization,

Washington, D, C,

"Star-spangled Banner" Audience

140

THE LAW IN OPERATION

Mrs. Henrietta Briggs-Wall of Washington, D. C,
has presented admirably the spirit of this movement
in a pamphlet proposing a general "New Patriot Plan,*'
to utilize the Fourth of Jidy throughout the country for
the celebration of the "civic birthday," alike of the
native bom who, during the past year, have attained
the voting age of 21 years, and the newly naturalized
foreign bom. "In other coimtries,'* says Mrs. Briggs-
Wall, "much ado is made over the crowning of kings
and queens who attempt to rule over others; there is
much more occasion for general rejoicing when newly
enfranchised citizens attain their share in the honors
and duties of self-government.", The plan proposes in
general a FoiuiJi-of-Jidy celebration in every com-
munity in America to which the newly enfranchised
shall be invited as guests of honor. The author says,
among other things:

The natural birthday is remembered by the family; the
"civic birthday" should be honored by the comimunity.

Inauguration ceremonies should accompany this newly
acquired power. These exercises may consist of addresses
to them [the newly enfranchised], music, a variety of activi-
ties for their entertainment and instruction; all of which, as
an object lesson, will promote the patriotism of all the people.

Prizes may be o£fered to those who bring the greatest
number to register in the "Record Book of New Patriots";
also to those who may try, if they choose, to write the best
essays on "true patriotism." . . . The customs and conven-
ience of different localities will suggest varying methods.

It is appropriate that the birthday of freedom, the civic
birthday of our country, should be chosen to celebrate the
civic birthday of the citizen. It is the best possible holiday
for patriotic purposes; the audience is already furnished,
and the minds of the people are in a receptive mood. It
occurs at the time of year when picnics, exclusions, and
out-of-door celebrations of all sorts can be easily arranged
in honor, and for the pleasure, of the new patriots.

141

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Criticism, commendation and reform alike, to be
either fair or judicious, must bear in mind that the
naturaUzation system which has been built up — ^and
such parts, absimlities, inhumanities, and bureaucratic
excrescences as have grown up — ^under the Natural-
ization Act of 1906 represents when all is said an honest,
diligent, and wholly patriotic effort to make impossible
the now almost incredible scandab of former times; to
establish and vigilantly maintain proper standards of
character and intelligence by which to test those of
other nativity who desire to join our fellowship and
participate in our sovereignty; and to fit and educate
those who are admitted for the better appreciation and
performance of the imique privileges and responsi-
bilities of American citizenship. The remediable evils,
some of the more conspicuous of which have been in-
dicated, seem to be due in part to survival among us of
general race and anti-foreign prejudices, despite our
historic professions and democratic traditions; in part
to the mere inertia of custom and habit characterizing
all governmental institutions; in part to the "personal
equation" of those upon whom, in various parts of the
coimtry, falls the duty of administering the law.

The experience of these fifteen years has demon-
strated that the law, as it stands, is on the whole just and
effective for its purposes. Its defects can be remedied;
its sound features strengthened and clarified. It is
time to modify it in some respects; to standardize the
tests and conditions enforced under its provisions, to
the end of removing, or anyway diminishing, the
opportunity for the erratic operation of "personal
equation " and the theories, whims, negligences, together
with the illegal and extra-legal practices, in both the
executive departments and the courts, of which the
aspirant for citizenship is the hapless victim.

142

PERSONAL EQUATION IN NATURALIZATION

^When we speak of the "personal equation" as an im-
portant factor in the adoption or rejection of an alien
applicant for citizenship, we are likely to be thinking
chiefly of the personality of the petitioner; of his char-
acter, intelligence, education, social training and experi-
ence; of his general fitness and capacity for assimila-
tion of our language, customs, traditions, institutional
relations — what we are pleased to call our " fimdamental
principles." But this is only a part, and not always or
necessarily the most significant and controlling part,
of the situation. There are other "personal equations"
to be considered. For while it is true in one sense that
the applicant does pass into the maw of a machine, con-
structed "of law rather than of men," and governed by
more or less precise and automatically operating regu-
lations from whose technic the individuals on either
side of the process may not materially depart, the fact
is that there is hardly any other legal process in our
governmental system in which personality — individual
ideas, prejudices, idiosyncrasies — ^plays so large a part.
In no other activity of the courts is the individual
petitioner so entirely at the mercy of the court, so
completely without recourse in the event of a decision
against him.

Strictly speaking, the proceeding is judicial; an ex-
parte case in an important court, in which a petition is
filed with the clerk, comes in due course before the judge

143

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

in person; evidence is received for and against the
granting of the privilege requested, and the judge decides
in a formal order and decree, pro or contra; the peti-
tion is granted or denied, as the case may be. For
every petition is decided and disposed of in some final
way, even though it may be continued or postponed
once or more. It is doubtful, however, whether any-
where in our judicial procedure — even in the minor
courts where so often farcically unjust " law " is inflicted
upon defenseless persons — ^may be f oimd a class of cases
departing so far in practice from the apparent simplicity
of the theory; where the petitioner is subject to so
heavy handicaps of technicality; to so great an extent
at the mercy of personal whims and mental limita-
tions, of blunders and negligences — and "red tape" — of
persons over whose activities he has not the slightest
control, with very little right or opportunity to have
beside him anyone to protect him from encroachment
upon his rights.

The Constitution of the United States gave to Con-
gress exclusive authority "to establish a uniform rule
of naturalization." ^ It might have been inferred that
the intention was to make the process strictly an affair
of Federal administration; but Congress did not so
construe or utilize the authority. It established, by the
original statute and subsequent legislation, uniform
standards of requirement as to racial restriction, pre-
liminary period of residence, literacy, and moral quali-
fications; but in effect it gave the jurisdiction and ad-
ministration of the law back to the states — ^not in so
many words, to be sure, but by committing the natural-
ization function to local as well as to Federal judges in
every state and territory. Nothing could have been
devised more surely to subject the operation of the law

* Art. I, sec. 8, par. 4.

144

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

to the peculiarities of local conditions and feeling, and
to the warps and twists of personal notion.

From the beginning, in the first general naturalization
law enacted after the new republic got under way, the
function of admitting new members of the nation has
been vested in the courts — a, judicial power and activity.
So it remains to-day. And with the sole exception of
Canada, the United States is unique in respect of this
method of naturalization. England, France, and vir-
tually all of the other nations vest the power in some
ministerial agency.^

A FUNCTION OP LOCAL COUBTS

At first glance it might seem fitting and wise to confine
the function (if to the courts at all) to the Federal tribu-
nals, in the interest of freedom from local poHtical in-
fluence, uniformity of interpretation and practice, and
recognition of the fact that citizenship is chiefly a rela-
tionship to the nation as a whole. Always, indeed,
there has been a considerable body of sentiment in
favor of such a change in the practice. Many of the
state judges woidd favor it; some for reasons of prin-
ciple, but most because they would gladly get rid of a
body of duty which to many is irksome and a distasteful
interference with their ordinary matters of litigation by
duties which they regard as properly more administra-
tive than judicial. No Federal judge will hear of any
such addition to their already great burden of work.

The reasons to the contrary are weighty and thus far
have been controlling. In the first place, after all is
said, an individual, however national his citizenship in
the large sense, is politically a unit of the state in which
he resides. He does not vote for any strictly Federal

^ See Report of the Presidents Commission on NaiuraHzatum^ 1905,
Fifty-first Congress, First Session, House Document 46.

145

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

officer; the only civic relaticmships which he bears to
the nation as such are those of direct taxation and
national military service — and both of those are of
comparatively recent establishment. He does not vote
for President of the United States, but for a group of
Presidential electors who will cast the vote of his state
in the Electoral College. When he votes for two
Senators and one Representative in Congress, he votes
for them as representatives of his own state and Con-
gressional district. The states, as a rule, have been very
jealous of every effort to take the direct control of the
selection of their citizens out of the hands of officials
amenable to local sentiment.

There is another and even better reason, in the fact
that the United States coiurts are relatively few and far
between, and the expense of time and travel which
would be imposed upon appUcants, living elsewhere
than in large cities, for having to go (as they do now
twice and often more than twice) to the nearest Federal
courts would be prohibitive upon all aliens but the
most prosperous or those whom some one might have
a motive, political or other, for subsidizing in this way.
In not a few sparsely settled regions, even as it is now,
a petitioner must travel, and take his two witnesses, a
total of many hundred miles before he can consummate
the process of naturalization and obtain the precious
certificate without which he cannot complete his title
to his homestead.

The existing law, modified in its allusions to terri-
tories which since have become states by the various
kinds of legislation relative to their statehood, thus
describes the courts which are to have the power to pass
upon applications for citizenship:

United States Circuit and District Courts now existing, or

which may hereafter be established by Congress, in any State;

United States District Courts for the Territories of Arizona,

146

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

New Mexico, Oklahoma, Hawaii, and Alaska; the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia, and the United States
Courts for the Indian Territory; also all courts of record in
any State or Territory now existing, or which may hereafter
be created, having a seal, a clerk, and jurisdiction in actions
at law or equity, or law and equity, in which the amount in
controversy is unlimited.

"personal equation** op the judges

' According to the report of the Commissioner of Natural-
ization for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, a total
of £,306 courts of all these kinds have exercised natural-
ization jurisdiction during that year, and a list of judges,
compiled by the Americanization Study from informa-
tion obtained from the Naturalization Service and from
other sources, shows that about 1,450 individual judges,
Federal, state, and local, preside in these courts. Agrand
total of approximately 100,000 cases a year — ^the figure
roughly used in estimating the naturalization business
of recent years — ^would give to each judge an average
of about 70 cases a year; but since in tJie great majority
of rural districts this business is exceedingly small — in
some cases not more than two or three in a year — ^and
since the bulk of it is in the large cities and in particular
regions, such as the mining districts of Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, Illinois, etc., certain courts have a very
large number of cases, in some instances running into
thousands.

In the last analysis, the individual judge is, subject
to certain noteworthy restrictions and interferences,
the final arbiter in every case. Upon his "personal
equation,'* his opinions and prejudices, to a great
extent depends the reception which the petitioner
experiences when he comes into court for the final
stage of his initiation as an American citizen.

Obviously, then, it becomes important to ascertain

147

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the general attitude of the naturalizmg judges through-
out the country toward the law as it stands, toward the
naturalization process in general, toward the petitioner
for citizenship. In the last analysis the judge is a
human being, moved by human motives, warped by
human prejudices, subject to the same personal, local,
and general influences that condition the emotions and
actions of the rest of us toward om: fellow men.

With this in view, the Americanization Study ad-
dressed a questionnaire to each of the approximately
1,400 judges throughout the country entitled * to juris-
diction in naturalization proceedings in the 2,800 courts
over which from time to time they preside for this pur-
pose. Somewhat less than one-third (423, or about
31 per cent) of the judges thus addressed replied or
were accounted for in some manner more or less com-
plete. Any exact or conclusive tabulation of the replies
would be impracticable because the questions called for
expression of opinions rather than categorical or statis-
tical answers; a large proportion of the judges left one
or more of the questions unanswered or qualified their
answers in such a way as to preclude the possibility of
precise classification. Nevertheless, the results as a
whole are highly significant and informing-<ahnost as
much so in their negative aspects as in the definite
replies evoked.

For example, it is interesting to observe the difference
not only in the ratio of replies received to the number of
judges questioned, but in the character of the replies as
regards general strictness or UberaUty of attitude, in the
various parts of the country. The first point is to be seen
in the following list of naturalization districts, with the

^The worda "approximately" and ** entitled" are appropriate
here, because by no means all of the judges empowered to naturalize
exercise the function, and the list is constantly changing by reason
of death, retirement, readjustment of work in large courts, etc.

148

PERSONAL SroE OF NATURALIZATION

approximate number of judges in each and the number
of them heard from:

TABLE IV

NuMBEB OF Replies from Judges in Each District

BoHon District, — Comprising the gtates of Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Bhode Island.

Statb

JUDGBB

Rbflisb fbou

Maine. ....... >

9
6
7
29
18
8

New Hampshire.
Vormont. ....it.

MassRchusfitts

^^pnectic"t. ,

Bhode Island

Total

New York District, — Comprising Northern, Eastern, and Southern
New York, and Hudson County, New Jersey.

Statu

New York. .
New Jersey.

Total.

RSPLIBB FBOU

Philadelphia District, — Comprising the Eastern and Middle Districts,
Penn^lvania, Delaware, and New Jersey (except Hudson County).

Statu

Pennsylvania.

Ddaware

New Jersey. .

Total..
11

Rapusa ntou

2
10

149

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

PiUiburgh DiHrid, — Comprising Western Peiiii«yl^^iua» Western
New York, West ^ginia, Ohio» Maryland (counties of AHeglieny,
Frederick, Grarrett, and Washington), Kentucky (counties of
Campbdl and Kenton).

Stati

Pennsylvania.
Kentucky. . . .
Maryland. . . .

New York

Ohio

West Virginia

Total..

RXPLIBBFBOU

Washington District, — G>mpri8ing the District of G>lumbia, Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky (except the counties of Campbell,
Jefferson, and Kenton), Louisiana, Maryland (except the coun-
ties of Allegheny, Frederick, Grarrett, and Washington), Missis-
sippi, North Carolina, Porto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee
(except Shelby County), Texas, and Virginia.

Statu

District of CcJumbia

Alabanui

Florida

Georgia

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maryland

Mississippi

North Carolina

Porto Rico

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

Virginia

City of Baltimore ,

Total

150

Rbpldds'fbom

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

Si. Louis Digtrid, — Comprising Arkaims, Okkh<»iia, Mifl80uri»
Iowa, NeUtiska, Kansas, Shelby County, Tennessee, and South-
em Illinois.

Statu

JUDOIUB

Rbpuxs fbom

85
W
62
89
84
48
84

267

Illinois

Iowa

Nebraska

Missouri

Oklahoma. . ^ . . . . , r - , - , . . ,

Total

Chicago Dittrid, — Comprising Northern Illinois, Indiana, Southern
l^^soonsin, Jefferson County, Kentucky, Southern Peninsula of
Michigan, and Mackinac County, Midiigan.

Statb

Illinois

Indiana. . .
Michigan.
Wisconsin.

Total

Rbplebs fbom

St Patd District, — Comprising Minnesota, North Dakota, South
Dakota, Northern Wisconsin, Northern Peninsula of Michigan
(except Mackinac County).

Statb

JUDQBS

RbPLIBS FEOll

Minnesota,

48
4
18
18
11

Michigan

North Dakota

South Dakota

Wisconsin

Total

■ !■

151

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Denver District. — Comprising Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming,
Utah, and the comities of Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Bonne-
ville, Custer, Franklin, Fremont, Jefferson, Lemhi, Madison,
Oneida, and Power, Idaho.

State

JUDOBS

RapLDBS VBOM

Colorado

17
9
9
8
5

New Mexico

Utah

Wyoming

Idaho -

Total. .

San Francisco District. — Comprising California, Arizona, and Nevada.

Statb

JXTDOBS

Rbplies fbou

Calif <Nmia

95
16
12

123

Arizona

Nevada

Total

Seattle District. — Comprising Washington, Oregon, Montana, and
Idaho (except as assigned to Denver).

Statb

Washington.

Oregon

Montana. . .
Idaho

Total.

JUDOBS

47
27
26
11

111

Rbplibs vbou

15
11

7
1

REGAPrrULATION

Total nmnber of judges addressed ,
Replies received from

1,410
428

152

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

Pebcentagb of Repues

St. Paul District 46.0

Denver District 41 .7

San Francisco District 97 A

St. Louis District 9S.S

Philadelphia District 31.0

Seattle District 30.6

Chicago District 28.2

Pittsburgh District 26.8

New York District 24.6

Boston District 22.0

Washington District 18.5

Average 30 . 9

It would be perilous to generalize from these figures
as to the interest of judges in various parts of the
country in the study of the problems involved in nat-
uralization. Silence does not necessarily imply indififer-
ence; moreover, the courts in large centers of popula-
tion are overburdened with ordinaiy litigation, and it is
not surprising that there should be procrastination or
entire failure in responding to a more or less elaborate
questionnaire. Nevertheless, there is food for reflec-
tion in the fact that the lowest percentages of exhibited
interest are in the East and South — ^the highest west of
the Mississippi River.

The judges who did reply to the questionnaire repre-
sent on the whole both wide experience and substantial
interest in the subject. Of those who state the number
of naturalization cases coming before them in an aver-
age year, more than 100 passed upon 100 cases or more
— ^not including the very large numbers passed by a
few in acceptance of soldiers under the "military nat-
uralization law"; at least as many more had from 50 to
100 cases a year (160 between 10 and 100); only 67
reported less than 10. Upward of 400 judges, each an-
swering for himself, undoubtedly afford a reasonably

158

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

reliable cross-section of the opinion of the naturalizing
agency of the government.

BIBO's-EYE VIEW OF THE QT7ESTIONNAIBS

The questions which were asked» and the general nature
of the replies to each, give a bird's-eye view of the prin-
cipal phases of the problem, and a fair notion of the
d^ree to which the judges may be regarded as liberal or
conservative and alive to the situation. The questions
and the figures given after each speak for themselves:

Do you regard the present requiremerUa for nahiralixation ae too
strict, or not strict enough^

Answers: About right now 185

Too strict «6

Not strict enough 97

Noncommittal 90

828

What is your policy as to ** oonHn'uious residence** — how long, if at
aU, do you permit a petitioner to have been absent from this country
during the fvoe years immediately preceding his petition^

The answers to this question may be roughly classified to show the
general attitude of the judge, as follows:

No absence whaterer permitted 72

A fixed time limit (three to six months*

very general) 82

"Entirely a question of intention" . . . 210

Noncommittal 26

840

How frequenUy do you require the petitioner* s witnesses actually ft>
have seen him during Aefive years* periods

Very strict (" daily " ; " constantly, as a
neighbor " ; " I insist upon a real per-
sonal intimacy/' etc.) 6^

Reasonable (*' enough to satisfy me as
to the petitioner's character and

154

PEBSONAL SIDE OF NATUEAMZATION

residence*'; "a bona-fide acquaint-
ance," etc.) 287

840

Do ffou require applieanU for naiuralisuMtion to prove thai they can
read as well as speak the English kmguagef The law does noi require
ability to read.

Yes 179

No 155

884

Would ycufaxoT amending the law eoaato permit (he eubtiUuiion of a
wOnese where, in evident good faith, one qf (he original two appears, in
the judgment of the court, to be honesUy mistaken in believing that he has
adequately known the petitioner for the whole fwe yeairsf {Under the
present practice the petition is denied, and a new one must be filed and
a new fee paid,)

Yes ("The present practice imposes a

great hardship and injustice*') 811

No 86

Nonccnnmittal 6

858

Would you favor amendment of the law so as to mitigate the present
requirement that two, only two, and the same two, witnesses must swear
to personal knowledge of all of the petitioner* s residence up to five years,
within the state in v>hich the petition was filed, and thus permit him to
cover a part of this residence by depositions, or additional untnesses, when
witnesses possessing the qualifications now required cannot be procured^

Yes 289

No 84

Noncommittal 11

884

Would you write into the Naturaliaation Law a specific educational or
vMUctual test for admission to citizenship^

Yes 167

No 157

Nonocmmiittal 25

859
155

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Do you faooT a uniform required course of tnjfmcfum fof appUeania
for dtisefukipf

Yes 208

No 184

Noooommittal 88

875

Would you faoor acceptance, aa primarfade evidence of tnteUedual
fitneee, cf a suitable certificate from eckooU or dose, of the euoceesftd
completion of audi a couraef

Yes C'l would"; "I do aocq>t school
certificates now/* etc.) 809

No C*The judge must satisfy himself
by his own inquiry'*; "it is charac-
ter» not learning, that counts";
"too many Socialists are teaching
school," etc.) 110

Noncommittal 81

850

Would you favor the abolition of the preaerU Declaration of Intention
{first papera)? If not, what good purpoae do you think it aerveef

Yes ("It serves no good purpose") ... 82

No ("It is an essential of the proceed-
ing"; "it serves notice to all con-
cerned"; " it tends to keep the appli-
cant in mind of his desire to be a
dtiaen," etc.) 241

Noncommittal 88

856

What have you obaerved to be the apecial difficuUiea in the way of
deairable foreignera, hindering them from aeeking naturalvustionf

Know of none deterring deairable for-
eigners 107

Ignorance and indifference 104

Deterring attitude of natives 00

Technicalities in law and examinations 42

No (pinions 58

871
156

PEBSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

Would you faxoT legislation to permit the naturalizatum cf a married
woman in her own name, if personally acceptable, regardless of the alien'
age of her husband, or his failure to obtain or rtfusal to seek
naturalisationf

Yes 204

No 104

Noncommittal 25

Would you favor reserving to a naiioe4x>m American woman, if she
desires it, the American citizenship which under the present law she
sacrifices by marriage to a foreignerf

Yes 220

No 127

Noncommittal 17

864

Would you favor modification qf the law so as to admit to citizenship
any individual personally fii, regardless of race or ooUjrf

Yes 100

No 225

Noncommittal 34

Do you believe that the admission of large numbers of aliens under
ihe Ad of May 9, 1918, solely on the ground of military or naval service,
without the usual requirements qf residence, etc., operated on the whole
to the advantage qf ihe United States?

Yes Ill

No 118

Doubtful 28

No opinion 58

810

Would you fa»or applying Ihe same standards and tests to all pro-
spective voters, native and foreign bom alike, before endowing them with
the suffrage; with suitable ceremonies of induction into "active voting
membership,** so to speak, in our societyf

Yes 180

No 102

Noncommittal 44

826
157

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Would you fcufor removal cf naturalissaUon from all stale courts, so as
to make U exdusioely a function cf the Federal courisf

Yes 11«

No 208

820

Would you faoor placing naturalisaiion in the hands of traoeling
naturalizaiUm commissioners, appointed by and responsible to the courtsf

Yes 76

No 202

278

Would you favor making naturalisuttion a purely administraUve func'
iion^ exercised by the Nahtralization Bureau, or ciher appropriaie organ
of the Department of Labor, or other department

Yes 48

No 222

270
GENERAL TREND OF JUDGES* OPINIONS

The returns of this questionnaire, from a sufficiently

representative cross-section of the naturalizing agency

of the government, self -selected by the operation of

substantial personal interest in the problems embodied

in the situation (as evidenced by taking the pains to

express opinion), make clear the opinion of the judges

on several important points, and may be summarized

substantially as follows:

(1) The judges on the whole believe that the present

law requires no drastic amendment in principle; they

believe that the naturalizing function should remain

with the courts; should not be confined to the Federal

courts, and should be exercised in the open courtrooms

as it is at present. And this, notwithstanding the fact

that the function adds materially to the burden of

ordinary litigation.

158

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

(9) In the matter of attitude toward both petitioners
and their witnesses, the judges are in the main liberal
and humane, judging of absence during the five years'
probationary period chiefly with regard to the occasion
for the absence and the continuing intention to become
an American citizen, and the witnesses' knowledge of
the petitioner by the practical facts in the case.

(3) An overwhelming majority of the judges favor
mitigation of the technicalities now surrounding the pro-
ceeding by permitting the substitution of witnesses
and the supplying of evidence to convince the court,
by means of depositions covering portions of the period
of residence within the state in which the petition is
filed. It may be added that very many of the judges
would accept testimony of the same character as that
which they would receive in any other sort of proceeding
before the court to establish any fact.

(4) A majority of the judges require of petitioners
proof of ability to read the EngUsh language; some
require also ability to write it — although the law re-
quires only ability to speak it. There is a marked
weight of opinion in favor of requiring reading; some
also advocate writing — even among the judges who do
not now require it because the present law does not.
The judges are about evenly divided as to the desir-
ability of a uniform educational test. Most of those
who oppose it emphasize the fact that, in the se-
lection of citizens, character and general reputation
are more important than book learning; that a bad
man is made only the more dangerous by education.
A majority of the judges would favor a required
course of instruction, and would accept as prima-facie
evidence of intellectual fitness a school certificate of
the successful completion of such a course. Increas-
ingly, such certificates are in fact accepted by courts

all over the country.

159

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

(5) The judges are emphatically opposed to the
abolition of the declaration of intention, the ratio of
expressions in the negative being approximately three
to one. The declaration is regarded by the judges of
the widest experience as having a moral value of great
importance, and as affording indispensable notice to
the government and the public of the alien's intention
to apply for "active membership."

(6) With regard to married women, the judges are
two to one in favor of permitting their naturalization
as individuals, regardless of the action of their hus-
bands, and nearly a^ much so m favor of reserving to
American-bom women their citizenship, notwithstand-
ing their marriage to aliens. As regards the latter
point, most of those expressing themselves in the affirm-
ative insert the proviso that the woman must continue
her domicile in this country.

(7) Opinion is in the negative as regards naturaliza-
tion of "any individual personally fit, regardless of
race or color." Most of the judges interpret the ques-
tion as applying to Chinese and Japanese. A Southern
judge holds that "since citizenship has been granted
to the African race, there is no reason for withholding
it from any other." Those who vote in the affirmative
do so on the ground that even membership in the Mon-
golian racial groups should not exclude persons who can
show personal fitness for citizenship; nevertheless, the
vote in the negative is more than two to one.

(8) The judges are not clear with regard to the sug-
gestion of a standard test for all prospective voters,
native or foreign bom, by which even native Americans
at the age of twenty-one years should pass at least the
same examination as an alien applicant before being
armed with the ballot. Nevertheless, nearly two to one
of those who spoke on that point favor the establish-
ment of such a test.

160

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

(9) Military naturalization is the subject of grave
doubt. The vote is about evenly divided — a shade
toward the negative — ^but nearly as many judges are
doubtful or noncommittal as are either favorable or
opposed to the measure. It should be said, however,
that those most emphatically satisfied with what was
done in this regard are those who had the most experi-
ence with it.

THE CLERKS OF THE COURTS

The clerks of the courts in many ways are not less im-
portant in the experience of the petitioning alien than
either the judges or the naturalization examiner. Upon
the derk, more than upon anyone else, in the vast major-
ity of cases, diepends scrutiny of the declaration of in-
tention; usually he actually makes out the declaration
for the aUen; if he is careful and familiar with the
routine of form and fact he makes it out, or sees that
it is made out, correctly; if he regards the whole business
as a nuisance, has a prejudice against immigrants as
such or against the particular race represented by this
particular alien, or doesn't like this individual, if he has
had a controversy with the Naturalization Service or
is, for some other reason, in an unfriendly mood, or if,
as is more likely to be the case, he is simply careless or
unfamiliar with the technic of the business — shaving
VCTy little of it to do — ^the interests of the alien may
suffer accordingly. The courts do not give the alien
the benefit of any allowance for clerical or other errors
made or permitted by the clerk if they relate in the
slightest degree to any material fact; the alien must
guard himself against any such error, or bear the conse-
quences alone. In fact, the coiu*ts have repeatedly
held, as it is expressed in a brief in the case of Mul-
crevy vs. San Francisco, in the United States Supreme

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Court, that the duties in connection with naturaliza-
tion performed by clerks of coiui^ " are not appurtenant
to the oflBce of clerk of court. . . . All of their transac-
tions with the Bureau of Naturalization, and these
include almost all of their service, are performed with-
out any reference to the court/' ^ In many instances, the
clerks are greatly annoyed by having this citizenship
work thrust upon them; they take no pleasure in hav-
ing been "freely designated by Congress to serve the
purposes of the Federal government," or in being thus
"instrumentalities or agencies of the Federal govern-
ment," as the Mulcrevy brief puts it, and perform
their duties in a careless, grudging, and iU-natured
spirit.

In most of the rural districts, naturalization business
is very Ught; sometimes there will be only two or three
cases a year; there are even coiui^ in which a year or
two might pass without any at all. In such instances
the labor is trivial; but for that very reason the clerk
is not alive to the importance of details, and the ratio
of mistakes may be the greater for that reason.

In the large cities, where the naturalization business
is heavy, there are usually deputy clerks devoting vir-
tually all of their attention to it; they keep in practice,
and avoid errors. But it is to be remembered that
because this work is not "appurtenant to the office
of clerk of court," neither the United States nor the
state contributes anything whatever to the remunera-
tion of the clerk. The alien pays for that, in a manner
well calculated to create an undesirable relationship
all the way round. The clerk is put in this regard
largely at the mercy of the Naturalization Service, and

1 See United States v». Hill, 120 U. S., 169; EGll vs. United States,
40 Fed., 441; United States vs. McMillan, 165 U. S., 504; in re
Halladjian, 174 Fed., 884.

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PERSONAL SroE OF NATURALIZATION

the result is not a happy one — as might very well be
expected.

THE QUESTIOK OF ADEQUATE CLEBICAL FOBCE

The report of the New York State Commission of
Immigration, transmitted to the Legislature April 5,
1909, after the present system had been in operation
about two years, dealt with this matter in connection
with its comment upon delays in the naturalization
business in the courts, especially of New York City,
which is attributed chiefly to insufficiency of clerical
force, due, in its finding, to the operation of the follow-
ing provision of the naturalization law:

That the clerks of courts exercising jurisdiction in natu-
ralization proceedings shall be permitted to retain one-half
of the fees in any fiscal year, up to the sum of three thousand
dollars, and that all fees received by such clerks in natu-
ralization proceedings in excess of such amount shall be
accounted for, and paid over to said {Naturalization] Bureau,
as in case of other fees to which the United States may be
entitled under the provisions of this Act. The clerks of
the various courts exercising jurisdiction in naturalization
proceedings shall pay all additional clerical force that may
be required in performing the duties imposed by this Act
upon the clerks of coiu-ts from fees received by such clerks
in naturalization proceedings.

And in case the clerk of any court exercising naturaliza-
tion jurisdiction collects fees in excess of the sum of six
thousand debars in any fiscal year, the Secretary of Labor
may allow salaries, for naturalization purposes only, to pay
for clerical assistance, to be selected and employed by that
clerk, additional to the clerical force, for which clerks of
courts are required by this section to pay from fees received
by such clerks in naturalization proceedings, if in the opinion
of said Secretary the naturalization business of such clerk

warrants further additional assistance: Provided, That in

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no event shall the whole amount allowed the clerk of a court
and his assistants exceed the one-half of the gross receipts
of the office of said clerk from naturalization fees during such
fiscal year.^

WHEN THE CLERK POCKETS THE FEES

The clerk is not required to spend for additional clerical
force the portion of the fees under three thousand dollars
retained by him. In some states he is required to sur-
render it as part of the income of his office; but gener-
ally speaking he can put it in his pocket if he chooses
to do so, and allow the naturalization business to be-
come clogged and delayed. Sometimes he does just
that. The Naturalization Service has no redress,
although it usually is blamed by the uninformed for
the ensuing situation. Of course the alien has none,
although he is the principal victim of it. The possi-
bilities of the arrangement are well illustrated in one
great Middle Western city, where there are two courts,
one state and one Federal, performing naturalization
functions. The clerk of the state court is very efficient
and interested in the work; he spends more than $3,000
on naturalization business, employing a deputy at
$1,800 and a stenographer at about $1,000 a year, and
in rush periods having extra force. The service to
aliens in that court is courteous, acciu^te, and expedi-
tious. The clerk of the Federal court does otherwise.
He retains his $3,000, but employs an assistant at only
$1,200 without any stenographer, and the work is
badly delayed. A letter of complaint about this court
mentions tiie fact that "I have been advised by . . .

^The text here quoted is from the law as it now stands; it diffov
very slightly in verbiage, but not in meaning, from the law as it
read when quoted in the New York Immigration Commission's
rqK>rt.

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PERSONAL SroE OP NATURALIZATION

that the United States District Court will be closed all
day to-day." Day after day, during 1918--19, the office
of the naturalization deputy clerk in that court was
entirely closed, so far as the aliens were concerned,
owing to the insufficiency of the clerical force. Gener-
ally, an overworked condition of a clerk's office leads,
naturally, to hurry, discourtesy, and inevitable delays,
during which appUcants and their witnesses wiU lose
day after day of working time in waiting for attention.

FORMS OP PETTY GRAFT

This sort of thing leads also to another evil, inevitable
in such an atmosphere. Petty officers of the court,
policemen and others having the run of the building,
will tyrannize ov^ the crowds of aliens awaiting atten-
tion, and will pretend to have, or actually will exercise,
the power to put one person ahead of another or other-
wise effect an unfair discrimination in favor of those
who will pay something for the advantage. Jn one
court there was found a definite arrangement with a
neighboring saloonkeeper, who collected the bribes for
a guard in the Federal building. The Naturalization
Service has been assiduous in its discouragement of
this sort of thing, and has had a good measure of suc-
cess upon the minor grafters; but as the law reads at
present it can use only moral suasion upon the clerks
of courts to induce them to spend the retained share
of the fees for the purpose for which the retention
obviously was authorized — ^the bona-fide employment
of the extra clerical force needed to handle the natural-
ization business.

The '^ moral suasion" business, however, has its
limitations. While the chief naturalization examiners,
in charge of the districts in the field, usually are on

cordial terms with the clerks of their various courts,
12 165

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the relations between the clerks and the office of the
bureau at Washington, maintained ahnost exclusively
by correspondence, with that correspondence almost
invariably growing out of some complaint or derelic-
tion on the part of the clerk, are not always so happy.
The clerk has to send to Washington for all his supplies
of blanks and other stationery used in the naturaliza-
tion business. In one of the largest cities in the country
there was a delay of weeks in getting certain supplies
from Washington, and the petitioners suflFered accord-
ingly. The whole naturalization service is habitually
short-handed and correspondingly overworked; but
the penalty for the delays falls upon the head of the
petitioner for naturalization. When a clerk of a small
court, or a large one, has not on hand the blank forms
upon which his declaration or petition must be written
in order to be valid, the alien, who may have traveled
with his witnesses scores of miles to file his paper, must
return to his home and wait some more. This is an
occurrence by no means infrequent.

Penalties are provided by law against clerks who fail
to send punctually to Washington the required peri-
odical reports and duplicates of papers. The Natural-
ization Bureau has been reluctant to attempt enforce-
ment of these penalties — ^it is a bit drastic to fine a
clerk $25 for a little delay in transmitting papers —
and usually has been content to send an examiner to
the court to get the material. But the correspondence
growing out of such delays, and out of the effort to
induce clerks to spend their retained share of the fees
for clerical assistance, has added acerbity in many in-
stances to the irksomeness of a task ^'not appurtenant
to the office of clerk of court."

Small irritations also add friction. For example, the
clerk is required to send his reports and papers by
registered mail; there is no provision to reimburse him

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PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

for this; he can put in an expense bill — and maybe get
it after a long delay. This is exasperating, whether
one's annual share of fees in a small office amounts to
$10 or $3,000. There was a clerk in California who
declined to answer letters or have anything further to
do with the Bureau after he thought he had been badly
treated in some such matter; he induced the judge of
his court to relinquish naturalization jurisdiction, and
then wrote to the Bureau that it could have the records
in his custody if it would send for them. The Bureau
has a highly detached, impersonal style of correspond-
ence, admirably adapted to aUenate human sentiment
and blight human interest.

"PIKSONAL equation" IN THE NATURALIZATION

SERVICE

The executive arm of the government has the right to
appear before courts exercising naturalization juris-
diction, for the purpose, as the law says:

of cross-examining the petitioner and the witnesses produced
in support of his petition concerning any matter touching,
or in any way affecting, his right of admission to citizenship,
and shall have the right to call witnesses, produce evidence,
and be heard in opposition to the granting of any petition
in naturalization proceedings.

This perfectly breathes the spirit exhibited as a general
rule by the representatives of the Naturalization Serv-
ice. The alien petitioner, having passed muster in
respect of the clerk's office, confronts the representative
of the government, presumably famiUar with every
detail of technicaUty, in far to o many cases ben t upon
preventing his naturalization if by any possibility it
can be done. Judge after judge, in all parts of the

country, answering the questionnaire of the American-

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ization Study, describes the naturalization examiner
as a zealous young man, intent upon straining eveiy
technical point to its utmost — against the petitioner.

In the original instructions issued by the Commis-
sioner of Naturalization on June 80, 1909, when the
field service was taken over by the Department of
Conmierce and Labor — of which the Naturalization
Bureau then became a part — ^he said to the division
chiefs:

There is one point which I desire especially to call to your
attention, and through you to the attention of those under
your charge and direction, and it is a point upon which I
must insist. The service is largely one not alone of an investi-
gating nature, but of an advisory and instructive character
as well; it furnishes the courts, the clerks of the courts, and
the general pubhc with information-^-especially that part
of the general public directly interested in acquiring citizen-
ship, or indirectly interested, as witnesses to those who are
seeking naturalization.

Referring particularly to applicants, he said, also:

They should further be made to understand that the sub-
stantial effect of such exactions [requirements of the law]
upon yoiur part is to protect them, after they once secure
naturalization, from the disappointment, embarrassment, and
distress which must ensue in case they secure naturalization
without having complied with the law.

These excerpts from the Commissioner's instructions
were quoted by authority in a letter dated August 15,
1919, from one of the district chief examiners to the
writer; therefore they may fairly be taken to represent
not only the initial policy of the Naturalization Service
in beginning its work, but the policy to-day. As a
statement of general policy and attitude they leave
nothing to be desired. Furthermore, any fair consider-
ation of the naturalization system must take into

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PERSONAL SroE OF NATURALIZATION

account generously the background and historic per-
spective of this business.

A SCRUPULOUSLY HONEST SEBVICE

As it aheady has been made sufficiently clear, prior
to the enactment of the law of 1906, naturalization in
the United States was not only a chaotic but a scandal-
ous thing. Many persons believe now that it is "easy
to get naturalized," that upon payment of a few dollars,
or in consideration of poUtical subserviency, promised
or expected, any alien can go, as it were, straight from
the vessel that brings him to the naturalization court
and thence to the ballot box! It used to be almost like
that, but with the enactment of the law of 1906 a revo-
lution set in, and the condition now, generally speak-
ing, is quite otherwise. The pendulum has swung to
the other extreme. It is as difficult now to be natural-
ized as it used to be easy. And it is quite natural that
it should be so, in the reaction of public sentiment from
the old happy-go-lucky days, with the law's adminis-
tration in the hands of a corps of men who, from top
to bottom, answer any test of honesty and zeal. In
all the wide inquiry upon which this volume is
based, there was no hint anywhere of any manner of
corrupt practice on the part of anyone in the service.
Such faults and shortcomings as may be attributed
to the Naturalization Service are oi an entirely different
character.

At the outset, the principal function performed by
the government was that of investigation; the group
of men who pyrsued the inquiries about ahens petition-
ing for citizenship was little more than a corps of detec-
tives, bent upon ferreting out something, anything,
that would show the applicant to be unfit. To begin

with, this work was done under the direction of the

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Attorney-General of the United States. All naturaliza-
tion proceedings, in f act» were in charge of special assist-
ants to the various United States district attorneys,
the examiners operating under them as field investiga-
tors. The politicians had a good deal to say about the
selection of examiners. Many, if not most of them,
were former pension examiners. Some had been in the
postal service; some had had no experience at all in the
government employ.

Without implying any dereliction of intention on their
part, then or now, it may be said that few of them had
legal training or were otherwise fitted to conduct the
government's part in court proceedings. The training
of the examiners always has been of the most hap-
hazard, inadequate character. Even under the opera-
tion of the Civil-Service laws, it was held that the kind
of experience a man ought to have for the field service
was that of general contact with the public — ^that of
poUcemen, street-car conductors, and the like. Yet,
as the practice has grown up, these men have to appear
in important courts virtually in the guise of attorneys
for the government; they must know the law, not only
as set forth in the statutes, but as interpreted in innu-
merable decisions of Federal and state coiui:s.

NEED OF UNIFYING INFLUENCE

The chief examiners have done their best, but diflPer-
ences of "personal equation" have resulted in a very
wide diversity of poUcy and attitude. There never has
been any adequate unifying influence in the service;
supervision has been conducted largely by correspond-
ence, and the correspondence has not always been self-
consistent. Even in the matter of transmitting to the
chief examiners the decisions of courts in naturaliza-
tion matters, there has been a strong tendency to

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PEBSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

transmit chiefly those decisions which supported the
contentions of the NaturaUzation Bureau, so that there
have been cases in which examiners went on insisting
upon interpretations of the law which had been over-
ruled, "getting away with it" in courts whose judges
did not keep close track of the decisions, to the detri-
ment of petitioners who could not know their rights —
since the alien, as a rule, has no one in court to protect
him, and rarely is in a position to take an appeal.

In the majority of the courts, particularly those far
from the great centers and having relatively little
naturalization business, the judges regard it as more
or less of a nuisance, do not keep posted about the law
and decisions, and, looking upon the naturalization
examiner not only as the accredited representative of
the government, but as an expert in this field, follow
his reconmiendations and contentions; and here, again,
there being no one in court to represent the frightened
or embarrassed petitioner, the point of view of the
examiner becomes that of the judge, and the law is
handed down accordingly. On the other hand, a few
judges have taken the attitude that they would not
recognize an examiner who was not an attorney ad-
mitted to practice before those particular courts.

"nothing to litigate!'*

The Bureau of Naturalization has contended that 9^^
naturalization hearing is not a "case"; that there is
nothing to Utigate; that the examiner is present not
as an attorney, but as a friend and informant of the
court, with which abides the final responsibility. It
holds that the petitioner does not need an attorney,
the judge being assumed to be of course as solicitous to
protect the interests of the petitioner as those of the
country's citizenship. No allowance is made under

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this theory for judges like the one, for instance, who
regards it as his duty to '* construe everything against
the petitioner"!

llie operation of the system certainly leaves the
petitioner frequently, at least, in a most unsatisfactory
and perilous posture; as witness the matter of the
seven-year limitation upon "old-law declarations."
The crisis came in September, 1918, and there was a
decision soon afterward in the United States District
Court in New York ruling out all "old-law declara-
tions." A policy in regard to these declarations should
have been made then — a unified poUcy, applicable
throughout the Naturalization Service. Nothing of the
sort was done; the decision was heeded in some dis-
tricts and ignored in others, for five years! — until the
Supreme Court of the United States, sustaining the
holding of the District Court in New York, at one
stroke guillotined, so to speak, thousands of declarants
under the old law. In many other matters there is
still not only uncertainty, but variety of interpretation
and practice; a regrettable lack in e£Fect of the "uni-
form rule" contemplated by the Constitution.

In many courts the point of view of the judge and
that of the naturalization examiner are at variance,
and this leads in some cases to open bitterness. Some
examiners quibble and irritate the judge with trivial
objections; some judges constantly ignore important
provisions of the law urged upon them by the examiners.
Between such extremes the petitioner is a helpless
shuttlecock at the time, and later the victim of can-
cellation proceedings. There are "too many cooks,"
too little supervised and unified, and among them the
petitioner's broth is spoiled. One of the crying needs
of the NaturaUzation Service is a permanent law oflScer,
able and willing and vigilant to watch the making of

the statutes and decisions all over the country, and to

17«

PERSONAL SroE OF NATURALIZATION

inform and guide the representatives of the service in
their interpretation of the law.

CONFUSED STATE OP THE EDUCATIONAL TEST

It shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court
that, during five years at least immediately preceding the
date of his application, he has behaved as a man of good
moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution
of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and
happiness of the same.

Such is the substance of the law. It requires also that
he must be able to speak the English language, and that
each of his precious two witnesses shall, of their own
knowledge, certify that he is "in every way qualified,
in their opinion, to be a citizen of the United States.''
The barbed entanglement of technicalities through which
the petitioner must grope before the questions of sub-
stantial qualification can be reached, we already have
seen.

Now, what does it mean to be "attached to the prin-
ciples of the Constitution"? What manner of intel-
lectual display is required to prove one "well disposed
to the good order and happiness of the United States"?
Around these two rather indefinite phrases rd.ges the
whole storm of "Americanization" as it affects the
alien seeking to become one of us. Whether common
sense, the notion of the man-in-the-street, the average,
pliun-spoken layman, shall prevail, or the ideas of a
hypercritical "nativism," depends upon the "personal
equation" of the judge, the clerk, the naturalization
examiner — or, rather, the diagonal of forces produced
by the concurrence or conflict of all three, aggravated
or modified by that of the petitioner and his witnesses.

A considerable— erne might almost say an over-
whehning--Uterature has grown up about this part of

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the subject of immigration; of scores, even hundreds,
of books, pamphlets, leaflets, posters, diagrams, moving-
picture reels, lectures, and what not else, designed to
afford to aliens aspiring to citizenship that knowledge
of "the principles of the Constitution" which the
applicant must display to "the satisfaction of the
court." The number and variety of these is impressive,
even startling; they vary from the appallingly elaborate
and diffuse "Citizenship Textbook," issued by the
Bureau of Naturalization itself, to the simple and lucid
folder issued by a judge at Duluth, Minnesota. One
judge in Montana, who thinks "a residence of ten
years should be required" before final application, has
"a list of questions which every applicant who appears
before me must answer. He is also asked many ques-
tions not contained in this list which go to his quali-
fications to become a citizen." The printed Ust occu-
pies nearly four newspaper columns of solid typey and
covers everything relating to the governments <rf the
United States, the state of Montana, the local county,
city, and ward — ^a body of civic information beyond
the ken, or the hope, of 999 out of 1,000 native-bom
Americans between the two oceans; yet, on the whole,
only what every citizen ought to know about the gov-
ernment which taxes and rules him.

A judge in Missouri, who has "possibly two, not
over," of naturalization cases in a year, holds that an
applicant should have "not merely an educational or
intellectual test — ^for the more of either a man has the
worse he may be for the country — ^but I would establish
one of sentiment or principle, about as follows":

Every applicant shall satisfy the court that he is familiar

with, and attached to, such sentiments as are expressed in

such writings as "A Man Without a Country," "America,"

"Declaration of Independence," etc., and that he is possessed

of reasonable opinions on necessity of government and duty

174

PERSONAL SroE OF NATURALIZATION

of citizens to support the government and its laws, the freedcmi
of the press, liberty of speech, obtaining redress for griev-
ances, and a fbm opposition to rioting, violence, force, and
secret societies or orders countenancing or teaching over-
throw of the government.

An Iowa judge says :

"Search the heart for the truth." The chief thing is to
have the heart right — ^to have love and attachment for
liberty, justice, and humanity, and to be ready to die, if
need be, for the maintenance thereof. It might be well to
have a uniform course of instruction for applicants for citi-
zenship, but I would not adhere to it too strictly, if the
heart proved to be right. . . . No good man, a true lover of
liberty, justice, and humanity, should be rejected, unless he
utterly fails to meet the other requirements of the law.

A Pennsylvania judge thinks little of educational
requirements; that they would exclude many desir-
able applicants.

The principle test that I apply is as to the honesty of the
party. Under an intellectual test many honest, hard-
working men would fail, while men who had the advantage
of education would secure naturalization. . . . Where m.&i
are required to support a family and labor hard they have
not much time to study.

A judge in Nebraska, who handles some 200 cases
a year, declares:

The intellect is not a test of good citizenship. I know
many people with insufficient intellect to procure much
education, who cannot read nor write, who are excellent
citizens; and many others who are highly educated and too
crooked to make good citizens.

A California judge avers:

My observation has been that many of our best citizens

are tiiose who possess no extended education, and some of

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the most dangerous are of those who possess high educational
qualifications.

A judge in central New York, who has large experi-
ence with naturalization, says:

Too much stress is laid upon information concerning the
details of our governmental system, and not enough upon
the candidate's personal record, endeavors, and results. An
Italian laborer who has been unable to learn the number of
Houses into which Congi^ss is divided, but is hard-working»
steady, possessed of a desire to own his home and bring his
family up in our ways, is more useful to us than some of
more intelHgence.

He holds that the principal difficulty with which desir-
able immigrants have to contend, in seeking naturaliza-
tion, is the fact that "too much technical information
is demanded by the young men who represent the
Bureau of Naturalization."

Over against such expressions as these place the
opinions of one of the Ohio judges, who, after the
fashion of the Know-Nothings of the '40's, would
require twenty-one years* residence before naturaliza-
tion and "add to, rather than diminish, the present
requirements," admitting "only heads of famiUes, with
children"; or those of the Arkansas judge who avowedly
"construes everything against the applicant," and
would admit a German under no conditions until after
fifty years of residence. Such a diversity indicates the
sort of difficulty confronting the alien in court, and the
need of some unity of standards to be created by law,
and a great simplification of the tests and examinations.

A letter was addressed to a number of experienced
judges, known for their wisdom and humanity, asking
for a tentative set of questions designed to disclose the
knowledge thought to be essential to embody "attach-
ment to the principles of the Constitution." Replies

17«

PERSONAL SIDE OP NATURALIZATION

were few, but they evidenced the diflSculty of express-
ing in words such an "attachment." Many of the
judges frankly confessed both their inability to produce
any such exhibit, and their conviction that the intel-
lectual display was of least importance in the test of
the applicant.

THB CRAZE FOR "AMERICANIZING*' — SOMEBODY BLSE!

When the Great War burst upon the world, with its
various kinds of hysteria, many Americans suddenly
awakened to a passion for what has come to be called
"Americanization.** Every sort of foreign-bom^ for-
eign-speaking — or even foreign-looking — ^person was
seized upon as a subject or victim of this vague and
little-ordered movement, with results as various as the
degree of intelligence involved on the part of the
Americanizers and the kinds of treatment inflicted; but
to a great extent mischievous and tending to arouse
hostility rather than "Americanism" — ^whatever the
much-abused term might mean — ^in the breasts of the
bewildered immigrant. Some of the effort, to be sure,
was intelligent, considerate, and constructive.

It is to the credit of Richard K. Campbell, Commis-
sioner of Naturalization, and Raymond F. Crist, his
alert and enterprising deputy, that they were prompt
in seeing the bearing of the Americanization movement
upon their work. It is very easy now to criticize, from
various points of view, the energy and enthusiasm with
which the Bureau of Naturalization entered upon and
increasingly absorbed itself in this activity, and to fan
flames of jealousy between it and other organizations,
governmental and what not, which have worked in this
field. The fact is that, with all credit to others to wYncb
they may be entitled, the Bureau of Naturalization

early saw, not only the essentials of this question, but

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AMERICANS BY CHOICE

that it was at bottom a question of education, and set
itself to the task of inspiring the public-school authori-
ties to adapt themselves to the situation, and of placing
at their disposal, at least theoretically, the unique
material embodied in the archives of the Bureau. It
is regrettable, though hardly surprising, that, in doing
so, it allowed itself to become both swamped in the
magnitude of the job, and obsessed by a sense of pro-
prietary precedence in the field; reaching out beyond
rhyme or reason for sweeping powers and responsibility
which it is ill-adapted to exercise, and, in that reaching
out, neglecting to carry on the important functions
normally attaching to its own business, and indis-
pensable to the intelligent carrying out even of its own
ambitions.

With its report for the year closing June 30, 1915,
begins the recounting of activities of the Bureau in the
new field. In so many words it is there recognized as a
new activity— "a broademng of poUcy," with a sugges-
tion of justification, not to say apology, in the allusion
to the Act of March 4, 1913, confirming the Bureau in
charge of "all matters concerning the naturalization
of aUens." As early as the latter part of 1913, the
Bureau was discussing methods of encouraging classes
in citizenship, and "the ehmination of the known evils
attending some of the private organizations seeking,
under the guise of instruction, to exploit the ignorance
of candidates for citizenship as an easy means for the
acquisition of a lucrative income" was referred to as
one of the reforms that would follow a co-operative
activity between the public schools, the puWic gen-
erally, and the Bureau of Naturalization.

It was seen that the influence of the Bureau for the
betterment of citizenship could be extended to every
hamlet in the United States through the expansion and
extension of the naturalization laws. This plan pro-

178

PEBSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

posed the organization of the public schools, with the
Bureau of Naturalization, into an active unit for the
development of American ideals of citizenship in the
student body; the assembling together, on stated occa-
sions, in the different metropolitan and other centers,
of naturalized citizens and candidates for citizenship;
the conduct of patriotic exercises, including addresses,
the singing of national anthems, and a conferring of
citizenship.^

But it was not until the period covered by the 1915
report that the Bureau began to be greatly engrossed
with this policy. In that report, which directed atten-
tion to the growing interest of naturalizing judges and
others in the mental training of aUens for citizenship,
and their co-operation with the Bureau "in arousing
the interest of the public, " and thus operating upon the
local school authorities to establish courses of training
in English and in civics for alien residents who purpose
to become citizens, the Commissioner himself utters a
caution about the scope of business:

It has been pointed out to the state authorities that
the government cannot undertake, even if it were one of
its appropriate functions, to institute and operate training
schools in good citizenship; that the making of a citizen of
the United States is also the making of a citizen of the state
in which the petitioner resides; and the results of such action
are more immediate and more frequent in their effects upon
state than upon Federal interests.

At that time the work of the Bureau force consisted
chiefly of sending to the^school authorities lists of aliens
residing in their respective districts who had filed decla-
rations of intention and petitions for naturalization,
with intent that they should secure the attendance of

^ Report of ike Commissioner for fiacal year ending June 80, 1916.

179

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

such aliens upon public-school courses of training in
good citizenship. The Commissioner pointed out that

The extent and character of this course c^ mental training
must depend upon the enlightenment of the school authori-
ties which experience alone can give.^

From this time on, however, the Commissioner's
reports are characterized by an increasing emphasis
upon the educational aspect of the Bureau's work, the
things to which it had formerly devoted itself diminish-
ing in emphasis; while, at the same time, both in the
reports and in activities not therein disclosed, the
Bureau was seeking wide extension of its scope and
powers, although its normal work was suffering from
the shorthandedness of which it had complained ever
since the Bureau was established.

EXTRA RESPONSIBILITIES SELF-SOUGHT

It has been the habit of the responsible heads of the
Bureau of Naturalization, in reply to any suggestion
that the Bureau was "overextending" itself in the
assumption of educational functions, or that there was
confusion and conflict between the activities of the
Bureau and those, for example, of the Bureau of Edu-
cation in the Department of the Interior, to revert, as
in the Commissioner's report for 1916, to the fact that
the law imposed upon the Naturalization Bureau
*' charge of all matters concerning the naturalization of
aliens"; to declare that it is "only complying with the
law," or "endeavoring, under great difficulties, to per-
form the duties laid upon us by Congress." This is
plausible enough on its face; but the fact is that, gen-
erally speaking, no duties have been laid by Congress

^ Report of the Commuiioner for fiacal year ending June 80» I915»
p. 8S.

ISO

PEBSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

upon the Bureau from the b^mnlng save those which
it has urgently sought; virtually all legislation affecting
it — especially that legislation relating to " American-
ization '' — ^has been drawn by the Bureau and actively
lobbied for in Congress by representatives of the
Bureau. More than that, the Bureau has been exceed-
ingly and notoriously aggressive in seeking widely
extelided scope and powers.

One of the most striking examples of this appeared
in the so-called "King bill," of the Second Session
(1918) of the Sixty-fifth Congress, introduced by
Senator Eang of Utah, with the purpose of establishing
in the Department of Labor "a Bureau of Citizenship
and Americanization, for the Americanization of Nat-
uralized Citizens," etc. :

The province and authority of this Bureau [says one
print of this bill] shall be the Americanization of persons
seeking American citizenship by naturalization, and cf native
and naturalized ciOzenaf for the purpose of arousing a higher
regard for the privileges and responsibilities of American
citizenship in the minds of all citizens and permanent residents
of the United States, and the administration of the naturaliza-
tion laws and Americanization work throughout the United States.

The bill would have authorized the Director of Citizen-
ship, therein provided for at a salary of $5,000 a year,

to make diligent investigation into the conditions and eD-
vironment of permanent residents and citizens; to ascertain
their sentiments of loyalty to the United States, their progress
in the knowledge of American institutions, and the use of
the English language; their relations of a social and com-
mercial nature with their neighbors and fellow citizens, and
to promote the betterment of that loyalty, knowledge, use,
and relationship, and afford them such advice as may be <^
benefit to them and tend to increase their regard for our
institutions of government, and to do such other things as
may be prudent and wise in laying a foundation for a strong
13 181

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

sense of loyalty and dedication to our institutions of govern-
ment on the part of all permanent residents, candidates for
naturalization, and citizens; and to show their progress in the
adoption of the language and customs of the United States in
reports from time to time upon the work of the Bureau to Con-
gress and the Secretary of Labor, together with recommenda-
tions to Congress for further legislatwe measures to enlarge the
province and effectiveness of said Bureau for the Americaniza-
tion of such citizens and permanent residents, and to insure their
attachment to the institutions of the United States.

The bill was not so much to create a new bureau, as
to transmute the Bureau of Natiuralization; the Com-
missioner of Naturalization was to become a subor-
dinate of the Director of Citizenship, the entire per-
somiel, machinery, and functions of the present Bureau
o( Naturalization being absorbed in the Bureau of
Citizenship and Americanization.

That the scope of this revolutionary creation, with
its extension of jiurisdiction over all citizens, their social
and commercial relations with each other, and their
personal loyalty, was no inadvertence of exuberant
language, is clear to an examination of an earlier ver-
sion of the measure, which specifically confined the
supervisi(m and missionary espionage to "naturalized"
citizens, "including the attitude of such citizens whose
native tongue is foreign . . . and their relations of a
social and commercial natiu*e with their neighbors and
fellow citizens who are natives of this coimtry or who
have become thoroughly Americanized." But even so
early the scheme was designed "to the end that there
shall be a thorough assimilation of all who permanently
reside within the jurisdiction of the United States." ^

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this pro-
posal is that it has the specific approval of the then

^ Compare S. 4792, July 2, 1918, and S. 5001, October 21, 1918,
Senate bills. Sixty-fifth Congress, Second Session.

182

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

Secretary of Labor, Mr. William B. Wilson, in a letter
dated September 1% 1918, to Senator King, in which,
over his official signature, it is declared that 'Hhe
measure has been carefully considered," and that the
Department approves "the main objects of the pro-
posed legislation." That letter refers directly to the
first draft of the bill, last quoted above.^

However that be, and whatever might have been the
views of the Secretary of Labor upon further considera-
tion of the proposed legislation, the ambitious scheme
died aborning. But it had a resurrection in another
form, equally abortive, though stiH exhibiting the appe-
tite of the Bureau for enlarged responsibility. At the
instance of the Biu^au there was inserted in one of the
tentative drafts of the Sundry Civil Appropriation
bill before Congress in the spring and summer of 1919'
the following provision for an enormous addition to
the jurisdiction, duties, and responsibilities of the
Bureau of Naturalization :

. . . The authority to promote instruction in citizenship
and English, now being exercised under the supervision
of the Director of Citizenship, is hereby extended to include
soldiers and sailors and aU persons of the age cf eighteen years
and wpwardy and those in penal institutions. ... In discharging
this responsibility, the Director of Citizenship shall dissemi-
nate information regarding the institutions of the United
States government in such manner as will best stimulate
loyalty in those institutions, and secure the aid of civic,
educational, community, religious, racial, and other organi-
zations, and shall compile statistical information as to aliens

^ The Secretary's letter is given in full in the Annttal Report of the
Commiistoner of Naiuraltsudion for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1918 — though it bears a date more than two months later than that
of the report itself.

* Sixty-sixth Congress, First Session, H. R. 6176; Calendar No. 48
(Senate), Report No. 52, June 23, 1919.— Calendar Day, June 26,
p. 179.

188

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

in their relations to citizenship, and for expenses incidental
thereto, including the rental or purchase of motion pictures
and the transfer of any motion-picture negatives from
branches of the government organized especially for war
activities, remaining in the possession of the government,
and such transfer to be without charge upon any appropria-
tion. Credit for such transfers shall be given on the records
of the Treasury Department in the final accounting by such
specially organized branches of the government.

A fairly large order! This adventure, like the pre-
vious one» failed of consununatron; but, nevertheless,
there Wfts (until a very recent time when the iUegality
of the whole business was brought to attention) a
Director of Citizenship, even though Congress had
given him neither status nor powers, and he was in
being only by a vigorous stretching of legislation
intended, if one may judge by what it says, for quite
another purpose.

Section 11 of the law of May 9, 1918, devoted en-
tirely to the subject of naturalization of alien enemies,
contains a provision:

. . . that the President of the United States may, in his
discretion, upon investigation and report by the Department
of Justice, fully establishing the loyalty of - an alien not
included in the foregoing exemption [relative to the appre-
hension of alien enemies], except such alien enemy from
the classification of alien enemy, and thereupon he shall have
the privilege of applying for naturalization; and for the
purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this section,
including personal services in the District of Columbia, the
siun of $400,000 is hereby appropriated, to be available until
June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and nineteen, including
travel expenses for members of the Bureau of Naturalization
and its field service only, etc.

Out of this emergency appropriation, made under
stress of war conditions, for the declared purpose of
dealing with enemy aliens, the Bureau provided for a

184

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

large extension of its work» and for much-needed aug-
mentation of its efficiency in the fields and for estab-
lishing the extra-legal position of Director of Citizen-
ship, with more or less obvious functions. This would
explain the somewhat cryptic allusion in the proposed
amendment to the Sundry Civil Appropriation bill
quoted above, to the "authority now being exercised
by** rather than imposed by law upon "the Director of
Citizenship," etc.

But just because it was an emergency appropriation,
the new Congress showed no disposition to renew it,
and in its absence the whole extra-legal structure under
the direction of the Director of Citizenship was im-
periled, and in order to save it from complete destruc-
tion very serious economies became necessary. The
bearing of so large a windfall upon the general work of
the Bureau may be inferred from this list of the aj^ro-
priations for the Naturalization Service in each fiscal
year since, and including, that ending June SO, 1908, dur-
ing which the service was established:

TABLE V

Afpbopbiations for thb Natubalization Service
FOB Each Fiscal Year from 1908-1919

1908^
1909^
1910. .
1911..
1912. .
1913. .
1914..
1915..
1916..
1917. .
1918. .
1919..

$193,000
150,000
150,000
152,861
175,000
200,000
225,000
250,000
275,000
275,000
305,000
675,000

' The fidd force was under Department of Justice during 1908 and
1909.

185

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

A further instance of the desire for additional powers,
which characterizes the "personal equation" of the
Naturalization Bureau, appears in a bill which was
before Congress in the winter of 1919-20,^ introduced
by Representative Johnson of the state of Washing-
ton, which would have provided, among other things:

Sec. 4. That the promotion of the public schools in the
training and instruction of candidates for citizenship, now
being carried on by the Division of Citizenship Training
of the Bureau of Naturalization, is hereby extended to include
all persons of the age of eighteen years and upward, who shall
attend classes of instruction conducted or maintained by
any civic, educational, community, religious, racial, or other
organization, under the supervision of the public-school
authorities, and the provisions of the ninth subdivision of
Section 4 of said Act are hereby made applicable to this
added authority. In discharging this additional authority
the Director of Citizenship is also authorized to disseminate
information regarding the institutions of the United States
government in such manner as will best stimulate loyalty
to those institutions, making use of the means heretofore
provided, and through the use of motion pictures. The
motion pictures and motion-picture negatives in the pos-
session of the various branches of the government shall also
be available for these purposes. In this work the aid of
civic, educational, community, religious, racial, and other
organizations may be secured by the Division of Citizenship
Training, in which statistical information shall be compiled
as to aliens in their relation to citizenship. The foregoing
shall apply to the residents of the Panama Canal Zone.

ENORMOUS ARREARAGE IN BUREAU's WORK

Prom the very beginning of the activities of the Bureau,
it has complained of its inability properly to perform

^ H. R. 9949 (Committee print) ; Sixty-sixth Congress, First Session,
October 15, 1919.

186

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

its functions because of lack of clerical force; at the
same time pointing out very appropriately that it was
a good deal better than self-sustaining from the financial
point of view. *

Commissioner Campbell, in his annual report to the
Secretary of Labor, for the fiscal year ending June SO,
1911, said:

At all times the clerical force has been insufficient, even
with the aid of temporary assignments from other offices
of the D^)artment, to keep up with current work. This
has resulted in large undisposed accumulations of official
papers; mortifying delays in making responses to letters from
private individuals and public officials, the continuous exac-
tion of labor from the clerks for long periods after the con-
clusion of the ordinary official hours, on holidays, and even
on Sundays; and, consequently, impaired the accuracy and
quality of the work actually accomplished.

The report for 1913 declares that such increase of
personnel as had been allowed had ''not been sufficient
to accomplish anything in the way of bringing up the
arrearages which have been steadily accumulating ever
since the service was organized in 1907." These arrear-
ages were described as consisting of ''unindexed and
unexamined certificates of naturalization and declara-
tions of intention, " and this condition prevailed, not-
withstanding an average daily overtime estimate in
hoiu*s, as equivalent to full time, of more than two per-
sons (2.36). The report for 1914 acknowledged an
in(3*ease of nine clerks, but stated that ''the arrearages
of work continued to increase." So it goes on, the fol-
lowing report (1915) disclosing an arrearage of 346,762
declarations of intention and 395,719 certificates of
naturalization unindexed, and thousands more of each
unexamined. In the following year's report is acknowl-

187

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

edged the "elimination of the practice heretofore pur-
sued of indexing separately the declarations^ petitions,
and certificates, " it having been found impossible, even
with four more clerks, "to reduce the work that has
fallen into arrears." Yet in that same year's report
begm the ecstatic descriptions of a very wide expansion
of activities in the field of education.

The seriousness of this curtailment of records at
Washington — all but fatal to the individual alien who
wants to prove something about his naturalization case
by reference to such records — ^took on a public aspect
with the operation of the Selective Service Act (the
so-called "draft law") when aliens, desiring exemption
as such, began to assert to the local exemption boards
that they never had declared intention to become
American citizens. "The assistance of the Bureau is
constantly invoked by the draft boards throughout the
country for official report on the claims to exemption
from miUtary service by aUens who profess to have
made no declaration of intention to become citizens,"
says the opening page of the Conmiissioner*s report of
July 1, 1918, notwithstanding the more ingenuous —
not to say more truthful — confession of a year before
that " The unavoidable abandonment of indexing declarer
tions has made it impracticable to furnish information
sought in regard to aliens claiming exemption from miU-
tary service" *

At the date of that report, there were, unexamined, in
the Washington office ^47,873 declarations and 480,553
certificates; one year later — owing, perhaps, largely to
the vast and sudden addition of alien soldiers natural-
ized, and the business incidental thereto, if not quite
as much to the absorption of the Bureau in its in-
creasingly ambitious educational campaign — the ar-

^ Report of Commissioner of NaturalixaUon, 1917» p. 27.

188

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

rearages had passed the half-million mark, with 628,713
declarations and 578,944 certificates of naturalization
miexamined.

Not even by means of a complete, current, and up-to-
date index of declarations could the Naturalization
Bureau have proved whether or not any given aUen
ever had filed a declaration whose existence would in-
dubitably entitle the United States to his military serv-
ice, unless it included the absolutely impossible f eatiu*e
of a reference to every old, as well as new-law declara-
tion. But such an index as might have been kept of
declarations under the "new law" would have helped
enormously. As it was the field force did its best, and
ran down many cases through the records in the district
offices and local courts.

THE AUBNS SUPPORT THE BUREAU

In point of fact, the Bureau of Naturalization is, as
the Conunissioner more than once has pointed out,
completely self-supporting. Bare good faith to the
petitioner for naturaUzation would seem to demand
that the money he pays in in fees should be used by
the government to afford adequate service in his behalf.
In every year, except 1918-19, since the present system
was established, the receipts from naturalization fees
have, by a wide margin, exceeded the amount appro-
priated for the NaturaUzation Service; the amount
representing that margin has simply gone into the
general receipts of the United States, subject to ap-
propriation by Congress. Those receipts, and the
margin referred to, which might well have been de-
voted to improving the Naturalization Service, have
been, according to the Commissioner's reports, as
follows:

189

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE VI

BbCBIPTB FBOM NaTUBALIZATION FeBB and DmBUBBEMENTB waoM
VaBIOUB ApFROrttlATIONB FOB THE EnFOBCEMENT OF THE

Natxtbauzation Law fob Rents, Supplies, and Miscellanb-
OUB Expenses, Fiscal Ybabs 1907 to 1920 ^

T]^

1907.
1908.
1909.
1910.
1911.
1912.
1918.
1914.
1915.
1916.
1917.
1918.
1919.
1920.

Natuhauca-

TZON FbBS

$65,129.00
166,873.90
172,202.13
221,766.38
290,551.52
338,315.33
350,716.60
450,228.55
441,764.49
410,272.55
635,927.52
507,932.50
597,087.97
664,539.20

Cost or Ad-

IflNXSTBATION

DmrBBBNCll IN

Fbbs Rkceiysd

OVKB COffT OF

Administration

$29,243.18

232,728.05S

194,428.45*

176,415.98

222,831.15

257,678.99

290,026.20

331,517.26

363,593.11

389,075.90

393,240.15

416,486.84

812,056.38

753,383.88

$35,885.82
—65,854.15

— 22,226.32
45,350.40
67,720.87
80,636.34
60,690.40

118,711.29

78,171.88

21,196.65

242,687.87

91,445.66

-214,968.41

- 88,844.63

Total $842,495.68

Less deficits 391,893.51

Excess of fees received over cost of administration. . . $450,602.17

^ Department of Labor, Annual Reports for 1920, p. 799, Table 24.

' Included in these expenditures are appropriations to the Depart-
ment of Justice for maintenance of field force prior to the transfer
to the Department of Commerce and Labor — to wUp fiscal year 1906,
$193,000; fiscal year 1909, $150,000.

The Commissioner puts his finger on the ethical point
involved, when he says, as for example in his report for
the fiscal year 1918-19 : ^

It is interesting and highly suggestive to note from the
next table that, notwithstanding the '* hard-luck story*' told

^ Report of the Commissioner of Naturalization, 1918-19, pp. 80-31.

190

PEESONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

in this report as to arrearages of work and the delays
and the omissions of first one and then another important
feature of that work, the beneficiaries of such work — ^those
who have paid their money for prompt and efficient serv-
ice — ^have annually for years past paid into the Federal
Treasury more than was used for the purpose for which
it was paid.

The aggregate of such surplus items, which cannot be re-
garded as other than a trust fund in essence, and even deduct-
ing the amount expended for military naturalizations amounts
to $539,446.80. It would easily have been much more if
the clerks had been furnished to serve the aliens who desired
to become citiz^is. The burst of public sympathy for, and
interest in, the yoimg alien who entered our service to make
the ** supreme sacrifice** for democracy which found expres-
sion in a special appropriation of $400,000 to pay the cost
cit making these young heroes citizens in law, as they already
are in heart, over a period of 13^ months, did not, in fact,
cost the people of this coimtry as a whole anything. As
long as over half a miUion dollars of the fund contributed
by the newly made citizens from civil life remain unexpended
for the purposes for which it was paid, it would appear to
the ordinary observer that they, and not the general body of
American citizens, gave the $400,000 to pay for the cost of
giving free of charge the well-deserved ''priceless heritage
of American citizenship" to the yoimg alien soldiers who
fought for liberty and this coimtry.

The government of the United States is making
money out of the business of admitting aliens to citizen-
ship, and is not keeping fairly or efliciently its end of
the transaction. In the period since the enactment of
the Naturalization Law, as Conmiissioner Campbell
has said, aliens in pursuit of citizenship — even though
thousands of them did not get it! — have paid fees to
an amount exceeding by more than half a million
dollars the total cost of the Naturalization Bureau —

a margin itself larger by more than $200,000 than the

191

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

total appropriation for the Bureau in any year save
one.^

This money, if devoted to the purposes to which
morally it belonged, would have been ample to supply
the supervisory and clerical force in the Bureau neces-
sary to make prompt and effective examination of
declarations, petitions, and certificates, and to main-
tain a proper and complete system of records, and of
indices by which those records could be made available
for reference by the aUen, the government, and the
public. Provided always that the Bureau did not permit
itself to be diverted and swamped by extraneous and
self-assumed f imctions in the field of pubUc education
which it is not adapted, either by the logic of good
administrative organization or by the nature and
aptitudes of its personnel, to perform. It has never
been within arm's length of keeping up with the business
committed to it by law, and by the natiu^ of its func-
tion; nevertheless, during the past decade at least, it has
taken on volimtarily and, with increasing exuberance
of ambition, sought additional legislation to authorize
activities and functions of an extraordinarily inclusive
and far-reaching character m the domain of education—
apparently even of native-bom persons — beyond any
possibility of effective accomplishment without very
great increase of expenditiure for personnel and material
change in the "personal equation" of the present force.

It is no doubt agreeable to compile and publish
statistics piu^porting to show the degree of "co-opera-
tion" between the pubhc-school authorities and the

^ That was the year (191S-19) of the emergency appropriation
of $400,000» referred to heretofore in this chapter, p. 181» fat
dealing with persons technically alien enemies, but. nevertheless, indi-
vidually loyal, which was used for the establishment of a new and
hoped-to-be^permanent division in the Bureau, under a ''Director of
Citizenship.*'

192

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

Naturalisation Bureau; imposing totals can be pre-
sented if every slightest indication of general interest
in the education of the foreign bom is classified and
heralded as "co-operation** and no aUowance whatever
is ever made for failures or defections.^ All this might
be tolerated or condoned; but it becomes a rather
ghastly spectacle when its most conspicuous conse-
quence is the neglect of legitimate business of the high-
est importance to the aUens who pay for but do not
get it, and to the people of the United States.

The Naturalization Bureau, in the fundamental
nature of its function, has in all conscience enough to
do! A "manVsize job" is to be found in the scrutiny
of the petitioner for citizenship, from the day when he
files his declaration of intention to that when he receives,
or is refused for good reason, his certificate of natural-
ization. The natiural business of the Bureau is to be
the disinterested but vigilant informant of the court as
to the facts regarding the applicant; the watchdog of
the standards by which aspirants for oiur JEictive mem-
bership are judged — also the keeper of records mi-
nutely accurate and in cross-referenced detail up to the
minute.

FITNESS OF CANDIDATES

There is great need of a better method for ascertaining
the fitness of candidates for citizenship than obtains at
present. Various suggestions have been made to im-
IMTOve the practice. One is the creation of a system of
"traveling commissioners," appointed perhaps by the
courts, who would hold sessions at convenient times
and places. Another is that the function of naturaliza-
tion should be removed from the judicial to the admin-
istrative sphere, so that examinations and admissions

^ See F. V. Thompson, Schooling of the Immigrani,

193

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

should both be under the control of the Naturalization
Bureau or some other administrative branch of the
Executive.

There is much to be said in support, especially, of the
latter suggestion. But there seems a weight of reason
in favor of maintaining the peculiarly American prac-
tice of lodging this solemn function in what is, on the
whole, our most impressive organ of government — ^the
court. As a rule, the courts are performing the function
with increasing sense of the importance and dignity of
the proceeding. It would be simple, and require little
either of new legislation or additional personnel or
duties, to make the NaturaUzation Examiner now in
being and on duty, already equipped with honesty and
zeal, something in the nature of a Master, representing
the court in the taking of testimony, and reporting
thereto his findings and recommendations. Thereupon
the judge could pursue such further inquiry as he
thought proper, accept or reject the findings, and enter
his order accordingly.

In the great preponderance of practice this is what
actually happens now. The proceeding should be the
subject of sufficient stenographic record, to be attached
to the papers on file in the court and in the Naturaliza-
tion Bureau at Washington, and the index, certainly
at Washington, should be so minutely exact, prompt,
and accessible, that the record of every case, from
declaration to final adjudication, would be available
like any other public record upon a moment's notice.

Further than that: Every alien who lands upon our

shores should receive at the time his suitably detailed

and descriptive certificate of lawful entry, with finger

prints, if you please, duplicating a permanent record

in the office of the Immigration Service; this certificate,

and the record underlying it in case of its loss, should

be the prerequisite to the declarations and all other pro-

194

PERSONAL SIDE OF NATURALIZATION

ceedings leading to his permanent admission to citizen-
ship. It would obviate an infinite deal of the confusion y^
which now too often surrounds his later adventures in
this direction; it would be his protection and the pro-
tection of the nation. All matters concerning him now
are at the mercy of practices hardly deserving the name
of system.

"personal equation'* of the public

In consideration of all this business of naturalization,
and the various projects for improving its conditions,
it must be remembered that it is only within very recent
years — virtually only since the beginning of the World
War with its suddenly aroused or anyway suddenly
accentuated excitements of interracial friction here in
America, and of ebullitions of loyalty to the various
fatherlands engaged in that struggle, on the part of
foreign-bom residents here — ^that the people of the
United States, of this generation at least, have taken
any interest in the behavior, affairs, and assimilation of
the alien. It is two-thirds of a century, more or less,
since the subsidence of the last important uproar on the
subject. A few social-settlement workers and mission-
aries in the great cities, a few writers on sociological
subjects, here and there some more than ordinarily
facile and entertaining writer in EngUsh among the
foreign born themselves, have tried to draw public
attention to the seriousness and magnitude of the prob-
lem growing within our national Ufe. These have
pleaded for a better understanding of the people of
other races coming in vast floods to make their homes
with us, and for better conditions to govern their
assimilation.

But Americans generally pursued their self-absorbed,
happy-go-lucky way, giving little attention to these

195

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Jeremiahs and Cassandras; pooh-poohed at the warn-
ings, or vaguely hoped that all would come out right
in time. Meanwhile, most of them followed the usual
hiunan course of shrinking from all avoidable human
contact with these outlandish folk of language and
custcmis different from their own; rather glad, on the
whole, that they herded, as people in strange climes
will, in congested "Little ItaJys," "Little Hungarys,"
"Deutschlands," and "Ghettoes" — ^and in "slums" in
general. They surrendered to foreign colonies not only
abandoned farm-lands, but even large portions of great
cities and great states; vaguely grumbUng when they
perceived that great political power went with that
growth of foreign-speaking population. As a whole,
they washed their hands of the whole matter, or at
most viewed the encroachment with more or less
solicitous disdain.

Meanwhile, most of those who have recognized the
existence of a menacing problem have acquired, gen-
erally on the foundation of the subtle race-prejudice to
which most of us are subject, a vast deal of misinforma-
tion on the subject — ^some of it in the form of widely
accepted misinterpretations of official and quasi-official
"statistics."

SOME STATISTICS CONCERNING IMMIGRANTS. "NEW"

AND "OLD"

We are talking and behaving now about the immigra-
tion of the past few years — allowing for the vastly
greater bulk of it and the intensified peril involved in
its bulk — ^just as we talked and behaved about the Irish
immigration that began in the early '30's and the Ger-
man immigration that began to bulk large in the early
'40's. Comparatively small as was the size of that
joint inflow, it made the problem that awakened the
Know-Nothing and Native-American movement of the
mid-century, and eventually culminated in the natural-
ization legislation now in force. Each phase of immi- j
gration has been ""the new immigration" at its time;
each has been viewed with alarm; each has been
described as certain to deteriorate the physical quality
of our people and destroy the standards of living and
of citizenship.

The Scandinavians, who began to come in consider-
able numbers in 1879; the ItaUans, whose immigration
became impressive in the late '80's; the Russians and
Austrians, whose surge became formidable about 1890;
the Greeks, never very niunerous, but swelling in num-
bers from 2,339 in 1898 to 36,580 in 1907, theu* highest
tide — each in turn passed or are passing now through
the same stages; of comparatively good-natured wel-
come at the outset, when they were few, and viewed
with curiosity; of increasing resentment, as they became
14 197

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

noticeable in competition for jobs; at last of angry and
vociferous denunciation as a '* peril''; then subsiding
into acceptance and assimilation into the body social.
"Paddy the clodhopper/* butt of the comedian and
the newspaper jokesmith, came over from Ireland as
green as shamrock, worked at unskilled labor with pick
and shovel on railroads and elsewhere, was herded and
bribed into citizenship and poUtics, got on the poUce
force and into the contracting business, increased in
prosperity, bought real estate, and has sent down
through the years and into the fabric of our population
a posterity whose substantial contribution to our life
no one now questions. He did not have to learn the
language, and that fact greatly f aciUtated his assimila-
tion. Fritz and Gretchen — ^we called them "Dutch-
men** then — ^had to climb over the language barrier,
but they did it, and their progress has followed the
same general course. So did Ole and Chris and Sven
and Hilda from Scandinavia, and Salvatore, then the
"Dago.** Salvatore already owns apartment houses.
Russian and Austrian, Greek, Rumanian, Portuguese,
and so on, the latest comers, are in the midst of the
same process.

The vast numbers, especially of the Russian Jews
and Austro-Hungarians, herded m masses in certain
of our great cities, have given us a kind of social indi-
gestion; it must be cured, if at all, by a slow process of
absorption, and we have not yet learned just what to
do about it. Certainly unintelligent excitement, to
say nothing of unlawful violence and mob persecution,
and the exaggeration both of the degree and (A the
nature of the ailment, offer small promise of better-
ment. Nature, the normal processes of population
movements and racial assimilation, work calmly on
while we shout and worry. Aiid candid study of the
process is reassuring. Conditions have been confused,

108

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

resentments aroused, and progress retarded by the
various kinds of hysteria excited by the World War —
but then, there was similar hysteria in the old Know-
Nothing days, and we Uved through it; it seems rather
silly now. We shall Uve through this.

PAtJCITT OF DEPENDABLE INFOBMATION

Meanwhile we may try to know and understand the
facts. This is not so easy as might be supposed, for the
facts are hard to get. The student of the naturaliza-
tion and poUtical assimilation of the foreign-bom citizen
finds himself seriously embarrassed by the paucity of
definite information on the subject in any of its aspects.
To be sure, there is a considerable, though somewhat^
fragmentary, Uterature about it, and generalizations of
a sweeping and rather dogmatic character have gained
wide currency — ^impressions and prejudices, which it
will no doubt be difficult to dislodge, even though such
information as may be available, critically examined,
entirely fails to support them. In hardly any other
field may one find a better illustration of the mis-
chief that may be wrought by inadequate or misin-
terpreted statistics, creating legends which cannot
endure the test of candid, to say nothing of scientific,
examination.

This is not to say that there is no material on the sub-
ject. There is always the census; there are the reports
of the Immigration Commission of 1907; there are the
reports of the Commissioner of Naturalization. There
are niunerous books, essays and pamphlets, by men
and women who, to a greater or lesser extent, have come
to be regarded as experts on the subject of immigra-
tion. But, as we shall see, these are almost all entitled
to substantial discount, or at least discriminating study,
with results conducive to a better understanding, to a

199

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

teadjustment of some ideas which, although mistaken,
have come to be regarded as f midamental.

In the files of the Naturalization Bureau at Washing-
ton is a vast mass of original data which would be of
priceless value in the study of the way in which those
who would be "Americans by Choice*' make their
initial efforts in that direction; showing under oath
their individual age, birthplace and race, date of arrival
in this country, date of declaration of intention to be-
come a citizen, marital and occupational status, details
of the disposal of the petition for citizenship, and other
facts constituting information ample for intelligent in-
terpretation of aspects and relationships now Uttle
understood, not understood at all, or, more commonly,
altogether misunderstood. These data are contained in
the copies of the declarations of intention, petitions for
naturalization and certificates of naturalization, issued
since the institution of the Naturalization Service under
the Act of 1906. The magnitude of this statistical
treasure may be judged from Table VII. \/

Each one of these nearly three million declarations
of intention, and more than a million petitions — ^not
to speak of the final certificates of citizenship — contains
what amounts almost to a cross-section of the life
history of an immigrant. Upon each petition is in-
dorsed the record of the court's action, acceptance or
denial, and the reasons for denial are, if possible, more
important than the fact of acceptance for the purposes
of study of the immigration question in its political
aspect.

Owing in part to the chronic insufficiency of the staff
in the Naturalization Bureau — ^not only preventing
any proper statistical record or analysis of this material,
but of late years compelling a lamentable curtailment
and even the abandonment of such indexing as is
obviously indispensable to the most routine official

200

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

supervision and understanding; — in part to the absorp-
tion of the Bureau in its elaborate educational propa-
ganda, and in part to a lack of appreciation of the value
of this material by the officials there in charge, the

TABLE Vn

NUMBKB OF DbCLABATIONB OF iNTENnON AND PfinnONB FOB

Naturalization Filed* and Cebtoigateb of Natttbauzation
issuxd bt the bubeau of naturalization, 1907h20^

YSAB

1907*.
1908 s.
1909..
1910..
1911..
1912. .
1913. .
1914..
1915. .
1916. .
1917. .
1918. .
1919..
1920..

Total.

Dbclarations

78,728
187,229
145,794
167,226
186,157
169,142
181,632
214,016
245,815
207,935
438,748
335,069
346,827
200,106

3,149,419

PannoNs

21,094

44,029

43,161

55,038

73,644

95,627

95,186

123,855

106,317

108,009

132,320

110,416

107,559

166,925

1,283,180

CutnncATBS

7,953

25,963

38,372

39,206

56,257

69,965

82,017

105,439

96,390

93,911

94,897

151,449

217,358

125,711

1,205,170

^ Anniud Report of the Commissioner qf Naturalization^ 1919, p. 16.

> Nine months only.

' First full year of 12 months.

leaders in Congress and the public in general, it has
remained in an undigested and now probably indi-
gestible mass in the files of the Bureau. For nearly
fifteen years it has been accumulating. To collate and
analyze it would be a prodigious job. Yet, as appears
from the results of a very modest venture in this direc-
tion on the part of the Americanization Study, some of

201

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

them presented in this volume,^ it would be immensely
worth while. And, what is more important, it probably
would go far to modify, if not to revolutionize, many
prevailing ideas and afford a new and sounder founda-
tion and point of departure for theory and for guidance
of practice as regards the assimilation of the immigrant
into the American body politic. \/

The annual reports of the Commissioner of Natural-
ization, like those of many other government bureaus,
are written not so much to afford information to the
public as to extol the work of the Bureau, pointing out
the remarkable extent of the ground covered, the great
number (A letters written, and of cases handled by a
force grievously and increasingly inadequate since the
very beginning of the service, and so on. They are,
however, most unsatisfactory as a source of sociological
information; particularly barren are they of any hint
of information regarding the various races whose repre-
sentatives seek citizenship; their relative promptness in
seeking and success in getting it; their respective stand-
ing as regards the various reasons for denial. They do
show voluminously how many declarations and petitions
are filed annually in each state and subdivision; increase
or decrease in totals; how many clerks of courts are
delinquent in sending in the government's share of fees,
and other more or less significant minuiicB of the routine
work of the field and clerical force and the courts.

VAST ARREARAGES IN EXAMINATIONS

Moreover, for the past four or five years, tne bulk of
the Bureau's reports has been increasingly augmented
by large sections devoted entirely to its efforts in the
field of education, and its relations, actual, attempted

^ Chap, viii, p. 225 et seq,

202

GENERAL IMMIGRATION. STATISTICS

and imaginary, with the public-school authorities. The
degree to which the Naturalization Bureau has neg-
lected, perforce of circumstances, the study of the
material under its nose is apparent in the fact that the
Commissioner's report for the fiscal year ending June
30, 1919, says, in so many words, not only that it no
longer is preserving in its files any records of general
correspondence, but that it has altogether ceased any
pretense of examining naturalization papers!

To illustrate the expedients to which the Bureau has been
compelled to resort, in order to relieve the files section, it
has adopted the practice of returning, with its replies thereto,
letters of general inquiry not referring to spme specific
naturalization case already a part of the Bureau file, thereby
leaving no record of such correspondence.

It has virtually ceased to make an examination of certifi-
cates of naturalization to insure the discovery and correction
of errors, and it has abandoned a personal card-index
of naturalized aliens, etc., not as a matter of choice but of
compulsion.^

The magnitude of the arrearage thus naively ac-
counted for, and the bulk of the potential information
involved, may be seen in the fact that on July 1, 1919,
according to the Commissioner's own figures,^ there
were unexamined in the Bureau at Washington more
than one miUion (1,011,676) declarations of intention,
$6,726 petitions for naturalization, and 721,7i2 certiji'
cates of naturalization. This was an increase in arrear-
age, for one year alone, of 882,963 (60 per cent) in
declarations; of 73 per cent in petitions, and of nearly
25 per cent in certificates. At the v«py time when the
excitement about vigilance in admitting new citizens
was at its height, the Naturalization Bureau was divert-

> Report rf Cimmiiiiouer-Cknerd cf Immigration, 1919, p. M.
* Ilrid^ p. U.

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

ing to other channels a vital energy which might have
been devoted to that vigilance and to collating the
elementary information already in its possession, for
the benefit of lawmakers and oth^« needing informa-
tion in dealing intelligently with this subject.

REPORT OF THE IMBOORAHON COMMISSION OF 1907

In point of fact, the only substantial body of statistical
information about the naturalization of the foreign-
bom voter which hitherto has been even ostensibly ^
sufficient for the student as a basis for any racial com4/
parisons, is that gathered by the United States Immi-
gration Commission of 1907. That body, created by an
Act of Congress approved February 7, 1907, of which
Senator William P. Dillingham of Vermont was chak-
man, consisted of three Senators, three members of the
House of Representatives, and three other persons
appointed by the President of the United States, and
was directed by the statute to '*make full inquiries,
examination, and investigation, by sub-committee or
otherwise, into the subject of immigration, ..." and
to report such conclusions and recommendations as in
its judgment might seem proper.

The information gathered by this Commission is
very voluminous, and has been of great value to sociolo-
gists and oth^s concerned with various aspects of the
subject. Indeed, its report has come to be called "the
bible of the immigration question." Nearly all the
modern writings on the subject have been based upon
it in at least a general way, and their color taken largely
from its conclusions and its point of view.

LEGEND OF "tHE NEW IMMIGRATION**

To this report is attributable almost entirely the famil-
iar conventional generalization that there is a marked

204

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

distinction in what might be called quality of aasimiUir
bilUy^ between the immigration of former years and
that of the three decades preceding the Great War;
between the so-called **old immigration'' and the
**newer." This distinction is drawn in the report and,
in most of the writings of individuals, based upon it,
between the group of races from northern and western
Europe — the English-speaking races, the Scandinavians,
Germans, Dutch, Belgians, French, and so on, and those
from southern and eastern and southeastern Europe,
Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, Italy,
Greece, Turkey-in-Europe, Asia Minor, etc.

This quality of assimilabUiiy was regarded by the
Commisinon as inferable to a large extent from the
degree to which the representatives of these racial
groups concerning whom it got information of various
kinds were naturalized or had exhibited int^'est in
naturalization at least to the extent of declaring inten-
tion to become citizens. It was assumed inageneral
way that a racial group shoy^agXl^lirqS^on of
pe^ns whohadbecbme citizens, or taken steps thereto,
might fairly be regarded as more adaptable to American
life, customs and ideals than one in which relatively few
naturalized citizens were found. With this assumption
as a starting point, it seemed reasonably obvious that
inasmuch as the " older *' race showed the higher percent-
age of naturalized persons, the inference of a difference
in essential civic quality followed as a matter of course.

Inasmuch fdso as this inference coincided with the
general public impression and prejudice to precisely
the same effect, it occurred to nobody to dispute or
seriously to question its validity. Anybody could tell
you offhand Uiat the Englishman, Frenchman, German
or Swede was more available for citizenship and more
easily assimilated than the Syrian, Croatian or Sicilian.
It was a matter of common knowledge ! And the Immi-

1205

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

gration Commission gave you the statistieiS — ^as if you
needed any! For example, here is a table that shows
the per cents naturalized for the "old" and "new"
races who had been in the United States ten years or
more. As is to be expected the "old" races show the
highest per cents on both counts.

The Commission recognized a general "tendency on
the part of wage-earners of foreign birth to acquire
citizenship/' and that this tendency "increased accord-
ing to length of residence in this country." But it con-
strued its statistics as showing that while "more than
three-fourths of the Bohemians and Moravians, Danish,
German, Irish, Norwegian, Scotch, Swedish, and Welsh
races who had been in the United States ten years or
longer had been fully naturalized," there was a "lack
of poUtical or civic interest" (only 37.7 per cent) on
the part of the southern and eastern European wage-
earners" with a similar residence of ten years or longer,
and proceeded to assert that these did not possess that
"tendency to acquire citizenship which increases accord-
ing to length of residence in this country." This asser-
tion was supposed to be supported by the facts given
in the above table regarding the races from southern *
and eastern Europe showing low percentages of indi-
viduals who had come to this country when twenty-one
years of age or older, who had Uved here ten years or
over, and were naturaUzed.

The Commission regarded the table from which these
facts were derived as highly significant in its implied
indication of the "civic interest" exhibited and capable
of being exhibited by the various racial groups.

DISPARITY IN NUMBERS AMONG RACIAL GROUPS

It should be remarked at once that inferences from
these figures and others presented by the Immigration

206

TABLE Vm

Feb CmsT that Fuixt Natubauzed Male Emplotxes Asb of
Total. Maijb Emplotebb Who Webb Twemtt-onb Yeabs of
Age ob Oveb at Time of Coiono, and Who Have Been in
THE United States Ten Yeabb ob Oyeb, Cohpabed with the
Peb Cent that Male Ehplotees in the United States Ten
Yeabs ob OyEB Abe of Those Hebe Five Yeabs and Oveb»
BT Race. ^

Racb

In Unitbd^atbs Tsn Yxabs
OB Ovam

Pbb Csht Fully
Naturalusd

Pkb Cent or
Tbosb nc Unitbd

Statbs Fvrm
YbabsobOvbb

OW..

Swedish

German

Irish

Bohemian and Moravian*.

Norwegian

Danish

Scotch

Welsh

English

French

Dutch

Canadian, Other

Canadian, French

New

Finnish...

Hebrew, Other. . .
Italian, North...
Hebrew, Russian.

lithuanian

Polish

Italian, South. . .

Russian .

Magyar

Croatian

Slovak

74.0
87.6
81.5
80.0
79.7
77.5
77.8
76.9
76.4
67.0
64.8
64.7
49.6
«7.7

87.7
65.7
54.2
49.8
48.8
41.1
89.8
84.0
88.6
26.9
26.8
25.8

80.5
79.0
82.6
88.8
56.0
69.2
77.8
80.7
94.6
78.0
57.1
76.8
81.0
77.9

88.9
88.5
56.8
88.0
87.1
89.2
44.0
84.8
86.8
81.4
28.5
42.8

^Compiled by the Americanization Study from Report qf the
ImmigraHon CommUnon, vol. i, p. 488, Table 100.
* The Bohemians and Moravians are classified by the Lnmigratioii

races.
207

Commission with the "new"

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Commission require considerable diseomit and dis-
crimination by reason of the fact — to which Miss
Grace Abbott aheady has called attention'^ — ^that

... the numbers in the different races from whom information
was secured by the Commission varied so greatly as to make
it impossible to accept these conclusions as indicating the
assimilability of the various national groups. For example,
according to the percentages the Armenians appear to be
more eager to become citizens than the North Italians or
the Poles; but the comparison was made on the basis of
information from 171 Armenians, 4,069 North Italians, and
10,923 Poles.

This same factor of disparity in numbers operates,
when a comparison of degree of assimilability is at-
tempted, between the old and new races, with respect
to residence in the United States from 5 to 9 years. The
Immigration Commission gives the per cent natural-
ized for each race of individuals here five years. It
might be expected that for this period of years con-
clusions could be drawn about the assimilability of the
two groups of races. But here again almost six times
as many individuals are classed in the new races as in
the old and any general inference would be founded on
insecure ground because of this disparity in numbers
of cases. They, therefore, base their condusions on the
group here 10 years and over.

THE FACTOR OF LENGTH OF RESIDENCE

As we shall see also from the statistics gathered and
analyzed for this volume,* the factor of residence "ten
years or over, " with all its implications, is exceedingly

^Grace Abbott, The Immigrant and the Community, 1917, pp.
d4a-249.
' Chap, viii, p. 286 et eeq,

208

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

important-^is, in fact, the major factor in the whole
situation. The indictment against the ''new" immi-
gration hangs upon it, and falls down when the term
"ten years or longer" is analyzed, even in the light of
the statistics presented by the Immigration Commis-
sion itself in support of the indictment. Indeed, the
Commission was not entirely without compunctions on
this point, and presented a table exhibiting the prob-
ability that, of the male empl(>yees from whom it derived
its information, those of the "older" races had been in
the United States CQaaid£itaMlhiotiger than ten years,
while those of the "newer" races had been here only
^t^y lo nger than ten years. But it did not emphasize
zE^ point, and at a superficial glance this might seem a
quibble; but it is of importance scarcely to be over-
estimated.

TABLE IX

Pbb Cent of FoimiGN-BOBN Male Emplotbes Reportino Citizen-
ship Who Have Been in the United States Each Speci-
fied Pebiod of Yeabs, bt Race ^

NUMBEB

Rbpobt-
rsQ Com-

PLKTB

Data

In ths Unitsd Statbb

Raox

5to9
Yean

10 Yean
and Over

Num-
ber

Per

Cent

Num-
ber

Per
Cent

Recent Races:
Total

48,8S3
64.9

23,662
85.1

26,747
4,620

61.0
85.3

19.5
14.7

17,086
19,042

38.9

Per cent of total r^)ort-
ing complete data

Old Races:
Total

47.3
80.5

Pter cent of tx)tal report-
ing complete data

52.7

* Compiled by the Americanization Study from Report cf Commit
rion of Immigration Abstracts, vol. i, p. 485.

209

AMEBICANS BY CHOICE

The Commission remarks, indeed, that "'on accomit
df the difference in the length of time the various races
have been coming to the United States, a comparison
of the older with the more recent immigrants is hardly
fair/' ^ But it does fail to appreciate the vital signifi-
cance of the point. And it apparently did not take
adequate notice of the further fact, shown in Table
IX, that of those of the ''older" races who had
been here over five years and reported information
in regard to citizenship, 80,6 per cent had been in the
United States over ten years^ while only S8.9 per cent of
the **newer** races had been here so long. That is, only

19.5 per cent of the ''older" races, as compared with
61.1 per cent of the "newer," had been in the country
between five and nine years. This means, of course,
that the immigrants of the "older" races had had on
the average a much longer time than those of the
"newer" to acquire "civic interest" and seek natural-
ization. The "over" added to five years means for the
"recent" races between five and nine years in most
cases, while for the "older" races it usually means
more than ten. It would appear that every year of
residence added to ten increases the probability of
efforts toward citizenship.

While the races from southern and southeastern
Europe show rates of naturalization ranging from 65.7
to 25.8 per cent with an average of 37.7, they also show
a proportion residing in the country ten years or longer
ranging down from 56.3 to 23.5 per cent with an average
of 38.9.' Contrast this, if you will, with rates df natural-
ization among the northern, "older" races, of from

87.6 to 27.7 per cent with an average of 74.0, but along
with that observe that the proportion of those "older, "
and supposedly more assimilable, races residing in the

^ AbHradi, voL i, p. 485.
*See Table Vm in this vc^uine* p. 007.

010

GENERAL

VAi^ii

[GRATION STATISTICS

country ten years or over ranges from 57.1 to d4.6 per
cent with an average of 80.5!

From this point of view» the following table of the
Commission becomes highly significant: ^

TABLE X

Pbbbbnt Political Condition of Fobeign-bosn Male Emploteeb
Who Havb Been in the United States Fivb Yeabs ob Over,
and Who Webb Twentt-one Yeabs of Age at Time of Com-
ing, BT Bacb

Old" Bjlcub

Race

Swedish

Swiss

Wdsh

Danish

German

Norwegian

Irish

En^ish

Dutch

Scotch.

Belgian (race not speci-
fied)

Bohemian and Mora-
vian*

French

Canadian (other than
French)

Canadian, French

Mexican

Per Cent
Natural-
ised and
Holding
First
Papers

92.8
92.1
87.0
86.8
86.7
86.6
82.6
80.6
79.9
79.1

76.6

76.2
66.6

66.7
81.6
lO.O

••N»w" Racus

Hebrew (other than
Russian)

Finnish

Hebrew, Russian

Austrian (race not
specified)

Armenian

Italian, North

Bulgarian

Slovenian

Polish

Lithuanian

Italian, South

Russian

Magyar

Slovak

Croatian

Rumanian.

Syrian

Greek

Ruthenian.

spanisu .**^«..

Serbian

Cuban

Portuguese

486, m.

" by Immigration Commission.
211

Per Cent
Natural-
ised and
Holding
First
Papers

61.6
61.2
67.2

68.1
49.2
46.8
86.8
86.8
88.1
82.6
80.1
28.0
26.8
22.8
22.6
21.9
20.7
20.2
19.8
18.6
12.8
12.1
6.6

^ Ah^acUt vol. i, pp.
•Classed as "Recent

An;

Vwt

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Prof. Edward A. Ross, who, of all the students of
this question, is one of the most uncompromising in
generalizing from the reports of the Inmiigration Com-
mission to the disadvantage of the "newer** races,
deduced that "'with the change in nationalities came a
great change in the civic attitude of the immigrants/'^
He made little or no allowance for the fact that the
"civic attitude" of the "newer" immigrants naturally
would not have had time to develop as in the case of
those who had been here longer; he made even less for

y changes in industrial and social life in this country
which might help to account for this alleged change in
attitude, by intensifying the hardships of the only
kind of employment "newer" immigrants could get, by
low wages due to an overstocked labor market, or by
the increased herding of foreign bom in city slums,
which last, of itself, might tend to retard the process of
adjustment and assimilation. Prof. John B. Clark
saw something of this, when he remarked that "there
is far more likeness between different branches of the
European family than there is between the economic
conditions into which immigrants came in the third
quarter of the last century and those into which they
come to-day. Then they could have farms for the ask-
^ ing, while now most of them go into ^lill$, mines, shops,
\ and railroad plants, or become employees or tenants on
farms owned by others." '

Prof. John R. Conunons, discussing the differences
in the proportions naturalized among the various
racial groups, calls attention to the fact that "it is not
so much a difference in willingness as a difference in
opportunity. ... In course of time these differences
will diminish, and the Italian and the Slav will approach

1 Edward A. Ross, The Old World and the New. 1914.
' John B. Clark, A Documentary History of American Indtutrial
Society, 1910, vol. i, p. 52.

212

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

the Irishman and the German in their share of American
suffrage. " ^

The war has created an entirely new situation with
regard to both immigration and naturaUzation; it is
entirely impossible to forecast the effects, either of the
chaotic conditions in Europe or of the reconstruction
period in America, upon the influx of foreign bom into
America, upon the diu^tion of their stay here, or upon
the attitude toward citizenship of those already here
and entitled to citizenship by length of residence. The
wholesale naturalization of immigrants in the national
army during the war, regardless of length of residence
or any of the other requirements ordinarily so rigidly,
so meticulously enforced, has swept into citizenship so
large a proportion of human material available and
hitherto constituting the bulk of the ''naturalization
problem" that the old generalizations have become
both useless and misleading. It will be long before such
immigrants as are now coming, or may come during the
next five years, can be the subject of intelligible statis-
tics — especially since nobody is collecting or collating
any statistics worthy of the name.

Even the statistics afforded by the census have been
the subject of uncritical use on which pessimistic gen-
eralizations have been based. The Thirteenth Census
(1910) showed for the decade since that of 1900 a de-
crease of 12.4 per cent in the proportion of foreign-born
white males twenty-one years of age and over naturalized .
Referring to this decrease, Professor Ross predicted *
that, *'as things are going, we may expect a great in-
crease in the number of the unenfranchised." Of course
he could not have foreseen the war and its profound
effects upon the whole question; but he might have

^John R. Commons, Rocm and Immigrant in America, 1907,
pp. 191-192.
2 Edward A. Boss, The Old World and the New, 1914, p. 266.
15 213

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

observed in the same census the fact that there had
been a precisely identical (12.4 per cent) decrease in
the number of foreign-bom whites who had been in the
country nine years or more — even if his prejudice on
the subject of the "new immigration" prevented his
recognizing in this remarkable coincidence a striking
evidence of the direct relation between length of resi-
dence and naturalization.

THE FACTOR OF LANGUAGE

It would be plausible to expect that language would be
a factor in governing the degree to which this racial
group or that would seek naturaUzation. Those whose
mother tongue is English, one might naturally suppose,
would find it easier to acquire the necessary informa-
tion, and would the sooner be absorbed into the life and
atmosphere of the country, the sooner aspire to full
citizenship.

The facts do not support this idea at all. And a very
slight consideration of the conditions discloses the
reasons. In the first place, no knowledge of English
whatever is required for the declaration of intention;
and only the statistics of full naturalization are of value
in this matter. Both the statistics of the Immigration
Commission, and especially those compiled by the
Americanization Study, make it clear that, on the
average, more than ten years' residence in this country
p»*ecedes final naturalization. It is a rare case in which
during that ten years the petitioner has not acquired a
speaking knowledge of English sufficient for all his
practical piuposes.

The statistics of the Immigration Commission them-
selves show how little the original knowledge of Eng-
lish has to do with the matter.^ For the persons from

1 See TsUe X, p. 211.

214

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

whom the Commission got infonnation, who had been
in this comitry ten years or over (racial groups repre-
sented by 100 individuals or more), the percentages of
those fully naturalized exhibit the fact that the Swedish
and German show a higher rate than the Irish; the
Bohemian, Moravian, Norwegian and Danish outrank
the Scotch, Welsh, and English. Even for those who
have been in the country only five to nine years the
Swedes show the highest percentage.^ T hat lengt h of

iY>sif^qTPftj^fh<>r f}\m nMJv*^ ^^^fP'^^1 '*» *^^ '^^miv'^^^

factor m determining interest in citizenship, stands
forth in Table VIII, which gives percentages by race of
those in the United States ten years or longer, and of
such of these as have been fully naturalized.

I4ENOTH OF RESIDENCE AND EARNING POWER

The fallacious nature of the assumption that there is
an essential diflPerence between the so-called "older"
and "newer" races as such in respect of interest m citi-
zenship is further disclosed by the statistics of the
Immigration Commission on the subject of the wages
of foreign-bom laborers. The Commission found that
the members of the "older" races in the households
covered by its inquiry were earning more than those of
the "newer" races, and occupied, generally speaking,
higher positions. This, ot course, was to be expected;
but little stress was laid by the Commission upon the
relation between these facts and the relative rates of
naturalization, although it is a conspicuous relation-
ship. Like most of the statistics compiled by the Com-
mission in this particular field, the comparison may be
criticized on the ground that the numbers upon which
percentages are based and compared are small, and

> Report of Immigration Commission, vol. i, p. 488.

215

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

differ widely among the racial groups. Nevertheless,
despite this discrepancy, the probability stands forth
that, in addition to length of residence, the economic
status — the individual and family income — is a most
important factor in determining the interest of the
foreign bom in acquiring citizenship.

Prom the following table it is clear that the "older**
races show a higher average rate of income in all the
occupations listed than the "newer." ^

TABLE XI

AvBBAOB Amount or Weekly Eabnings of Male Emplotebs
Eighteen Yeabs of Age and Oveb, bt Race and Specified
Industries ^

Race

Reporting
Com-
plete
Data

Aver-
age

Earn-
ings
per

Day

Agricul-
tural

Imple-
ments
and
Vehi-
cles*

Cotton
Goods*

■

Woolen

and

Worsted

Goods*

Slaugh-
tering
and
Meat
Pack-
ing*

Coal
Mining
Bi-
tumi-
nous*

"Old"....
"New"...

I7.4SS
65,485

2. 84
1.99

13.03
11.58

11.14

8.77

11.69
8.64

2.27
1.83

2.33
2.09

^See Appendix for complete table. This table does not take
account of lost time. * Weekly wage. ' Daily wage.

When the expense of becoming a citizen is taken into
consideration, the bearing of income on acquiring citi-
zenship is important. Add to that the obvious fact
that wages and general economic and social status
tend to improve in the individual case with length of
residence, and the situation becomes not only clear but
just what common sense would suggest as probable. It
ought not to require elaborate argument to substantiate
the assertion that the immigrant in his early years in
America is too busy getting a job and an economic

^ Compiled from Report of the Immigration Commission^ vol. i,
pp. 379, 885, 397.

216

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

f ootingy acquiring a working knowledge of the language,
overcoming the general prejudice against him as a
foreigner, and so on, to pay much attention to the
question of becoming a citizen; besides which he must,
in any event, Uve here five years before he can do any-
thing eflfective in the matter.

VOTING ON "fIBST PAPERS*'

The present state of public opinion in the United
States on the subject of the foreign bom is very diflFer-
ent from what it was in the earlier years of our develop-
ment; this is largely, though not entirely, due to the
emotions and disclosures connected with the war. When
we were opening up the^vast domain west of the Alle-
ghanies, and there was great need of human labor to
clear forests, break virgin land, and help in the begin-
nings of our industries, the immigrant was a welcome
helper, and every inducement was offered to entice him
to come and settle on even terms with the native bom.
One of these inducements was citizenship, for all intents
and purposes, on very easy terms.

Prior to 1910 there were ten states in which aliens
were permitted to vote on their mere declaration of
intention to become citizens — subject, however, to the
same conditions of length of residence in state, county,
and election district as citizens. These were Alabama,
Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ne-
braska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas.^

That this easy acquisition of the suffrage would act
as a deterrent to the completion of citizenship was to
be expected, and that it has indeed so acted appears in
a comparison of the proportions of foreign-bom males

^ Since that time» however, all, except Arkansas and Missouri,
either have entirely withdrawn the privilege by constitutional amend-
ment or statute* or are in process of withdrawing it.

217

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

of voting age holding ''first papers" only, in the alien-
suffrage states, with those in states requiring full
citizenship as a prerequisite to voting.

TABLE Xn
Pbb Cbnt of Fobxign Bobn of Voting Age Haying Fibst Papebs,

AND AliSO THE PeB CeNT IN StATBB PeBMHTINO AuXNB TO

Vote on Fntar Papebb, Compabed with Cebtain States Not
Pebmitting Aliens to Vote on Fibst Papebs, fob 1900 and
1910 1

Statb

NnifBBB or
FoRKioN Bobn

OrVOTUfG AOB

Pbb Cbnt
Incbbabb

Pbb Cbnt

Natu-

BALXZBD

Pbb Cbnt

Havxng

Fibst

Papbbb

Only

1900

1010

1900 to
1910

1000

58.0
59.4
67.8

1910

45.6
52.3
53.0

1900

1010

United States

Alien-suffrage

states (total) . . .
Nonalien-sufiPrage

states (total) . . .

4,904,270

716,975

1,275,162

6,646,817

857,681

1,645,291

35.5
19.6
29.0

8.4

12.3

6.5

8.6
9.7

7.4

» United States Census, 1910, vol. i, p. 1071.

In 1900 the ratio of those holding declarations only
was about 12 to 6 in favor of the alien-suffrage states.
By 1910 this difference had diminished to about 12 to 9.
If aliens of any race were interested in voting as soon
as they had a chance, this interest certainly would have
manifested itself in the states permitting them to vote
on the "first papers " which they could get, if they chose,
an hour after landing.

WHAT BECOMES OP THE DECLARATIONS?

To what extent does the declarant follow up his declara-
tion of intention to apply for citizenship? The reports

218

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

of the Commissioner of Naturalization give each year,
by states, the number of declarations of intention ('^jfirst
papers") and the number of petitions for final natural-
ization. The most striking fact apparent in these
statistics is that the number of declarations is far in
excess of the number of petitions — to say nothing of
what may happen to the latter by way of denials when
they reach the naturalizing judge.

Now, it must be remembered that these totals are
not directly comparable. In no event can the final
petition follow the declaration by less than two years,
and the law now permits a lapse of seven years before
the declaration must expire. If the number of declara-
tions and petitions were fairly uniform from year to
year, or bore any constant relation to each other, some-
thing might be inferred from a comparison of totals for
a seven-year period. Since, however, the number of
petitions, as well as the number of declarations, in-
creased rapidly from 1908 to 1918, no sound omclusion
can be reached without taking such variations into
account.

For example, none of the 136,698 declarations of
intention filed in 1908 could become the basis for peti-
tions until 1910, and all would be valid until 1915. In
1910 the number of petitions filed was only 56,038, and
seven years later it was 123,855. There is no way of
knowing how the petitions which actually consummated
the declaratioi^ filed in 1908 were distributed among
the years 1910-14; but it would seem to be suflBciently
dependable to take the average of those years, which
would be 88,670. Instead, therefore, of comparing
the 43,864 petitions of 1908 with the 136,698 declara-
tions of that year, it is proper to compare the 136,698
with the average of 88,670 which gives a ratio of 64.9.

The ratio of about 65 petitions to each 100 declara-
tions is in fact corroborated by other calculations, as

219

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

will appear below. Take, for instance, the figures ^ for
the period of five years 1908^-12, inclusive:

TABLE Xin

Number of Declarations Filbd Each Year, 1908-12, with
Average Number and Ratio op Petitionb Conbummatinq in
Five-tear Period Ending Each Year

Yuar in Which

Dbclabations

Webb Filbd

NUMBBB OF

Dbclabations

Filbd in

Each Ybab

1908

1909

1910

1911

1912

Average

136,698
143,212
167,226
186,157
169,142

160,487

Aybbagb

NuMBBB or

Petitionb in

FiVB-TBAR

Pebiod Ending
Each Ybab

88,670

98,926

105,799

113,187

116,183

104,543

Ratio of

PBTmONSTO

Dbclabations

64.9
69.1
68.8
60.8
68.7

65.1

Take it another way, remembering that each decla-
ration of intention has a vaUd lifetime of seven years —
five after the two which must elapse before it can be
made the basis of a final petition. Assuming that the
petitions consummating the declarations of any given
year are distributed approximately evenly over the
five-year period during which they are valid for that
purpose, then one-twenty-fifth of the declarations of
1908-18 covered by Table XIII eventuated in peti-
tions in 1910, two-twenty-fifths in 1911, and so on,
reaching five-twenty-fifths in 1914, and falling again to
one-twenty-fifth in 1918. The following diagrammatic
table, tracing out on this basis the probable distribution
of the declarations consummated by the petitions filed
from 1908 to 1918, inclusive, shows graphically the

^Compiled from Reports of the Commissioner of Naturalization,
1908-1918.

220

GENERAL BIMIGBATION STATISTICS

weight which should be given to the petitions of each
year, in calculating the ratio of declarations to peti-
tions. It fully substantiates the showing of Table XIII»
and justifies the assertion that 35 out of every 100
declarants fail to file petitions within the period now
fixed by the law.

TABLE XIV

SHOwmo NuMBEB or Declabations Filed in Each Yeab DintiNa
THE Pebiod 190S-1912, and the Numbeb of Final Petitions
FOB Natubalization Assumed to Have Been Based ttpon
Those Declabations in Each Yeab Dubino Which, Re-
sfectivelt, the Declabations Webe Valid

declarations

petitions

NUMBER

136,698
143^212
167,226
186.157
169,142

TOTAL
AVERAGE
PERCENTAGE

802,435
160.487
160.487 into 104,543

ASSUMED
NUMBER

55.038
147,288
286,881
380,744
619.275
425.268
324.027
264,640
110,416

2.613.577

104.543

65.1

The chances of error in this calculation lie in the
facts (1) that until September, 1913, declarations made
under the law as it existed prior to 1906 (the so-called
"old-law declarations") were held to be valid, no
matter how old their date; (2) that the decision of the
United States District Court,^ applying the seven-year

1 See p. 109.

221

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

limit to all outstanding declarations, undoubtedly
hastened many petitions in 1913-14, and (3) that the
effects of the war in Europe probably were in some
cases to expedite and in others to delay or to prevent
the filing of petitions. Undoubtedly some of the peti-
tions of 1910, 1911, 1912, and 1913 are attributable to
declarations more than seven years old, and some which
in normal conditions would have been filed during the
period 1914r-18 were not filed.

It may be assumed, however, that these factors to a
great extent offset each other, and that in any case their
effect is negligible. And if it should appear that a sub-
stantial number of "old-law declarations," originating
prior to 1908, were accepted up to 1918 by those coiuls
which did not promptly accept the seven-year decision,
it would mean only that the perc^itage of 65.1 is too
high; that more than 35 declarations out of 100 do not
eventuate in petitions.

Bight here it must be emphasized that the figure 65.1
applies not to naturalization, but to petitions for nat-
uralization, which is a very different thing indeed. We
shall elsewhete leam^ that 11.5 per cent of all petitions
are denied — more than half of the denials being for
reasons of a technical character.

The average of 35.1 of "sterile" declarations is that
for the United States as a whole; but the figure is by no
means constant or uniform. In some states the propor-
tion of petitions to declarations is very much lower
than that; in some it is very much higher.

In Indiana, for example, the figures show a fruition in
petitions of only £6.4, or a little more than 1 in 4, while
in Wisconsin the petitions exceed the declarations by
15.7 per cent. As the above table shows, in four stat^
the proportion of petitions exceeded 80 per cent, while

1 See p. 231.

222

GENERAL IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

14 scaled down from 80 to 70 per cent. Twenty-six
states show percentages below the 65.1 of the United
States as a whole.

TABLE XV

Showino Ratio of Deciabationb of Intbntion to Pbtitiomb fob
Naturalization, by States, Based on Yearly Ayeragb
NiJMBER OF Declarations, 1908 to 1912, and Yearly Ayeragb

(Weighted)*

Statb

United States

Wisconsin

Arizona

North Carolina

Mississippi

Ohio

Kentucky

New Jersey

Maine

Vermont

South Carolina

Georgia

Montana

Alabama

Maryland

Arkansas...

Michigan

California

Pennsylvania

Connecticut

Rhode Island

Virginia

Wyoming

New Mexico

District of Columbia.
New Hampshire

Ratio

65
115
94
93
86
78
77
76
76
75
75
74
73
73
72
72
71
71
70
69
69
69
68
67
66
66

.7
.2
.1
.7
.8
.5
.5
.1
.6
.3
.3
.9
.0
.2
.0
.9
.2
.9
.6
.6
.3
.1
.0
.8
.5

Statb

Illinois

Colorado

Nebraska

New York

North Dakota.

Oregon

Kansas

Tennessee

Minnesota. . . .

Iowa

Texas

Delaware

Oklahoma

Louisiana

West Virginia.
Massachusetts.

Alaska

Florida

Nevada

Utah

Washington. . .

Idaho

Missouri

South Dakota.

Hawaii

Indiana

Ratio

64.4
64.8
64.0
64.0
63.7
63.7
62.9
62.8
62.7
60.9
59.5
58.4
58.3
56.4
55.6
53.7
53.0
52.5
52.4
50.5
50.3
48.6
45.2
44.1
39.9
26.4

^ The averages are weighted as per the table above* p. 221.

The most important question raised by the results of
this calculation is whetiier it is reasonable to expect

223

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

that more than one out of every three declarations of
intention should thus fail of fruition — that thirty-five
out of every hundred aliens who declare their intention
to apply for citizenship should fail to do so. The answer
to this question, and the reasons for the f ailure, are not
discoverable in the figures themselves, nor in any docu-
ments to be foimd anywhere. The reasons are hmnan
reasons, hidden in the bosoms and written in the per-
sonal experience, of men and women who started out
after the privileges of American citizenship, and changed
their minds.

We have some illuminating data, first-hand, from
some twenty-six thousand aliens who did follow up their
declarations, and afford in the process a good deal of
extraordinarily interesting and enUghtening informa-
tion, the study of which is set forth in the succeeding
chapter of this volume.

LATER STATISTICS— IN WHICH SOME TWENTY-SIX
THOUSAND PETITIONERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

When, early in the progress of the Americanization
Study, it became apparent that ahnost no adequate
statistical data were available in regard to naturalized
citizens, or the really significant aspects of the natural-
ization process, it was decided to tap the mine of in-
formation existing in the original docmnents lying neg-
lected in the files of the Naturalization Bureau at
Washington, and to collate and analyze the significant
facts for the latest year of reasonably normal conditions
antedating the war. Obviously, that latest year
would be that between July 1, 1913, and June 30, 1914.

The consent of the Bureau was readily obtained, with
the oflfer of all possible co-operation. It should be
stated once for all, indeed, that at every stage of the
Study the Naturalization Bureau, in both its head-
quarters and field service, has withheld nothing in the
way of information and assistance — save only to the
extent to which practically all of its official corre-
spondence is characteristically tardy by reason of the
short-handed and overworked concUtion of its clerical
force.

It was discovered immediately, however, that the
conditions of the files at Washington were such as to
prohibit the segregation of the documents for any
siogle year without an inordinate, and in the circiun-
stances impracticable, expenditiu*e of labor and time.

225

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The only recourse, then, was to the local courts, where
are kept on file, m more available shape and in chrono-
logical order, duplicates of the petitions for natural-
ization and record of the court's action upon each. But,
since this required the examination of the documents
in the country-wide ofBces of the clerks of the courts
themselves, it was impracticable to make the inspec-
tion complete, as would have been the case had the
documents been suitably arranged and available all in
one place.

MORE THAN A FIFTH OF ALL PETITIONERS

Twenty-eight courts, with a total of 26,284 naturaliza-
tion petitions filed during the fiscal year 191S-14, were
visited during 1919, with the cordial co-operation of
the clerks in charge. And inasmuch as this total num-
ber of petitions examined constituted more than one in
five (21.2 per cent) of the whole number of petitions for
naturalization (123,855) filed in that fiscal year in the
whole United States, it would seem to represent a large
enough number and a sufficient variety of local, racial,
and other conditions to warrant a fair degree of con-
fidence in the representative character of the results.

FROM TWENTY-EIGHT REPRESENTATIVE COURTS

The courts studied included two Federal and three
state courts in New York City, having the great bulk
of naturalization business; a number of courts in indus-
trial districts, and some smaller ones taking in the busi-
ness from outlying rural regions. Following is a list
of the courts from which the information was derived:

State court. Auburn, Maine

State court, Worcester, Massachusetts

State court, Bridgeport, Connecticut

226

LATER STATISTICS

State court, Middletown, Connecticut

State court, Norwich, Connecticut

Federal courts. New York City

State courts. New York City

State court. White Plains, New York

State court, Mineola, Long Island, New York

State court, Troy, New York

State court Ithaca, New York

State court, Bochester, New York

State court, Elmira, New York

State court, Paterson, New Jersey

State court. New Brunswick, New Jersey

State court, Easton, Pennsylvania

Federal court, Cleveland, Ohio

State court, Cleveland, Ohio

State court, Akron, Ohio

Federal court, Cincinnati, Ohio

State court, Galesburg, Illinois

State court, Iowa City, Iowa

State court, Portland, Oregon

Federal court, Seattle, Washington

State court, Seattle, Washington

And it is apparent that the courts from which the data
were derived are widely scattered through the East,
Middle West, and Far West, and are of a varied char-
acter as regards nature of racial and other character-
istics which might affect the hmnan factors in the mat-
ter. It is to be regretted that there are none from the
South and Southwest; but there seems no reason to
suppose that they would show materially different
results.

m A REASONABLY NORMAL TEAR

Doubtless any particular year selected for the study
would present certain special conditions calling for dis-
count of the results. This is true of the year 1913-14.
That year chanced to mark the end of the validity of

227

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the '* old-law declarations"; — that is to say that in that
year the seven-year limit upon the life of a declaration
of intention to become a citizen, established for the first
time by the Naturalization Act of 1906, was declared
by the United States Court, 1914,^ to apply to declara-
tions made prior to the enactment of that statute.
Undoubtedly anticipation of this tended on the whole
to increase, perhaps materially, the number of peti-
tions consmnmating those old declarations. On the
other hand, there were doubtless many declarants <^
long ago who were discouraged by the decision from
filing petitions at all. We shall observe later the extent
to which that decision has been a factor in the rejection
of the petitions of a large number of persons otherwise
presumably eligible — excluded for that reason alone.

Obviously it was desirable to select a year as recent
as possible and at the same time to avoid any period
affected by the compUcations introduced by the exist-
ence of the war in Europe. It is felt that the year 1913-
14 is sufficiently typical for all practical purposes, and
that the appUcants for citizenship analyzed herein are
sufficiently representative generally of the foreign bom
who seek to join us; whatever may be said of the great
number who were swept into citizenship helter-skelter
during and since the war by naturaUzation of soldiers
and sailors on the sole ground of military service.*

THE RACIAL GROUPS ARE TYPICAL

Some of the important conclusions supported by these
statistics naturally raise the question whether the peti-
tions studied are, in respect of country of origin, really
typical of the whole foreign-bom population of the
coimtry. This question seems to be disposed of by a

* See chap, v, p. 108.

' See chap, ix, j>. ft55, ei aeq.

228

TABLE XVI

CCMIPABIBON BT RaCBB OF (1) NaTUBALIZATION PbTITIONEBS

Studied, (2) Unnaturalized Malbb Twentt-onb Yeabs ob
OvEB IN Nine Citieb' Whebb Petitionb Webb Filbd,and in
the Countbt as a Whole, in 1910 ^

CoinrrBT

OF BiBTH

All countries

Russia

Austria

Italy

Hungary

Germany

Ireland

England

Sweden

Rumania

Norway

Canada

Scotland

Denmark

Switzerland

finland

Turk^ in Ana. .

Holland

Turkey in Europe

Greece

France

Wales

Spain

Portugal

No information.
Other

PBnnoNSBS

SrUDtBD

1913-14

Num-
ber

26,je84

7,864

3,875

3,591

2,443

2,805

1,773

831

616

569

389

385

288

200

197

144

142

139

179

Per

Cent

100.0
29.9
14.7
13.7
9.3
8^
6.7
3.2
2.3
2.2
1.5
1.5
1.1
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.5
0.5
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.1
0.1

Unnaturaukkd*

fobugm-bobn

Whitb Malss

twkmtt-onb

YoABS or AGS

AMD OVBB IN

NiNB CmBS»
IK 1910

Num-
ber

437,517

107.393

59,252

98,595

31,194

35,425

16,453

14,807

8,675

5,778

4,084

9,229

5,299

1,881

4,039

2,395

1,883

980

1,650

5,393

4,116

294

932

Per
Cent

0.8 17,728

100.0
24.5
13.5
22.5
7.1
8.1
3.8
3.4
2.0
1.3
0.9
2.1
1.2
0.4
0.9
0.5
0.4
0.2
0.4
1.2
0.9
0.1
0.2

Unnatubalizbd
fobxxqn-born
Whctb Malbs

twbntt-onb
Ybabs of Aqb

AND Otbb m

THB UnFTBD StaTBB

IN 1910

Num-
ber

4.1

2,837,307
481,532
407,977
523,964
200,274
219,138
116,613
112,317
92,289
17,498
66,802
176,868
38,940
27,045
16,942
43.737
22,776
18,116
19.546
62,758
21,457
6,424
10,037
19,557

114,705

Per

Cent

100.0
17.0
14.4
18.5
7.1
7.7
4.1
4.0
3.3
0.6
2.4
6.2
1.4
1.0
0.6
1.5
0.8
0.6
0.7
2.2
0.8
0.2
0.4
0.7

4.0

^ United States Census, 1910, vol. 1, chap. zi.

' Includes aliens and those holding first papers.

'Cleveland, New York (Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and
Queens); Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cincinnati; Paterson, New Jer-
sey; Portland, Oregon; Rochester, New York; Seattle, Washington;
Worcester, Massachusetts.

16 22»

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

compilation showing the racial distribution of the peti-
tioners studied, compared with the racial distribution
of all unnaturalized foreign-bom white aUens £1 years
of age or older in the coimtry as a whole, and in the nine
large cities covered by this investigation.

Considerable variations will be observed between the
racial distribution of petitioners studied and that of the
unnaturalized but potentially naturalizable males in the
whole country in 1910. For instance, while 18.5 per
cent of the unnatiu'alized persons in the United States
were bom in Italy, only 13.7 per cent of the petitioners
studied were ItaUans; on the other hand, while £9.9
per cent of the petitioners studied were from Russia,
only 17 per cent of the unnaturalized males in the
United States in 1910 were Russians.

These discrepancies do not prove, however, that even
in such cases the groups of petitioners studied are not
representative of the foreign-bom population, because
racial distribution varies considerably from state to
state. Fortunately, moreover, it is possible to compile
from the census figures to show by coimtry of origin
the distribution of unnaturalized white males in the
cities covered by the study, and these figures, also in-
cluded in the last column of the table, show conclu-
sively that the racial distribution in those cities is fairly
typical. The percentages do not exactly agree, nor is
that to be expected. In the first place, there is a differ-
ence of three years between the times represented re-
spectively in the two sets of figures — ^years during which
there was a heavy immigration. The figures given for
the unnaturalized are not complete, inasmuch as for
those cities the citizenship status of 9. 8 per cent of the
foreign-bom males £1 years of age and over was not
reported by the 1910 census. Furthermore, the peti-
tions studied were not all from these nine cities, al-
though nearly nine out of ten (86.8 per cent) of them

230

LATER STATISTICS

were. On the whole, the nativity distribution in those
nine cities of the petitioners studied coincides remark-
ably with that of the unnaturalized but naturalizable
males.

RELATIVE "cnnC AND POLITICAL INTEREST"

In Table X, page ^11, the relative numbers and per-
centages are arranged in the order of magnitude^ and this
arrangement is illuminating in its display of what the
Immigration Commission and the writers who have
taken their cue therefrom have interpreted as "civic
and political interest" exhibited in relative desire for
citizenship. With the exception of Italy the races from
the sources of largest recent immigration show a higher
proportion naturalized than the proportion they repre-
sented in the population. It can fairly be said that the
desire to become citizens is as evident among these im-
migrants of the new races as among those of the earUer,
entirely leaving out of consideration the length of resi-
dence which operates in favor of the older immigrants.

HOW DID THESE PETITIONERS FARE?

How did these applicants for citizenship fare? How-
ever much they may have desired citizenship, these of
the "new immigration" and the "old" — did they get
it? Did they pass the examinations? And as regards
the reasons for denial of those who were rejected, how
did the "recent" races account for themselves in re-
spect of those matters which really go to the questions
of moral and intellectual fitness?

Well, to begin with, the percentage of all denials
(3,033) among these more than 26,000 petitioners was
11.5 — ^almost exactly that (11.2) of the whole United

States during the entire period of eleven years, 1908-

231

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

18, as shown by the reports of the Commissioner of
Naturalization. Here appears a compilation analyzing
all the denials during the period 1908-18.

TABLE XVn

COICPABIBQN OF CaUSBB OF DbNIAL FOB THE YkABB 190S-1S AMD

1918-19 FROM ComaaBiONEB of Natttrauzation Rbpobt8»
AND Dkniaib of 26,284 PKrinoNEBa Studied

Causib

Want of prosecution

Incompetent wit-
nesses

Declaration invalid

Ignorance

Miscellaneous

Immoral character.

Insufficient residence

Petitioner's motion. .

No jurisdiction

Deceased

Unable to produce
witnesses or depo-
sition

Already a citizen. . . .

No certificate of ar-
rival

Premature petition

Section 2169 (not a
white person)

No information

Total

Certificates granted
Cases disposed of. . .
Per cent denied

Dbnzals

Natxmliiataon Reports
1906-18 I 1913-14

Num-
ber

88,493

28,262
9,187

11,109
6,098
4,269
8,625
2,824
2,984
1,123

1,090
1,200

1,197
979

107,474
848,777
956,251

Cent

31.2

26.3
8.5

10.3
5.7
4.0
3.3
2.6
2.7
1.0

1.0
1.1

1.1
0.9

0.1

100.0

11.2
232

Num-
ber

3,856

3,982
1,148
1,147
553
588
889
381
291
174

196
150

179
96

13,183
105,439
118,572

Per
Cent

29.4

30.2
8.7
8.7
4.2
4.5
3.0
2.9
2.2
1.3

1.5
1.1

1.4
0.7

100.0

11.1

CMesStadMd
1913-14

Num-
ber

689

422

1,296

220

147

12
9

14
17

3,033

[26,284

Per
Cent

22.7

13.9

42.7
7.2
4.8
1.9
2.2
1.7
0.4
0.4

0.4
0.3

0.5
0.2

0.5

100.0

11.5

LATER STATISTICS

A study of the figures covering the reasons for denial
of the 3,033 among the petitions of 1913-14 here ana-
lyzed illuminated special aspects of this matter, show-
ing, as it does, how large a proportion of the deniab are
for reasons of a purely technical character, or because
the petitioners abandoned their pursuit of citizenship
after filing the final petition.

The following table lists the races represented by
forty or more petitions, in the order of percentage of

TABLE XVra

Racial Dibtbebxttion of 26,284 PEnnoNEBa Denied, 1918-14,
AND THE Feb Cent of the Deniaib fob the Six Pbincipal
Causes

COUHTET
OF BiBTB

An oountriM.

Greece

Fmnoe

Itahr

Turkey in Europe

HoUAnd

Scotland

Denmark

England

Sweden

Germany

Switserland

Turkey in Ana. . . .

Norway

Belgium

Canada

Himgary

Finland

Rumania

Ruaeia

Ireland

Austria

Other

No information . . .

NVM-
BBB OF

P»n-

TXON8

26,284

3»591

139

288

200

831

616

2»305

197

142

389

385

2,443

144

569

7,864

1,773

3.875

201

Dbnials

Num-
ber

8,033

27
19

646
15
21
42
29

120
80

296
25
18
48
5
43

249
14
54

744

166

347
27

Per
Cent

11.5

Causbb of DBMiAir— Psb Ckmt

«M O

22.7

48>1
15.7
2811
26)6
28.5
21.4
17.2
30.0
13.7
17.2
24.0
44.4
25.0
40.0
30.2
32.2
42.8
7.4
15.1
27.1
21.6

18.9

11.1
26.3
11.1
7.6
33.3
11.9
27.6
19.2
13.7
14.5
20.0
11.1
27.1
20.0
14.0
12.5
14.3
11.1
15.7
11.4
10.4

5.2
3.7

2.9
26.6

9.5

3.5

4.2

11.3

5.4

4.0

16.7

14.6

9.3
4.8
14.3
5.6
5.5
3.0
5.5

•n'O

7.2

14.2

2.4

1.7
3.8
4.7
8.0
5.6
8.3
20.0

7.6

7.4
6.2
1.8
7.2

1.9

1.7

7.6

6.9
2.5
5.0
2.4

4.6
3.2

3.7
1.7
0.6
1.4

87.5

3^.7
42.1
34.2
20.9
14.0
31.0
31.0
27.5
30.0
47.3
36.0
16.7

4.2

20.9
24.9

63.0
46.2
46.3
44.8

^Denied because declaratioii of intention was more than seven
years old.

233

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

denials f and shows the percentages attributable to the
six principal reasons, respectively: "want of prosecu-
tion," "incompetent witnesses,'' "declaration in-
valid," "ignorance," "immoral character," and "old-
law declaration — ^held to be invalid."

In this table there are 14 countries listed whose per
cent of denials exceeds that for all countries. Of these
only four supply the "new" immigration. And of the
seven showing a lower than 11.5 per cent denials, five
constitute the "new" immigration. This would point
to greater success on the part of the new races in attain-
ing their naturalization papers. The qualifying fact
here, as elsewhere, is that more than twice as many
petitioners belong to the "new" races as to the "old."

The two causes of denial showing the largest per cents
for the coimtry as a whole and for most coimtries are
"want of prosecution" and the invaUdity of their "old-
law" declaration. That so large a proportion of im-
migrants have taken the trouble to take almost the
last steps toward citizenship and then fail by default is
symptomatic of waste somewhere along the line. This
condition seems to prevail among both the "old" and
"new" peoples.

AS REGARDS " IMMORAL CHARACTER" ^

For some of the less mechanical causes of denial, let us
segregate and arrange the countries in order of percent-
ages. The following table shows denials for "inunoral
character."

The average percentage of denials for the whole
United States for the period 1908-18 on the ^*ound of
"immoral character" was 4.0 per cent. With the ex-
ception of Turkey in Europe, not one of the "newer"
races came up to this average in the year 1913-14, so
far as may be judged by this analysis of the court

234

LATER STATISTICS

TABLE XIX
Feb Cent of Deniaub Due to "Immobal Charactbb»'* bt Race

' ■ ■ ■— ^ 11 11 i n ■MMIll ■■■■■ ■ II ■!»! M ■ ■■■ ^^^^^i^l I P III ■ — ^■^MM ■■■ ■■!■■■ H i ■ — ^ifc— — ^— B^i^^— M^— I^M^

Country of Birth P°'°c^t

Total cases 1.9

Turkey in Europe 7.6

Denmark 6.9

Sweden 5.0

Canada 4.6

Rumania 3.7

Hungary 8.2

Enrfand 2.5

Germany 2.4

Russia 1.7

Italy ;. 1.7

Austria 1.4

^^ Ireland

records of more than one in five of the petitions
passed upon in that year. Austria, Hungary, Italy,
Rumania, all showed a record materially better, and
the figures generally show that cause to be negligible,
anyway.

THE SHOWING AS TO " IGNORANCE"

In considering the statistics of denials on the ground of
"ignorance," it is to be remembered that the examina-
tions which disclose this "ignorance" do not go as a rule
to the subject of illiteracy or general inteUigence, but
deal in the majority of cases with the understanding of
the petitioner as to the form of government, and some-
times decidedly minute details of the history, of the
United States. The average percentage of denials on
the groimd of "ignorance" in the whole United States
during the eleven years 1908-18 was 10.3. The records
of the petitions of every one of the "recent" races,

except Italian, for the year 1913-14 — if one may judge

235

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

by this study of more than one-fifth of them — ^was far
better than that average, though generally higher than
that of the old races.

TABLE XX
Feb Cent of DsNiAiis Dub to "Ignorancb,*' bt Rack

Coimtry of Birth p^g^t

Total cases 7.«

Italy 14. «

Norway 8.8

Switierland 8.0

Hungary 7.6

Rumania 7.4

Austria 7.2

Russia 6.2

Turkey in Asia 5.6

Gennany 4.7

Sweden 3.8

Scotland «.4

Ireland 1.8

Eni^d 1.7

TIME-INTERVALS IN NATURALIZATION

Generally speaking, judging by the 26,284 petitions ex-
amined, each of which must show the date of arrival
and declaration of intention, the immigrant is in this
country in the average case anywhere from 5.4 to 12.7
years before he files his declaration of intention to seek
citizenship. (See Table XXI.)

The evidence on this point was strikingly uniform in
all the courts save one. The lowest average shown was
5.4 years in Cincinnati; the highest average but two was
8.6 in the State Superior Court at Worcester, Massa-
chusetts. The extreme exceptions were 9.4 years in
the Superior Court for Middlesex County, at Middle-
town, Connecticut, and 12.7 years in the Androscoggin

286

LATER STATISTICS

TABLE XXI

Thb Ateragb Tdcb Elapsino Between Abbival and Dbclaba-
TiON OF Intention; Between Declabation and Petition,
AND Between Petition and Natubauzation as Shown bt
26,284 Cebtificates, 1913-14

Ck>iJBis

New York Co. Supon/Ct

U. 8. Diet. Ct.. Southern Diet. New
York, N. Y. C

U. 8. Dist. Ct., Eastern Dist. New York,
Brooklyn

Bronx Co. Supm. Ct., N. Y. C

Queens Co. 8upm. Ct., Jamaica, L. I. . .

Westohester Co. Supm. Cv> White
Plains. N. Y

Nassau Co. Supm. Ct., Mineola, L. I. . .

Passaic Co. Ct. Com. Pis., Paterson, N. J.

Fairfield Co. Supr. Ct., Bridgeport, Conn.

Knox Co. Circt. Ct., Galesburg, HI

Johnson Co. Dist. Ct., Iowa City, Iowa. .

Androscogjsin Co. Supm. Jud. Ct., Au-
burn, Me

Tompkins Co. Supm. Ct., Ithaca, N. Y.

Middlesex Co. Ct. Com Pis., New Bruns-
wick, N. J

U. S. Dist. Ct. Northern Dist., Cleve-
land, Ohio

Cuyahoga Co. Ct. Com. Pis., Qeyeland,
Ohio

Multnomah Co. Circt. Ct., Portland, Ore.

Monroe Co. Supm. Ct., Rochester, N. Y.

U. 8. Dist. Ct. Western Dist. Washing-
ton, Seattle

King Co. Supm. Ct., Seattle, Wash

Chemung Co. Supm. Ct., Elmira, N. Y.

Summit Co. Ct. Com. Pis., Akron, Ohio

Northampton Co. Ct. Com. Pis., Easton,
Pa.

Worcester Co. Supr. Ct., Worcester,
Mass.

Middlesex Co. Supr. Ct., Middletown,
Conn.

Bensselaer Co. Supm. Ct., Troy, N. Y.

U. 8. Dist. Ct. Southern Dist. O., Cin-
cinnati

New London Co. Supr. Ct., Norwich,
Conn

Average

AyaaAGB
Intsbval
Bbtwbbn
Abbival
amdDbcla'

BATION

(Years).

6.7
7.2

7.1

7.7
7.4

6.9
7.0
6.3
7.7
7.7
6.1

12.7
8.0

6.6

6.4

6.7
7.2
6.3

6.1
6.0
7.0
6.2

7.6

8.6

9.4
6.2

6.7

8.6

6.8

AVBBAGS

Intbbval

BUTWKKN

Dbclara-

TION AKD

Pvhtion
(Years)

4.7

4.3

6.2
3.9
6.6

6.2
4.9
6.2
4.8
4.6
3.6

3.0
3.6

4.6

6.0

11.1

6.5

7.1
8.8
4.8
4.2

4.2

4.1

8.7
4.1

6.4

4.2

6.1

AVBBAQB

Intbbval

BUTWBXN

Pmnnoif
aivdCbb-

TIllCATB

(Months)

6.1

3.9

4.1
6.0
4.6

6.8
4.7
4.1
6.3
4.8
4.6

4.2
6.4

6.2

4.6

4.6
6.1
4.6

4.8
11.1
12.7

6.7

6.6

6.4

6.3
7.7

6.1

6.8

4.9

237

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Supreme Judicial Court at Auburn, Maine. The latter
court in naturalization matters deals largely with
French-Canadians; of all the 385 Canadian petitioners
falling imder this analysis, this one court passed upon
61.5 per cent.

Having filed his declaration of intention after an
average residence in this country shown in all courts as
6.8 years — nearly two years more than the five years'
minimum residence required for the completion of citi-
zenship — our average immigrant waits more than five
years longer before he files his final petition for natural-
ization — although under the law he need have waited
only two. The range, however, was wide, between an
average of 3.0 years in the Supreme Court of Andros-
coggin County, Auburn, Maine, and 11.1 years in the
Circuit Court at Portland, Oregon. The whole aver-
age shown in all the courts studied was 5.1 years.
These are very surprising figures for those who»have
been complaining that we have hurried aUens into
citizenship.

Once the applicant has his petition filed, the process
becomes more expeditious. The figures collated for the
year 1913-14 show an average interval between peti-
tion and certificate of naturaUzation of 4.9 months; the
range is between 3.9 months in the United States Dis-
trict Court in Manhattan, and 12.7 months in the State
Supreme Court at Elmira, New York. From the point
of view of delay, three months must always be sub-
tracted, since the law requires, in any event, an interval
of at least ninety days after the petition is filed before
it can be considered by the court.

HOW DO THE RACIAL GROUPS COMPARE?

What light do the petitions throw upon the question of

the relative "civic and poUtical interest" of the various

288

LATER STATISTICS

racial groups, as shown by the interval that elapses
between their attainment of the age of 21 years, or if
they come here after they are 21, between their arrival
and their filing of the final petition?

TABLE XXn
AvEBAOE Interval Befobe Fiung PErmoN, After ATTAiMifEMT

OF TWENTT-ONE YSABS, FOR ThOSE ARRIVING AT AoEB OF OnB

TO Fourteen, by Races

COUNTBT OF BiBTH

All oountries

France

Norway

Switserland

Sweden

Scotland

England

Ireland

Germany

Canada

Denmark

Holland

Hungary

Greece

Finland

Roflsia

Italy

Austria

Turk^ in Asia. . .

Rumania

Turkey in Europe

NUMBXR m

AoB Gboup
1-14

2,900

280

192

873

651

889

AyxAAoa

Intsbyal

(Yean)

6.2

12.9

12.5

12.4

11.8

11.6

10.8

10.3

9.8

9.5

5.8

5.6

6.S

5.0

4.9

4.5

4.0

8.8

3.6

We have three groups of statistics on this point: those
petitioners arriving at the ages of I to 14, those at 15 to
20 years, and those 21 years and over. In the following

289

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

table the countries of birth are arranged in the order
of the average interval for those arriving at the ages of
1 to 14 years. The complete table will be found in the
Appendix.

TABLE XXm

Atebage Intebyal Befobe Filing Petition, Afteb Abbt^ai^ at
Ages of Fifteen to Twenty, bt Races

COXTMTBT or BiBTH

NuifBBB IN

Agb Group
15-20

AvmuoB

Intbbyal

(Yean)

All oountries.

Fhmoe

Canada

Switzerland

Germany

England

Sweden ^

Scotland

Denmark

Holland

Finland

Ireland

Norway

Italy

Hungary

Austria

Rumania

Russia.

Greece

Turkey in Asia

Turkey in Europe

9,512

000

216

269

609

148

1,198

960

1,658

202

8,055

11.01

17.7
17.8
15.6
14.1
18.6
12.7
12.7
12.2
12.2
11.7
11.5
11.8
10.8
10.8
10.6
10.2
9.9
9.7
9.0
7.9

^This average includes ^the figures for races whose numbers are
too small to justify generalization.

The striking thing in these tables is the fact that
ahnost without exception the countries showing the
longest intervals are those representing the old immi-
gration.

240

LATER STATISTICS

TABLE XXIV

AvBBAGE Intebyal Bsfobe Fujno PBnTiQN» Aftbb Abbival, at
Ages Twknty-onb ob Ovsb, bt Bacbb

CoumTJII OV BiBIH

NxTlfBBB DT

AoB Gbottp
21 Ybaxs
Ain> OvsB

Atuuob

Ihtbbval

(Yean)

An oountrie?.

Canada

Sweden

Switzerland.

France

Germany...

England

Italy

Norway

Scotland —

Finland

Austria

Denmark. . .
HoUana. . . .
Hungary....
Rumania. . .
Buada

^^x-JrdUind.
Greece.

Turkey in Asia. . .
Turkey in Europe.

ISM9

198

316

140

1,425

538

1,742

228

218

1,828

122

1,291

278

3,936

1,087

10. 6»

16.4

13.1

12.2

11.9

11.7

11.4

10.8

10.6

10.5

10.2

10.1

9.9

9.8

9.6

8.6

8.5

8.1

^Thi& average includes the figures for races whose nuiiibers are
too smaU to justify generalization.

THBT ABE TOUNG PEOPLE

They were young men. More than 60 per cent of them
were between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Of the
26,284 applicants for citizenship whose petitions were
examined, 16,586 — over three-fifths — came to this
country between the ages of 18 and SO. The prepon-
derance is striking:

241

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE XXV
Number and Feb Cent of Petitionebs fob Thbee Age Gboufb^

AOB AT AbBIVAI.

1-17

18-30

31 and over.
No data . . . .

Total.

Pbb Cbmt

25.1
68.1
11.6

99.8

^ The full table showing distribution of ages at arrival from infancy
to fifty years or over, is given in the Appendix, Table 57.

RELATIYB AGE AND "POLITICAL INTEREST*'

It is interesting to note, in this connection, the relation
between the age at which the alien arrives in this
country and the length of time that elapses before he
files his final petition for citizenship. The following
diagram exhibits this:

1 to 14 years.

15 to 20 yearSi

lll.(

21 years and over.

10.6

DiAGBAM 1

Average interval before filing petition after attainment of 21 years
(or time of arrival, if arriving after 21 years) for petitioners arriv-
ing at ages of 1 to 14, 15 to 20, and 21 years and over.

Close analysis of these lists further emphasizes the
importance of the factor of age at arrival as affecting the
lapse of time after the attainment of lawful age before
filing the final petition for citizenship. It appears, as
might well be expected, that those who come in child-
hood are more prompt than those who arrive between

242

LATER STATISTICS

15 and 20; but even those coming in childhood appear,
on the average, to wait until after they are 27. The
averages indicate, almost without exception, that those
coming at ages over 20 waited more than 10 years
before filing their petitions. Few come after they are
40 and then seek citizenship. The petitions show that
on the average those arriving at 1 to 14 applied 6.2
years after 21. Those arriving at 21 years or over
applied 10.6 years after arrival.

Those arriving between 15 and 20 applied 11 years
after arrival, but it is fallacious to compare this interval
with those in the case of the younger or older immi-
grants, because the five years' required residence might
mean application at 21 years of age by an immigrant
who came at 15 or 16, or at 25 years by one who came
at 20; while one who, coming at 15, waited the full aver-
age of 11 years would apply at 26, apparently more
promptly than one who, coming in infancy, did not
apply until he was 27 or over. The questions suggested
by the discrepancy here apparent are many, but the
data available furnish no definite answer to them.
Perhaps fuller statistics might substantially modify the
apparent discrepancies.

THE REAL RACIAL DISTINCTION

These men, the cream of our immigration — ^regi^'dless
of any fanciful distinction of race "older" or "newer"
— came in the flower of their young manhood to try
hazard of new fortunes in what they rightly believed
to be the land of promise and opportunity; lived here
from five to twelve years before they registered in
normal declaration their intention to become citizens;
lived here upward of five years more before filing their
final petition for citizenship, and nearly nine out of ten
of them passed thdr examinations and were admitted.

243

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

There is visible in these statistics a distinction of
race — ^a very interesting and inspiring distinction, but
it is not one of the "older** or "newer" races. It has
little to do with any supposititious di£Ference of racial
quality or character. Indeed, it redounds on the whole
to the credit of the more recent inmugration, and, so far
as it goes, would indicate, if anything, a greater potential
fitness for American citizenship. In Diagram 2, which
is based on Table XXIV, tJljie bars which are black
represent countries which have entirely a subject
people, or in which a proportion of the population
is subject. In the latter case it i^ the subject peoples
who come to this countiy in larger proportions than
the sovereign peoples. This is only one of the instances
which illustrate an interesting conclusion. Certainly
to a discerning eye this fact stands forth :

Those from countries where, at the time of their migra-
tion, there was either avtocraiic govemmerU or political
discontent, or inferior ecoruymdc opportunity, head the
list of those who seek, and upon examination prove their
title to, feUouhmembership with u>s.

Those from countries where government was relatively
democratic, where individual liberty prevailed, where
political, social, and economic conditions were conducive
to contentment, were satisfied to keep the citizenship of
their fatherlands.

Why should it require exhaustive investigation to
demonstrate so obvious, so inevitable an operation of
human psychology? What else was to have been
expected?

RACE AND RELATIVE AGE AT ARRIVAL

The racial distribution of these petitioners, with refer-
ence to age at arrival, is interesting and to some ex-
tent significant. Table XXVI, including only those

1 M 1 1 1 1 1 1 li

1 1 1 i M 1 1

AVERAGE FOR Mi

TURKEY IN EUROPE

TURKEY mi ASM ^^^^^^m^^MS^

eWECE 1 M I I I I I I IM

IRELAND

RUSSIA.
BOUMANIA
HUNGARY'
HOUANO

DENMARK
AUSTRIA
FINLAND
SCOTLAND
NORWAY
ITALY

ENGLAND
GERMANY
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND
SWEDEN
CANADA

lac

10^

[10.6 .

10.8

]1I.4 ^
]]ll,7 .
[]ll.9

1 1 1

J 1 1

1 1

1 113.1

1 1

1 1 1

]liA

Diagram SK

Average interval before filing petition after arrival at ages 21 or over
by races. The bars which are in black represent countries from which the
subject people constituted almost entirely the immigration to this country.

17 ««

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

races represented by at least 50 petitions, is arranged
in the order of percentages of those arriving after
attaining the age of 21 years. It throws sidelights
upon the variations of the age at which the individuals
of various races came to this country:

TABLE XXVI

Racial Dibtbibution of Petitionsbs, Showing Pebcentagbs fob
THE Age Pebiodb "Oveb Twenty-one," "Fifteen to
Twenty," and "One to Foubtben," in the Obdeb of the

FiBST-MENTIONED AgE GbOXTP

COUNTBT
or BXBTH

Scotland

Switzerland

France

England

Holland

Germany

Ireland

Denmark , . .

Norway

Finland

Hungary

Canada

Sweden

Russia

Rumania

Italy

Austria

Turkey in Europe. .

Turkey in Asia

Greece

Whole

NUMBBB
Ol" PUTl-
TIONKBS

288

1»7

8S1

189

2,305

1.773

200

889

144

2,443

885

616

7»864

569

3,591

3,875

142

NUMBXR AND PeRCENTAOS OF ThOSE

Arbiyino at Ages

21 and Over

Num-
ber

218

140

538

1,425

1,087

122

228

1,291

198

316

3,936

278

1.742

1,828

Per
Cent

15 to 20

75.7
71.7
66.3
64.7
64.7
61.8
61.3
61.0
58.6
58.3
52.8
51.4
51.3
50.1
48.9
48.5
47.2
45.7
44.4
34.4

1 to 14

Num-
ber

57
50
10

216
32

600

609
65

148
54

960
99

269
8,055

202

1,198

1,658

Per

Num-

Cent

ber

19.8

25.4

11.6

26.0

23.0

26.0

280

34.3

32.5

38.0

37.5

89.3

192

25.7

43.7

38.8

873

35.5

33.4

651

42.8

889

45.7

48.6

52.2

4.5

3.5

22.1

9.3

12.2

12.1

4.3

6.5

3.3

4.1

7.9

22.9

5.0

11.1

15.6

18.1

10.0

8.7

7.0

13.8

Inferences or generalizations from this table in con-
nection with the age statistics given heretofore would

246

LATER STATISTICS

be perQous, since we have not tabulated the data which
would sh6w» with regard to any particular racial group,
how many of those between 15 and 20 years of age came
at 18 or 19; or how many of those over 21 came after
they were 25 or before they were 30. So far as it goes»
however, it would appear to indicate that those of the
so-called ** older" inmiigration left their homelands at
a later age» while a larger proportion of those of the
*' newer** came in younger manhood. The larger per-
centages in the column "over 21" are credited to the
\ "older**; the larger in the second column, "15 to 20,"
\ to the "newer.**

AT THE BEGINNINO OF MARRIED LIFE

More than two-thirds (68.5 per cent) of the petitioners
were married at the time of their petition for natural-
ization. One may hazard the guess that the majority
were either unmarried or newly married when they
came to this country, because, while 89.9 per cent of
the 18,017 married petitioners reported wives of foreign
birth, 10,563 (73.5 per cent) of them had children ex-
clusively native-born. Only one in ten had foreign-
born children only, and only 16.5 per cent had both
native and foreign-born children. And 14,371 (79.8 per
cent) of the married petitioners had one or more chil-
dren under 21 years of age.^

AS FOR "stability OF RESIDENCE**

The question of what might be called the "residential
stability** of the immigrant in this country has been
the subject of much assertion and little substantial in-

^The full tables regarding marital condition and number and
nativity of children will be found (Tables LVI and LVII, respect-
ively) in the Appendix.

247

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

formation. The general tenor of the assertion and the
vague impression of the average person are to the effect
that the immigrant is more or less of a wanderer,
shifting from place to place, and for that reason failing
to establish anything resembling permanent residence
or to relate himself to the community as a neighbor.
Veiy little statistical data on this point is available, and
it is unsafe to generalize. There is, however, a some-
what startling disclosure in the 1915 census of the
state of Massachusetts, showing that in the class of
otherwise "justified" voters disqualified solely by rea-
son of not having resided one year in the state or six
months in the city or town, there were 21,2!^ native
and 3,845 foreign born; in other words, that 3.6 per
cent of the native-born voters were disqualified because
they were moving about; while only 1.9 per cent, or
just about half the proportion, of the foreign-bom were
disqualified for that reason.

The analysis of petitions by the Americanization
Study sheds a little further light on this subject, by
segregating the figures in each court showing petitions
which were filed by aliens who had filed their declara-
tion in another state. Of the total of 26,284, there were
1,859 of these, or 7.1 per cent. Undoubtedly this mov-
ing about, in search of employment or for other reasons,
is a considerable factor in the delay between arrival
and declaration and between declaration and petition.
Naturally, the figures would tend to be high on the
Pacific coast, to which immigrants travel by rather
long stages of time. The court in Portland, Oregon,
showed 234 out of 714 petitioners — ^almost a third — ^who
had filed their declaration in other states. This court
shows also the longest average interval between declar-
ation and petition. The courts in Seattle also show
high figures in this regard. The same tends to be true
of rapidly growing industrial centers, such as Cleve-

LATER STATISTICS

land, Bridgeport, Paterson, New Brunswick, New
Jersey.

TABLE XXVn

PBTinoNEBS Whose Declabationb Were Made in ▲ State Othbb
Than the One in Which the Coubt ib Located

COUBT

Norwich, Conn

Portland, Ore

Seattle, Wash, (state court)

Bridgeport, Conn

New Brunswidc, N. J

Cleveland, Ohio (U. S. court)

Paterson, N. J

Seattle, Wash. (U. S. court)

Middletown, Conn

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio (state court)

Easton, Pa

Ithaca, N.Y

Akron, Ohio

Iowa City, Iowa

Rochester, N. Y

Jamaica, L. I

Elmira,N.Y

Mineola, L. I

New York City (U. S. court)

White Plains, N. Y

Worcester, Mass

New York City (state court)

Bronx, N. Y. C. (state court)

Brooklyn, N. Y. C. (U. S. court). . . .

Total

PsrmoNXBB Who Dbolaxbd
IN Othxb Statbs

Number

Percent

48.7

284

82.8

29.4

28.4

21.6

158

18.4

10.2

9.8

9.5

9.4

152

8.9

8.7

8.0

7.7

7.0

6.5

5.8

5.2

121

5.0

4.8

452

4.1

S.5

8.0

1,859

7.1

That upward of 13 out of 14 — ^nearly 93 per cent — of
alien petitioners for American citizenship» in a total of

249

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

more than 26»000» should have been able to file their
final petitions in the same states in which, on an aver-
age of more than five years before, they had declared
their intention to do so» certainly attests a degree of
"stability of residence" comparing favorably with
that of other, native-bom residents of the country.
And it would seem also to justify the inference that
those who become naturalized have generally be-
come well assimilated into the life of the communities
where they live.

INTELLECTUAL EQUIPMENT AND OCCUPATION

As for the intellectual equipment and the general use->
fulness of the aspirants for citizenship represented in
the petitions studied, one may infer something from
the occupational range shown in an analysis of the
petitions for 1913-14 ija seven cities,^ representing a
wide variety of locality. This analysis showed, for each
of the 17 kinds of occupations listed, the ratio between
the number of naturalization petitions filed by persons
in those occupations in those cities in 1913-14, and the
foreign-born white males in those occupations in those
cities as shown by the census of 1910. Perhaps the
most striking fact emerging from this analysis, illumi-
nating to those who have supposed that the naturaliza-
tion process swept into citizenship the dregs of immi-
gration, is that the smallest percentage is shown in the
class of common labor; the highest in the grade of
executives, and the preponderance throughout attach-
ing to trades requiring a degree of dexterity and general
intelligence and information, if not technical training.
It is unsafe, however, to infer too much from these per-

^ New York (boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx and Queens), Cleve-
land, Cincinnati, Bridgeport, Paterson, Portland (Oregon), and
Rochester (New York).

250

LATER STATISTICS

centages, because of the relatively small numbers repre-
sented in some of the classes, and the large proportions
accredited to the garment trades and to ** retail dealers,"
among whom, doubtless, there were many mere ped-
dlers. The distribution of occupations is here set forth
in the order of the percentages:

TABLE XXViii

List of Pbincipal Occupations Repbbbxntbd in Pbtitignb fob
Naturalization FujED in Seven Citibb, 1915-14; Showing
Batio Between Numbeb of Pbtitionb and Total of Fosbign-
BOBN White Males in Those Oocupationb in Those Citihb
IN 1910

Occupations

Total

Managers and superintendents

Chauffeurs

Taflors

Clergymen

Bartenders

Plombers

Barbers

Bakers

Betail dealers

Painters and ^asiers

Carpenters

Salesmen

Manufacturing and officials. . .

Blacksmiths

Motormen

Bride and stone masons

Labor^s

NuMBBB or
PxnnoNSBa

IN Thosx
Occupations

9,930

154
176

2,120
67
248
193
872
328

2,103
514
779
591
511
161
92
219

1,802

Ratio to
FoRBioN Bobn

IN Thosb
OoouPATiomi

3.0

7.1
5.9
S,S
4.7
8.6
8.6
3.2
8.1
8.1
8.1
8.0
2.8
2.7
2.7
2.4
2.2
1.5

Analysis of the entire total of 26,284 petitions from
which the data were obtained shows a general occupa*-
tion distribution as follows:

251

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE XXIX
NmcBBB AND Pbb Cent of PfinnoNEBa m Each Occupation

Panxioinnui

OOCUFAXIONS

Total

Manufacturing and mechanical in-
dustries

Trade

Domestic and personal service

Clerical. . . 4

IVansportation

Professional service

Agriculture, forestry, and animal hus-
bandry

Public service

Extraction ci minerals

No information

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Certain inferences and conclusions seem to be warranted
on the whole by the examination and analyses in this
chapter and that preceding it, of the compilations of
the United States Census, the Immigration Conunis-
sion iji 1907» the Naturalization, Bureau and the Amer-
icanization Study.

First, and most important, is the destruction of the
legendary presumption of some change for the worse
in recent years in the inherent character-quality of
immigration to this country, and in the attitude of the
typical immigrant of those years toward American
citizenship. There has been no such change; indeed,
if there is any substantial difference in ** quality of
assimilability'' between the *' older" races and the
newer, it is in favor of the latter.

lATER STATISTICS

Second, it is evident that such di£Ference as exists
among races is not an inherent racial quality, but a
difference between the political, social, and economic con-
ditions al the time of migration in the country of origin.
Those nations whose people are most free from tyranny
and oppression and most contented with the conditions
under which they live at home, send the fewest immi-
grants to America; their emigrants come at a later age,
and when they do come they retain longest or alto-
gether their original citizenship.

Third, and broadly corollary, is the fact that the
major, not to say exclusively, controlling factor in the
political absorption of the immigrant is length of resi-
dence. The longer the individual lives in America the
more likely he is to seek active membership therein.

Fourth, the interval between arrival and petition for
naturalization — or even the original declaration of
intention — ^is much longer than has generally been
supposed. The average immigrant, regardless of racial
extraction, does not concern himself about political
privileges or activities until after long years of resi-
dence and the attainment of a considerable degree of
permanent social and economic status.

Fifth, knowledge of the English language at the time
of arrival is not a material factor in determining the
rapidity with which the individual seeks citizenship.
On the contrary, those of other tongues who have been
in the United States as long as those whose mother
speech is English show eveh greater interest and a
higher rate of naturalization. In the ordinary case, by
the time the immigrant of any race has been in this
country long enough to reach the normal stage of
interest in naturalization he has acquired a good work-
ing knowledge of the language.

Sixth — and from the common-sense point of view it
ought to occasion no surprise — ^is the evident influence

253

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

upon the display of *' civic and political interest" as
shown in the desire for citizenship, of social and eco-
nomic conditions in this country as they practically
affect the individual. Whether from northwestern or
from southeastern Europe, whether from the so-called
"recent" or "older" immigration, the racial groups
show a slower desire for citizenship and a lower rate of
naturalization while they are employed in the more
poorly paid industries; both the individual interest. and
the rate increase as the individuals toil upward in the
social and economic scale.

The inherent thing in the racial quality, experience,
and character of the inunigrant that leads some to seek
citizenship earlier than others, the essential element
in the "quality of assimilability," in the display of
"civic and political interest," is a human thing, which
lies, and always has lain, broad upon the face of nearly
all of the statistical tables over which students have
labored so intricately and pontificated so solemnly — ^in
some instances so absurdly. It is a thing so obvious
that it is difficult to understand why so many of them
have overlooked it.

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

Wb do not yet realize — ^perhaps we never shall fully
realize — the profound eflFect upon the whole structure
of our political life, and especially upon the quality of
our citizenship, wrought by the World War. One
effect, however, stands forth clearly: the war has
destroyed the underpinning of the great structure of
hand-picked citizenry which, during twelve years of
arduous labor and scrupulous straining of technicalities,
was built up by the Naturalization Bureau and the
courts on the basis of the Naturalization Law of 1906,
and tiu*ned into solemn farce most of the pontifical
preachments by which that policy was justified. Almost
overnight the whole long campaign for the establish-
ment of an educational standard of admission, the sys-
tem of technical exactitude of papers and microscopical
scrutiny of the antecedents, length of residence, and
even ^the personal opinions of applicants, and of the
competency of their witnesses, and so on, was nullified.
Aliens helter-skelter, hit-or-miss, were swept into full
citizenship to an aggregate well-nigh half as large as the
whole number admitted previously during the entire
period of the existence of the Naturalization Service.

When the United States entered the war, early in
1917, the instant necessity of raising a stupendous army
swiftly out of our heterogeneous population injected an
unprecedented factor into the question of naturaliza-
tion. The body of native-born citizens, even together

255

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

with the great mass of those among the foreign-bom
who were naturalized, was not sufficient. Aside from
that, there were considerations of another character;
such, for example, as were set forth by the Provost Mar-
shal General of the Army: ^

As soon as the estimates of population made by the Census
Bureau had been received, it begap to be apparent that the
rule of the Selective Service Act, which based the apportion-
ment of quotas on total population, and yet drew the quotas
from citiz^is and declarants only, would operate quite differ-
ently upon communities having largely differing percentages
of aliens in their population. In certain local-board jurisdic-
tions, in which the element of alien population exceeded 80
per cent of the total, the burden placed upon the citizen
population was very great. ... If in two communities of
equal population the citizen population of one were 100 per
cent of the whole and in the oth^ 60 per cent, the remainder
being composed of aliens, the two communities, though equal
in population, in resources, in industries, and in need of labor,
the efforts, and the enterprise of men of military age, would
fall under a very unequal tax upon their man power. The
all-citizen community would be required to furnish twice as
many men as the half -citizen, half -alien community.

POSITION OF THE ALIEN SOLDIER

The Provost Marshal General* reported 1,«43,801
aliens registered under the first draft, and estimated
that of these (21-30) nearly half a million (457,713)
had been called for examination, and 16.72 per cent —
nearly 17 out of every himdred — certified for service; a
few in ignorance of their right to exemption, but vir-
tually all of them voluntarily waiving that right.

The position of the aliens, even if they had declared
their intention to become citizens, was unenviable.

^Report of the Provost Marshal Omeral, 1917, p. M.
*Ibid., p. 53, Table 26.

256

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

They still owed technical allegiance to European sov-
ereignty — ^many of them to the nations with which we
were formally or practically at war. Many of them
were of the cobelligerent nations known as "the
Allies/' but were here in evasion of military-service laws
or other embarrassing legal obligations at home, making
personally undesirable their return to the old country;
and as for those of German, Austrian, Bulgarian, or
Turkish nationality, there was for them short shrift —
upon capture while fighting against armies of the Cen-
tral Powers — only the dismal certainty of summary exe-
cution as traitors. Their only possible shadow of pro-
tection would lie in completed American citizenship.

Furthermore, there was the fact that only American
citizens are eligible for conmussions as officers in the
military service of the United States; but in the new
army, and the augmented navy and marine corps — ^to
say nothing of the merchant marine — ^a very large num-
ber of officers would be needed. This last consideration
seems to have been the one which chiefly impressed the
Commissioner of Naturalization; for, in his explanation
<rf the necessity for the legislation of May 9, 1918,
which let down the bars to citizenship for the benefit of
aliens and declarants taken into the military service of
the nation, he twice refers to it: ^

No man engaged in the actual military and naval opera-
tions of our country can attain to the rank of commissioned
officer unless he be an American, either by birth in the
United States or by naturalization therein, irrespective of
his training or qualifications. As this restriction, made for
peace times, was no less a detriment to the country in limiting
its range of selection for commissions to citizens than to those
who demonstrated their efficiency, legislative action was
taken to remove this restriction. . . .

^ Annual Report cf the Commiasioner of NaturaliMotion, June 80,
1918, pp. 8, 81.

257

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

. . . The foreign-bom residents of the United States, non*
declarants and declarants, had not claimed exemption from
military service because of their alienage; but, unless he
could claim full American citizenship, none of them, however
valiantly he might fight, could receive a commission as an
officer, which is the laudable ambition of every soldier.

REVOLUTIONARY LEGISLATIVE ACTION

The revolutionary character of the legislative action
with which Congress undertook to meet the situation
in its various aspects is apparent in the description of
it given by the Commissioner of Naturalization in this
same report:^

Another authority which Congress conferred upon the
Bureau in aid of the national undertaking in Europe was a
new code of procedure by which recognition should be given
to certain foreign residents of the country . . . that elimi-
nated the delays so necessary in the general provisions of the
naturalization law. The requirement for posting petitions
for naturalization for at least 90 days before the court could
acquire jurisdiction of them for the purposes of admitting the
applicant to citizenship was so changed as to admit of the
hearing of the petition for naturalization, filed by members of
K^rtain enumerated exempted classes, without any delay, the
time for hearing being dependent only upon the convenience
of the court.

The Act of May 9, 1918, authorized petitions for natiuraliza-
tion and immediate hearing for any alien who serves in the
military or naval branches of the Govemmetit, upon any
United States vessel, any vessel of the American merchant
marine, or anyone honorably discharged from the National
Guard of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia,
within six months after honorable discharge therefrom. It
repealed the provisions of the law that previously extended

^ Annual Report of the Commiasioner of NaiuralizaUon, June 90,

1918, pp. 30-31.

258

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

the right of an alien to petition for naturalization after an
honorable discharge from the military or naval branches of
the Government at any time after such honorable discharge,
and, with few exceptions, reduced the period of time to six
months after such service and honorable discharge. The pro-
visions of the law heretofore existing were saved to those
holding honorable discharges from the military service where
the service was performed prior to January 1, 1900. This
provision was included in the law for the distinct purpose of
preserving to the veterans of the Civil and Spanish-American
Wars the rights which previously had been given to them.
The number of aliens now holding discharges from military
service prior to the date stated who have not applied for and
received American citizenship is small and constantly being
reduced.

To accomplish the provisions of this code of procedure it
was necessary to create a corps of examiners to aid in the
administration of a new statute under conditions wholly
strange and different from those ordinarily prevailing. The
law requires, very properly, that each candidate for natural-
ization whose immediate hearing is contemplated shall appear
before a representative of this Bureau before filing his petition
for naturalization. This particular provision has made it
possible for the machinery of the law to operate with the
minimum of friction. Indeed, there has been no friction at
any point in this new code.

The War Department presented the largest number of
candidates for naturalization under the new law. Their loca-
tion and distribution were general throughout the United
States, extending from points in Maine, throughout the
country, to the Pacific coast, in the various cantonments,
army camps, posts, and military stations. So insistent was
the demand for immediate action to naturalize the soldiers of
foreign birth in our ranks, in order to enable units to move
solidly and prevent dismemberment, that the Bureau detailed
immediately such of its experienced officers as it could spare
to take charge of instructing the newly appointed examiners,
even though their removal from their regular stations resulted

in embarrassments to courts, court officials, and thousands

259

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

of candidates under the general provisions of the law. From
various sources throughout the United States men qualified
in law and typewriting were nominated by citizens interested
in accon^plisbing this great need for our military forces. In
less than two weeks the process of naturalization had b^un
in many of the cantonments, and by the end of June, 63,99S
soldiers had become entitled to all of the rewards of the
American soldier by having citizenship conferred upon them.
The necessity of this legislation was clearly shown by the
report of the I^ovost Marshal Greneral, from which it appears
that there were 123,277 soldiers not naturalized. This total
comprised 76,545 foreigners who had not declared their in-
tention, and 46,732 declarants.

CITIZENS AT HEABT BUT " ENEMY ALIENS*'

A very important by-product of this legislation went to
the benefit of persons of foreign birth, long resident-
many of them practically life-long residents — ^in the
United States, but still aliens, and many of them enemy
aliens, in those states which at that time permitted voting
upon the declaration of intention without the completion
of naturalization. In many thousands of such cases,
these persons, technically aliens, not only had sons and
grandsons in the military service of the nation as volun-
teers or willingly drafted soldiers, but were themselves
of the highest degree of loyalty, enlisted to their last
ounce of energy and resources in the country's cause,
and in good faith believing themselves to be citizens in
full standing for every American purpose.^

An important provision of the Act of May 9, 1918, had for
its purpose the relief of those subjects of the Central Powers
who are able to establish their loyalty to the United States.
£ver since the States of Indiana, Missouri, South Dakota,
Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas have been admitted

^ Anntud Report of the Commissioner of Na^alissation, Jane 90^
1918, p. 38.

260

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

to statehood, aliens have been allowed to vote under the
constitutions of these States upon the making of their declara-
tions of intention to become citizens of the United States. In
several other States this condition prevailed* but in recent
years there have been such changes in the constitutions of all
of the States* except the seven named* that the franchise is
limited to American citizens. With the operation of the pro-
visions of the law requiring alien enemies to register there
were disclosures of himdreds of thousands of loyal residents
of the United States who believed themselves to be citizens,
but were found never to have completed their natundization.
Cases have been reported of unnaturalized foreign-bom resi-
dents of the United States who have lived here over 70 years;
persons who were brought here as infants by their parents
and who settled in those States where foreigners have always
enjoyed the right of franchise. Instances were shown of those
who had fought ii^ the Civil War; where they had held offices
of trust and responsibility, both of an elective and appointive
nature, such as members of the State legislatures, mayors,
judges, postmasters, and in x)ther capacities. The registra-
tion required of persons bom in the Central Powers, who had
not completed their American citizenship, disclosed the most
shocking state of affairs. Men and women who have their
children and grandchildren in the military forces of the
United States were disclosed as being not only as aliens but
enemy aliens; with no means for removing the stigma.

The relief jm)vided by Congress permitted such alien
enemies to be naturalized under certain restrictions
which need not now be detailed, except to mention that
the Bureau of Naturalization was empowered to inter-
pose objection in any case at its discretion, and obtain
continuance at its pleasure.

As was pointed out by Representative Howland of
Ohio, in 1910, in hearings before the House Committee
on Inmiigration and Naturalization, there has always
been a public sentiment in favor of allowing honorably
discharged soldiers to vote, regardless of naturalization.
Both such soldiers and their children have in good f aitk
18 ««1

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

believed themselves to be citizens. It appeared in those
hearings, by the way, that no requirement of citizenship
for enlistment in the army, navy, or marine corps had
existed in the United States until 1894, when an Act was
passed,^ providing that at least a declaration of inten-
tion should be required for a first enlistment. This
was suspended during the Spanish-American War, but
reinstated in force after the dose of that war.'

Representative Meeker of Missouri presented to the
House of Representatives in the summer of 1918 the
results of a personal inquiry regarding the attitude of
the nations of the world regarding the relations between
citizenship and military service.' Space is not here
available for even an outlind of what this inquiry dis-
closes; suflBice it to say — though it is obvious enough —
that never in the history of any niodern nation save
this has there been a wholesale sweeping into citizen-
ship, by reason of military service alone, of a very large
number of aliens upon an exhibit of qualifications con-
sisting in the last analysis of ability to pass the physical
tests of admission to the military service of the nation.

True, the form of an inquiry as to character and fit-
ness was maintained; but the fact is substantially, that
not only was full citizenship conferred upon every for-
eign-born soldier who desired it, but appreciable moral
pressiu^, to say the least, was exerted to induce many to
accept who cared nothing about it or perhaps did not
want it, as well as upon large numbers who had but
scant understanding of what it was all about. A few
definitely refused to be naturalized, for reasons vari-

1 Section 2, Act of August 1, 1894 (UniUd States Statuies^-Large^
«16).

* Section 12, Act of March 2, 1899 (SO United States Statviea-ai'
Large, 979).

* Speech of Jacob E. Medser, M.C., of Missouri, July 12, 1918.
Beprint from Congressional Record; Government Printing QflBloe^
1918.

262

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

ously stated and inteipreted; a few could not get the
required indorsement of their officers (who in absence of
others were accepted as witnesses) ; on the whole, how-
ever, it may be said that the mass of those admitted
under the "military naturalization" procedm^ knew
well enough what was happening, welcomed it gladly,
and were proud of the new status thus suddenly con-
ferred upon them. There is no purpose here to criticize
or demur to what was done; but it should be clearly
understood that it went far to overturn and nullify all
the elaborate procedure of hypercritical precaution, so
carefully constructed by the Naturalization Service
during twelve years, to the end of straining out of the
raw material of adopted citizenry every gnat of alien
disqualification. 5^70^^ dl ^Xl^.l . \(fX ^ ,

ALL SAFEOUArIs ABANDONED

In the previous year, 1917-18, even though the war wasi'^
already in full blast, of l£,18d petitions denied mor^
than two-thirds (8,422) were denied for the strictly
technical reason of "incompetent witnesses," "dedaraV
tion invalid," and "want of prosecution," and only\
1,720 for "immoral character" and "ignorance." In
the last year before the outbreak of the war (the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1914), of 118,572 petitions dis-
posed of, 13,133 were denied, most of them (8,986) for
these three reasons; only 1,735 for reasons going
definitely to the question of character and personal
fitness embodied in "immoral character" and "igno^
ranee." These figures are cited only to emphasize the
fact that up to the moinent of the installation of the (
system of military naturalization — ^and even after that
time outside of that system — ^the policy of meticulous
vigilance was maintained. In the six or seven weeks
between the enactment of May 9th and the end of the

fiscal June 30, 63,993 soldiers of foreign birth were

268

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

scooped into citizenship complete for every purpose.
One year later, June 30, 1919, the total number of these
military naturalizations had reached 12S,9S5* The
total number of petitions granted in the entire period
1908-18, even including the militaiy naturalizations
up to July 1, 1918, had been only 848,777.

Under the provisions now in view, aliens generally,
who were in the army, navy, marine corps, or United
States merchant marine, who had made declarations of
intention, could be naturalized wiliiout proof of five
years' 4'esidence in the United States, if it could be
shown that such residence could not be established;
aliens in the military service during the war could peti-
tion for naturalization without previous declaration or
proof of residence, and the machinery ci naturaliza-
tion, hitherto enlisted in the cause of delay, was now
devoted to every possible espediUon. Hearings were
as nearly immediate as possible. Aliens who had been
accepted previously into the military or naval service
on condition of becoming citizens were required to
prove only three years' residence. Honorable dischari
from previous service were accepted as evidence of bol
residence and satisfactory character when suppoi
by the evidence of two witnesses, and where such
sons were actually in the service there was comph
waiver of the requirement of certificates of arrival,
well as of the usual ninety days' posting and the statu-
tory intc9*val of thirty days before an election.

The proceeding might be held in the most convenient
court. Persons, other than enemy aliens, who had erro-
neously believed themselves to be citizens, who had
lived in the United States for at least five years preced-
ing July 1, 1914, could be natiuralized without dedara-
tion of intention. And the payment of any fees was
excused in applicants in the miUtaiy service, except in
those states where the derk of court is required to turn

264

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

into the state treasuiy his half of the receipts; in those
states only that half needed to be paid.

ALL RACE BESTBICTIONS BSOIOYED

Furthermore, the e£Pect of the law was such as to remove
the racial restrictions, so far as soldiers were concerned.
A number of Japanese and Chinese aliens were admitted
to citizenship under the military naturalization law. A
dispatch to the Associated Press from Honolulu, dated
February 14, 1919, cited Judge Horace Vaughan, of
the United States District Court for Hawaii, as having
*' already granted naturalization to 184 Japanese who
entered the service," and as holding that they were en-
titled to citizenship under the law. Indeed, the law
does say, repeatedly, **any alien.**

It was provided, too, that any American citizen,
native or foreign-bom, who, as would have been the
case under previously existing law, had lost or might
be deemed to have lost his citizenship by enlistment and
oath of allegiance to another sovereignty in the military
service of "any country at war with a country with
which the United States is now at war" might fully
and forthwith restore his American citizenship simply
by taking before any United States consul, or any court
having authority to confer citizenship, the oath of
allegiance to the United States.

In a word, the Act of May 9, 1918, overturned every-
thing the Bureau of Naturalization and the courts had
been contending for and making into law at great ex-
pense of time, money, and devoted labor. The bars
were not simply let down; they were obliterated.

ORDINARY NATURALIZATION DISRUPTED

"The soldier naturalization work completely dis-
rupted," says Commissioner Campbell, '^the other

265

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

naturalization work that arose in the courts under the
general provisions of the naturalization law, almost
the entire force of naturalization examiners being
necessary for the task," . . . "even though their
removal from their stations resulted in embarrassment
to courts, court officials, and thousands of candidates
for naturalization under the general provisions of the
law/;

It is impossible at this time to say, or even to estimate
with any degree of confidence, how many of the aliens,
thus hurriedly naturalized, actually saw the battle
lines in Europe, or even endiu*ed the perils by sea in-
volved in transport to the other side. A large number
of them never got farther from home than the army
can^ to which they were first sent. No statistics on
this subject have as yet been collated, or perhaps ever
will be. It is the impression of the Naturalization Serv-
ice, doubtless justified by the fact, that the majority
of the foreign-born soldiers thus naturalized at the
camps actually did get overseas, even though the armis-
tice prevented their ever further imperiling their lives
for the country and flag to which they had thus twice
sworn allegiance. The main reason for the haste was,
as the Commissioner says, to finish the naturalization
of the alien members of units in time for embarkation.
The courts engaged in this work at the large encamp-
ments, and particularly at the points of rendezvous for
embarkation, worked overtime. Eight courts were used
at Newport News alone. Every eflfort was bent to
catch the men before they went overseas; in many
cases aliens thrown into casual units were quickly nat-
uralized for the special purpose of permitting them to
catch up with their own organizations.

"Enemy aliens,** as a rule, were handled separately.
In one "job," 855 Serbs and Rumanians from Transyl-
vania, which was then a part of Austria-Hungary,

266

^ CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

were turned in a trice into full-fledged American
citizens.

Many got away without being naturalized, but made
up for it when they came home again, not a few with
wound stripes to reinforce their title to the new privilege.
There were naturalizations even in the hospitals, where
men in beds raised their right hands to take the oath of
allegiance. Little doubt about their knowing what
they were doing.

On the other hand, undoubtedly there were many
who did not at all understand. At one of the large hear-
ings at one of the far Western camps surreptitiously
brou^t their certificates of naturalization to two
women investigators for one of the Government War
organizations, and wanted to know what they meant.
• " Would you be so good as to tell us what these papers
are? " they said. " We got some papers before, and had
to go to court as witnesses. We had a great deal of
trouble. We would like to know if these papers will
get us into more trouble.'*

STATISTICS OF ALIEN REGISTRATION

The total registration under the operation of the Selec-
tive Service Act, during the whole period, June 5, 1917-
September 12, 1918, according to the report of the
Provost Marshal General,^ was 23,908,576. Of these
registrants' — ^roughly speaking, one-fifth of the total
population of the United States — 20,031,493 were citi-
zens; 3,877,083 were aliens. Of the citizens, 1,336,967
(6.67 per cent) were foreign-bom and naturalized. Of
the aliens, about one in three (1,270,184 — 32.76 per
cent) had declared intention to seek citizenship. More
than two and one-half millions (2,606,901 — 67.24 per

^ Second Report of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary qf
War^ 1918, p. 89.

267

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

cent) were aliens out-and-out, still owing full allegiance
to other sovereignties, and of nationality, so far as the
war was concerned, divided as follows:

TABLE XXX

Allegiance of Aliens Rbgistebbd Under the Selbctivs

Servicb Act^

NUMBUB

Pbb Cbnt

Tbtal registration

AgesM-31

Ages 18-20, S2-45

G>be]ligerent8 (the Allies)

Ages 21-31

Ages 18-20» 32-45

Neutrals

Ages 21-31

Ages 18-20, 32-45

Enemy and alHed enemy.

Ages 21-31

Ages 1&-20. 8iMi5

3,877,083
1,703,006
2,174,077

2,228,980
1,021,063
1,207,917

636,601
249,034
387,567

1,011,502
432,909
578,593

100.00

57.49

16.42

26.09

We have no figures to show how many of those aliens
and declarants registered in the registration of Septem-
ber 12, 1918, were below the age of 21 years; therefore it
is not possible to say just what proportion were avail-
able for naturalization under the special provisions of
the law of May 9th. The previous registration had
applied altogether to men above the age of 21, and of
course all of those in the subsequently registered dass
82-45 were naturalizable so far as age was concerned.

The classification of registrants under the registra-

^ Second Report cf the Provost Marehal General to the Secretary cf
War, on the Selective Service System to December 20, 1918^ p. 90,
Table 23.

268

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

tion of September 12, 1918, never was completed, being
stopped by the armistice of November 11th; therefore
the availability for service of the citizens and aliens has
been reported only for those between the ages of 21 and
31. Of the 1,708,006 aliens and declarants of this age
classification, a little less than one in three (538,363 —
31.61 per cent) had declared intention. The fitness of
these for service is shown by the following analysis:

TABLE XXXI
/Fitness fob Ssbyicb of Ausn Rbgibtbantb^

Placed in Class I.
Declarants —
Nondedarants.

Placed in deferred classes.

Declarants

Nondedarants

NUICBXB

Pbb Ckmt

414,889

24.88

160,594

29.64

258,795

21.79

1,288,617

75.67

877,769

71.86

910,848

78.21

^ Second Report of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of
War, on the Operations i>f the Selective Service System to Decenriber
20, 1918, p. 91, table 25.

ALIENS AND MILITARY SERVICE

As the Provost Marshal General says, in discussing the
intricate legal situation which the legislation of May 9»
1918, was calculated in part to meet, *'it was realized
that, from the point of view of international law, not
all aliens stood on the same footing in this country/'
He analyzed the differences as follows: '

(a) An alien occupying a diplomatic post enjoys immunity
from military service, as well as from many other burdens,

^ Second Report of the Protost Marshal General to the Secretary of
War, on the Operations of the Selective Serrioe System to December
2Q, 1918, p. 88.

269

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

for he b the repies^italive of a foreign country, present by
consent and invitation^ and is protected by a number of
privileges not enjoyed by a private citizen. Diplomatic
privileges do not extend to consuls, as they are not diplo-
matic officers, but merely representatives for commercial
purposes.

(b) A transitory alien friend cannot be compelled to serve
other than mere police duty, for otherwise commercial inter-
course would be interrupted and the person might be required
to aid a coimtry in which he is a stranger.

(c) An alien friead who is domiciled, that is to say, who is
a permanent resident, can be compelled to serve, for other-
wise he would receive the benefits of the government without
sharing the burdens. An alien's declaration of intention to
become a citizen, though it does not make him a citizen, is
conclusive evidence that he is properly to be considered a
permanent resident.

(d) An alien enemy cannot be forced to serve, for otherwise
he would be compelled to fight against his own coimtry.

(e) A national of a country with which the United States
has a treaty containing appropriate provisions may enjoy
exemption from compulsory military service. Some of our
treaties exempt all of the citizens of each c^ the high contract-
ing parties. Others exempt only certain designated classes.

The situation described in paragraph (c) was the one

under force of which Congress, in the Sdective Service

Act of May 18, 1917, based the draft "upon liability to

military service of all male citizens, or male persons,

not alien enemies, who have declared their intention to

become citizens," between the designated ages. As the

Provost Marshal General pointed out in his first report,

heretofore quoted, the exemption of alien nondedarants

would have created great injustice in the enforcement of

the local quotas in states and regions disparate in the

ratios of native bom and aliens; therefore, in legislation

of May and June, 1918, Congress changed the basis of

apportionment to meet this inequity, and incidentally

270

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

so that thereafter it became incumbent upon the alien
to bear the burden of proof of his right to exemption.

It is fair to assmne, as the Provost Marshal General
said,^

that it was impossible for the local and district boards or
any other governmental agencies independently to ascertain
whether or not a registrant was a nondeclarant alien, because
such an inquiry would involve a search of the records of the
naturalization courts. Federal and state, throughout the
entire country^ to ascertain a negative — wz., whether a per-
son had not declared his intention C'an obviously impossible
and absiurd inquiry," as one judge has said). . . . The regula-
tions and instructions required local and district boards to
give every alien ... a full and fair hearing, or a full and fair
opportunity to be heard, on any claim of exemption that he
might have. . . . Local boards were authorized to inquire into
the status of any registrant where they had reason to believe
that the particular registrant was a nondeclarant alien and
had failed through ignorance to claim exemption, and, if such
were found to be the case, the boards were required to ex-
empt him.

Legal advisory boards were established to aid regis-
trants — ^the coiu1;s generally upheld the right of out-and-
out aliens to exemption — ^moreover, in regions where
there were large numbers of aliens, the local draft boards
often, if not usually, included men of foreign race or
descent as well as men interested in and closely familiar
with the foreign-born population, who took every pains
to inform the ignorant and protect them in their rights.
On the whole, it is highly probable that the spirit of
the law in this regard was substantially observed

^ Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, 1918, p. 95
' A complete and current index of declarants in the Naturalization
Bureau at Washington would have made this a simple matter— :but
such an index never was up-to-date, and even the attempt to keep it
at all was abandoned altogether in 1915-16, as the Commissioner
acknowledged in his report for that year.

271

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

throughout the couniiy. The Naturalization Burdau —
virtually helpless as it was to prove or disprove claims
of alleged nondedarants — had referred to it more than
50^000

FOBEION BORN EAGER TO SERVE

The Provost Marshal Greneral declares that **the mass
of foreign-bom residents were themselves permeated
by the spirit of readiness to waive their exemptions and
voluntarily accepted the call to military service.^

Thousands of nondedarant aliens of cobelligerent and even
of neutral origin welcomed the opportunity to take up arms
against the arch enemy of all; the records of correspondence
in this office contain doquent testimony to this spirit. The
figures of alien classification indicate this, and the local
boards report explicitly that the number of nondedarant
aliens waiving their exemption was very large (191^491).

There came eventually into being a '^Foreign
Legion/' made up principally of nondedarant aliens, a
large proportion of whom, because of birth within the
territorial sovereignty of Austria-Hungary, were tedi-
nically enemy aliens. Their spirit is well exemplified
in a letter written by one such "enemy alien" at a time
before the army had awakened to the fact that these
men, whatever the technicalities of the prevailing polit-
ical geography might seem to show, were Allies in spirit,
with better cause to fight their titular sovereign than
any other sort of American; the author was a Jugo-
slav, who had been offered exemption because of his
"Austrian" nationality:

... I received the civil dothes sent from Cleveland, and at
the same time a thought occurred to me which never left me —
that I should fed ashamed to leave the army and go back to
civil life. Indeed, how I love my young, healthy life, how I
long to be free again, going my own ways without hearing the

^ Secmd Report cf the PravoH Marshal Oeneralp 1918, p. 96.

272

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

ocMnmand of another. But alas, am I justified to think of my
own liberty and happy life, when the moment is here that
calls on every young man to give liberty to others? Away»
you selfish thoughts. On into the battle: I am a Slovene
myself, and my fathers and grandfathers never had an oppor-*
tunity to fight for liberty. Indeed, they fought for himdreds
of years under the command of Hapsburgs to continue slavery
and tyranny. . . . Good by, my beloved young life; I shaQ
not return to my happy home until the day has come when I
can proudly see the liberated Jugoslavia in a liberated world.
Then I shaJl return, conscious that I have done my bit. If I
shall perish — ^I am afraid I will — ^let it be so; the only thing
I am sorry about is that I don't possess hundreds of lives,
giving them all for liberty.

Dear brother, the suit of clothes you sent me I sold to-day
to a man for thirty dollars, who thinks less than I do.

The provisions for immediate naturalization turned
the '* Foreign Legion" into a legion of citizens, and took
out of the category of aliens thousands of men of like
spirit. As for those of neutral nationality who with-
drew their declarations of intuition in accordance with
the provision made by Congress, and lapsed into purely
alien status, the following tabulation from the second
report of the Provost Marshal General, although only
partially complete, is illuminating:^

TABLE XXXn

Neittraib Withdbawino fbom thb Ssbyice

Total neutral alien declarants registered June 5,

1917-S^t. 11, 1918

Placed in deferred dass (66.62 per cent)

Placed in Class I ,

Exempted on withdrawal <3i declaration

77.644

61,726

25,918

818

In this group only three per cent availed themselves of
the privilege.

^Second Report of the ProvoH Marshal Qenerak I9I8, p. 102. Table 90,

273

AMEBICANS BY CHOICE

Of the significance and extent of the response to the
opportunity for immediate naturalization, the Provost
Marshal General says: ^

One test of the spirit of loyalty among aliens may be found
in the number of naturalizations applied for and granted to
registrants since the United States entered the war. Such
action inspires a s^itiment of admiration for their readiness
to enter the war in the service of their adopted country. The
Bureau of Naturalization reports that the total niunber of
naturalizations in the United States between October 1, 1917,
and September 30, 1918, was 179,816; and that since the
passage of the Act of May 8, 1918, the number of naturaliza-
tions accomplished in camp, up to November 30, 1918, was
155,^6. And there were only 414,389 aliens placed in Class I
up to September 11, 1918 (including declarants and non-
declarants), and as a large portion of these must have gone
overseas prior to June, 1918, it is plain that the opportunity
for naturalization found a hearty response from the great
majority of ahens to whom it was offered.

AUSTBIANS WHO WEBE NOT FOB AUSTBIA

Concerning the technically enemy aliens of the Austro-
Hungarian allegiance, the same report shows that when
Austria-Hungary became an enemy nation in December,
1917, it affected the status of some 239,000 registrants,
and that thereupon the camps were found to contain
"thousands of Austro-Hungarian declarants, not de-
ferred on ordinary grounds, and also a large number
(probably about 9,000) of Austro-Hungarian non-
declarants who had waived their alienage exemption." ^
"A great majority of these men," says the Provost
Marshal General, "were of the oppressed races of
Austria-Hungary, and therefore sympathetic with the
cause of the Allies and ready to remain in camp." As

^ Second Report of ihe Provost Marshal Oensralp 1918, p. 102.
2 Ibid., pp. 104, 105.

274

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

an evidence of this the report cites the fact that in one
camp, regarded as typical m absence of complete returns
called for by the Adjutant General of the army in
October, 1918, as to the aliens who desired discharge
or were suitable for discharge under the head of enemy
aliens:^

Out of a total of 1,589 aliens in this camp in October, 1918,
only 289 asked for discharge when the opportimity was offered,
or less than 20 per cent. Of these aliens, 383 were technically
enemy aliens, virtually all being either of Austro-Hungarian
or of Turkish allegiance; and 189, or a few more than 36 per
cent, applied for discharge. Of the cobelligerent aliens, 1,006
in all, and composed almost entirely of British, Italian, and
Russian subjects, only 24 applied for discharge, or a little
more than 2 per cent. Of the neutral aliens, 200 in all, 84
api^ed for discharge, or 42 per cent. These contrasts be-
tween the several groups show just such cleavage as we might
expect. The general figures indicate how slight was the dis-
position of these alien groups to withdraw from the oppor-
tunity of taking arms against the world foe.

THERE WAS HITMAN WAB-TIME PSYCHOLOGY

It would have been less than human, in the hectic state
of public feeling conditioning all the preparations for
war, had there not been instances — ^perhaps very many
instances — ^in which aliens were enlisted in spite or in
ignorance of their right to exemption; in which they
were virtually forced by local sentiment, displayed in
various more or less illegal and outrageous ways, to join
the army; but, on the whole, those who either actually
or by default waived their exemption were willing
soldiers, and their performances were quite equal in
fidelity and courage to those of the native-bom or nat-
uralized citizens.

^Second Report of the Provo9t Marshal General, 1918, pp. 101, 102.

276

AMEBICANS BY CHOICE

The Provost Marshal General is to some d^ree
candid about this: ^

That the boards occasionally aDowed themselves the
patriot's privilege of pleading with the man who had not fully
reflected on his duty is not to be doubted. An Italian was
about to daim exemption on account of alien citizenship.

''Are you sure you want to do this?" asked the chairman 61
the board.

"Why not?" was the inquiry.

"There are two reasons,*' said the offidal. ''One is the
United States, the other is Italy. Two flags call you to the
colors. There is a double reason for you."

"I'U go," he said.

But that the boards should be disparaged for thus at times
taking on the attitude of a recruiting officer no one would
maintain. Here, as in all other incidents of the draft, the
situation varied somewhat in different localities; and without
a doubt there were rare and sporadic local instances of care-
lessness and of bias which led to improper inductions. . . .
These various instances of induction <^ nondedarant aliens,
whether properly or improperly made, led to a number of
diplomatic protects on their behalf by the representatives of
foreign governments. The numb^ of these protests reaching
this office from the Secretary of State was some 5,852 in all.

DIPLOMATIC BEQUESTS FOB EXEMF^IO^

The list of these protests is interesting; it is arranged
here in the order of the number of cases, but for a fair
assessment of the sentiment value involved, one should
take into consideration the war* statu/s, and the relative
proportions, of the nationalities represented in the total
registration. These statistics are not in all cases avail-
able; btit so far as the report of the Provost Marshal
Greneral gives them, they are given in the last column:

^ Second Report of the ProvoH Marshal General to the Secretary cf
War, on the Operations of the Selective Service System to December
90, 1918, pp. 96>97*

276

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITABY SERVICE

TABLE XXXm

DiPLOlCATIC RSQITBSTO FOB DiSCHABGB OF AlIBNB, AND TOTAL

Bbgibtbation of Ausnb, bt Cottntbt of BnrxH

Ck>BSLLia-

■RKNTB

NUM-
BMROW

QUBBTS

NmiBBB

Rxou-

TMRWiD*

NsuraALB

Nttm-
bbb ov
RB-t

QUBSTS

NUMBBB

RBouh
tbbbds

Russia

Italy

1,488

166

110

808,508.

652,071 .
88,881
62,484

467,468'.'
56,607*

16,701
28,500

18,814

Switzerland . . .
Spain

005

502

404

241

216

100

21,888
44,820

Oreece

Norway

62,656

Portugal

Cuba

Penm^rk r r , , ,

88.457

Sweden

00,005

Crreat Britain

Mexico

102.617

Japan.

Braxil

Belgium

China ,.

PftTiftmA.

Netherlands.. .

Persia

Colombia. .....

Argentina

27»100

^ronrfk

Peru

Guatemala . . .
Honduras ....

Yenesuda

Chile

Siam

Santo Domingo

Total

1.877

2,228,080*

Total

2,780

686,601'

EnSMT AXfB

Nttmbbb ov

RBQUBflTB^

NUMBBB

RaouraBSD*

Tvakey.
Bulgarii
Austria.
German

071
804 '
62
8

81.608

10,878

751.212

158,800

^. •**.•••. ....•••

Total

1,845

1.011.502 '

Grand tot«

5,852«

•

^ Stoond Report of the ProtfoH Marshal General, 1018, p. 400.

* Ibid,, p. 800.

' This total represents the registration from all the BritLdi Empire.

* Not separately listed.

' Includes nationalities not listed in this table.

* jSfc. as per Reports.

277

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

BECIPBOCAL CONSdUFTION AMONG COBELUGEBENTS

A large factor in the diplomatic interchanges arising out
of induction or attempted induction of aliens into the
military service was the situation regarding cobelliger-
ents. It does not call for extended description here;
suffice it to say that the policy of reciprocal conscrip-
tion and of crediting registrants, whether citizens or
aliens, with the fact of their enlistment under the flag
of any of the Allied nations, largely relieved this situa-
tion, so far as the nondedarant alien was concerned.
A collateral development was the upgrowth of desire
on the part of representatives of the oppressed races of
Central Eiurope to organize armed forces under their
own commanders, and to proceed more or less inde-
pendently to the battle line. Of this the Provost
Marshal Greneral says: ^

The situation thus presented • • . was finally relieved in
part by two measures. In the fia*8t place, the War Depart-
ment conceded that aliens of the oppressed races, who had
already enlisted in the Polish foreign l^ion, should not be
required to be discharged and returned to the American
draft; but that in future no such enlistment should be sanc-
tioned. In the second place, the Army ApiHx>priation Act
authorized the organization of the Slavic Legion . . . into
which could be enlisted aliens of the oppressed races —
Czecho-Slovak, Jugo-Slav, and Ruthenian (omitting Polish),
who were otherwise exempted under the draft. . . . Com-
putations . . . give estimates for the number of nudes of
military age who would have been eligible for enlistment
under this act ranging between 188,000 and 880,000.

OF GEBltfAN DESCENT, BUT LOTAL AMERICANS

Tlie Provost Marshal General takes occasion to pay
high tribute to the thousands of registrants of German

^ Second Beport cf the ProvoH Marshal Oeneral, 1918, p. 107.

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CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

stock who "loyally stood by the American flag/* not-
withstanding the "natural distrust" at first attending
them in public opinion, "and the notorious intrigues
of the German government to secure their support."
The opportunity afforded to such of them as could
satisfy the courts and the Naturalization Service of
their loyalty, to become American citizens, was availed
of by them in large nimibers. It is regrettable that, as
the Provost Marshal General says: ^

Unfortunately, time has not sufficed to analyze the natural-
ization papers and thus discover the variances between the
different nationalities in this demonstration of loyalty to their
adoptive country.

DESERTION, AMONG ALIENS AND CITIZENS

It has been asserted by ill-informed persons representing
on the one hand those who attribute inherent defi-
ciencies and evil tendencies to the immigrant as such,.
and on the other those who seem to think that the immi-
grant as such is somehow superior to the native-bom
American, either that the desertions from the army or
evasions of military service were inordinately numer-
ous on the part of foreign bom as compared with the
native bom; or, per contra, that "the proportion of
desertions among the native bom is about twice as
great as among the foreign bom/' ^ In point of exact
fact and essential justice, neither of these views is justi-
fied. The Provost Mardial General deals directly, and*
with broad justice, with this situation: ^

Of the 474,861 deserters reported, the registration cards of
185,081 state that they are aliens. Of this niunber, ^,706

^ Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, 1918, p. 102.
« Scott Neaping in New York Call, April 24. 1919.
' Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, 1918, p. 206; Appen-
dix table 77-A, p. 462.

279

AMEBICANS BY CHOICE

had declared their intention to become oitisens, and were,
therefore, subject to draft, while 129,^268 had not declared such
intention, and were, therefore, on proper proof of alienage,
entitled to exemption. There were also 83,107 enemy alien^
who, of course, would not have been accepted in any event.

There are two main reasons for the large proportion of
alien desertions. The first is that many aliens, knowing that
under the selective-service law (and also, for many countries,
by treaty) they were entitled to exemption, believed that, by
stating on the registration cards that they were aliens, they
had performed their full duty with respect to the draft; they
ignored the regulations which required them to submit pnx^
c^ alienage. The second is that many of them did not speak
English, were ignorant of the laws and customs of this country,"
did not know that they were required to keep their load
boards informed of their addresses, and failed to realize their/
obligations to this country under the selective-service law.
And the difficulty experieaced by the local boards in reading
and writing their names frequently caused the mail notices
addressed to these registrants to go astray.

Apart from the foregoing explanations, however, which
would suffice to show that such aliens did not desert in the
ordinary sense, but merely failed to come forward to claim
their exemption, there was undoubtedly a large exodus €i
aliens from some of the border states, and those near to the
seaboard, where the easiest course fOr these ignorant and mis-
guided persons seemed to lie in flight beyond the national
boundaries.

The figures upon which the Provost Marshal General
thus comments are given by him in Table XXXIV.*

It is clear from these figures, and regardless of the
allowances made by the Provost Marshal General, as
quoted above, that nearly 11 out of every 100 aliens
registered, as against a little more than 3 out of every
100 citizens, who, in one way or another evaded or sought
to evade the draft; also that it is simply not true that

* Sec(mdR£portqfthePr(W)stMarshd6erieral,l91S,p.fm^

280

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

*'the proportion of desertions among the native bom
was about twice as great as among the foreign bom/'
True, the citizen-deserter percentage of the whole
number of registrants is 2.71» as against an alien-

TABLE XXXIV

CoicPABiscnT OF Reported DESEBnoNS of Ausn and

CinzEN Reg»tbant8

Dl»BBTION8

NXTMBSB

Total alieii and citisen registrants, June 5. 1917
to Scot. 11, 1918

10.679^14

Totii] desertioDS. ,.»....,.., x r ^ r » t r .,,,,.,.. .

474.861

Total alif^n rf^strants

1.708.000

B/qx>rted alien desntions

185,081

Total citizen reiristrants

8,976,808

RfiDorted ritiisen desertions. ..................

289.780

deserter percentage of 1.75 . . . but there were nearly
six times as many citizen registrants as alien. In order
even to equal the alien ratio, the citizen deserters would
have had to be considerably more than three times as
numerous as they were. But no such plausible excuses
could have been made for them! There are no avail-
able figures to show how many of the citizens who thus
evaded service were of foreign birth.

WAR*8 TEST OP "tHB BfBLTING-POT '*

The essential quality of manhood in America was
tested in all this business, and gave the lie direct alike
to those Americans who were wont to sneer at the alien
among us, and to the German autocracy which counted
upon those of Grerman descent in this country to prove
disloyal to America. ''The cosmopolitan composition
of our population was never more strikingly disclosed/'
says the Provost Marshal General, ''than by the recent

281

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

events of the World War, Then the melting pot stoo4
in the fierce fires c^ the national emergency; and it^
contents, heated in the flames, either fused into the
compact mass or floated off as dross." And he goes on
to say:^

The great and inspiring revelation here has been that men
of foreign and of native origin alike responded to the call to
arms with a patriotic devotion that confomided the cynical
plans of our archenemy, and surpassed our own highest ex-
pectations. No man can peruse the muster roll of one of our
camps, or the casualty list from a battlefield in France, with-
out realizing that America has fulfilled one of its highest mis-
sions in breeding a spirit of common loyalty among all those
who have shared the blessings of life on its free soil. No need
to speculate how it has come about; the great fact is demon-
strated that America makes Americans.

It is no part of the province of this volume to mul-
tiply words about the way in which these adopted
citizens of every racial blood gave account of them-
selves in the thousand ways of war service under their
new-pledged flag. That is history, which, as General
Crowder said, can be read broad upon the face of every
list of those who fell — ^foreign and native bom side by
side, their intermingling blood poured forth for '^Amer-
ica.'* The diaiy of a German officer, found on the
battlefield,^ tells what the common enemy found:

Only a few of the troops are of pure American origin. . • .
But these semi-Americans fully feel themselves to be the true
bom sons of their country.

AN OLD PRACTICE WITH A NEW SIGNIFICANCE

Who shall forecast the effect of this wholesale admission
of diens to full citizenship and potential political power

^ Second Report of the Provost Marshal General, 1918» p. 86.

282

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

in the United States? How many of these men were
among those whom, in earlier proceedings, the rigorous
precautions of the past had kept at arm's length? They
came up in courts far from their home jurisdiction; no
longer was the esteem of neighbor a prerequisite; no
longer was it necessary to have lived even one year in
any particular vicinage — or, indeed, to have any resi-
dence at all! There can be no checking up, even now,
to see whether even a criminal record should have de-
barred the applicant; the Bureau of Naturalization was
more than 500,000 behind in the examination of nat-
uralization certificates even before this flood of new
ones was poured in upon its overworked force!

In the old days, before the establishment of the Nat-
uralization Service, there was hurried admission of
thousands of aliens, regardless of qualifications, within
short periods, and it was deemed a dreadful menace to
our institutions. Of course this was very different &om
every point of view; but was the difference sufficient
to guarantee real assimilation into the spirit that we
like to believe characterizes sound American citizenship?

WHAT SOME JUDQES THOX7QHT OF IT

The questions addressed by the Americanization Study
in the sununer of 1919 to the naturalizing judges
throughout the country included this question:

Do you believe that the admission of large numbers of
aliens under the Act of May 9, 1918, solely on the ground of
military or naval service, without the usual requirements of
residence, etc., operated on the whole to the advantage of
the United States?

The paucity and hesitation, even reluctance, of the
replies are a striking evidence of the impossibility of
answering the question. Of 356 judges who gave any

288

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

attention at all to the question, 110 frankly declared
themselves unable to express any opinion whatever.
Thirteen were in grave doubt, inclining to the n^ative;
16 said only, "I hope so"; 108 replied flatly, "No,"
The others (109) in various phrases expressed their
a£Bb*mative. But many of these affirmatives were
greatly qualified. Some thought the advantage applied
only or chiefly to those soldiers who had volunteered;
others believed that the mental and physical training
and the psychological effect of imperiling his life for
the flag would offset the evils involved in hasty admis-
sion of the otherwise unqualified individual. Many
argued that, whatever the doubts about the wisdom ot
the policy, it was "only fair," "it is their right," "you
cannot deny citizenship to a man whom you compel to
fight for the country," etc.

"I held up about 68 Germans and Austrians," says
one judge, whose vote was an emphatic "No"; "but
the government at Washington advised taking them
in — and they were."

In a number of instances the judges declared that
they went against their own judgment in admitting
men whom they regarded as unfit — ^naturalizing them
only upon the insistence of the representatives of the
Naturalization Service. An eloquent illustration of
the about-face in the policy of the Bureau!

"No, decidedly!" cried a Michigan judge. "It was
a colossal blimder!"

"An impulsive act of Congress," answers another;
while an Iowa judge voices the opinion of many in
saying:

Mere willingness to fight is not necessarily an indication
of either patriotism or fitness.

Among these judges were several worthy of note who
officiated at the naturalization of very large numbers

284

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

of soldiers. The striking fact is that these, almost
without exception, were in various degrees enthusiastic
in their expressions of belief that the policy was a good
one. Some contented themselves with a mere "Yes"
for answer. Among these was one who naturalized
more than 10,000 men at one of the great camps of de-
barkation. Here are a few characteristic expressions
from others:

"They gave the best evidence of loyalty."
"It was the best thing to do under ^e circumstances."
"I do not see how the government could do otherwise with
men in the service before allowing them to go overseas."

"Yes. I have naturalized 400 and 500 men at a time, and
seen their enthusiasm for thb country, which, in my judg-
ment, was no sham."

"My policy was to decide for the applicant wherever I
could under the facts."

"I found in a majority of cases aliens in the armed service
were as enthusiastic as our own native-bom sons."

HERE WAS "attachment TO OUR PRINCIPLES"!

The naturalization of an alien under our laws [says Com-
missioner CampbeU]^ may be compared justly to the "coming
of age" celebration of the heir of a great estate. It is the
formal recognition of an accomplished fact, the attlainment of
manhood with all of its implications of the putting away of
childish things and the assumption of the obligations that
mark the mature and responsible personality. . . . The
vital thing to bear in mind in considering the statistics of
naturalization is that these figures represent human beings,
and human beings in that most important stage of human
progress stepping upward from the infantile stage of bUnd
and unquestioning obedience, backed by external compulsion,
to the plane of political maturity which not alone has a part
in the making of laws, but, what is more impcnrtant, must

^ Report of the Commiaeioner qf Immigrationt 1917, p. 1.

285

AMEBICANS BY CHOICE

obey the laws from an inward and sdf-imposed sense ct
obligation. . . . Genuine citizenship b primarily a state of
inward feding> and only secondarily one of knowledge. It is
not impossible for one to be a good citizen who is ignorant of
the forms of our government or who even has no very clear
mental conception of the basic principles upon which it is
founded.

The completion of the nationalizing process is marked
for every essential spiritual purpose, as Professor
Weatherly said,^ "when the things of the spirit are
held in comimon and cherished by all," or, as Renan
expresses it, when the people " have a comimon glory,
by reason of having " done great things together.

9>
99

How may a"* man more convincingly show his "at-
tachment to the principles of the Constitution,'^ his
benevolence toward "the good order and happiness"
of his country, than by imperiling his life for it?
"Greater love hath no man than this."

A candidate for naturalization, in ordinary condi-
tions exhibiting knowledge of the legal relationship
between the Federal and state governments, knowing
the name of the President of the United States, the
date of the battle of Bunker Hill, the cause of Shay's
Rebellion, and when the yellow fever came to Boston,
may have no more idea of what the flag of the United
States means and might mean than he has of the mental
processes of the ichthyosaurus; his very plenitude of
intellectual accomplishment may indeed make him
only the greater menace to the essential welfare of his
comimumty.

But when he becomes a citizen in the very act and
fact of going forth under that flag to lay down his life
for what it stands for — ^what better thing can he do,

^Proeeedings of the American Sociological Society, 1910, voL v., p.
57 et aeq,

286

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

what better evidence can he oflfer, of his "inward and
self-imposed sense of obligation? '^ Nay, more, how
better may he show that he is enlisting in the service of
his new country something that was kindred in the old?
There was a ringing challenge to aU our smug self-
sufficiency in what the Bohemians bore on their banner
in that Cleveland parade:

Amebicanb, Do Not Bb Dibcoubaged:

We Have Been Fiqhtino These Ttbants

Fob Thbee Hxtndbed Ybabs!

Many of us looked upon these men as somehow
sneaking into a privilege, overlooking the fact that
they were bringing us a gift!

ASSIMILATING THE ENEl^ES OF TYRANNY

We are hardly yet awake to the wonder of what hap-
pened, to the magnitude of the work of national assim-
ilation that took place aU in a moment. We were very
stupid about it. One of the most important officers
of our army, charged with great responsibility in the
preparations for the war, naively confessed some time
after the United States had entered upon it, that he
did not know who were the Czecho-Slovaks, or from
what part of the world they came! And it was only
with the greatest difficulty that the army authorities
were made to realize that most of the races making up
that political nightmare known as Austria-Hungary
desired nothing so much as the chance to help over-
throw the unspeakable tyranny from which they had
fled, against which they and their fathers had *^been
fighting for three hundred years." Better than the
Allies themselves they understood the cause of the
Allies, yet to the American army authorities they were
only "enemy aliens"!

287

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

It was in keeping with our statistical customs, not
only in the Naturalization and Immigration Bureaus,
but in the very census itself, to class an Austrian as an
Austrian, knowing little and caring less about the
world of difference between a Magyar and a Czech,
between a Croat and a Slovak — though all were '* Aus-
trians *' to the superficial eye of the census enumerator —
and the General Staff of the United States army, which
was going to war against '* Austria" with absurdly, un-
pardonably vague, notions as to what an *^ Austrian''
might be! It required a vigorous campaign of educa-
tion before there could emerge even a fair, working in-
teUigence in this regard; but emerge it finally did, and
the anti-Austrian ^^Austrians" at last got their chance
to go forth as American citizens under the Stars and
Stripes to help give the coup de grdce to the old oppressor
of themselves, their fathers, and their fathers' fathers.

EPISODES OF MILITART NATURALIZATION

In one army division, at Fort Riley, Kansas, thirty
nationalities were represented by the candidates for
citizenship, including not only the pseudo-Austrians,
but Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Armenia,
Syria, Guatemala, Honduras, the Azores, and most of
the rest of the civilized world. At Fort Ril^ was made
the record of "forty-three citizens in forty minutes."
At Camp Devens, Massachusetts, more than 2,000 men
were admitted to citizenship and took the oath of alle-
giance in one operation, lined up on the parade-ground
by nationaUties. A New York State court naturalized
soldiers of fifty-six racial varieties on the first day of the
visiting court.

In a session of court held in a Tennessee encampment
the court crier opened the ceremonies with his, ^Qyez!
C^ez!" and a procession of dignitaries, military and

288

CITIZENSHIP VIA MIUTARY SERVICE

civil, marched in under the flags for the ceremonial — a
solemn invocation, an address by a venerable judge,
and the crash of "The Star-spangled Banner," Then
the general made a speech, m which he welcomed each
of those who a little while before had been "strangers
and foreigners,'' and dubbed him "one of otir men/'

"Fellow citizens, comrades!" he struck home with
booming voice in his peroration, "we will lash ourselves
together with hoops of steel, and go forth to avenge the
outrages that have been conmiitted. There is no power
on earth that can keep us from our purpose! "

Some soldier started the song, "Keep the Home Fires
Biu-ning," and the aliens of a little while before, many
of them hardly knowing the English word, joined in,
with lusty emphasis upon and new significance in the
refrain,

**Till the boys come homer*

Down in Alabama, a government official at a similar
session apostrophized Liberty in strident Polish, fol-
lowed by a second lieutenant in similar vein, but in
Italian; and even those of other tongues, including
English, who could not understand the words, knew
well enough or felt in their hearts the drift of it.

As has been said, some got across without naturaliza-
tion, and one aftermath of that was an extraordinary
scene in the Walter Reid Hospital at Washington. The
opportimity returned to the woimded there, in dramatic
guise. An orderly walked through the wards smnmoning
all men who desired to become citizens to gather at once
in the library, to be taken before the judge.

There was a scrambling from cots, men with missing
limbs, lads with heavily bandaged faces, soldiers in
every manner of hospital n£glig6. The thump of
crutches was heard along the halls — ^more than a hun-
dred answered the first call. When the officer in charge

' 289

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

looked over the battered and motley assembly^ saw the
lame and helpless being assisted into motor vehicles
for the journey to court, he gave an order designed to
produce more formal dress for another occasion, but did
not dampen the ardor of that going! And before the
judge they held up their hands, or stumps of hands,
and swore their fealty to the country to which already
they had given better proof.

Out at Camp Zachary Taylor, near Louisville, Ken-
tucky, is a great ash tree, now come to be known as
*' Naturalization Tree." Its arms, in benedicticm, have
been spread out over many hundreds of new citizens
as they took the oath of allegiance and marched away
upon their first American duty. That tree is for them
a monument, a memorial of a Great Occasion.

In one of the Eastern camps three officers, helping
the Naturalization Service in this business, looked up
at one another in the spell of a common thought :

"^Here we are. Major Schmidt, Captain Pulaski, and
Lieutenant Martinelli'^ — such might have been their
names; they were of races as various — "all of foreign
birth, helping to make Americans!"

'Twas a pregnant thought, and it typified what was
going on all over the coimtry, in preparation for the
"doing of great things together," for the new nation's
acquisition of "a common glory in the past ... a will
to do still greater things in the future."

In the varied procession that passed on this errand

before just one court came a Gentleman from Verona

and a Merchant of Venice, as the judge himself

styled them; a Filipino who had served two years in

the Philippine constabulary; an Abyssinian count,

born in Somaliland and claiming kinship to IQng

Menelik and to speak twenty-seven languages. Then

there was Dugga Ram, a Hindu, whom the judge made

an exception to the rule against Asiatics; and the man

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CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

from Russian Poland, who denied having any sovereign
at all; the Armenian who said he would refuse citizen-
ship if to get it he had to acknowledge himself a Turkish
subject; the technically alien color sergeant who had
served for years in the regular army and had been
wounded in the Philippines.

An old soldier of the Civil War, still an alien in the
eyes of the law, a Kentuckian seventy-six years old
with a wife and six children, aU bom on this soil, and
Americans beyond cavil, took advantage of the oppor-
timity to file his tattered old army discharge of 1865
in lieu of "first papers." There will be, till he dies, two
Great Dates in that old fellow's life — 1861, when, like
the aliens of this war, he pledged his life to maintain
the United States, and 1918, when the United States
formally accepted him into full recorded fealty and
fellowship. Yet the Fad had been a himian reality for
nearly sixty years!

There were not a few officers who had been commis*
sioned in oversight of the fact that their alienage legally
should have barred them. The drfect was swiftly
removed. And there were English and Irish and
Scotch and Welsh — ^and others, too — ^who had been
here so many years and were so saturated with all that
is essential of Americanism that their naturalization
seemed a formality almost absurdly superfluous.

To all of these at various times and under diverse
conditions — sometimes in glaring noonday inbreaks of
dreary camp routine; sometimes at night in the last
hours before the grim setting forth for France — ^great
words were spoken to solenmize and signalize the trans-
action. Perhaps the best of all was that tense sentence
of General Bell:

I beg cf you not to take this oath of allegiance to the UnUet
States urdees His in your heart to do so.

291

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Let it not be forgotten that nobody compelled these
men to utilize this privilege. The law stipulated only
that they ^^Trtay petition." Their alienage would have
exempted them from service and the peril that awaited
them.

At first, the certificates of naturalization were deliv-
ered; but later, as the flood of applicants became over-
whelming and the complications involved hurried
departure overseas, before the papers were ready, and
other considerations, the delivery was delayed, and the
men were advised to arrange to have their precious
'Mast papers'' sent rather to their homes, or even
retained in Washington until after the war. This was
a deep disappointment to the new citizens; and at
Camp Upton, for one example, a judge, who knew
men by heart, caused the drawing up of a mimeo-
graphed temp<M*ary certificate, properly embellished
with "SS," "Be it known," and all the rest of the
imposing verbiage, with the scddier's name suitf^bly
prominent in mid-page.

THOSE WHO WENT WITHOUT CITIZENSHIP

Many alien soldiers who were entitled to naturalizar
tion went overseas without having been naturalized; a
large number before the permission had been made
available. Many others, still in the cantonments, had
not yet been reached by the process. The situation
with regard to such of these as, on their discharge, took
steps to get the citBenship to which they were entitled
is suggested, even if not completely set forth, by the
former chief examiner of one of the large districts,
quoted by the Commissioner of Naturalization in his
report for 1919: ^

^ Report of the Commisnoner of NaturaiisuslUm^ 1910» pp. 21» 82.

292

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

After the armistice a different situation arose. Many
thousands of soldiers have been, are being, and for some time
will be discharged who did not have the opportunity to be
naturalized while in the service. The work in connection
with their naturalization . . . devolves solely upon the force
ci this service; . . . the army is no longer in a position to
render aid. . . . The demands upon the field-naturalizaticm
offices are so great that both civilian and soldier naturaliza-
tion have had to suffer. Because of inability to furnish a
sufficient allotment for additional clerical assistants in the
office of the derk of one of the largest naturalization courts
in the United States, the clerk is able to care for but a small
proportion of the soldier applicants as promptly as should be,
and, under his present allowance, will be able to naturalize
only approximately a half dozen daily. In another office of
the clerk of a large naturalization court, civilians and honor-
ably discharged soldiers are being turned away without
receiving attention; and this is equally true in the field nat-
uralization offices. So large a number of soldier applicants
are coming into the field offices that in some it has become
necessary to take the names and addresses of the apphcants
as they call and send notices to them at a future date when
they can hope to have their applications attended to. Notices
have also been inserted in the newspapers notifying them of
the time they may appear, in order to save llie time and
expense of useless trips to the offices of examiners. It has
also been necessary to close the doors of naturalization offices
when the number of applicants admitted to offices constituted
as many as could be accommodated. This has resulted in
turning away from 100 to 150 soldiers and civilians daily in
several cities. Because of insufficiency of appropriation, it
has become necessary in one field office to limit the taking of
civilian petitions for naturalization to only two days of the
week in order to take care of the applications of honorably
discharged soldiers.

These demands upon this service and the offices of the
clerks of courts are so great that the government is being
severely criticized for not providing facilities for both the
soldiers and civilian foreign bom to take steps
20 «^3

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

toward procuring their American citizenship to which they
are justly entitled.

A GREAT COMPOSITE RECORD OF LOTAI/TY

Mr. Raymond F. Crist, then Director of Citizenship
in the Bureau of Naturalization, pays a well-deserved
tribute to the loyalty and the sacrifices of the foreign
bom, and points to the enhanced responsibility laid
upon us by the service these men gave. In his report
to the Commissioner of Naturalization,^ ** Concerning
Americanization Activities,'' Mr. Crist says, in part:

The names upon the roll of honor of the nation that were
cabled back by the American Expeditionary Forces in France
give emphatic testimony to the loyalty of the foreign bom.
The names on the rolls represent all Eim)pean nationalities.
So strongly in evidence were these names that they might
well have been the rosters of the dead and wounded of any or
all the European countries. The percentage of distinctly
non-Anglo-Saxon names was exceedingly high. These lists
still give mute testimony to the fact that the immigrant and
the immigrant's sons have laid down their lives for the land
of their adoption. When the final records are computed they
will imdoubtedly show the presence in the military forces of
our nation of the full quota of those of foreign birth. Their
presence in our military and naval forces has worked a trans-
formation with them. It has created an after-war debt and
obligation upon the United States. The alien-bom soldier
has retmmed to America an educated and transformed indi-
vidual. He is an American in all the senses.

Without intention to cavil or quibble about what
Mr. Crist says — ^for what he says is essentially true —
it is needful to remember that neither the stress of
emotion imder which these mass ceremonies at the
camps were conducted, nor the act and fact of natural-
ization itself, nor yet, in any substantial way, the

^ Report of the Commiasioner of NaturalizaHon, 1910, p. 37.

294

CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE

experiences in the army, could make new creatures of
these men. They were afterward — ^they are iiow,
especially in the diill reaction from the exuberance of
that excited period — ^what they were before — "just
folks" — goody bad, and indifferent, like the rest of us.

But there is this difference in what it means to them:
They were welcomed into citizenship without the heart-
breaking, gnat-straining suspicion through which, in
normal times, they would have had to go if they went
at all. And no politician iu*ged or herded them into
voting status and power at any stage of it. For their
American citizenship and share in the common sov-
ereignty they are under obligation to nobody. They
bought what they got, as it were, with their own blood.

What intellectual preparation or textbook schooling,
what weary treading of red-tape labyrinth, what minute
inspection by government f unctionaiy in zealous search
for undotted or uncrossed letters in a seven-year-old
document, would better test or attest an alien's capac-
ity for citizenship, or make his induction safer for
Democracy?

Anyway, these men — ^those not dead on foreign fields
as their first, and last, service to the flag — ^have gone
back to their communities with a new status, and, we
may hope, with a new sense of their relation to and
responsibility for the nation's welfare. It remains to
be seen what use they and the rest of us will make of
these new things.

THE FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN, HER HOME AND HER
CHILDREN, IN AMERICAN POLITICS

The foreign-born woman plays directiy in American
politics a part somewhat, but not much, more important
than that played by snakes in the zoSlogy of Ireland.
There are several reasons for this besides the fact that
hitherto she has shared the legal disabilities conmion
to her sex in the American political scheme — ^which fact,
by itself, has now been largely mitigated by the final
ratification of the Nineteenth (Woman Suffrage)
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States;
though even that applies only to the ballot, and has
not removed either the legal or the general traditional
limitations and inequities under which women, in most
parts of the country, still abide. So far as the ballot is
concerned, the American woman, native or naturalized,
is now acknowledged to be an individual person.

But the foreign-bom woman, if married, is subject
to a substantial limitation. She has citizenship only
if her husband has it; she derives it, not by virtue of
any act or wish or character of her own, but by strict
^inference from that of her husband. However much
she may desire to become an American citizen, she can-
not do so unless her husband chooses to become one;
however desirable in her own right or fitness, the unfit-
/' ness of her husband, or his rejection for any other
reason, tp^o/odo excludes Aer. And, i^er cofi^a, howev^

much she might desire to remain a subject or citizen of

29(1

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

the country of her birth or former residence, the nat-
uralization of her husband, with or without her consent,
even with or without her knowledge, ij>so facto inflicts
American citizenship upon her. True, this is tech-
nically subject to the provision of the law requiring
that she must herself be eligible for citizenship; but,
as has been stated elsewhere in this volume,^ there is
disagreement among the authorities as to whether this
proviso was intended by Congress to apply only to
women of those Oriental races, which are ineligible
per se, or is applicable generally to the individual
woman; also, there has been some attempt to hold that
the wife is not naturalized by the naturalization of her
husband if she bontinues to reside in the old country.
Some judges will not naturalize a man if his wife remains
abroad. Cenerally speaking, however, the construction
is that the wife, whoever and wherever she may be,
comes into American citizenship willy-nilly with the
acceptance of her husband.

More than that, a woman bom and residing in an-
other country becomes an American citizen by her
marriage with <me; the clergyman, or other official, who
pronounces them man and wife attests also an auto-
matic and instantaneous change of jurisdiction and
allegiance. It works equally the other way about — ^an
American woman, marrying an alien in this country,
in the house in which abe was bom and has lived for
twenty years, forthwith, and regardless of any wish of
hers in the matter, becomes inatarder in the eyes of
American law — and generally of international law as
well — a citizen or subject of the sovereignty to which
her alien husband owes allegiance. It is conceivable, as
is elsewhere remarked, that her act in marrying an
alien might deprive her of any citizenship at lUl, since

^ See cliap. iii on Cituensliip, p. 40 ei $eq.

9Sn

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

no country can actually confer upon any person citizen-
ship in another. This, however, is academic, since
practically everywhere it is fundamental in the law
that a married woman's citizenship goes with that of
her husband.

REGARDLESS OF QUALIFICATIONS

By this means she may become a citizen, regardless of
her age or minority or moral character, without having
resided in this country five years, or any other length
of time; without any inquiry as to physical or mental
qualification; without taking any oath of allegiance;
without necessarily being, or even claiming to be, '^well
disposed to the peace and good order of the United
States'' or ^* attached to the principles of the Constitu-
tion." Coming to this country as an American citizen,
she cannot be rejected or deported because of ai^
views she may entertain on any subject, or any conduct
on her part, however immoral or otherwise prejudicial
it may be deemed. She is a citizen of the United
States, entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immuni-
ties attached to that exalted state. There has been
more than one case in which a woman, about to be
deported as immoral, has been able to avoid deportation
by marrying a citizen.

X7NMARRIED WOMEN HAVE MALE RIGHTS

The unmarried foreign-bom woman or widow stands,
as far as citizenship is concerned, upon her own feet,
afid becomes a citizen under the same conditions, and
upon the same terms, as if she were a man. She must
be of one of the races admissible imder the law, must
have resided in the United States or within its jurisdic-
tion continuously for the five years next preceding her

298

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

application, and at least two and not more than seven
years before that application must have filed her declar-
ation of intention; she must (unless a dumb person)
be able to speak (and» if the court sees fit to require it>
also to read and even to write) the English language;
she must present her two citizen witnesses, and must
satisfy the court that she is not an anarchist or a be-
liever in polygamy, and that she is in all respects fit
to become a citizen of the United States, attached to
the principles of the Constitution thereof, "and well
disposed to the good order and happiness of the same."
She must abjure any former allegiance and renounce
any title of nobility which she may have borne.

If she be a widow with children, she must list them
in her application, and such of them as are minors will
gain their new citizenship with hers. But in order to
gain citizenship with her they must be imder twenty-
one years of age when she is naturalized, and must
become residents of this country before they are twenty-
one. The child is not a citizen until he becomes a
resident.

DANGERS OP "dERTVATIVB CITIZENSHIP**

The subject of "derivative citizenship'* is one that han
been much and deservedly on the mind of the Natural^
ization Bureau, especially since the aspects of citizen-
ship brought to the front by the war came into wider
attention. In his report to the Commissioner of Nat-
uralization for the year ending June SO, 1919, Raymond
F. Crist, as Director of Citizenship, points out that on
the whole the male applicants for citizenship

. . . are men who have had such opportunities to acquire
knowledge of our language and of our institutions of govern-
ment, and to adopt American customs, as their environments

299

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

permitted. They have not been passing their lives within the
four walls of their homes; they have had a much greater
opportunity for contact with the American public than the
foreign-bom women. The husband may have gone to the
public schools of his community and acquired a practical
equipment not only of our language, but of such character as
is attained through what is usually called a "common-school
education." Because he has acquired these qualifications for
American citizenship he may be admitted. His admission to
citizenship confers a like right upon his wife to exercise the
franchise to-day in those states where suffrage is universal.
To-morrow, when that right is acquired byall,theoonferring of
citizenship upon the wife will also enfranchise her.

The man has to pass an increasingly rigid examina-
tion; he is personally put through a severe inspection
of hb antecedents, his character, his personal opinions.
His wife becomes a citizen without any examination
whatever. The most meticulously particular court, the
most painstaking naturalization examiner, cannot pre-
vent her becoming a citizen and a voter without exclud-
ing the husband, who may, on his own account, be ex-
cepticmally desirable.

The Director of Citizenship goes on to say:

(jenerally the foreign-bom women reside in an atmosphere
and an environment wholly foreign. They have no oppor-
tunity, as a rule, to come into any sort of contact with Amer-
ican thought. They are as though they had never left their
European homelands and were still in their native cities and
towns. However much their condition of ignorance of our
language, customs, or governmental institutions may be in
evidence, they are, nevertheless, clothed with full American
citizenship upon the naturalization of their husbands. There
are approximately 2,000,000 women who will receive citizen-
ship through the naturalization of their husbands within the
next few years, and the addition of such a large number of

citizens who know nothing whatsoever of their responsibilities

300

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

presents a grave problem, and one which should be given the
most attentive consideration by the legislative body. It
would seem to be advisable to have some restrictive measure
provided in the admission to citizenship that would condition
the admission of a married man to the responsibilities of
citizenship upon the qualifying of his wife.

TThe vital importance of this question of "derivative
citizenship" is dear in the statistics gathered by the
Americanization Study for the fiscal year 1913-14. Of
the 26,284 naturalization petitions covered by that
analysis, only 154, or .6 of 1 per cent, were those of
women. But more than two-thirds (68.5 per cent) were
married, from which it is evident that, in the large
majority of these cases, foreign-bom women were swept
into citizenship by the naturalization of the husband.
For less than one in ten of them were married to women
bom in the United States. And even these American-
bom women had lost their citizenship through marriage
to aliens, regaining it only when their foreign-bom
husbands became citizens.

CHILDREN OF ALIENS HERE AMERICAN BORN

These statistics bring out also another extremely inter-
esting, and to most people surprising, fact; that is, that
the children of our foreign-born citizens largely were
bom in this country and are therefore, in their own right,
American citizens. Probably most persons think of the
foreign-bom population as coming to this country with
a horde of foreign-bom children. This appears to be
contrary to the facts. As can be seen in Table 56,
in the Appendix, four out of five of the petitioners
studied had children, and nearly three-quarters of them
had native-bom children only. One-fifth had foreign-
bom children only, and the rest had both foreign and

801

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

native-bom. The total number of foreign-bom children
under twenty-one years of age was 49843.

''deriyative citizenship*' almost equals the direct

The thing that appears plain and highly significant in
these figures is the fact that every 100 certificates of
naturalization granted carried into citizenship on the
average of 93 other persons, of whom 62 were women,
virtually regardless of their own qualifications, and 31
boys and girls imder twenty-one years of age. The
number of unmarried women and widows was alto-
gether negligible. And these 62 women were virtually
all foreign bom, the proportion of those men having
native-bom wives, who were thus restored to their
birthright citizenship, being only 9.1 per cent. (It
should be remarked, however, that the proportion of
petitioners having native-bom wives varies greatly —
from less than 4 per cent in one court to more than
SO per cent in three of the smaller courts.)

Hitherto, no information whatever has been avail-
able as to the number of persons carried into citizenship
by the naturalization of the father. Assuming, as
probably it is safe to do so, that the ratio has generally
been maintained in the past, the totals of "derivative
citizenship" become portentous. In 1910, the census
reported 6,646,817 foreign-bom white males over
twenty-one years of age. Of these, not quite one-half
(8,034,117, or 45.6 per cent) were naturalized. It is not
safe to assume that all of the remainder were unnatural*
ized, because it is not dear that the enumerators were
careful to report as naturalized those who, though
foreign bom, had been automatically carried into citi-
zenship by their father's naturalization before they
were twenty-one. Possibly a part of the relatively large

number of cases (11.7 per cent) in which citizenship was

802

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

not reported may be accounted for by ignorance or
doubt as to the status of the father.

WOliAN SUFFRAGE WAS WIDESPREAD

However that may be, it is sufficiently evident that a
vast number of mothers, actual or potential, have been
accorded full and irrevocable citizenship, and the voting
power involved, through the naturalization of their
husbands. Of these, the proportion of those to whom
it really meant anything, or means anything yet, is
small. The danger, as far as the ballot was concerned,
was and is inconsiderable. Yet it was potentially large,
in a good-sized part of the country. Prior to the ratifica-
tion of the Woman Suffrage Amendment women already
had full or partial suffrage in most of the states, as will
be seen in the following table:

TABLE XXXV

Yeabs in Which Full and Fabtial Suffbaob Was Granted to

Women in Each State

Full

State

Date

Wyoming ....

1869

Colorado

1893

Idaho

1896

Utah

1896
1910

Washington ..

California... .

1911

Arizona

1912

Kansas

1912

Oregon

1912

Alaska

1913

Montana

1914

Nevada

1914

New York. . . .

1917

Michigan

1918

South Dakota

1918

Oklahoma

1918

Partial

ScHOOii AND Tax

State

Date

Illinois

1913

North Dakota

1917

Nebraska

1917

Indiana

1917

Rhode Island..

1917

Arkansas

1917

Vermont

1917

Texas

1918

Wisconsin

1919

Minnesota. . . .

1919

Missouri

1919

Maine

1919

Iowa

1919
1919

• • • •

....

Ohio

I^tate

Date

New Jersey. .
Connecticut..

Delaware

New Mexico.

1827
1893
1898
1910

303

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The ratification of the Sufih'age Amendment makes
every woman a voter for all purposes, subject only to
the provision in the Constitution or statutes of such
states as prescribe for those foreign bom a residence
qualification, as in the cases of New York and Rhode
Island. The latter state, for example, provides "that
no woman citizen of foreign birth shall be entitled to
vote unless she has resided in the United States five
years."

It is to be remembered that the question of citizen-
ship involved many considerations besides the right to
vote; it is an exceedingly intricate and important sub-
ject, including title to property, the parental relation,
etc. It would seem to lie within the powers of indi-
vidual states to govern by statute the qualifications of
voters, by means of a residence or educational standard,
personal oath of allegiance, or what not. The only thing
they cannot now do under the Constitution of the
United States, so far as women are concerned, is to
exclude any citizen from the ballot box by reason of sex.^
But only Congress can grant full citizenship to the
foreign-born married woman regardless of that of her
husband, and to make such citizenship optional with the
wife would occasion much confusion in international
law, as well as in domestic matters. It is relatively
simple from the point of view of lay ethics and com-
mon sense; but by no means so simple as it looks.

APPLICANTS CAME AS YOUNG MARRIED BCEN

The elaborate statii^ics compiled by the Americaniza-
tion Study from examination of more than ^,000 peti-

^This was accomplished by the Nineteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States. The Fifteenth Amendment, pro-
claimed in 1870, already prohibited exclusion on the ground of
"race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

804

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

tions for naturalization seem to indicate that the great
majority of immigrants who subsequently seek citizen-
ship are young married men, accompanied by foreign-
bom wives; but their children are bom in the United
States, and are therefore citizens by right of birth. These
men do not file their petition for citizenship, in the
average case, until they have been in this country more
than ten years. In the meantime, their children, who
presumably do not wait to be born imtil their parents
have become American citizens, live in homes presided
over by alien parents who still ding to the thought,
traditions, and customs of the old country; what these
children get of the American atmosphere they get in
the public schools and in the streets. And it probably
is fair to infer, as many students have inferred, that a
large measure of the breakdown of home control and
discipline, showing in the greater percentage of delin-
quency among young people of the second generation,
is due to this exotic condition of the homes; to the fact
that the children are acquiring an American life of their
own without the old restraints; they have lost — ^never
had, indeed — something they would have had in old-
coimtry homes, and have gained nothing to take its
place because the homes are still "foreign." The chil-
dren quickly learn "the ropes" of American life; they
feel themselves superior to their parents in this respect,
and this inevitably undermines the parental authority.^

THE MOTHER MUST BE " AMERICANIZED "

The mother is the keystone of the home. Some way
must be found to take her into the American life. The

^ This aspect of tlie matter is admirably discussed by Miss S. P.
Bredcenridge in New Homes for Old, Chapter VI, on "Care of the
Children," especially pp. 153 et seq., Americanization Studies, New
YotK Ibtrper & Brothers, 1921.

805

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

citizenship which she gains willy-nilly through the
naturalization of her husband, even after she has lived
here for ten years, bears no necessary relation to her
life or character. As Mr. Crist in the Naturalization
Bureau's report for 1919 implies, she is confined within
the four w«Jls of her home, chained to her household
routine; and nothing in the ritual or system of nat-
uralization calls upon her to be American in any respect.

The position, reactions, and influences of the foreign-
bom woman in American social life — any aspect of it,
domestic, industrial, political — cannot be intelligently
understood or discussed unless and until we cease to
think of her as in any sense a peculiar animal, or even a
human being different in any fundamental way from
other human beings. She lived her life in the old
country, grew up from childhood, married, came to this
coimtry, bore her children here or before she came here,
conducts her home, and participates or fails to partici-
pate in all the activities of life, under exactly the same
kind of motives and impulses, and with essentially the
same kind of results, as would be the case with an
American woman with the same antecedents, educa-
tion, resources, in the same circumstances.

She has, however, an additional handicap, and it is
of the utmost importance to bear this handicap in mind
in the consideration not only of her place in the general
problem of the assimilation of the foreign-bom popula-
tion, but of her possibilities and influence as a potential
voter, helping to decide by her ballot the great questions
which in America are supposed to be settled at the
ballot box.

Consider the native-born woman, of the old stock,
as she has actually functioned in the widening field of
political activity opening to her with the spread of
woman suffrage. It is no wonder, but it is true, that the
mass of women thus enfranchised have shown the

806

FOREIGN-BOBN WOMAN IN POLITICS

results of the long-standing belief that 'Hhe place of
woman is in the home/' She has had no reason for
learning, and little opportunity to learn, the things per-
taining to political life; she has not imderstood its
problems, grasped the significance of its slogans, or
brought her mind to bear upon its significances.

Slowly, very slowly, there has grown up a group, larger
and larger in numbers, but still very small in propor-
tion, active and intelligent in the movement for en-
franchisement, developing rapidly— perhaps even more
rapidly than would have been the case with men — ^in
the intellectual grasp of the subjects involved. But
the mass of the American-born, English-speaking
women of the country have remained what they were
before — devoted mothers, quiet, homekeeping house-
wives, not only content to leave these matters to their
husbands and sons, but more or less bored by "politics"
and on the whole somewhat resentful toward the effort
to enlist them in the turmoil. A large proportion of
them have been, in fact, relatively oblivious to the
whole business.

MUST LEARN POLITICS BY POLITICAL ACTIVITY

It is the activity in the political function that both
awakens interest and inspires intelligence. Why should
a woman, brought up in the old, restricted, domestic
tradition, forthwith become a vital, vigorous, political
force merely because the ballot is put into her hands?
Those who have been in the long fight for suffrage have
been thinking, talking, agitating, and when finally their
effort came to success they were ready for the new
responsibilities and activities; indeed, they often have
gone beyond the desire for mere participation in the
routine of the layman's place in ordinary party politics,
and have shown disitinct tendencies toward not only

307

AMEmCANS BY CHOICE

independence, but what the old-timers would call
radicalism, to say nothing of going farther into the
ranks of the avowed radicals. A large number of these
were active and vociferous in the Progressive party in
191£, and in subsequent years. But the vast bulk of
their sisters viewed all this askance or with relative
indifference, and indifference decreasing slowly but
steadily with the lapse of time. In those states which
have had woman suffrage the longest and most com-
pl<5tely, the interest and participation of the average
native-born woman has been the most general and the
most intelligent.

This is, and undoubtedly will continue to be, the case
with the foreign-bom woman. She will emerge from
the status of a household drudge, subject to the taboos
of tradition, the circumscribing effects of residence in a
foreign land, and the various other kinds of narrowness
in her life, just so rapidly and by just so much as she is
made aware that it is to her interest to do so, is im-
pelled by influences from without herself, and is taught
by political activity itself to realize its practicability
and value in the concrete things oi her life.

Thus far, only one or two of the foreign racial groups
have, as such, exhibited any material response to the
political opportunities opening before their women.
The outstanding group is that of the Bohemians, who
for many years have been, comparatively speaking,
awake to both opportunity and duty. They have long
been more articidate politically than any others, earlier
participating in the movement for woman suffrage, and
passing on in the more radical directions. Next have
come the Scandinavians, excepting the Swedes, who
seem to have been more subject to the old Teutonic
conservatism about the "place of woman."

Geierally speaking, and as might be expected under

the circumscribing influences of all kinds, the foreign-
SOS

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN P(MJTICS

bom woman has epitomized all the spiritual, intellec-
tualy social, and political traditions and heritages with
which immigrants come to America. The children, the
husband, the working uncles and male cousins, all mix
immediately with the civilization of the street, the
factory, the shop. They have to learn English with all
possible promptness in order "to get along." They
hear the political patter of the street comer, they listen
to the soap-box orator, they have to have some sort of
relations with the politicians in order to do business of
any kind.

But the woman is shut in by the four walls of her
home. If she lives, as she mostly does, at the top of
long flights of tenement-house stairs, she is too weary
to venture out where she may hear of the wider things
and doings of the world. She has no clothing in which
to go more than a stone's throw from her door. The
routine of her life is pretty much that of a prison.

FEW WOMEN SEEK NATITRALIZATION

Or, if she be unmarried, the conditions are little better

so far as concerns encouragement to oe interested in

political affairs. It is only potentially that she is a

factor in the political future of the dDuntry. The fact

that the statistical analysis of the Americanization

Study of more than 26,000 naturalization petitions

filed in twenty-nine courts in the fiscal year 1913-14

showed only 154 women petitioners indicates that the

unmarried foreign-bom woman does not excite herself

on the subject of the ballot. The real problem of the

foreign-bom woman, so far as her equipment as a voter

is concerned, has reference almost entirely to the vast

number of women who are carried into citizensl^p and

potential voting power by the naturalization c^ their

husbands. This is a serious matter.
21 809

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The Naturalization Bureau makes much of its effort
to enlist the interest of the women, by calling their
attention to the educational opportunities in the vicinity
of their homes; it may be conceded that this has had
beneficial results in general, and has been vastly better
than the former policy of ignoring the newly made
woman citizen; but even giving full value to the claims
made by various persons as to the increased interest
and response of the wives of naturalized men, the total
of actual accomplishment, as against the total of avail-
able foreign women is negligible. The plain fact of the
matter is that the foreign-bom women, naturalized by
the act of their husbands in the proportion of more than
sixty women to one hundred men, pay just as much
attention to the business and to their new opportuni-
ties, as might be expected in the circumstances.

During the war it was even the subject of resentment,
on the part of the wives of alien enemies, that they were
thus forced into American citizenship regardless of their
wishes or sympathies. In many instances of the so-
called "military naturalization," elsewhere described,^
in which the husband had been taken regardless of his
personal sympathies, and had become, while in uniform,
a citizen under the provisions of the law which waived
all questions of length of residence, and to a great extent
the other qualifications which would have been insisted
upon in ordinary times, the wife was a rampant enemy,
aggravated by the conscription of her man — ^and often
also of her grown sons — ^yet she became automaticaUy
a citizen of the United States, regardless of length of
residence, without being required even to go through
the empty form of an oath of allegiance. Forthwith she
was absolved from the necessity of registering as an
alien enemy; forthwith she became for all purposes as

^ See chap, ix, p. 255 et seg.

SIO

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

much an American citizen and as much a voter poten-
tially as any Daughter of the American Revolution]

SOME COURTS NOTICE THE WIVES

Some of the courts — ^the number of such is steadily in-
creasing — ^have taken judicial notice of this extraor-
dinary situation^ and scrutinize with substantial care
the qualifications of the wife. Many of them refuse to
naturalize a man whose wife still resides in the old
country. In his report to the Commissioner of Natural-
ization for the fiscal year 1918-19 Mr. Crist, as
Director of Citizenship, dwells upon this matter, quot-
ing especially an order issued May 27, 1919, by Judge
Gustav Anderson in the Circuit Court for Baker
County, Oregon, which goes about as far as the court
can go under existing law. The text of the order, so
far as this aspect of the question goes, is as follows:

It appearing to the court that . . . when married men
become citizens their wives become so also by virtue of the
marriage relation, and that it b therefore important that when
a married man becomes a citizen his wife should also be quali-
fied for the like duties of citizenship: it is therefore

Ordered that . . . such applicant who is a married man is
hereby directed to inform his wife of the foregoing provisions
and to qualify with him for such citizenship, and that, unless
for sufficient cause shown to the court it b otherwise ordered,
the wife of each married man shall attend court with her
husband at the time of the final hearing upon his petition for
admission to citizenship of the United States.

Judge George 6. Bingham, in the Circiut Court for
Marion County, Oregon, previously, in September, 1918,
had issued a similar order, in which he directed that if
the petitioner be married he should be accompanied by
his wife not only in applying to the school authorities

811

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

for assistance in preparation, but also in his attendance
upon the court.

Similar action in other courts is referred to by*
Mr. Crist in the same report :

In one judicial district, comprising eight courts of New York
State, the Supreme Court has required that the wife of the
petitioner appear in court with the petitioner at the time of
the final hearing. In other places the question has been con-
sidered and various steps taken. The reports show that some
judges have required a rather complete knowledge of our
language and form of government. Some of the tests have
befsn such as merely to show that the wife could speak Eng-
lish, knew the name of the President and the number of years
of his term of office, and other elementary details. Con-
tinuances of cases have occurred where dense ignorance of
the English language is demonstrated by simple questions,
such as, " Where do you live? " and, " How many children have
you?" Upon failure to comprehend these questions the con-
ferring of citizenship has been deferred to a later period.

Of course, in considering the question of the appearance of
the wife some difficulties have been encountered. In numbers
of cases sickness of either the wife or the children, domestic
duties at the hour of the hearing, the necessity for bringing
small children into court or leaving them in Ihe custody of
others, represent some of the difficulties to the easy observ-
ance of this requirement of the courts. In the opinion of one
of the judges it is well to have the women appear in court, if
for no other reason than that it takes them out of their homes
and gives them some idea of what our government in actual
operation means. After their experiences under t^iese cir-
cumstances, even though it be accompanied by some sense of
nervousness, the consensus of opinion appears to be that such
a requirement is not only wholesome in its effect,. but quite
necessary.

OBSTACLES OF DISTANCE AND EXPENSE

The Director of Citizenship does not mention one of
the most serious difficulties in the way of a general

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

practice of this kind, operating in sparsely settled dis-
tricts; that is, the matter of expense. When a man
ha^ to transport himself and his two witnesses any-
where from twenty to two hundred miles, pay not
only their cost of transportation, but usually their
wages for time lost, to say nothing of his own loss of
wages or time, or anything paid as extra compensa-
tion to the witnesses, and this tioice within the space
of some ninety daySy the necessity of adding the cost
of taking also his wife becomes serious if not pro-
hibitive. And in most cases, in city or country alike,
a young mother is so tied down by the routine of
domestic duties, care of infants, etc., that a con-
siderable absence from home is flatly impossible. If,
in addition to this, she has no interest in the matter,
or is frankly hostile, it is likely to mean that she will
not go to court, and her husband's petition may be
denied for "want of prosecution."

The Naturalization Bureau and the comts have done
all they can under existing law to bring to bear upon
the foreign-bom woman who will be made a citizen by
the naturalization of her husband the influences tending
to awaken in her a sense of her opportunity, privileges,
and obligations. Strictly speaking, the court has no
lawful right to summon a woman from her domestic
duties to be a party to her husband's naturalization.
The spirit of the law of substantially all countries from
time immemorial has been to regard the citizenship of
a woman as merely incidental to that of her husband.
There was little or no necessity or reason for her to play
any part in the business as an individual. She became
American with her man, just as his goods and chattels
did. No political activity or responsibility on her part
was implied. And she, if she were an American by
birth, or a widow Apericanized by the citizenship

of her deceased husband, would lose her citizenship

813

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

instanter upon her marriage with an alien here or
elsewhere.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE OPENS A NEW ERA

Woman suffrage entirely alters the situation. Now she
becomes, at least potentially, a political factor in her
own right as an individual. No longer may her fitness,
or her probable action as a voter, be in any way assumed
from that of her husband. He becomes a citizen by a
process presmned to search out his qualifications, and
after preparation designed to perfect them. The law
has provided hitherto no process by which hers may be
adequately ascertained. Yet her vote, her political
action in any respect, may aggravate the evil embodied
in his by duplicating it; may cancel all the public
benefit embodied in his by her opposing action.

Whatever may have been said in the past, it is hard
to find any argument adequate on the whole for con-
tinuing this antediluvian principle and process. Every
adult individual should come into or stay out of voting
rights on his own merits, and not otherwise. It may
well be argued that even minors as young as sixteen
years should not come into citizenship by the act of
their parents, so far as concerns their becoming voters
at twenty-one, without act of their own.

The voice of naturalizing judges all over the country,
who have expressed themselves on this subject, is pre-
ponderantly in favor of a radical change in policy. The
Naturalization Bureau does not go so far, but stresses
what it regards as the need of an educational test of the
wife as a condition precedent to the naturalization of the
husband. In his report for year ending June 80, 1919,
to the Conmiissioner of Naturalization, Mr. Crist says:

It would seem to be advisable to have some restrictive

measure provided in the admission to dtizeoship that would

314

FOREIGN-BOKN WOMAN IN POLITICS

condition the admission of a married man to the responsi-
bilities of citizenship upon the qualifying of his wife. . . .
Since the local educational authorities are both willing and
anxious to afford these women, as well as their husbands, every
educational facility and opportunity, a requirement of an
educational nature would not seem to be unjust.

This would be pretty drastic, and almost put the hus-
band in the same position that the wife is in now — ^making
his citizenship dependent upon her fitness ! The trouble
is not that the wives of the naturalized males are igno-
rant or unfit, but that they are automatically made into
voters regardless of their fitness. Why penalize the
man? Why not devise a way of enfranchising him, if
fit, while withholding the ballot from her, if unfit?

OPINIONS OF NATURALIZING JX7DGES

The judges see it more directly. The Americanization
Study addressed a questionnaire to all of the natural-
izing judges, containing two questions on this subject:

First — ^Would you favor legislation to permit the natural-
ization of a married woman in her own name, if personally
acceptable, regardless of the alienage of her husband, or his
failure to obtain or refusal to seek naturalization?

Second — ^Would you favor reserving to a native-born
American woman, if she desired it, the American citizenship
which, under the present law, she sacrifices by marriage to a
foreigner?

It is impossible to tabulate the answers, because of
the many cases in which the judges advance qualifica-
tions preventing their replies from being classed as
categorical; but generally it may be said that of 333
replies to the first question, 204, or nearly two-thirds,
are in the affirmative, 104 are in the negative, and 25
are noncommittal, uncertain, or so qualified as to
represent doubt.

815

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

To the second question, of S64 replies, 220, again not
quite two-thirds, are in the affirmative, 127, or almost
exactly one-third, in the negative, and 17 noncom-
mittal. Curiously enough, many of those who answer
"Yes" to the first question answer "No" to the second,
and a large nimiber would condition their affirmative
to both questions upon the woman's permanent domi-
cile in this country. Of those who vote "No" on the
second point many express the sentiment:

If an American woman isn't satisfied to marry an Amer-
ican man, let her lose her citizenship.

A somewhat conspicuous fact is that, generally speak-
ing, the judges of the East and South are opposed to
any change in the law to admit women on their indi-
vidual responsibility or to save citizenship for American
women marrying immigrants, while those of the West
generally favor both — especially the former proposal.

"The law looks upon a married couple as cme/' says a
New Jersey judge, "and I do not think it woidd be good
public policy to sjp^t their nationality."

"It would introduce great confusion in certain parts of the
law/' objects a Federal judge in New England.

"We favor no such pussy-willow policy," answers one Ohio
judge, who, by the way, would require "twenty-one years'
continuous residence," admit at all "only heads of families
with children," and generally '' make it harder for foreigners to
become natundized."

'*Few men," objects a judge in Indiana, "would feel right
toward either the govramment or his wife {sic). Few men
have reached that stage of mind where he would be satisfied
with such preference."

"With the husband of one nationality, and the wife of
another, what would be the nationality of the children?"
demands a New Jersey judge. "What laws would govern the
taking of personal property or the inheritance of real estate?
A citizen married woman might have an alien enemy
husband!"

816

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

A Federal judge in Maryland dwells upon the physical
fact that the children are a joint product, even though
husband and wife are separate individuals. And he
seems to think that both of the questions imply the
opening of large danger, in respect of the enforcement
of Chinese and Japanese exclusion, though he does not
say why or how such a peril would arise.

From a Texas judge and many others come warnings
that such a policy would give rise to endless domestic
friction. An Alabama judge would cut round this by
permitting the woman's declaration of her desire to be
or remain an American citizen, notwithstanding the
alienage of her husband, to naturalize her minor
children.

The general trend of opinion among the judges is to
the effect that the institution of woman suffrage has
abolished the old idea that the wife must accept her
politics from her husband. As one Nebraska judge
puts it:

It is an outrage that the status of the wife should be in-
fluenced by that of the husband. A man and wife are two;
we long since departed from the theory that they are one.

650,000 "derivative voters*' extant

The logic of the situation in which we find ourselves
seems inexorable. Whatever the theory upon which a
woman takes the nationality of her husband, the fact
is that once she has been naturalized and become
available as a voter, she is potentially as much a force
for good or ill politically as he. However much pains
may have been taken to ascertain and certify his fit-
ness, she comes in substantially without examination,
without any of the precautions which are at least pre-
sumed to protect the ballot box from unfit or unworthy

approach.

817

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The Commiasioner ci Naturalization reported' at
the end of the year 1918^19, that, during the thirteen
years since the enactment of the law of 1906, the total
number of certificates of naturalization issued had been
1,0799459. If it be correct to assume that 60 or more
women are swept into citizenship with every 100 certif-
icates, this would mean that during those thirteen
years something like 650,000 individuals, available as
voters wherever woman sufiErage prevails (subject to
the five-year-residence limitation in certain states),
have been automatically made citizens regardless of
any fitness or volition of their own. And this says
nothing of the additional future voters added throu^
the automatic naturalization of children. In his pre-
vious report Commissioner Campbell said:^

Since 1906 there have been 861,819 who have been admitted
to citizenship upon direct application, and an equal number
of wives and children have derived citizenship from the act
of the petitioner. Following this average through, and the
average has been higher down to and including the last fiscal
year, it will be seen that about 1,250,000 have had the title
conferred upon them without justifying the nation in any
belief that its ability for self-government has been increased
thereby.

LABOELT AN IGNORANT VOTE

We are dealing now, however, chiefly with the question
of the married women, mothers and housewives, who
are or now have been herded into the mass of voting
citizens without volition or substantial interest or
appreciation on their part. The children, particularly
those under sixteen, may be left to the process of the
schools and their general absorption into the life of the
streets and the contacts of social life which quickly

^ Report of the Commissioner qf Naturalixaiion, 1919, p. 16.
* IHd., 1918, p. 28.

818

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

teach them not only the English language, but some
sense of what it means to be American. In no appre-
ciable degree are the adult women subjected to this
Americanizing process.

In the vast majority of cases, the potential vote thus
added is an uninformed and often ignorant vote. Its
characteristics are weU summarized in a memorandum
prepared by Miss Cornelia Marvin, State Librarian of
Oregon, in the course of which she says:

Women are left behind in intelligence by the fathers and
children. They do not learn English, they do not keep up
with the other members of their families who are constantly
in touch with Americans, and there is frequently the tragedy
of the mother of the family who cannot read English and
cannot understand the conversation in English which goes on
about her. She is a ''back number," and as such cannot be
an effective citizen.

Women may, and undoubtedly will be, voted in herds, quite
ignorantly, and so will be a menace — ^if they vote at all. This
cannot be prevented entirely by naturalization, but a woman
who has gone through the naturalization ceremony, who
has prepared herself for the examination, and who has taken
the oath of aUegiance, will not be so easy a subject for the
unscrupulous.

It is dangerous in war times to have alien enemies who are
unknown as such. During the last year or two there have
been cases of people who were enemies to our country, who
swore that they were natundized against their wills by the
acts of their husbands; that they never had any desire to
become American citizens.

It is inconvenient at present for women not to have their
own certificates of naturalization, as, at the time of registering
for election, and in some other cases, it is necessary to present
evidence of citizenship, and the woman must present her hus-
band's certificate of naturalization. The Bureau of Natural-
ization proposes that a woman may receive an honorary certif-
icate chiefly to remedy this.

Not being required to go through the naturalization cere-

819

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

mony the women miss the opportunity for education, and we
miss the opportimity to stimulate and educate them through
the preparation for the examination, and through the
ceremony.

If women should become naturalized through their own
acts, they will prepare for the examination, and they will
undoubtedly urge on backward husbands. Often it would be
a great advantage to have the wife studying for the examina-
tion at the same time, as she ordinarily has more leisure than
the husband who, after a hard working day, needs the stimu-
lus of his wife's interest in order to apply himself to the history
and laws necessary for him to acquire before his appearance
in court.

Possibly [Miss Marvin adds], if we open the opportunity to
foreign women through the naturalization process, the time
wiU come when American-bom women, arriving at the age
when they may vote, will take the oath and will go through
some dignified ceremony which will impress upon them their
responsibility as citizens.

Still remains, regardless of any steps which may be
taken in the future, a great mass of woman citizemy,
to be reached by some process of education at least
designed to awaken these potential voters to a sense of
their privileges and their obligations. How may this
be done?

POUTICAL INDIFFERENCE NOT PEGULIAB
TO FOREIGN BORN

Their mere indifference to politics hardly can be urged
against them. Our own people are notorious sinners in
this respect. The Commissioner of Naturalization
repeats ancient history when he says: ^

Surveys have been made from time to time to ascertain the
participation in the various rights of American citizenship by
native and foreign-bom citizens. In one large city a survey

^ Report qf the Commieeioner of NaturaltMaiiant 1918, p. 28.

SdO

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

showed that of the first seven prominent business men
approached none had registered. Of the 80 preachers who
were requested to state whether they had voted or registered,
12 had registered and 6 of them had voted. Among the
foreign-bom citizens and newly naturalized 97 had regiistered
and voted.

But these voters were men. Nearly all of the statis-
tics on which generalizations have been based deal with
"foreign-bom males of voting age." The statistics of
over £6,000 naturalization petitions gathered by the
Americanization Study deal almost exclusively with
men, save as they show that every ten certificates bring
into citizenship more than six married women and more
than three minors. With the ratification of the Suffrage
Amendment to the Constitution, these six or more mar-
ried women acquire the ballot. In many states they
had it long before that. What about them?

MANY WERE CALLED, BUT FEW RESPONDED

With enthusiasm entirely commendable, the Natural-
ization Bureau describes its efforts to arouse in the
foreign-bom seekers after citizenship an interest in the
opportunity before them, by notifying each candidate,
declarant, or final petitioner, of the school privileges
available for him. In the report of the Bureau for
1916, the Conmiissioner says: ^

During the year, for the purpose of including the wife in
this citizenship-betterment campaign by the public schools,
the bureau wrote a special letter personally addressed to the
wives of 49,094 petitioners and declarants, telling them of
the advantages which would result from their attendance
upon the public schools. The name of each wife was also
sent, upon an individual card, to the public school in the
conmiunity where the candidate lived. This inclusion of the

^ Report qf the Commiseioner of NahAralixationt 1916, p. 46.

S21

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

wife in the 8C<^)e of this activity was to enaUe her to get some
ccMiceptioii of the meaning of an American home and aid her
in establishing it for her famfly. . . . Intense interest is mani-
fested upon the part of these wives and mothers, as in many
instances they bring their babies to the schooboom and whik
they sleep the mothers devote their time to learning to read,
speak, and write our tongue in addition to receiving instruc-
tion in the more domestic subjects. In order to insure extend-
ing this influence to the wife of every declarant the bureau,
with the approval of the department c^ labor, changed the form
of the declaration of intention so as to require the indusion of
the name c^ the wife therein, no provision having been made
for her name in the form as originaUy pr^Mired. Approxi-
matdy a quarter of a million women of foreign allegiance
will be thus brought within the province of the Bureau of
Naturalization through the filing of declarations of intention
and petitions for naturalization by their husbands.

Welly this is all very fine as rhetoric and the expression
of pious wishes. But what comes of it in reality? An
elaborate table in the report for 1919^ shows that in the
fiscal year ended June 30th the names of 108,395 wives
of candidates were furnished to the school authorities in
cities and towns showing a total population of nearly
35,000,000 people with a ^^foreign-bom white male of
voting age" population of more than 4,400,000. And
on the next page are tabulated reports of 166 school
superintendents as to classes for foreign-bom persons
in English and citizenship, showing:

TABLE XXXVI

Maxdium Enbollment m Citizenbhip and Enoiisr
Clabsbs in the United States in 1919

Men

Women....
Unclassified.

Total.

11,854
2,783
1,287

15,874

^ B£Z)ort of ike Commissioner cf Naturalization, 1919, p. 78.

822

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

Every bit of it valuable, no doubt. Presumably, also,
the complete figures would present a much larger total,
but, as an exhibit of goods, it is hardly up to the promises
of the show window!

FOBEION-BOBN WOMEN WITHOUT POLITICAL

EXPERIENCE

The fact is that the married women of foreign birth, who
are made citizens by the naturalization of their hus-
bands, have had, as a whole, not the slightest practical
interest in any stage of the business. In the old country
from which they came they had, as a rule, no participa-
tion in government ; the traditions of the society in which
the majority of them grew up relegated women to
domestic employments, made them subordinate to
their husbands in every phase of public life; they have
been slow to learn the language here, and the proposal
that they go to school in order to fit themselves for a
function about which they know nothing and care
less meets with little enthusiasm on their part-^as the
statistics of the Naturalization Biu^au plainly show.

The intelligent woman's advent to politics always
has been dreaded by the professional politician. He
felt it in his bones that she might not have the poUtical
superstitions and docility that have been exhibited
by the average male voter; she might ask questions
and display initiative; she might remember with an
eye to reprisals the things that politicians, legislators,
and executives have done to the interests of women in
ages past. He grew eloquent about the "place of
woman in the home,'' the demoralizmg atmosphere of
the polling place, and so on. And, as for the foreign-
born woman, he knew, first, that the foreign-born hus-
band as a rule was opposed to having his wife and
daughters meddling in such matters, and second, that

823

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

all she would do» ansrway, would be to duplicate the
vote of her husband or father.

THET ARE GOOD MATERIAL

As has been said, very few of the foreign-bom women,
made citizens and voters by the naturalization of men,
thus far have displayed much interest in politics.
Where there has been participation by them, what has
been their attitude? There is not much testimony on
the subject, but what there is is largely to identical
effect.

The rule is [says an investigator at Los Angeles] that
the wives follow the party allegiance of their husbands, and
vote with them. The more intelligent, however, often think
and act independently, voting for what they believe is the good
of their children. The parents of the public-school children
teach them to follow the guidance and advice of the teachers.
I myself, as one of the accredited speakers of the Parent
Teachers' Federation of Los Angeles, have marked hundreds
of ballots for foreign women, and I am called up on the tele-
phone before each election and questioned about candidates
and measures. As a rule my advice is taken without ques-
tion. The foreign woman acts in such matters according to
her individual nature and her intelligent understanding. Some
of them vote secretly because their husbands have forbidden
them to go to the polls.

Miss Jane Addams, whose long and intimate ac-
quaintance with foreign-bom women, through her pro-
tracted residence in Hull House, Chicago, entitles her
to speak with peculiar authority, describes a typical
experience at a polling place in the Hull House neighbor-
hood, which is populated almost entirely by immigrant
families:

It was a great satisfaction to me to see what good judgment

the women showed. There was one Irishwoman, very bright,

S24

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

who could not read, and therefore I was allowed to go into the
booth with her to help her mark her ballot. The first proposi-
tion was about bonds for a new hospital. The Irishwoman
said, *'Is the same bunch to spend the money that run the
hospital we have now? Then I am against it." The next
proposition was about a subway; the next about a hospital
for contagious cases, and so on. There were ten propositions
to be acted upon. I was scrupulous not to influence her; yet
on nine of them she voted, from her own common sense, just
as the Municipal League and the City Club had recommended
as the result of painstaking research. Italian women came in
to vote who knew more about our city]i,than their husbands,
who were away digging railroads during six or nine months
of the year.

Mrs. Emma Smith Devoe, President of the National
Council of Women Voters,* describes the foreign-born
woman citizen as taking in governmental affairs, as
soon as she realizes that she is a voter, a most serious
and o^iscientious interest, *' making aln^ost a religious
duty of it." The women, she says "are particularly
impressed with the sacredness of the ballot, and they
always vote for the betterment of himianity as they
see it."

Almost every foreign woman's vote [says Mrs. Lucy B.
Johnstone, wife of the Chief Justice of Kauasas] ' "represents a
home where there are children who are going to the public
schools now and fast becoming Americanized. The foreign-
bom women are, in the main, ambitious for their children, and
for that reason are learning, in their way, about our institu-
tions, and are zealous to take advantage of our free educa-
tional opportunities.'

^Quoted in "The Immigrant Woman and the Vote," by Vira
Boardman Whitehouse, in The ImmigratUa in America Rmew,
September, 1915.

*Ibid.

22 «««

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Senator Helen Ring Robinson of Cokmulo lemaric-
ing that ^the Italian wom^i frequ^itfy do not vote,
while the Pde always votes and takes a keen interest
in local politics/' says: ^

In the matters affecting the family poise* sudi as voting of
a bond issue* the acquisition c^ the water sui^ly by the caty,
etc., I find the immigrant w<Hnan usually more keenly o«i-
cemed than her husband.

The immigrant woman in the coal camps — like the immi-
grant man — often votes blindly at the dictate of the boss; but
the daughter of the immigrant woman often shows an inde-
pendence, an understanding, and a vision, in matters of puMic
concern, well worth the emulation of Daughters of the Amer-
ican Revolution I wot of — and Colonial Dames. It is the
daughter of the immigrant woman, grown to the full stature
of citizenship, who is proving one of the most useful elements
in our Colorado electorate.

Miss Edith Knight Holmes, editor of the Woman's
Department of the Portland Oregonian, wrote that:

Personally, I have noticed women who were bom in various
Eiu*opean countries going early in the morning to vote, as soon
as the breakfast was over. They study their ballots carefully
and seem most conscientious in marking them. I know an
old Scotch lady who sat up half the night to study her ballot*
A little English lady whom I know always tries to be at the
polls. She goes with one of her sons to vote.

In families where there are several little children, sometimes
the mother next door will stay with the babies while the
mother of the family votes, and then when she returns she
takes care of her friend's baby while she, too, casts her vote.

Of course, this is special pleading, and it is easy to
exaggerate. Over against it might well be told that
ancient story of the housemaid who was said to favor

^Quoted in "The Immigrant Woman uid the Vote,'' by Viia

Boardman Whitehouse, in The ImmigranU in America Renew,

September, 1915.

826

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

woman su£Erage on the ground that it woidd augment
the family income:

My father and my two brothers each gets five dollars for
his vote, and now mother and me will each get five — ^that
makes twenty-five dollars, all for a little while in one day.

The fact is, abundantly verified, that the foreign-
bom woman, when she votes at all, brings to the
function a deep sense of solemnity; it is new to her to
participate in government; she has not acquired from
the streets a cynical contempt for the ballot, as her
husband and sons are likely to have done. The effect
of government upon her home and her children is a
more desperate matter to her, and it will take long to
demoralize her attitude on the subject.

But the fact is, also, that foreign-bom women have
not in any large measure awakened to the opportunity.
Their devotion to their homes has taken on no public
or political aspect. They are confined^to those homes,
not only by tradition, ignorance of American life and
the English language, and the inertia of their exist^ice,
but even more by overwork and by the unremitting
detail of family duty and care. They have hardly heard
of their new and increasing privileges, and generally
regard them, when they do hear of them, as only a new
burden, unfamiliar and to be ignored if not resented.
It is only in the home, and by a realization of its direct
and inevitable effect upon the home, her home, that
any interest in or enthusiasm about political action can
reach her.

HOW THE WOMEN CAN BE BEACHED

There would seem to be four ways in which the foreign-
bom woman citizen can be reached with effort to
interest her in the political aiq)ect of her citizenship:

827

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

1. The normal, direct attack oi the political organ-
izations, and vduntaiy efforts, organized and unor-
ganized, of public-spirited citizens or oth^s interested
in ** getting out the vote." Generally speaking, the
politicians have scarce^ as yet discovered the voting
power of the foreign-bom woman citizen — especially
such as do not speak the English language. The vote
and political influence of the foreign-bom woman have
been negligible eveiywhere — except possibly in a few
places where they have been rallied in a local-option elec^
tion. One investigator reports two or three towns in
Illinois where a ^^wet" result was attributed to the vote
of foreign-bom women. Other reports would indicate
that the foreign-bom woman, like her En^ish-speaking
sisters, have tended to favor the abolition of the saloon
with its resulting (or, anyway, expected) reduction of
home-coming drunkenness and deductions from the
pay envelope.

In districts where politically active social settlements
and similar organizations are influential, and in states
which have had woman suffrage the longest, there is a
considerable appearance ci foreign-bom women at the
polls. But they are relatively few in numbers, and con-
sist of younger women from the more radical parties,
from those racial groups which display the keenest and
most aggressive social intelligence, such as the Bohemi-
ans, and from such as in their own countries have had
some experience with some measure of woman suffrage,
such as the Swedes and Finns. There is quite as much
tendency among foreign-bom women as among native-
born — ^perhaps considerably more — ^to follow the hus-
band's lead in politics and to duplicate his vote. In
general, the political organizations have as yet made
little effort to capitalize the "derivative vote." The
mass of it stays at honiie.

2. The campaign of the public schools, with or with-

S28

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

out the inspiration of the Naturalization Bureau, to
induce the foreign-bom woman to avail herself of formal
educational work in the schools. As we have seen, she
does not, to any appreciable extent, respond to this
campaign. Social settlements, even attributing great
influence to them — ^though as a matter of fact few ci
them exert any political influence whatever — ^are rela-
tively few and far between; churches, as such, and
other institutions of the same general kind, cannot be
counted as substantially effective in this direction. The
foreign-born woman goes to church in large numbers,
but she does not get there any great impulse to interest
herself in community affairs. She goes back to her
babies and her washtub.

It is in her home, in the intervals between domestic
duties and within arm's length of the cradle and the
kitchen table where she feeds her children, that she
must be reached with this inspiration and instruction,
if in any large measure she is to be reached at all. This
brings us to

S. The Home Teacher. The movement in favor of
the creation of a teaching force, employed by the public
and organically a part of the public-school system, to
go into the neighborhoods and into the homes and
carry instruction in English, common-school branches,
and the elements of civics, follows logically from the
treatment of the foreign-bom woman citizen as an in-
dividual, and from the fact that she must be dealt with
in or dose to her home. Classes grouped within a small
section of a neighborhood, intensively instructed by
teachers who realize the difficulties and limitations of
their pupils, take on the aspect of social occasions, hdp
to arouse a neighborhood spirit, encourage mutual
acquaintance, and most effectively instruct those whom
it is desired to reach. A movement of this kind, spread-
ing over the country and backed by the public as such,

329

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

follows the natural line of least resistance and tacUes
the problem where it really lives.

4. The direct and indirect influence of the children
upon the mother. This is the best of all. And» while
we are exciting ourselves about the ignorance and in-
difference of the foreign-born woman, and bemoaning
her possible influence upon her children, it is well for
us to remember that these children are in the American
public schools, talking the English language, absorbing
whatever there may be of "Americanism" in the social
atmosphere about them, in daily sight of the Stars and
Stripes, singing "The Star-spangled Banner," gaining
enthusiasm for and pride in our country, and, what is
most important, taking home daUy to their foreign-born
parents the direct and indirect influences of what they
are learning, seeing, and feeling. The extent of this
leavening process is impossible to estimate, but un-
doubtedly it is enormous.

A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE — IT WORKS

Perhaps the most striking and unmistakable exhibit
of this process is to be found in the city of Grand Rapids,
Michigan, where the work of the Americanization
Society presents concrete and visible results. The work
in process there since the fall of 1918 is susceptible of
definite and even statistical study. It has produced
effects upon elections which can be stated in figures,
and results in homes upon concretely discoverable
human beings about which there can be no question.
It is socially physiological, so to speak; working in a
normal way in consonance with known political methods
and customs, along the rational lines of least resistance
— ^making use of the natural, spontaneous life oi the
people in their ordinary social and political relationships
and in their homes.

POBEIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

A battle with machine politics over a matter of local
administration, especially as affecting the treatment of
the poor, convinced those interested in the unselfish
conduct of the city's business that the way to win,
and the only way, was to appeal to the people direct
and get them to vote. There was no fear as to
how th^ would votie, but the effort was not addressed
to that aspect of the question. The slogans speak for
themselves!

Whether or not you vote is not your business; it is Unde
Sam's business. HOW you vote is your business.

It's always safe to trust aU the people. If aU the pec^le
vote, they "^nH vote right.

Cast ^your own ballot. When you don't vote, somebody
else votes for you.

How many ^otes has a man? You say one. If you don't
vote somebody else has TWO votes.

Tags were the weapons directly used, and they had a
profound effect. Committees of women, drawn from
mothers' clubs, women's dubs, parents' associations,
etc., gave out the tags at the polls, asked the voters
ta wear them, and pinned them on when they could.
The only way to get a tag was to vote; everybody who
voted found it to his interest to wear one; and those
who didn't have tags wished they had. For the tag
said:

"I am an American. I voted. Did you?"
The effectiveness of these tactics in arousing not only
sentimental enthusiasm, but that kind of practical per-
sonal action at and in ike ballot box which decides Sec-
tions, is convincingly attested by the great increase in
the registration and in the total vote.^

^See Table XLV, and accompanying comment, in this volumt^
p. 862 et ieq.
> 881

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The essential purpose of the job was to get to the polls
every individual entitled to vote; but incidentally, or
perhaps better to say» fundamentally, to train the rising
generation as to their privilege and duty of participa-
tion in public a£Fairs, and to accjplerate the naturaliza-
tion and Americanization of the alien. In order to
accomplish the first of these last two purposes, the
campaign was carried into the public schools; in order
to accomplish the second, great stress was laid upon
naturalization. There were three other slogans:

Send the alien to the county d[«*k.
An early tag helps the flag.

Get your tag early. Ask the man who has none
WHY?

This meant embarrassment for the untagged, and
when the school children began to plague the untagged
adult males it became unendurable. Woe to that
father who came home at night without a tag! The
family was disgraced in the eyes of the children. He
was nagged, not about how he voted, but about why he
didn't vote at all!

Meanwhile, woman suffrage was established in Michi-
gan, and the women came in for their share of the bom-
bardment. A great campaign was b^gun to make the
women realize their political responsibilities. It bore
fruit in the registration of 26,000 women for the election
in April, 1919; in one day 1,500 women registered. For
the primary dection in March the tag system got out
^,700 votes, and it was estimated that a blizzard raging
on that day prevented at least 3,000 more. At the
April election all the candidates recommended by the
Citizens' League were elected, although the tag system
involved no pressure as to particular candidates or
causes. There were thirteen different matters to be
voted upon, and the result showed notable discrimina-
tion in the voting — ^by 37,000 voters, while from 5,000

8S2

FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN IN POLITICS

to 7,000 votes could not be cast because of inadequacy
of the polling facilities.

WHAT THE CHILDREN DID

The children were a vital factor in the campaign. After
the elections they were asked to collect tags and bring
them to school. Out of 29,000 tags given out at one
election, they brought back more than 17,000. After
the next election they brought back 27,000 out of 37,000.
Flags were given as prizes to the schools showing the
highest totals.

In the schools — and all schools were enlisted, paro-
chial and private as well as public schools — ^the chUdren
wrote letters, and later little essays, describing their
experiences, telling why it was important to vote, and
what the issues were. The response was instantaneous,
enthusiastic; and it requires no special imagination to
infer the e£Fect in individual homes, not only in com-
pelling American citizens to vote, but in virtually
forcing alien fathers and mothers to avoid embarrass-
ment at their own firesides by expediting their efforts
to gain citizenship.

Space is not available for extensive quotation of the
children's essays; but their general tenor, and the
reflex influence of their spirit upon the homes, may be
imagined from such excerpts as these:

By an eleven-year-old boy, fifth grade: The men and

women who are citizens of the United States are regular

voters; if they are not, they should be. ... If all the people

voted, we should have a clean city. If your mother has to do

all the dishes, you can say, '* Why, mother, I can do the dishes

while you go and vote." Your father may have to rake the

yard. Why not rake the yard yourself and let your father go

and vote? Then the children and their parents will be good

citizens.

333

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

By a giri in the sixth grade: The American government is
governed by the pec^le by means of voting. If peoi^e do not
vote it is their fault that we have poor officials. • . . The
anarchist and the other people who ignore our government
are both destroying it, only the anarchist destroys it violently
and the people who ignore it, slowly. Some aliens come here
to enjoy aU our privileges without becoming citizens. They
save their money and go bade to their old country. But some
aliens appreciate our government, and are now of the best
citizens we have. . . . Join hands with the American govern-
ment. Mother, do not let Dad do it alone!

There is plenty of direct testimony as to the effect
of this enterprise in the home, not only of the American
citizens, but of the aliens. Thousands of mothers who
otherwise might have remained prisoners to indifference
and drudgery have been fairly driven out into the
liberation of social contacts and into a broader life of
interest in all the things that make for responsible
citizenship by the interest of their children.

It is in their homes that the foreign-bom women must
be reached with inspiration and enlightenment as to
their part in the process of self-government and the
privileges, duties, and responsibilities — ^and activities —
which are essential to anything worthy to be called
American citizenship.

THE POREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

There is not and never has been in the United States
anything that could be segregated as the "labor vote,"
although such a thing has been the dream of many
labor leaders, the bugaboo — or rather the ignis fatuus —
of politicians of m^y parties, and a permanently
legendary figure in the popular speech. The absence of
such a vote is the principle reason for the political
futility of most of the efforts of the Socialist parties.

Tune and again, since the beginning of our existence
as a nation, efforts — some of them with a measure of
success promising or menacing according to one's sym-
pathy and point of view — ^have been made to get united
political action on the part of citizens who worked with
their hands as supposedly distinguished from those who
worked with their brains. The effort never has come to
other than temporary local success; although it may be
conceded that. In some measure, the issues upon which
the efforts were predicated afterward came to be those
upon which the great parties fought out their battles;
or, more likely, came slowly to substantial acceptance
through economic development or sometimes as the
direct fruit of campaign agitation.

The reasons for this failure to precipitate and organize
the mythical "labor vote" are many and diverse, but
certain of them are essential and fairly evident:

First, the fact that in this country social and indus-
trial conditions have hitherto been, and probably for

885

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

an indefinite period will continue to be» such as to
emphasize individualism. It is true, despite any denials
or theories, that industry, initiative, enterprise, always
have won, still win, and will continue to win advance-
ment above the herd. The top is still open for those
who can win to it by their own inherent qualities. There
has been here, there is now, no permanent industrial or
social caste classification to circumscribe ambition and
create either a persisting intellectual leadership of
"'labor" or a stable body of hand-workers susceptible
of political coherence or direction. All efforts to
crystallize ^* class consciousness" for political action
have failed, and probably will continue to fail as long
as the social bars are down so that individuals can pass
freely from one class to another.

Second, the immensity of our territory and the great
diversity of interests and issues in the forefront of
public attention in one section and another. Seldom, if
ever, have the conditions which might have solidified
any class been sufficiently widespread or synchronous
to serve the purpose of united political sentiment or
action. Add to this the fact that politicians of both
the great parties, more or less intentionally, have man-
aged always to frame the issues so as to encourage this
diversity.

Third, the deliberate and long-standing policy of
the most influential of the general leaders of the labor
organizations — ^Mr. Samud Gompers for the most con-
spicuous example — of keeping those organizations free
from the entanglements and distractions of party poli-
tics, definitely preventing their acting as a political
unit; by intention confining their activities to the in-
dustrial, the economic field. This alone, without regard
to the fact that the higher-grade unions (using that
expression solely with reference to skill) seldom see

their interests to be common, so far as the ballot box

S86

FOREIGN-BOBN VOTER IN ACTION

is concerned. The radical agitation for the establish-
ment of '*One Big Uhion," to include all classes of
laborers as distinguished from capitalists, while it con-
templates chiefly the exercise of industrial and eco-
nomic power, includes the intention to concentrate
political power as well.

Fourth, and most important, the fact that "labor,**
in the sense in which most politicians, and virtually all
of the public, use the term, means chiefly the unskilled
workers who contribute muscle to industry. These are
to a great extent unorganized, without any conscious
unity of interest or purpose; their approach to both
industry and political action is as individuals — indi-
viduals of more or less shifting residence and compara-
tively little feeling of political responsibility. More-
over, it is a matter of common knowledge that the great
industrial concerns have fostered the existence of
masses of unskilled labor, in excess of the actual needs
of industry, in order to maintain an "overstocked**
labor supply, for the purpose of constant wage-compe-
tition to keep down costs. This competition has the in-
evitable effect of discouraging united action of any kind.
And, still further, we have found ^ that the unskilled
laborer of foreign birth, on the average, is not available
for political activity because he is rot naturalized.

This body of thie unskilled, industrially indispensable,
but politically unassimilated, inarticulate, and un-
wholesome, consists almost entirely now, and must
consist increasingly, of inmiigrants. Like any other
mass of material in an organism, potentially digestible
and useful but actually undigested and in the circum-
stances indigestible, it has clogged the process of assim-
ilation and is infecting the body politic with dangerous
toxins. The wonder is that we have got along with it

^ See Appendix Tables of Occupations, Tables LXIII and LXIY .

SS7

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

so well. One of the reasons may be the very fact that
its influences are not in the ordinary sense political.

Foreigners: the word is used advisedly. For out of
the welter of prejudice and misinformation surrounding
the subject has emerged clearly the fact that by the
time the alien man reaches the point of applying for
citizenship and the political power that goes with it» he
has been in this country uptoard of ten years^ has ad-
vanced materially in social and economic status, and
the process of assimilation is far on its way, if not sub-
stantially complete. In a majority of cases, he has
passed out of the category of what is usually known as
"common labor."

DIVIDED BY BACIAL TBADITIONS

Another thing, conspicuous here as in no oth^ country
where "labor" might be regarded as directly a political
factor, is the fact that even had these thousands of men
been individually available for prompt assimilation, or
manageable in their groups as material for political
manipulation, they have constituted such a hodge-
podge of conflicting racial and national antecedents,
prejudices, and inhibitions that any coherent political
action by them always has been out of the question.
Scandinavian and Slav, Austrian and Italian, British
and German, Greek and Turk; Protestant and Catholic^
Jew and Gentile — to say nothing of those smaller clan,
village, and even family feuds, often of long-forgotten
origin, within the racial groups ... at every turn
some hoary animosity, bom, perhaps, centuries ago out
of historic or obscure conflicts of which the average
native-bom American maybe never heard in his life,
has kept and doubtless long will continue to keep these
racial groups apart and practically preclude any possi-
bility of getting them to work together. The events

S88

FOREIGN-BOBN VOTER IN ACTION

and political by-products of the World War have only
further confused and intensified these causes of disunion.

The Socialists alone» of all the considerable political
parties, have tried to unite ^' labor" (chiefly meaning
unskilled labor) by efforts to convince all the racial
groups of a common political interest superior to any
racial interest. They have almost completely failed.

Politicians, large and small, have been to some extent
aware of this diversity of traditions and interests among
the racial groups, based upon ancient or current con-
troversies in old countries; but their approach to the
subject always has been pragmatical and opportunistic,
and usually unintelligent without real information
about or understanding of the explosive matters with
which they were meddling, or any but temporary or
local concern about the consequences. The Fiume con-
troversy, interesting both Italians and Jugo-Slavs; the
Irish situation; the war between the Poles and the
Bolsheviki in Russia; and conspicuously the whole
stupendous question of the League of Nations — ^all are
JBne examples of international and interracial conflicts
and emergencies of which American politicians of both
parties have taken advantage for their own purposes
without regard to consequences to the welfare of the
world — or of their own country, for that matter.

•jiLIENS NOT WITHOUT POLITICAL INTLUENCE

As we have seen, the foreign born who become citizens,
and as such are eligible to participate in our political
processes, do so on the average only after a residence in
this country of more than ten years. Also, notwith-
standing the legend to the contrary, there appears to
be no material distinction of race in their interest in our
politics or their desire to become citizens. But it would

be a cardinal mistake to suppose that the great mass of

889

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the unnaturalized foreign bom, who have no votes them-
selves, represent no political influence. Neighborhood
sentiment is a very great force in politics. The politi-
cian pays special heed to the wishes of voters; but he is
exceedingly mindful of the desires, enthusiasms, and
hatreds of those in his district who are audible all the
year round. This is all the more true when he is of the
same racial origin as the bulk of the population that
surrounds him in a ** Little Italy," a ** Little Hungary,"
a "New Bohemia," or a "Ghetto."

THERE IB NO "FOREIGN VOTB"

What we have said of the mythical "labor vote" is
equally true of the mythical "foreign vote." Under
circumstances of tense feeling between Italians and
Jugo-Slavs, between Irish and English-bom, between
Swedes and Norwegians, the vote of Italian-bom citi-
zens and those of Serbian antecedents cannot be cor-
ralled together for a candidate of either racial origin,
or for a ticket representing sympathy or tolerance for
either, and so on down the lines; but no politician ever
has been able to unite in one political movement all
the heterogeneous mass that could, by any stretch of
words, be called the "foreign vote." There is no "for-
eign vote," any more than there is a "labor vote."

The wholesale enfranchisement of women, native and
foreign-bom citizens alike, under the Nineteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,
brings into the situation a new and confusing factor,
about which it would be perilous to propheay. Foreign-
bom women, largely ignorant of everything that we are
accustomed to regard as "American," subject to all
of the influences and limitations involved in the word
"foreign," are swept by our naturalization laws helter-
skelter into citizenship by the mere f act of their majv

340

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

riyj gor filial relation to a natur alized man, without any
resEnctionis as to lengtib of residence or personal fitness.
And now the constitutional amendment has armed
them with the ballot, with the potential capacity not
only to strengthen, but to oflPset and nullify, the vote of
the intelligent; not only to offset and nullify, but to
double the political power of the ignorant, the misled,
and the corrupt. Fortunately, however, as we have
pointed out elsewhere, this is a potential rather than an
actual peril. The foreign-bom woman is, and will con-
tinue to be, very slow in assuming the power for mis-
chief, or for good, which we have thrust upon her.^

OLD EVILS ABOLISHED

There was a day in American political history when,
especially in the great cities along the Atlantic sea-
board, the immigrant, in many cases the newly landed
immigrant, was herded to the ballot box, sometimes
without even the empty formality of naturalization, to
cast an open ballot thrust into his hand by his padrone
or some one else of his race who saw to it that he got his
pay, usually in cash, but sometimes in the form of a job.
Such practices, while they survive sporadically in out-of-
the-way mining regions or the like where supervision of
elections is lax or lacking, are no longer in vogue.

The naturalization law of 1906, faithfully executed
by the Naturalization Bureau, has completely abolished
the old naturalization frauds and abuses, and the in-
creasingly effective protection surrounding the ballot
box, with the substitution of official ballots for the old
voting ticket or open ballot, with more or less of the
nonpartisan, alphabetical arrangement of candidates
known as the ^^ Australian" ballot, has made direct

1 See chap, ix, on "The Fordgn-bom Woman m Politics,** p. 296
etseq.

23 «*1

'-^

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

corruption, vote buying, not only perilous as a form of
crime, but relatively useless because of the difficulty
of knowing whether the goods are delivered. There is
still bribery, but more and more it takes the form of
payment for voting at all, of continued tenure of jobs
within the gift or control of politicians and other oblique
and indirect forms of remuneration.

It would be possible to occupy much space in this
volume with a history of bygone days, when natural-
ization was a farce and a scandal, and the ignorant
immigrant vote a real factor in American politics. As
early as 1835, this was a source of alarm to the native
Americans, the emotion being intensified and com-
plicated by the religious sectarianism which was a large
factor in the nativistic Know-Nothing movement.
Congress was memorialized about

. . . the ease with which foreigners of doubtful morals
and hostile political principles acquired the right to vote, and
pointed to this as a soiqx^ of real danger to the country.
The petitioners saw with great concern the influx of Roman
Catholics. To such persons, as men, they had no dislike. To
their religion, as a religion, they had no objection. But
against their political opinions, interwoven with their religious
belief, they asked legislation. ^ /

In those days the "New Immigration," though the dis-
tinction between "old" and "new" now current had
not been created, was more particularly of Irish and
German — ^both races now generally regarded as of the
"old," the more desirable kind!

Ostrogorski, in his Democracy and the Party System in
the United StateSy says: *

^ McMAstesr, Hutory qf the People of the Untied States, 7 :970--iAted
in Wame's The Tide of Immigration^ p. 242.

' Moisei Bcovleyitch Ostrogorakd, La DhnoeraHe el VorganiaaHon dee
partis politiques, Paris, 1903, voL ii, pp. 94-95. Translated into
English by Frederick Clarke, with prdaoe by James Bryce.

842

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

Owing to the facilities offered by the American naturaliza-
tion laws, the immigrants began to enjoy the rights of citizen-
ship after a short period of residence. Ignorant, with no
political education, these new members of the Conmionweahh
took service at once in the party organization, and blindly
followed the word of command. Coming from comitries the
inhabitants of which were languishing in vnretchedness and
d^radation, as in Ireland, or gasping under the vexatious
regime of police-ridden and grandmotherly governments, as in
Grermany with its Polezei'Staat,\the immigrants could not resist
the seduction of the word ''democrat," and joined the ranks of
the Democratic organization wholesale, bound hand and foot.

Ostrogorski took his view from the situation in
New York City, as many other writers have done; over-
looking the fact that to a great extent the new voter,
both native and foreign-born, has usually and natu-
rally followed first the political partisan preference of
his father and his racial associates, and second, the
trend of party success. The dominating party machine
in any city naturally has the prestige of success, and its
ability to deliver patronage, large and small, draws those
to whom a job is the vitally important thing in life.
In New York City the power of the ignorant vote
always has been a great source of strength to Tammany,
which happens to be Democratic; in Philadelphia the
same thing may be said of the local organization, which
happens to be Republican.

COBRUPTION WAS NOT AN IMPORTATION

It is a common impression that the backbone of political
corruption lies in the so-called "foreign vote." OstrO"
gorski paid his respects to that idea. Said he: ^

\Moisei Ikovlevitch Ostrogorski, La DSmocratie et Vorganisation
dea partis poliiiques, vol. ii, p. 345. See also "The Alarming FropoT--
tion of Venal Voters," by J. J. MeCook, The Forum, vol. xv; "The
Sale of Votes," by J. B. Harrison, The Century, vol. xlvii; and
"Money in Practical Politics," by J. W. Jenks, ibid,, October, 1892.

848

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The most shameless venality is often met with in the
country districts, particularly in the states of the Atlantic
seaboard; nay, even in New England, inhabited by the
descendants of the Puritans. Votes are sold there openly,
like an article of conmierce; there is a regular market quota-
tion for them. And it is not only needy people who make a
traffic of their votes, but well-to-do farmers, of American
stock, pious folk who always go to church on Sunday. If the
farmer's son b an elector and dweUs under the paternal roof
the father receives the price of his vote and that of their help,
who is under a sort of moral obligation to vote for the same
candidate as his master. A good many would not take a
bribe from the party which they regard as hostile; they keep
faith with their own party, but they, none the le^ demand
money for their vote, in the form of an ind^nmity for their
trouble, for loss of time, for traveling expenses. In some
country districts a quarter or a third of the electors make
money out of their votes.

HOBiE-GROWN IN ADAMS COUNTY, OHIO!

Once at least in our political history we had an oppor-
tunity to see Ostrogorski's assertion convincingly
illustrated, and legally attested by "judicial notice"
of a competent court, in the case of Adams County»
Ohio, where, a decade ago, in 1910, one brave local judge»
by the name of A. Z. Blair, haled before him a whole
countryside of fanners, and disfranchised for con-
fessed corruption pretty much the whole population.
Here was exactly the situation described by Ostrogorski
— "votes sold openly, like an article of commerce," . . .
"a regular market quotation," . . . "well-to-do farm-
ers, of American stock," ... "a third of the electors
make money out of their votes." By stress of a special
grand jury Judge Blair brought out complete and all
but universal confessions, and imposed fines and dis-
franchisement upon the majority of voters in a whole
rural county.

844

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

It b instructive [said the OttUook in its editorial com-
ment] to note that this slump of citizenship has not occurred
among foreigners or negroes, nor in the slimis of cities, but in
a purely rural population, and among voters of native Amer-
ican stock. ^

WHO IS THE BUYER OP VOTES?

Incidentally it may be remarked that in all this business
of election bribery, which in past years has been all but
omnipresent in American politics, the emphasis is laid
upon those, American or foreign-bom, who sell their
votes. Even if it were true that the purchasable voter
was chiefly the voter of alien race, every sale implies a
purchase. Before any voter can sell his vote, somebody
must be prepared to buy it. The seat of corruption
lies, not in the venal voter alone, but also in the system
that gathers money for the purpose of buying him.
And that system, from the very beginning, has been
devised and engineered by the American politician,
and those behind him in American business life who
desire to control elections and the people's repres^ita-
tive selected therein, for their own "business" ends.
It would not be difficult to point to elections of very
great importance in America — even Presidential elec-
tions — ^in which the vote of great states was swayed
one way or the other by the margin represented by
the out-and-out purchase of votes at so much per
head. Nor would any person above the age of six
years seriously debate the question of the native-
American origin of the people who incited and paid
for the corruption.

William S. Bennet, then a member of Congress from
New York City, and of the House Conunittee on Immi-

^ The OuUook, New York, January 14» 1911» vol. xcvii, p. 42.

345

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

gration and Naturalization, put his finger exactly on
the center of this question when he said:^

Much of our trouble in the past has ^nmg from the belief
among newly made citizens, justified by far too much evi-
dence, that we ourselves have regarded elections as conten-
tions to be decided not at all by argiunent, persuasion, or
reason, but by trickery, treachery, bribery, perjury, assault,
forgery, deceit and even murder. . . . The new and impres-
sionable citizen of even but twenty years ago had held out to
him at election inducements to all that was worst in his char-
acter. If he held our elections and our institutions Hghtly,
we had ourselves to blame for it. . . . Man moves much
along lines of least resistance, and the stranger adapts himself
to conditions as he finds them. Make your elections riotous
and corrupt, and your new-made, foreign-bom citizen riots
and sells his vote with the native-bom. . . .

The new citizen has neither political inheritance, prejudice,
nor scars of conflict. He votes always in the present, some-
times for the future, but never in the past. Being poor, it is
quite true that when there is corruption, he is among those
approached. Being ambitious, the lure of minor place some-
times weighs with him more than principle.

Mr. Bennet, on the same occasion, emphasized the fact
that a sharp distinction must be drawn between the
mass of immigrants constituting the bulk of the foreign
population, especially in the cities, and the small por-
tion thereof actually participating in political activities:

It should be carefully borne in mind that in no great city
is the naturalized voter a newly arrived immigrant. ... In
cities the newly made voter is a resident in this coimtry cer-
tainly for five, and usually for more, years, before he votes even

^ William S. Bennet, address, "The Effect of Immigration upoa
Municipal Politics," before Conference for Good City Government,
and Fifteenth Annual Meeting of National Municipal League, in
conjunction with American Civic Association, at Cincinnati, Novem-
ber 15-18, 1909. See Proceedings of National Munieipal League,
1909, p. 142 a seq,

S46

FOREIGNBORN VOTER IN ACTION

for the first time. Candidates in foreign-speaking localities
frequently address audiences the majority of whom, either
by age or alienage, are imable to vote. . . . The 644,000
electors who had a right to participate in our recent election
were, thus, either native-bom or having five years or more of
residence. Of the 644,000 who registered about 590,000 voted.
These divided their votes roughly as follows: Gaynor, Tam-
many and Democrat, .250,000; Bannard, Republican and
Fusion, 175,000; Hearst, 150,000. Four years ago, the vote
was, Tammany, 226,000; Hearst, 224,000; Republican,
137,000. Therefore this year both the Tammany and Repub-
lican candidates gained at the expense of Hearst. The exact
significance of this is immaterial and accounted for readily
by a variety of causes. The important fact remains that
150,000 voters, without particular leadership or organization,
left the party ranks and voted for an individual of their
choice.

There is no substantial support, either in any careful
study of elections as a whole or in particular, or in the
experience of those who have lived dose to the political
processes of our country, for the widespread impression
that the foreign-bom voter is more given to or victim
of political corruption than any other class.

ATTEMPTS TO FIND THE "FOREIGN VOTE*'

It is exceedingly difficult to identify the part played in
any particular election, or in elections generally, by
foreign-bom voters. Political leaders and others who
make analyses of election returns have their theories
and prepossessions, and find in figures what they want
to find,'^to defend policies, support theories, and sustain
positions generally. In the presidential election of
1020, this was especially evident. Those who supported
the Republican ticket and platform and those who
supported the Democratic; those vi<Jently opposed to
the League of Nations and those devotedly in favor of

847

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

it — alike found in the election returns, manipulated to
suit their views, sustenance for argument as to the part
played in the result by this, that, and the other racial
group or political faction. Even the Socialists, whose
basic theory is the most definitely declared of all
political theories, find in a growing vote evidences of
wide acceptance of their doctrines; in its shrinkage
merely the desertion of mere protestors or sentimental-
ists who really do not understand Socialism at all!
Personal prejudice and predilection exhibit themselves
notoriously in political figuring. The process usually
consists of more or less gratuitous assumptions, from
which one may prove statistically — ^whatever he wants
to prove.

An exceptional instance of an attempt to analyze an
election without preliminary bias appears in a study of
"The Political Mind of Foreign-bom Americans,''
contributed by Dr. Abram lipsky to Popular Science
Monthly several years ago,^ in wMch he undertook by
analysis of the election returns from a number of
Assembly Districts in Greater New York, predominantly
of a certain racial complexion, to infer the attitude of
those racial groups on certain subjects. But it is dear
that the inferences, however they may have been
justified by the figures from this election, were based
upon questionable assumptions. Still more important,
it is altogether fallacious to assume that in another
election, wherein the issues were stated differently or
the general political atmosphere was different, these
very districts, these very individual voters of whatever
race, might not vote quite otherwise. A state of mind
among the Italian-born voters, provoked, for example,
by their understanding of the attitude of Mr. Wilson
on the s ubject of Fiume, might produce Republican

^ Popular Science Monthly, New York, October, 1914, vol. Izxxr,
pp. 897-408.

848

IX)BEIGN.BORN VOTER IN ACTION

votes in one election; whereas a year later, in an elec-
tion in which their interests at home or abroad were
believed by them to be otherwise affected, their votes
might be overwhelmingly Democratic.

One of the questions which Doctor Lipsky undertook
to answer from the election figures was whether the vot-
ers in the selected districts "read the Hearst papers reg-
ularly." He inferred his answer from the vote cast in
those district3 for the candidates which happened to
be favored by the newspapers owned by William Ran-
dolph Hearst. But the basic assumption was fallacious,
overlooking entirely the notorious fact that repeatedly
el^ions in New York City have been won in spite of
the opposition, or lost in spite of the support, of vir-
tually the entire newspaper press of the city. As logic-
ally might one assume from any election that the vote,
pro or contra, on any subject represented the circula-
tion of some particular group of newspapers whose
views the election indorsed.

Nearer the probabilities, but still subject to the same
kind of discount, is Doctor Lipsky's generalization as
to the showing of one election on the subject of the atti-
tude of certain racial groups as regards Tammany Hall
and Socialism. This analysis is not without a certain
degree of general significance.

Doctor Lipsky's conclusion that "native-bom Ameri-
cans of American parents are opposed to Tanunany gov-
ernment'' is based upon a comparison of figures from
districts predominantly of native Americans, in the elec-
tions for governor in 1910 and for mayor of New York
in 1913, his primary assumption being that the can-
didacy of Judge Edward E. McCall for mayor em-
bodied "Tammany" pure and simple, while that of
John A. Dix for governor did not make "Tammany"
a state issue. From this point of view Doctor Lipsky in-
terprets the fact that the percentage of votes for McCall

S49

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

in those districts was strikingly lower than those for
Dix in the state election of three years before:

TABLE XXXVn

Per Cent of New Yobk Cnr Vote Cast for McCall m 1913
AND Dix in 1910 bt Votebs of Nativb Pabents

Abbbmblt Dibtbict

Pbb Cent
or Nativb
Pabbnts

1913
McCall

1910
Dec

15th Manhattan

19th "

25th "

27th "

4th Queens

17th Brooklyn

11th "

18th

5th

10th "

45.8
40.0
44.1
51.5
41.3
45.6
38.0
39.0
38.1
38.6

33.7
33.2
35.3
37.6
81.1
24.7
34.9
28.8
25.8
36.6

58.1
52.8
48.4
55.8
46.2
43.6
50.5
46.3
44.1
53.3

But the Russians and Austrians also said ^^No" to
Tammany, as Doctor Lipsky reads the figures:

TABLE XXXVni

Per Cent of New Yobk City Vote Cast fob McCall in 1918
AND Dix in 1910 bt Russians and Austbians

assbmblt
Dibtbict

Russians
Pbb

Cbnt

Aus-
tbians
Pbb

Cent

Both

Pbb

Cent

1913
McCall

1910
Dix

8th Manhattan. . .

54.4

14.2

68.6

40.2

52.8

6th

30.4

30.8

61.2

22.8

40.0

4th

35.6

25.2

60.2

51.1

61.7

26th

34.6

6.7

41.3

80.0

41.0

35.6

1.4

87.0

57.6

67.5

10th

22.3

12.5

84.8

29.3

52.2

8l8t

12.9

4.9

17.8

24.1

44.7

' 21st Brooklyn ...

31.2

5.9

87.1

27.1

48.6

23d

33.3

3.9

87.2

25.7

40.9

14th

16.1

5.9

22.0

46.6

61.5

22d

13.0

3.0

16.0

24.3

38.5

350

FOBEIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION
The Irish voted for Tammany, as usual:

TABLE XXXIX
Per Cent op Nibw York Citt Votb Cast for McCall in 1918

AND DiX IN 1010 BT THB IriBH

AssBicBLT District

PsbCknt
or Ibish

1913
McCall

1010
Dix

18th Manhattan

16th "

11th "

14th "

5th "

16.4
14.0
12.2
12.4
11.2

61.0
51.7
55.6
54.7
64.4

58.1
61.4
60.5
61.2
67.6

Allowance must be made here for some falling oflf of
the vote in a municipal as compared with a state elec-
tion; but a still greater allowance must be made for the
fact that "Tammany" was indeed a state issue — ^Dix
was distinctly charged by the opposition with being
Tammany's candkiate, and there were, as always, con-
fusing and inestimable factors of a subtle kind — such,
for instance, as the fact that McCall had an Irish name,
and Dix didn't; or that the name "John A. Dix" had
a sound hbtorically familiar — even if not one regularly
American-born person in a hundred could remember
who the historic "John A. Dix" was!

Some years the Germans are supposed to have sup-
ported Tammany; this particular time Doctor Lipsky
seems to find that they did not — ^in districts in which
Germans made up a considerable percentage of the
population. (See Table XL.)

Think what you will of the Italians' attitude toward
Tammany; you can stress the fact that the vote for
McCall was so much below that of three years before
for Dix, or you can philosophize about the fact that it
was no greater! Doctor Lipsky 's inference that, on the

851

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

whole, they supported Tammany is based on the figures
from six dlistricts. (See Table XLI.)

TABLE XL

Pbb Cent op New Yobk City Vote Cast fob McCall in 1918

AND DiX IN 1910 BY

Gericanb

AsBBiiBLT District

PbbCsnt
ofGbsmans

1913
McCali.

1910
Dnc

8d Queens

20th Brooklyn

19th "

28d "

1st Queens

22d Manhattan

21.4
20.2
18.6
11.2
11.1
21.2

81.1
26.8
81.9
84.6
41.4
88.4

49.8
41.8
48.8
49.4
66.2
60.2

TABLE XLI

Peb Cent of New Yobk City Vote Cast fob McCall in 1918

AND Ddc in 1910 by the Italians

Absbmblt Dibtbict

Pbb Cbnt
or Italians

1913
McCall

1910
Dix

8d Manhattan

1st "

28th "

8d Brooklyn

2d Manhattan

80.8

26.2
26.8
28.2
18.6

67.6
69.6
42.6
68.7
67.6

77.7
67.8
66.8
78.1
67.4

"We are able," says Doctor Lipsky, "to say that a
decided *no* was given to Tammany by native Amer-
icans of native parents, and by the Russians and Ger-
mans; a decided ^Yes' was given by the Italian and
Irish."

The thing that stands out in these figures, whatever
else may be said, would seem to be the fact that, like
the native Americans of native parentage, the voters of
foreign racial antecedents changed their suppcHi; with
changing circumstances and influences. The conven-

862

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

tional view of the foreign-bom voter is that he votes in
herds, as he is told to vote, and that in New York City
Tammany does the herding. Well, in the mayoralty
election of 1913, judging by these figm'es, it is evident
that Tammany's "herding" was not wholly successful
with those "new-immigration" voters classed as Rus-
sians and Austrians! All sorts of factors, local and
general, fundamental and temporary, almost wholly
incalculable, enter into elections, and one is free to
analyze and interpret to suit himself.

On the subject of the "political mind of the foreign-
bom voter" as regards Socialism, Doctor Lipsky pre-
sents some interesting figures from ten assembly dis-
tricts in which the Socialist candidate for mayor in 1913
received over 10 per cent of the total vote.

TABLE XLH

Pbb Cent of Sociaubtic Vote in New Yobk City in 1910 and

191S BT Nationality

Socialist

Nativb
or

ASBKMBLT
DiSTBICT

Vote

Nativb
Par-

BNT-
AGE

Aus-
trian

Ger-
man

Irish

• • • •

Ital-
ian

Rus-
sian

1910

1913

21st Brooklyn . .

12.4

16.1

12.6

5.9

4.1

9.1

31.2

«3di

12.5

15.8

19.6

3.9

2.2

1.6

4.6

33.8

19th

11.0

12.8

12.6

13.6

■ • • •

9.9

11.9

4th Manhattan . .

12.6

11.9

7.0

25.2

1.1

2.5

35.6

26th

10.2

11.8

7.1

6.7

4.6

3.8

1.4

34.6

8th

14.6

11.7

2.5

14.2

• • • •

4.1

54.4

«2d

13.1

11.7

10.6

4.6

21.2

5.3

1.6

3.6

6th

10.0

11.2

2.4

80.8

1.1

30.4

24th

10.4

11.2

11.1

3.9

4.3

6.2

11.1

20.6

10th

11.1

10.8

5.9

12.5

4.7

• • • •

13.9

22.8

«/

((

Our conclusion therefore is," says Doctor Lipsky^
that the bulk of the Socialist vote is derived from the

353

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

foreign Jewish element, and to a less degree from the
Grermans.''

Perhaps, but one may not ignore, for instance, the
fact that in the district of these containing the largest
percentage of native Americans of native parentage,
the Socialist vote for Grovernor in 1910 was 12.5 per
cent of the whole; or that in the one in which the
Russian and Austrian percentage was very small and
the German larger than in any other of the districts
selected, the Socialist vote was about 13 per cent. We
shall see later in this chapter the importance of the
German factor in the Socialist party.

All such analyses of particular elections, we may say
again, are interesting and in a measure instructive; but
generalizations are exceedingly perilous and greatly
conditioned by personal preconceptions, special tem-
porary and local forces and circumstances, and the pur-
poses of the statistician for the time being — ^for all of
which the candid student will, and must, make heavy
discounts.

RESPONSE TO PROQRESSIVE IDEAS

Coming to the question of the Progressive party's cam-
paign in 1912, Doctor Lipsky says, in part:

One of two facts in the election of 1912 . . . are extremely
suggestive even though they do not cover the whole ground.
In that election Roosevelt ran ahead of Wilson in only four
districts of the city. One was the 23d of Manhattan, in which
Taft also ran ahead of Wilson — ^a strong Republican district.
The other three were the 6th, the 8th, and the 26th, the three
districts in which the Russians and Austrians constitute the
great majority of the electorate.

So there you are — ^make what you will of it. Why
should the very districts in which we found heavy per-
centages of Russians and Austrians, and a relatively

954

FOREIGN-BOBN VOTER IN ACTION

Keavy Socialist vote, produce a preponderant vote for
Roosevelt and the Progressive platform? Is there, after
all, a common factor, overlooked — or anyway not dwelt
upon — ^by Doctor Lipsky, to account for what otherwise
might seem inexplicable? Here again one may philoso-
phize to suit himself, but it is worth while to consider
one phase of the matter too often ignored in discussions
of the motives and impulses behind the radical vote.

William S. Bennet, previously quoted in the same
address, dwelt upon this matter in speaking of the
inJSuence of Mr. Hearst:*

Mr. Hearst's vote among the foreign bom was great, and,
more than the other two candidates combined [speaking of an
election in which Mr. Hearst was himself a candidate], he
attracted that vote. It becomes important to analyze Mr.
Hearst's appeal. Much of it we find to have been on right
lines. We cannot qiiarrel, because of those views, with a
candidate who asks votes because he has fought against rail-
road rebates, corporation exactions, and fraudulent elections.
Under New York City conditions we cannot quarrel with one
who advocates the building of immediate transit facilities with
city money. It was also rather begging the question to assert
that Mr. Hearst exaggerated his efforts and usefulness in
relation to those matters. The personal and temperamental
fitness of a candidate is always an element to be considered,
and in Mr. Hearst's case it was, though more in private than
in public discussion. His record as a persistent absentee dur-
ing his congressioual service and the legitimate argument
from it that he would be a negligent mayor, cost Mr. Hearst
more votes among those friendly to him among the foreign
bom than he probably imagines.

Mr. Hearst never made an appeal for support on the ground

^ WilUam S. Bennet, address, "The Effect of Immigration upon
Municipal Politics," before Conference for Good City Government,
and Fifteenth Annual Meeting of National Municipal League, in
conjunction with American Civic Association, at Cincinnati, Novem-
ber 15-18, 1909. See Proceedings of National Munidfxd League,
1909, p. 142 et seq,

S65

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

that it would be of any personal assistance to himself, ffis
appeal was frequently to the self-interest of the individual,
and quite generally to his highest interest as a citizen in the
welfare of the whole' body politic. He favored policies be-
cause, in his expressed judgment, they were right, not because
they might be immediately successful; and opposed others
because wrong, though by many deemed expedient.

The point to be noted, then» is that in the propaganda
of the Socialists, of the Progressive party, of Mr.
Hearst, there was much stress upon and slogans about
the common welfare, the improvement of social condi-
tions, the square deal, honest politics and government,
human brotherhood. The note never was outwardly
selfish or materialistic. Always, in the main, it was
idealism — ^whatever may have been the private motives
actually underlying in any particular case.

It is the common experience of those who have
worked with the foreign-bom voter that he usually is
responsive to this kind of appeal. Is it not really a
tribute to ourselves, as well as an index of his own idea
of what "America" stands for, that he acts at the ballot
box as if he would like to see these things incarnated in
the life of his adopted country?

Mr. Bennet went on to say that "we learn, certainly,
concerning our most recent citizens, from the Hearst
vote":

1. They are independent voters.

2. They are not constrained to remain in the party in power
nationally.

3. Nor do they remain with a party simply because it is
usually dominant locally.

4. They are not afraid to sacrifice immediate possible
benefit by attaching themselves to a lesser party and tem-
porary movement.

6. They are moved by appeals to good citizsenship.
6. They are quite certain to range themselves on the right
dde of a question of morals.

FOREIGNBOBN VOTER IN ACTION

7. A certain proportion of them are moved by direct
appeals, based on allied class distinctions.

8. The thinly veiled policy of license advanced by the
Tammany candidate did not draw them from Mr. Hearst,
though he vigorously condemned license and its advocacy.

And Mr. Bennet added, "these things have been
proved concerning the immigrant. Without going into
specifications, which are, however, well understood
locally, these things are not proved :

1. That he always votes for a fellow countryman or a co-
religionist.

S. That he can be invariably stampeded by a race or reli-
gious issue.

S. That he votes blindly.

SOME BESUI/rS FBOM CLEVELAND

It is impossible to forecast the working out in our
politics of the passions aroused by the World War
among the various racial groups by the relations and
enmities of their respective fatherlands in that vast
turmoil, and the eflFects of the behavior of native-Amer-
ican elements toward particular races, and even toward
"foreigners" generally. It is evident that for any in-
telligent understanding of what, in the long nm and
under approximately normal conditions, are the political
attitudes and activities, we must derive our facts largely
from an earlier period— at least antedating the armis-
tice and the bitter conflicts growing out of the Peace
Treaty and the partisanship characterizmg the contro-
versy about the League of Nations which so greatly
confused the issues in the presidential election of 1920.
A series of elections in the city of Cleveland, Ohio,
in the period between 1911 and 1918 seemed to oflfer
opportunities for study of a number of large racial
groups under reasonably normal conditions. It is not
claimed that this Study was conclusive in its results or
24 357

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

fully scientific in its method; but it certainly produced
a significant exhibit of facts, and in general confirmed
what is known to everyone who ever has worked with
or candidly observed at first hand the part played by
the foreign-born voter in American politics — ^namely,
that he is in no important respect different from the
native-bom; that he is swayed by the same motives
and emotions, and is not essentially different in respect
of responsiveness to appeals to his civic pride.

The first step was to select for study a group of elec-
tion precincts including as large a proportion as possible
of the various nationalities, and for comparison another
group of districts which would show the action of
native-bom voters. Ten of the latter were selected,
including populations both relatively wealthy and rela-
tively poor, and both habitually Republican and habit-
ually Democratic. For foreign-bom racial groups the
following were selected as most important: Czechs,
Magyars, Poles, Jugo-Slavs, Italians, and Jews. Owing
to the scattered nature of the racial distribution, it was
impossible to find a large number of districts pre-
dominantly of any particular race; but it was possible
to segregate three for each of these races, and four for
one, for comparison with them of the native born; so
that 29 precincts were studied, as follows r

TABLE XLin

Distribution op Nationalitt m Twenty-ninb Precincts in

Cleveland

Native bom

Czech

Magyar

Polish

Jugo-Slav. . .

Italian

Jewish

Total. . .

10
8
3
8
8
4
8

358

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

Eight elections were covered by the inquiry, compar-
ing the votes for:

Mayor 1911 — ^Baker w. Hogen.

Mayor 1913 — ^Baker vs, Davis.

Mayor 1915 — Witt, Davis, Ruthenberg.

Mayor 1917 — Stinchcomb, Davis, Ruthenberg.

President 1916 — Wilson, Hughes, Debs.

Governor 1916 — Cox w. Willis.

Governor 1918 — Cox vs, Willis.

Congressman 1918 — Candidates differing in different dis-
tricts.

The returns were examined also for indications as to
attitudes about woman suffrage and the question of no-
license and prohibition, in elections between 1912
and 1918.

Of the native-born precincts, so called, five indicated
almost straight Democratic tendencies; three were con-
sistently Republican; and two were of varying com-
plexion as between the two great parties. It should
be remembered that the prevailing general com-
plexion of the city of Cleveland in recent years, and
regardless of the "landslide" of 1920, has been Dem-
ocratic. Therefore the districts sdected to show the
tendencies of the native bom were fairly representative
of the situation.

The first election, 1911, was a straight partisan con-
test between Mr. Baker, a Democrat, and Mr. Hogen,
a Republican. In 1913, the city tried, for the first time,
its municipal nonpartisan ballot; but in that year the
old political parties were as powerful as ever. In the
election of 1915, Mr. Baker was not a candidate, but
Peter Witt, long associated with Mayor Tom L. John-
son, was the Democratic candidate. This election ex-
hibits circumstances and results significant not only of

859

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the attitude of the foreign-bom voter and his responsive-
ness to political cross-currents, but of the extreme diffi-
culty of isolating particular factors as especially in-
fluential upon these voters.

Mr. Witt had just completed four years of service as
Street Railway Commissioner, and among the business
and professional classes of the town had won a rather
reluctant recognition for efficiency, the reluctance being
largely due to the fact that in days when he was cam-
paigning for Tom Johnson he had been regarded as
ultra-radical. But his opponent in this campaign had
no recognized record of administrative capacity, and
the Republicans themselves acknowledged some doubt
as to his ability, compared with the known ability of
Witt, to fulfill the duties of the mayoralty. Both can-
didates were regarded without opposition by the "wet'*
element, though Mr. Davis was perhaps more circum-
spect in his utterances on the liquor question. The
campaign did not touch the questions involved in the
European War until the very end, when, on the Sunday
before election, some sui^)orter of Davis published and
widely circulated among the Bohemians (Czechs), Rus-
sians, and Italians a pamphlet in which Witt was bitterly
accused of bdng pro-Grerman.

Now the results of the election in the wards dom-
inated by those nationalities might rationally be held
to show a pronounced effect of that propaganda, but it
was no secret, the old "aristocratic" wards were pre-
sumably as keen about pro-Germanism as those inhab-
ited by voters of alien origin, and there, if anywhere,
would be the seat of the prejudice against Witt on the
ground of alleged radicalism. Why, then, did the
native-bom conservatives waive their prejudices against
Witt, the supposed radical, and overlook the charges oi
pro-Germanism? And why did the foreign bom, who
are conventionally expected to be radical, suddenly

360

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

turn and vote against the only candidate who was
accused of being radical? Why did Mr. Witt gain
nothing in the heavily German wards (as in fact he did
gain nothing) from his German name, his remote €rer-
man ancestry, and the accusation of pro-Germanism?
It was further noted at the time that among the Rus-
sian Jews the attack upon Witt turned many normally
Democratic votes to the Davis RepubUcan candidate.
Why?

The following tables show what happened in the pre-
cincts studied:

TABLE XUV

DiBTRIBTTnON OF DeMOCBATIC AND BSPUBUCAN VOTES IN ClEVE-

lAND IN 1913 AND 1915 AifONG Cebtain Racial Gboups

NuiiBiiB OF Votes

NuMBKR 07 Votes

Pbbcincts

1913

1915

Baker

Davia

Witt

Dayis

Native bom

945
343
207
263
283
239
260

1,091
223
204
208
135
282
256

1,039
275
302
205
279
136
273

925

Czech

373

Mairyar

204

■"■^■•o^ ■•» ••

Pnliffh

473

JuiEO-^av

137

Italian

394

Jewish

212

The three elections following — the presidential in
1916, the mayoralty election in 1917, and the governor-
ship election in 1918 — exhibit no tendencies attribu-
table either to the war or to any special causes from
which one may generalize anything with regard to the
political activities and attitudes of the foreign-bom
voters which would distinguish them from the native-
bom. In 1912 Wilson carried Polish, Magyar, and

361

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Czech precincts. In 1916 he repeated — ^this presum-
ably not because of any aspect of the war, but because
those precmcts are normally Democratic.

The Cleveland nonpartisan ballot provides for three
choices. One of the objections lu'ged against the non-
partisan ballot has been that the second and third
choices would be used only by the more intelligent
voter; that the less intelligent would vote for but one.
In the elections studied in which this three-choice
system was used, 20 per cent of the native born ex-
pressed second choices; the foreign born followed in
this order:

TABLE XLV

PsB Cent of Cebtain Races Exebcibino Second and Tjibd

Choices

Kacb

SiccoND Choice
PebCknt

TnntD C^oicB J
PbbCbnt 1

Native bom

20
18
14
12
10
7

7 1

JiMfo-Slav

Jews

Italians

Magyars and Bohemians

Polish

A 11 . •

.1*1 1 •

1 . .1

A smaller per cent exercises third choice, but three
foreign-born groups equaled the native born with
7 per cent. The Jews with 5 per cent, Magyars
with 4 per cent, Polish with 3 per cent, were the lowest.
While there is little in these figures to justify gen-
eralization, it may be said that, on the whole, the voters
presumably more intelligent are in practice rather afraid
of the second- and third-choice business because they
recognize some danger that in expressing a second
choice th^ may, in the final count, negative their first

862

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

choice; therefore there is a marked tendency among
the politically sophisticated to vote only a first choice.
At all events, no substantial distinction can be drawn
from any available statistics between native and foreign
bom» as such, with regard to their intelligence or their
tendencies in the use of such a device.

When one comes to consider what might be called
the human aspects of politics, these elections in Cleve-
land show, what elections everywhere show, interesting
but in no way siu*prising facts. One is that the voters
of any race tend to support a candidate of that race,
or a man well known as friendly to its members. Mr.
Davis was exceedingly well known and popular among
the Bohemians, who are both numerically strong and
racially influential in Cleveland. In the first election
studied, that of 1911, Mr. Baker, a Democrat, carried
the three Bohemian (Czech) precincts by substantial
pliu'alities as against Mr. Hogen. His total vote in
these precincts aggregated 445 to Hogen's 183. But
in 1913 Mr. Davis carried one of the precincts. And
over against this fact is the consideration that in 1913
Baker was generally much weaker as a candidate than
in 1911 — ^for reasons having no appreciable racial bear-
ing. In 1915, as shown in the table above, there was a
heavy swing in the three Bohemian districts in favor of
Davis, the Republican candidate.

Under the head of human tendencies one may con-
sider the question of the immigrants' attitude toward
prohibition. The reaction is just what would be ex-
pected from voters of foreign extraction. The Magyars
(Hungarians), normally Democratic, swung greatly en-
hanced Democratic pluralities when tha-t party was
recognized as opposed to prohibition. And the old-
country attitudes about the position of woman showed
clearly in the vote on woman suffrage, as they all voted

against the **dry" proposals and candidates.

863

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

In the earlier days in Cleveland the Italians were led
by a very influential Italian who was a Republican*
and until recent years the Italian vote was preponder-
antly Republican. Now, however, the Cleveland
politicians will tell you that this preponderance has
passed; the Italians are said to be fairly evenly
divided. But in any particular election the Italian
vote may sway this way or that, under the influence
of temporary factors that swing elections everywhere.
In one Italian precinct, in four municipal elections,
the Republican candidate was preferred in every
case. Hughes had a small plurality over Wilson.
But in two state elections the Democrats won —
admittedly because the Republican candidate was
regarded as "dry."

Again the human factor — ^take the Jews. One of the
Cleveland precincts studied is made up of an over-
whelming majority of the more prosperous class of
Jewish people. The other two are located in the
Ghetto of the city. There is no similarity in the polit-
ical trends of the two parts of the city. The wealthier
Jews vote as a rule for Democrat or Republican. In
1917 the Socialist candidate for mayor carried both of
the poorer districts. But do the Jews move away from
the Socialist districts because they are opposed to
Socialism, or do they turn from Socialism when they
become more prosperous?

Persistent in most of the studies of this subject is the
fallacy of assuming or attempting to find some con-
stant factor attaching either to this or that particular
race, or to the state of being foreign bom or of foreign
antecedents. The Jugo-Slavs in Cleveland are said,
and appear to be shown in the statistics above, to be
preponderantly Democratic. In 1916 Wilson received
in the three Jugo-Slav precincts more than 70 per cent
of the total vote. But, aside from the fact that Social-

864

POBEIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

ism is or has been at times politically strong among the
Jugo-Slavs, we have no data to show how Jugo-Slavs
voted in districts where they are in the minority; we
do not know why they voted for Wilson in 1916, or how
many of them did so vote. The 70 per cent above
referred to included large numbers of voters In those
precincts who were of other racial complexion, and the
individual ballot in no instance discloses the inner
mind of the voter.

"civic interest" in grand rapids

When we come down to the larger question, of the
response of voters of foreign birth and origin to con-
structive efforts to interest them in civic matters, we
are on surer ground. Given a sufficiently comprehen-
sive survey, we can tell whether the "foreign wards"
of a city are apathetic toward movements which they
can recognize as embodying concrete things close to
their own lives, and meaning a forward step in public
administration. The testimony of all sorts of workers
among the foreign born is unanimous on this point.
The foreign-bom voters are more responsive to things
of this kind than the native-bom. Possibly this is
because their more recent introduction into American
life makes them more naive, less blas6 — ^what you will
as to the reason, the fact remains the same.

It so happens that we have a peculiarly apt and in-
forming exhibit of this in the city of Grand Rapids,
Michigan, in statistics of five elections involving ques-
tions of municipal import, and showing in most strik-
ing fashion the results of a sustained effort, not to
influence votes this way or that, but to impress citizens
with the importance of voting at all. The following
tables show the total vote cast in the three wards of
the city of Grand Rapids at these elections:

865

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABtE XLVI

VcMS Cast in Pbecincts of Vabtimo Racial Makb-op □

Wabds or GaAND Rafidb, 191S, 1919

Fint Wiud

Pm>-

cSSSi.

".'.S-

*;?"

NOVBM-

•^

1910

Sa-^....:::

if
1

ZflO

1
1

322

i
1

eoi

JSE™..:::::::

593

7S2

K_:;:;:;;;

Seeond Wwd

aS^™ :::::::
iSSIS: :::::::

zoe

438

300
245

399

1
291

475
E74

:l
1

907

Tga

886

3th

Amsriowi

American

AniBrioim

Italiuud^u!!

iSSSSSS::

is
f

Third Wud

4th

2th
3tb

SSSKS::
SS~ .:::;:::

American

Amerloan

American

S"" ■•■-■■

American

422

2SG

266

i
i

seo

438

i
1

490

9S0

980

Totals |ll.S4fi

11.820

20,774

28,70S

37.988

POBEIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

The population of Grand Rapids, about 112,500 by
the census of 1910, by the spring of 1918 had grown to
approximately 132,000. This would afford a potential
male vote of upward of 26,000; so that at the primary
election that March, considerably less than half of the
possible vote was polled. At the election in August,
1918, this was increased to nearly 70 per cent, and to
80 per cent in November.

In 1919, however, the women came into the picture,
and the efforts of the Americanization Society^ were
redoubled to bring the women out, first to register and
then to vote. The report of the secretary of the society
(made at the annual meeting in January, 1920) states
that on February 15th, the last registration day before
the March primary, 22,700 women had registered. And
on March 20th, the last registration day before the
election of April 7th, women had registered to a total
of 26,500 — ^an astoimding proportion of the possible
total of women citizens of voting age in a population
of 132,000. It looks very much like 100 per cent !

The last two columns in the table above show the
totals including the women voters, and the striking in-
crease between the March primary and the April elec-
tion in 1919. With a possible total vote of upward of
50,000 we have the results of the Americanization
Society's work as showing in the actual personal pres-
ence at the polls of at least 75 per cent of the voters of
all racial groups. The vote cast on March 5, 1919, was
28,705, composed, it is said, of about half men and half
women. At the election on April 7th, nearly 38,000
votes were cast, and it is estimated that from 7,000 to
10,000 voters were turned away from the polling
places because of inadequate election facilities. A
fairly impressive exhibit of the response of zVmerican

^ Hie spirit and methods of the Grand Rapids Americanizatioii
Society are described in chap, x, p. 8S0 et seq., in this volume.

867

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

citizenship to an appeal to American, nonpartisan,
civic interest, in a large cosmopolitan city, regardless
of racial complexion. Indeed, without meaning to
stress the point unduly, it may be remarked in passing
that the very few precincts which in any election failed
to show a substantial increase over the vote at the pre-
vious election, are in every instance those in which the
population is described as predominantly of the native
bom.

That it was the appeal to civic interest and duty,
and nothing else, which in largest measure produced
this result may be seen, for instance, in a comparison
of the registration of women in Grand Rapids with
that at the same time (February, 1919) in other Mich-
igan cities in which there was no such intensive cam-
paign to get the women out to the registration places:

TABLE XLVn
Feb Cent of Women Registebed in Thibteen Michigan Cities

C1TIB8

Grand Rapids.

Saginaw

Benton Harbor
Traverse City. .

Jackson

Muskegon

Bay City

Port Huron. . . .

Flint

Kalamazoo. . . .

Detroit

Lansing

Cadillac

Population

132,000
65,000
12,000
12,000
50,000
42,000
50,000
25,000
70,000
50,166

986,699
55,000
10,000

WoifSM

Rbgibtsbkd

22,700
8,509
1,506
1,388
5,388
4,500
6,290
2,706
6,906
4,308

65,040

3,000

513

Pbr Csmt of
populatiom

17.0

13.0

12.5

11.6

10.8

10.7

10.6

10.1

9.9

8.6

6.5

6.3

5.1

Totals and average .

1,591,865

185»344

8.5

368

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

Even then, however, the Grand Rapids movement
was spreading to other Michigan cities; some of the
results of that influence may well be visible in the larger
percentages shown by some of these cities. Since then,
indeed, the movement has become state-wide; and the
results already visible show notably the same facts and
tendencies so strikingly exhibited in the case of Grand
Rapids, where it began.

BfUNICIPAL voters' LEAGUE OP CHICAGO

The most conspicuously successful effort to mobilize
all the resources of a great city behind the general
movement for honesty and efficiency in city govern-
ment is undoubtedly the Municipal Voters' League of
Chicago. Its record of accomplishment is too long and
too brilliant to permit any serious discouragement from
the fact that immediately following the war there
appeared to be a setback and reaction in Chicago's
local elections. For the time being there seems to be
everywhere a recession in nearly all forms of social
idealism. That is the inevitable result of the moral
overstrain that accompanies war. Much work must
be done over again, but, at the worst, it must be recog-
nized that the tide of advance diu'ing the past quarter-
century left marks which will not be forgotten; stand-
ards o^social welfare and responsibility which, in the long
run, will continue to stand as a minimum of progress.

Anotherthing: Into Chicago has come, during the
past few years, a vast population of negroes from the
South, among whom never anywhere has a particle of
work been done tending to teach them the smallest
thing about political responsibiUty or civic pride. In
the election of April, 1919, when William Hale Thomp-
son was re-elected mayor of Chicago, despite the oppo-
sition of all the constructive elements in the city, a

369

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

good deal more than half of Thompson's plurality was
gamed in the Second Ward, which is the negro ward of
the city. It would be misleading to generalize from
the results in the foreign wards, because the issues were
greatly confused by the war and accusations of pro-
Grermanism against Thompson. Even so, Thompson
in that election carried only one of the heavily German
wards. In some of the wards, dominated by native-
bom voters, he won because, in spite of his alleged pro-
Germanism, he was the candidate of the dyed-in-the-
wool, stand-pat Repubhcans. The issue of decent
government, by which one would test the constructive
influence of any group of voters, was swamped in a
wave of passion. So for any general judgment of the
response of racial groups, or of the foreign-born voters
as a whole, we must consider the whole experience of
the Municipal Voters' League during its effort of
twenty-five years to raise the quality of character and
public service in the city's board of aldermen.

The genius of this organization of public-spirited
volunteers lies in its reliance wholly upon publicity of
the records of candidates. These records, carefully in-
vestigated, with full opportimity for the candidates
or their friends to bring forward any facts or argu-
ments in their behalf, were published in the newspapers
and spread broadcast by means of pamphlets. The
influence has been enormous and accelerating. In the
early days the main stress was laid upon mere personal
character — candidates must not be thieves; increas-
ingly during succeeding years the test came to be that
of capacity as well as character. The war reactions and
results have not destroyed, but only interrupted, this
magnificent work.

How did the foreign-born voter respond to this effort
and propaganda? The answer to this question, as
foimd all through the twenty-odd years before the en-

370

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTtON

trance of the United States into the war, is one of the
most heartening things in American politics. But this
statement must be taken with discrimination, and
subject to certain qualifications. The League has had
its hardest fights, and produced the least results, in
those wafds where solid blocks of immigrants of some
one racial complexion encouraged a racial isolation;
or where great masses of population were under the
domination of some reactionary political or religious
leadership, having some interest in maintaining a sub-
servient representation in the City Hall. In the centers
of poverty, where political strength is maintained by
leaders of the old type through control of day-labor
jobs, gifts of coal, shoes, and other forms of charity, it
is difficult to interest a population to whom even a
vision of clean streets is of importance secondary to
to-day's experience of empty stomachs. In a general
way it may be said that the degree of response to move-
ments like the Mimicipal Voters' League is roughly
commensurate with the degree of material prosperity.
As the immigrant gains in quality and wage-retiu'n of
his job, acquaintance with American essentials, and
comfort of material surroundings, he gains interest
in the ethical aspect of community life.

But the uplifting influence of a campaign like that
of the League penetrates even into the most obdurate
regions. The Seventeenth Ward of Chicago was long
the scene of one of the hardest fights of the League.
Through the hard work of Prof. Graham Taylor
and the group of good citizens centering in and about
the Chicago-Commons social settlement, the work came
to great success — ^and held it — ^as long as the population
was characteristically Scandinavian, German, Scotch,
and Irish. In recent years, however, these people
gradually moved out of the ward, and it came to be
heavily Polish, under the domination of a reactionary

371

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

control of the Polish Catholic Church. This element
always has been hard to influence, and its priests are
active directly in politics. Nevertheless, in a recent
aldermanic campaign, a Polish Catholic alderman run-
ning for re-election told at a public meeting how his
daughter came home from school crying, with a news-
paper in her hand, demanding to know what her father
had done to justify the newspapers in saying he had a
bad record — ^his record set forth in cold type by the
Municipal Voters' League. This alderman at that
meeting declared that he had been receiving patronage
for his vote in the council, that he was going to drop
that, try hereafter to serve the best interests of his ward,
and make a record of which his children could be proud.

The Italians as a whole, in Chicago as in many other
places, have been more united in their action than most
other racial groups, and under their ancient habits of
padrone leadership have shown a tendency to accept
boss rule, though the Italian voter as an individual is
no more amenable to corrupt influences than voters
of any other race.

Over the whole history of the League's activity it has
been true that the races most responsive to its appeal
are the Scandinavian, German, Irish, and Bohemian.
Given a candidate of any race, other things being equal,
the voters of that race will support him; as between
two competing outsiders, the voters of these races have
been more than willing to heed disinterested appeals
from the point of view of good government. Some of
the best aldermen during the past twenty years in
Chicago have been Germans. The late Alderman
Beilf uss. Republican, a native of Germany and an excel-
lent official, was re-elected time after time in the Fif-
teenth Ward; but as the Scandinavians and Grermans —
especially Lutheran Germans — moved away and the
scale of prosperity in the ward's population deterio-

372

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

rated, his pluralities diminisliedy and in the year before
his death he won by a narrow margin.

In the predominantly Bohemian Twelfth Ward alder-
manic candidates recommended by the League were
elected almost without exception for many years, re-
gardless of political alignment. In that ward, from 1904
to 1909, inclusive, the Republican Bohemian and the
Democratic German candidates, both indorsed by the
League, alternated in winning elections, the pluralities
running from 3,400 on one side to 3,100 on the other —
in a ward casting a total of perhaps 15,000 votes a
shift of 6,500. When Mayor Thompson, Republican, in
1915, carried the ward by nearly 4,000, Alderman
Kerner, a Bohemian Democrat of excellent record, car-
ried it in the same election by 3,350. In other words,
there was a poUtically independent swing of nearly
one-half of the 15,000 votes cast in the election.

The Irish voters generally pay close attention to
what the League says. In the spring campaign of 1919,
the League's condemnation of a Democratic Irish
alderman in the Thirtieth Ward f lunished his opponent,
whom the League recommended, with enough ammuni-
tion to defeat him for renomination, whereupon an
Irish Republican, a former alderman with a good record,
who received the final indorsement of the League,
turned in and beat the Democratic nominee. In the
Thirteenth Ward, largely Irish, which Mayor Thomp-
son, Republican, lost in 1919 by more than 4,000, a
Democratic alderman condemned by the League was
defeated by a native-bom Republican whom the
League indorsed, by more than 1,800 votes.

SOME OTHER INSTANCES

Dr. Charles W. Eliot told the Good Government Con-
ference at Cincinnati in 1909 of an incident in Massa-
25 373

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

chusetts which reflected the interest of foreign-bom
voters in political questions on their merits regardless
ol racial or religious considerations:

A few years ago, largely through the efforts of a single
citizen, the Massachusetts Legislature changed the number of
the school committee of Boston from twenty-four to five — ^in
itself a prodigious improvement. Now, Boston is the home
c^ three Roman Catholic races, the Irish, the French Cana-
dians,and the Italians. The Italians have lately come in large
numbers, and many of them are from southern Italy and not
from northern Italy. What did the voters of Boston do in
electing a school committee of five at large? The election was
not by wards, but at large. They elected at the very first
election — and have maintained the composition of the com-
mittee as then determined ever since — two Catholics, two
Protestants, and one Jew, and the Jew has lately been the
chairman of the committee. Now is not that creditable to
the Roman Catholic majority in the city of Boston? They
have a clear majority. Moreover, does it not tell us some-
thing encouraging about the manner in which voters of foreign
birth will use the power of the vote in our country?

A. C. Pleydell of New York, on the same occasion,
contributed a testimony of the same general character:

In New Jersey a Iftrge settlement of Italians in a small

country township until lately have been the prey of the

political leaders, who are just as corrupt as in the city. A

gentleman whom I know who is, I believe, of a different

political faith, moved out there some years ago and began to

take an interest in the local life of the community. He started

to clean up the school board and get decent schoolhouses.

There were sixty or seventy Italian children at that Httle

village school. The village has a population of only a few

hundred. This man got subscriptions from these poor people,

a little help from the outside, and contributed something

himself. For two or three years they have had neighborhood

meetings without regard to party, which these foreigners

attended. One of the finest and most inspiring sights I have

874

FOREIGN-BORN VOTER IN ACTION

ever seen was at the school festival held in that little hall»
largely filled by these foreigners. . . . These foreigners, under
the leadership of this one man, have formed a good-govern-
ment organization that has spread to neighboring townships.
... He uses for its motto, "Put the circles on the square,"
the square being the township and the circles being little
group organizations. They have broken up the political ring
in that township to-day by independent voting and nomina-
tions; ... as a result of thb work in that township the move-
ment has spread into another township which has been more
corrupt, although inhabited almost altogether by native
Americans. At the last election the people in that other
township took an inspiration from the work that had been
done by the foreign Italian population, and cleaned up their
township. . . .

There is just as much democracy in those people as we
have, and we do not want to lose sight of the fact that they
are human beings just like everybody else. I am the son of
an immigrant from another part of Europe. The immigrants
from the southern part have just as much ambition as the
immigrants from the northern part.

I. M. Wise of Cincinnati in the same discussion said:

We have had a very fine example of the independence of
the foreign voter during the last few years in Cincinnati. We
had a movement started for the purpose of electing a prose-
cutor, and we found, after investigating the returns of the
election, that the victory was due almost entirely to the foreign
vote. But we had another example some years ago when
there was a movement to sell the Cincinnati Southern Rail-
way. This measure was defeated by a small majority, due en-
tirely to the German citizens who usually show more inde-
pendence than the other foreign citizens.

William Bennett Munro, in his Government of
American CitieSy^ discussing the reasons for the polit-
ical misl eading of the foreign-born voter by corrupt

^William Bennett Munro, The Government of American Cities,
Macmillan, 1912, pp. 8d-37.

375

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

leadership, points out that ^'the discreet and sober use
of the ballot is something not to be learned in a day or
even in a generation/' and that ^^it is not a matter for
surprise, then, if alien-bom voters have often proved
easy pr^ to the sophistry and cajolery of claptrap
politicians." He says, further:

We have the testimony of seasoned campaigners that the
alien-bom voter is inclined to think for himself if he has the
opportunity; but too often he does not secure even that small
amount of fair information which is necessary to furnish food
for thought. As a rule, practically all he gets concerning the
facts of the municipal situation comes to him in such form that
it leads to one conclusion only. . • . Experience has proved
that he cannot always be stampeded by appeals to class
prejudice, or delivered blindly to some political faction. Given
a fair chance, he is, according to authoritative testimony, a
voter of at least normal independence.

Considering the bewilderment with which thousands
of old-stock native-bom voters confront the complica-
tions of our Federal, state, and local governments, and
the complexity of our inordinately long official ballots,
it is small wonder that, like them, the foreign-bom
voter, even after many years' residence in this country,
follow shibboleths and leaders who to them represent a
certain definiteness and clarity of purpose and action*
This is especially true when the whole subject of govern-
mental reform and efficiency comes to them in the guise
of relatively arid abstractions in which they do not see
their own interests, and by the voice of men living in far
distant parts of the community, who do not understand
their intimate problems, or speak the language of their
daily lives. In almost every instance in which the issue
was made clear and intdUigible to them, the foreign-
bom voters of almost every nationality have responded
in surprising fashion.

976

XII

THE FOREIGN BORN IN RADICAL MOVEMENTS

It would require an exhaustive investigation^ beyond
the space limits and the scope of this volume, to describe
the part which the foreign bom have played in the
various radical movements markmg the history of the
United States. Of course, there is a sense in which
anarchism, philosophical or violent, works toward a
"political" end. The attempt to abolish all govern-
ment and establish individual free will as the only law,
is in that sense political. From that point of view one
must discuss the influence of primitive Christianity,
the teachings of such philosophers as Herbert Spencer,
Tolstoy, Emerson, Thoreau, and a host of others in all
countries. We confine ourselves here to the activities
of the foreign born as they aflfect our ordinary political
machinery and processes, participating or willfully fail-
ing to participate at the ballot box, or at least directly
influencing political activities and policies.

We have to consider briefly the immigrant's participa-
tion in these forms of activity: (a) Political Socialism,
(b) Populism — ^lately embodied in the Nonpartisan
League, (c) The Land Question — ^agitation, for ex-
ample, for the so-called Single Tax. (d) Antipolitical
organizations, as exemplified in the I. W. W., Com-
munist party, etc.

It is a curious fact that radical movements in any
country habitually are attributed to the foreign born.
Bismarck assured the Germans that Socialism could

877

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

not take permanent root in Germany because it was of
English origin; while Gladstone declared that the
"Social Democratic" doctrines could not abide in Eng-
land because they were imported from Germany. It
is common in this country and elsewhere to assert that
Socialism is a movement inspired and carried on by
Jews. There is no sound basis for this or kindred asser-
tions. Socialism, and radicalism generally, are of no
particular geographical or racial origin. Among a really
prosperous and contented people radicalism is an aca-
demic affair; the common man is not int^'ested. It is
only when social and economic conditions produce
extremes of wealth and poverty, and when primary dis-
content with the basis and atmosphere of daily life is
widespread, that political radicalism of any kind
attracts any but the fireside debaters. In the last
analysis the only real and effective agitator is injus-
tice. The Socialist movement appeared in Japan only
^ after modern industrialism and the factory system had
reached a stage of development creating a psycho-
logical soil in which it could grow.

Socialism appeared in America early in the nine-
teenth centuiy, but it did not assume any political
significance until the country had become rather in-
dustrial than agricultural. It did not originate among
the foreign born, nor were its early protagonists of
alien birth.

Long before the influence of Marx appeared in state-
ments of Socialistic theory in this country, or any other,
the essentials of Socialism were published and discussed
on both sides of the Atlantic. When Karl Marx was a
little boy Robert Owen reprinted in England a Socialist
pamphlet by an American workingman. About the
same time one Thomas Cooper of Colmnbia, South
Carolina, published a book containing all that is essen-
tial of Socialist doctrine. And O. A. Brownson, editor

878

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

of the Boston Quarierly Review^ was preaching the in-
evitability of a class war, the abolition of the wage
system, and the necessity of the "triumph of the pro-
letariat." In 1829, when Marx was eleven years old,
Thomas Skidmore, R. L. Jennings, and L. Byllesby
exercised a marked influence with the preaching of
what would even now be recognized as "straight Social-
ism." There was no influence of Marx or any other
inmiigrant in the substantially Socialistic — ^and collec-
tivist — ^teachings of such men as Horace Greeley,
George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, Parke Godwin, Hig-
ginson, Channing, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, James
Russell Lowell.

Socialism, in fact, is a spontaneous human reaction to
individualist capitalism. In that hour when the group-
ing of privately owned wealth, in the hands and under
the control of combined owners as partners or in the
form of corporations, was made necessary by the in-
creasing intricacy and expensiveness of machinery and
the application thereto of steam power — ^the institution,
in short, of the factory system — Socialism — ^the theory
of the collective ownership of the means of production —
became the inevitable reaction in the minds of persons
and classes dissatisfied with the workings of the process.
Naturally, these persons would be chiefly of the class
of those who had nothing to contribute except their
bare hands and brains — the proletariat. Bear in
mind that we are not here discussing the merits of
the theory.

What Marx did was to elaborate and systematize
the theory. And he did something else. The earlier
preachers of Socialism were largely idealists, most of
them of the Christian faith, who appealed to the sense
of brotherhood, talked in terms of the Sermon on the
!Mount and the Kingdom of God. Later came, notably
in the writings of Marx, the reduction of the whole

879

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

business to materialist terms; the disappearance of all
sentimentalism and religious terminology from the
propaganda. Logically it is a short step to the atheistic
extremes of merciless dictatorship by minority and the
harsh suppression of opposition, exemplified in the rule
of the so-called Bolsheviki.

This is very important, because it affords the psycho-
logical back^ound against which to see the reason why
materialistic Socialism has to so great an extent failed
to hold the allegiance of the naturally idealistic^ church-
bred, native American, and has so largely come to be a
movement supported by the foreign born. For, what-
ever may be said about Socialism as not peculiarly of
foreign origin, it nevertheless is a fact that in his
country, in its aggressive political aspect. Socialism is
preponderantly of foreign-born personnel, and to a large
extent, though by no means exclusively, German and
Jewish. It is impossible to present reliable statistics as
to the number or racial distribution of Socialists, be-
cause, in the first place, there are thousands of persons
of all races entertaining Socialistic ideas and theories
who do not call themselves Socialists. The vote of the
Socialist political parties includes large proportions of
votes due to reasons other than Socialist views; the
Socialist parties have in the past contained thousands
of members who were not voters. Furthermore, there
is no census or tabulation of Socialists that can be
relied upon.

THE SOCIALIST PRESS

Some significance might be attached to the relative
circulation of the Socialist daily press, which is largely
foreign-speaking. There appear to be but two daily
Socialist newspapers published in English — ^the Mil-
waukee Leader, claiming a circulation of 37,000, and

the New York CaU, credited with about 15,000. The

S80

BIMIGRANT AS A RADICAL ^

potential circulation of these papers, and even more
those in foreign languages, no doubt is much larger than
this, the difficulties of distribution due in part to lack
of capital, but still more to mailing restrictions in-
flicted during the war, preventing their free circulation.
There are, or until a recent date were, at least thirteen
Socialist papers published in foreign languages — one
Bohemian, four Finnish, three German, one Hungarian,
one Yiddish, one Lithuanian, one Polish, and one
Russian. According to the American Labor Year Book
of 1916, nine of these foreign-language dailies approx-
imated a total circulation of 30^,000. Against these
dailies, however, must be placed many Socialist and
Socialistic periodicals, weekly and monthly, published
in English. One source of information on this subject
asserted that "those who have definitely accepted the
Socialist philosophy of life read the Socialist daily
newspapers." This is hardly supported by the facts.
For obvious reasons, the Socialist dailies are not very
satisfactory sources of news information, and many
convinced Socialists do not read them — ^perhaps cannot
get them — ^but rely for their Socialist reading upon
periodicals appearing at longer intervals. This would
appear from the circulation of such papers in English
as the Appeal to Reason^ published at Girard, Kansas,
which claims a circulation of 5^9,13^, and the National
Rip-Saw^ published at St. Louis, which claims 200,000.
To what extent these papers represent deeply con-
vinced Socialists, and those holding more or less mildly
Socialistic views, it is impossible to say.

DUES-PAYING SOCIALIST MEMBERS

According to the Appeal Almanac for 1916, the dues-
paying members of the Socialist party from 1903 to
1915 totaled:

381

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE XLVm

NUMBKB OF SOCIAIJSTB PaTINO DuE8 EaCH YkAB» rSQIf 1908 TO 1915

1908
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1918
1914
1915

15,975
20,768
28,827
26,784
29,270
41,751
41,479
58,011
84,716
118,871
95,401
98,579
79,874

The year 1912 was the year of the Roosevelt Progressive
revolt against the Republican party; it may be that
thousands of voters of radical or liberal tendency who
resented the Republican attitude, but could not follow
Mr. Roosevelt, or swung farther than the Progressive
party was willing to go, went into the Socialist party.
But it seems quite evident that the heavy slump be-
tween 1914 and 1915, when the figure dropped from
93,579 to 79,374, was due to the reactions of the war,
and in particular to the increasing resentment of native
Americans against the attitude of the party leaders
which culminated in the platform adopted by the
party organization at St. Louis — ^antiwar, and by most
ordinary folk, including thousands of perfectly good
Socialists, deemed not only pacifistic, but definitely pro-
German. That situation alone drove a rift down
through the Socialist ranks, and certainly made it
legitimate henceforth — ^for the present, anyway — ^to
regard the Socialist party, as constituted, as an or-

882

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

ganization distinctively of foreign stock and foreign
born.

RACIAL GROUPS OP SOCIALISTS

Owing to the polyglot character of the Socialist move-
ment, it became necessary to organize language groups.
This movement was well under way in the years imme-
diately preceding the war. The German Language
Federation, which was formed in December, 1912, at
Newcastle, Penni^lvania, at the end of the third year
claimed a dues-paying membership of 4,577.* The
Finnish Socialist Federation was credited with 10,616
in 1916. The French Language Federation reported
497 members in December, 1915. The Hungarian
Language Federation claimed membership ^^well above
1,500." The Italian Socialist Federation reported
''about 1,000 members in good standing." The Jewish
Socialist Federation was stated to have "about 6,000
members." The Lithuanian Socialist Federation stated
that it had "a little over «,000 members." The South-
Slavic Socialist Federation claimed about 2,000. The
Scandinavian Federation gave its membership as 1,161,
of whom 265 were women. There were recognized
ako organizationa of Poles, Slovaks, Japanese, etc.

The Finnish Kalenteri for 1918 gave a list of racial
groups of Socialists in the United States in this
order of relative strength. It is a striking fact that
the Americans lead, but it must be remembered that
for their statistical purposes a naturalized citizen
may be as good an American as one native-born of
old stock. (See Table XLIX.)

This is well enough for rough purposes, but it is too
loose for generalization as to racial tendencies. "Jews "
might be of almost any nationality, and "Slavs" might

^ American Labor Year Book, 1916, p. 13S.

883

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE XUX
lUiiKB OF Race Gboufb in Rkiatiye Socialist Stbength

Rank

Raoe

Amwicans

Finns

Jews

^vs

Scandini^viiMiif

Czechs

Hungarians

Letts

Novaks

cover natives of almost any of the countries east of the
Carpathians and the Adriatic.

The foreign-language groups of the Socialist party
in 1916 had an aggregate membership of over ^,000»
and if we accept the estimate of the National Executive
Secretary of the party, of 94,140, as the dues-paying
membership during the first four months of that year,
it would appear that 81 per cent of all dues-paying
members of the party were foreign-born persons, either
not citizens or so unfamiliar with English as to prefer
to belong to a foreign-speaking branch of their political
party.

There are two ways of looking at all this. One is to
assmne that, but for the war and the disorganization
which it threw into the Socialist party's ranks, including
a virtual decision to confine membership to voters,
there would have grown up a large political body of
aliens, of unknown and probably menacing poten-
tiality. The other is to recognize that, with the foreign-
speaking organizations as a starting point, the immi-
grant would have been brought directly and early into

884

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

an active interest in American politics, personal par-
ticipation in the study of its affairs, and susceptibility
far greater than it is common to acknowledge to the
appeal of reason and experience in the solution of polit-
ical questions. The present writer believes that to a
considerable extent the fluctuations in the Socialist
vote are due to changes of mind about Socialism on the
part of individiidl voters of aU races.

THE SOCIALIST VOTE

Previous to the organization of the Socialist party, the
Socialist political activity in this country was in the
custody of the old Socialist-Labor party. Its vote, as
listed by the Appeal Almanac for 1916, developed as
follows:

TABLE L

S0CIAU8T Vote fob President from 1888 to 1898

1888.
1890.
1892.
1894.
1896.
1898.

2,068
13,704
21,512
80,020
36,275
82,204

After 1898 the vote of this party declined rapidly
until, in 1914, its candidate polled only 21,827 votes.

On the whole, the best index of Socialist political
strength is the vote recorded in the ballot box. A
tabulation of the vote of the Socialist party in the
presidential elections since and including that of 1900
is therefore germane. (See Table LI.)

This table is compiled from the World Almanac.

The column for 1920, in particular, may be suspected of

serious inaccuracy in detail. The figures for Idaho, for

385

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE U
The Socialibt Vote fob President bt States fbom 1900 to 1920^

Statb

Alabama

Arisona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Illin(ns

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts. . .

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada . . '

New Hampshire.

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina . .
North Dakota.. .

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina . .
South Dakota. . .

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont ,

Virginia

Washin^^n

West Virginia.. .,

Wisconsin ,

Wyoming ,

Total

1900
Dbbs

928

7,672

684

1,029

603

9,687
2.374
2,742
1,606
770

1904
Dbbs

863

878

908

9,716

2,826

3.066

6,128
708
823

790
4.221

12.869

618
4.847

1,494
4,831

169
413

1,846
717
371
146

2.006
268

7,048

96,116

Total Socialist vote*
Socialist-Labor vote>

1,816
29,633

4.304

4,643
146

2,337
197

4.964
69,226
12.013
14.847
16.849

3.602
995

2,106

2,247
13.604

9,042

11,692

393

13,009

5,676

7,412
925

1.090

9,688

36,883

124

2.017

36,260

7.619

21.863

956

3,138

1,354

2,791

6,767

844

218

10,023

1.674

28,220

402,321

408,230
33,646

1908
Debs

1,399

6,842

28,669

7,974

6.113

239

3,747

684

6.400

34.711

13.476

8.287

12.420

4.186

2.638

1,768

2,323

10,781

11,586

14.527

978

16,431

6,855

3,524

2.103

1.299

10.249

38.461

345

2.421

33.795

21.779
7.339

33.913
1.365
101
2,846
1.870
7.870
4.890

266
14,177

3,679
28.164

1,716

420,973

424,488
14,021

1912
Dbbs

3,029

3,163

8,153

79,201

16,418

10.066

666

4.806

1.026

11.960

81,278

39,931

16.967

26.779

11.647

6.249

2,541

3,996

12,616

23,211

27,606

2,061

28,466

10.886

10,174

3,313

1.9S0

15,900

2.859

63,381

117

6.966

90.144

41,674

13.343

80,915

2.049

164

4.662

3.492

24,896

9,023

928

820

40.134

16,336

33,481

2,760

897,011

901,062
30,344

1916
Benson

1.926

3,174

6,999

43,269

10,049

6.179

480

6,353

967

8.066

61,394

21365

10,976

24,686

4,734

292

2,177

2,674

11.058

16.120

20.117

1.484

14,612

9.564

7,141

3,066

1,318

10.462

1,999

45.944

490

38,092
46,190

9.711
46.637

1.914
135

3.760

2.542
18.963

4.460
798

1,060
22.800

6,140
27,846

1,463

686,113

1920
Debs

2,369
126

6.111
64,076

8,046
10.366

1,002

6,189
466
38
74,747
24,703
16,981
16,610

6,409

2.214'
8,876
32.266
28.947
66,106
1.639
20.242

9,666'

1,864

1,236

27,217

203.400

446

8.283

67,147

26,638

9,801

70,021

4.361

2.239

8,194

3.169

807

8.913

6,618

80,636

1,234

916,302

> World Almanac, 1920. * Appeal Almanac, 1916.

386

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

example, would appear to be absurd, in view of nearly
12,000 in 1912 and more than 8,000 in 1916. The
Appeal Almantzc for 1916 gives larger totals, and adds
a surviving vote of the Socialist-Labor party. The
World Almanac for 1921 adds a note regarding the 1920
election:

The total for the Socialist-Labor ticket approximated
20,896, but it is to be said that in a number of the states the
Socialist-Labor electors were c^ed Independent Labor, or
Independent, or Industrial Labor, so that the true total is
considerably above that named above.

In general, the table affords a sufficient basis for
general comparisons and judgment as to tendency.

GERMAN INFLUENCE IN SOCXAXISM

Since the declaration of the St. Louis convention of the
Socialists in 1917, which most outsiders and a large
proportion of the Socialist rank and file regarded as
not only consistently antiwar, but actually pro-Ger-
man, it has been the fashion for Socialists of other than
German leanings to minimize the German influence in
the development of political Socialism in the United
States. From the point of view of the loyally American
or pro-Ally Socialists, of whom there are many thou-
sands, it would no doubt be pleasing to clear it of the
German atmosphere; but,imfortunately,the facts make
such a proceeding difficult.

A great impulse was given to Socialism in this country
by the German Socialists who were driven out of Ger-
many forty years ago by Bismarck's anti - Socialist
legislation. They were men of a high degree of intelli-
gence, largely mechanics of skill at their trades. They
brought to America the Marxian orthodoxy, and
stamped with their German rigidity of thought a move-

587

AMERICANS Bi lOICE

ment which up to that tune h jeen more or less a
sentimental thing. Let us exac e some figures which
would seem to be significant.

The German-language press in this country has been
largely confined to nine states. To the total circulation
of the German-language press in the United States,
their circulation in these nine states bears percentage
ratio as follows:

TABLE Ln

Feb Cent CiBcmiATioN of the German Pbess in Nine States

Statb

CntCITIiATIGNl

Per Cbmt

New York \

19.4

New Jersey /

'V^^sconsin

15.4

minois

12.5

Ohio

10.9

Nebraffkft

7.6

Pennsvlvania

6.9

Missouri

6.2

Minp^sotA. ....,,.-.,.,,,,,,- 1 1 .,, t T T

5.8

Total

84.7

^The circulation figures are based upon r^x>rt8 given in Ayer's
American Neiospaper Annual and Directory for 1916. The influence
of the war emotions and the rising cost of news-print paper, and other
factors would make later figures misleading as to the general situa-
tion. Where Ayer's fails to give circulation it is conservatively esti-
mated. New York and New Jersey are combined because the German
papers in New York were largely read in the preponderantly German
towns along the New Jersey bank of the Hudson River.

It would thus appear that the German-language
papers published in these nine states claimed a circula-
tion of nearly 85 per cent of the total circulation of
German-language papers in the whole United States.

388

immigran/'as a radical

It is obvious, therefol^'that in these nine states one
i9irould look for the bulkfftf the unassimilated immigrants
of Grerman birth. The census of 1910 sustains this
expectation, for of theijtotal of 2»501»333 German-born
rcjsidents of the Unitra States, 1,737,827, or 69.5 per
cent, lived in the nine States.

What perc^itage of the Socialist vote is found in
those nine states? We cannot answer this question as
to the vote for the candidates of the Socialist-Labor
party prior to 1900; but the vote for Socialist candi-
dates subsequent to that gives us illuminating per-
centages.

In the table made up from the World Almanac for
1921 is the vote of the Socialist (or Social-Democratic)
party in presidential elections since and including 1900.
Note the percentage of that vote cast in the nine states
named.

TABLE Lin

SociAUBT Vote fob Pbbsidents in Ninb States, fbom 1900 to 1016

Ybab

1900
1904
1908
191je
1916

Total
sociajjbt

VOTB

96,116
402,821
420,978
897.011
585,118

Pbb Csnt or
SociALiBT Vom

IN THB NiMB

Btatbs

55.6
5&.2
50.5
48.0
45.8

It appears, then, that these nine states — ^New York
and New Jersey, containing the large cities of Greater
New York, Jersqr City, and Newark; Yi^sconsin, con-
taining the great Grerman population of Milwaukee;
Illinois, containing Chicago; Ohio, containing Cleve-
land and Cincinnati; Nebraska, containing Omaha;
Femn^sylvania, containing Philadelphia and Pittsburgh;

26 380

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Missouri, containing St. Louis and Kansas City; Min-
nesota, containing Minneapolis and St. Paul; to say
nothing of the smaller cities and rural districts, largely
inhabited by immigrants of German birth — ^have con-
tained more than half of the voting strength of the
Socialist parties. Some discount must be allowed for
the fact that these large cities contain also large num-
bers of foreign-born voters of other races; but even a
generous discount for this fact does not nullify the pre-
dominance of the German element in the Socialist vot-
ing 3trength. These nine states account also for about
half of the dues-paying membership in the Socialist
party; according to the American Socialist of Jan-
uary 23, 1916, there were 44,132, or 47 per c€;nt, of the
total of dues-paying membership of the party, in 1914,
and 38,194, or 48 per cent, in 1915, in the nine states.

JEWS IN SOCIALISM

It is also true that the active propaganda of political
Socialism has increasingly attracted young Jews of
foreign extraction. It appeals to them in two ways.
There is a tremendous fund of idealism in the Jewish
mind. For ages they have be^n taught to dream of an
earthly millennium, in which the freedom denied them
by the world everywhere would be attained, and the
social ideals set forth by their prophets in their Scrip-
ture could be eflFectuated. Also, they have been bred to
interminable discussion of abstractions and theoretical
relationships regardless of the practical things of sck^ial
life from which they were excluded by rigorous govern-
mental restrictions and the race prejudice under which
they have suflFered, especially in Russia. It was to be
expected that with the freedom of movwnent and ex-
pression which they have enjoyed in America, together

with the tense economic and industrial conditions

S90

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

under which they labor here, they would respond to
the propaganda of Socialism with its idealistic back-
ground^ its promise of an economic millennium^ and its
minviioe of theory and inexhaustible material for debate.
There are no reliable statistics — ^little data of any kind —
on which to base an estimate of the number or activity
of Jews of any or all national extraction in the Socialist
movement; nevertheless, it is a matter of common
knowledge that they are both niunerous and aggres-
sive in its councils and its propaganda.

EFFECT OF THE WAR ON SOCIALISM

What might have been the development of political
Socialism in the United States had there been no war
in Europe it is impossible to say. To what extent the
Germanization» not only of the Socialist party, but oi
large elements of politics in the old parties, might have
gone on, it is impossible to say. The reactions of the
war spirit, and of the variants of sympathy among the
racial groups, produced profound eflFects. They were
marked in the Socialist movement, tending to drive
into the "left" or extreme radical wing, and even out
of the party into the nonpolitical and antipolitical
movements, many of the foreign-bom Socialists who
during past years have been trying to make the Social-
ist parties and the labor organizations of various sorts
more and more radical, less and less patient toward
political methods and measures. Inevitably these
ultraradicals took on, or were regarded as taking on,
the aspect of opposition to the cause of the Allies, to
the participation of the United States in the war — ^to
out-and-out pro-Germanism. That this pro-German-
ism among the ultraradicals was not imaginary may
be illustrated by one episode reported by an investigator
for the Americanization Study:

391

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

In 1915, in the capacity of a field investigate of the am-
ditions of unskilled labor for the United States Commission
on Industrial Relations, I happened to visit Port Arthur in
the eastern part of Texas, where a Standard Oil refinery is
located. There was some labor excitement. A young German,
2S or ^ years of age, who had come to this country when a
small boy and who was one of the local leaders of the I. W. W.,
addressed a meeting. In attacking all capitalists of aU
countries he also spoke of the war which, according to him,
was started and prosecuted by the czars, kaisers, kings, and
capitalists of all countries at the expense of the working
classes, etc., etc.

After the meeting I interviewed a number of local labor
leaders. The youthful orator was sitting on a lumber pile a
few feet from me. Oil barges were passing back and forth on
the canal, carrying oil* from the refinery to a large British
tanker in the harlx^. The boy intently watched the barges,
and exclaimed, as if to himself, in a low tone of disgust and
desperation:

''Hm! Britain gets all the oil; Germany — ^nothing!"

All his reasoning, based upon international class solidarity,
had given way to his patriotic German heart!

There was, further, the inevitable influence of the fact
that the Crerman Social Democracy has, on the whole,
been more cIose-knit» more effective in propaganda,
and the German Socialist literature^ from Marx down,
more widespread in its distribution, than the propa-
ganda in any other language. Even now, the Grermans
and pro-Germans in the Socialist ranks habitually
declare that the war was ended by the German Social
Democrats through a revolt against the Kaiser.

The native-bom Americans, English, and other Eng-
lish-speaking Socialists, most of whoon had been in
sympathy with the cause of the Allies, revolted against
the pacifist, antiwar, and pro-Grerman element in the
Socialist party, and the turmoil shook the organization
to its foundation. The end of this is not yet; but one

892

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

big result in the Socialist party itself has been to rein-
force the influence of the moderate element and to some
extent to drive the extremists into the so-called Com-
munist parties and the I. W. W., which, whatever else
may be said of them, do not exercise themselves
directly about political affairs.

To tiie deep rift, in the Socialist ranks on this account
may be attributed in large part the failure of the Social-
ists to live up to their expectations and promises in the
presidential election of 1920. It is far too soon to
speculate with any confidence upon what may be the
course of political Socialism in the United States in the
years immediately before us when the emotions ex-
cited by the war die down, the hysterical opposition
to immigrants as such fades out, and economic and
industrial forces are permitted to operate "normally'*
in their effects upon the motives of the working people
and their expression of those motives through their
ballots.

THE SINGLE-TAX AND A6BARIAN MOVEMENTS

At the root of all the radical movements in the United
States lies, actually or potentially, an unsatisfied land
himger, a feeling that somehow the opportunity to have
access to a standing on God's footstool is circum-
scribed by man-made restrictions and injustice. It b
to be remembered that the great majority of immi-
grants to this country are peasants, whose whole life
and social background have reference to making, or
being prevented from making, a living from the soil.
Even the Russian and other Jews, who, generally speak-
ing, have little or no actual experience of agriculture,
come here with a vision of a land where there is satis-
faction for their deepest longings, and at the bottom
lies the longing to own a piece of the face of the earth as

898

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

a basis for subsistence. Generally speaking, the first
disillusionment that many a modem immigrant experi-
ences is in the fact that he cannot step from the ship
into the ownership of land out of which to dig his living.
It is a short step from that state of mind into one ci
general discontent with the difficulty of finding the
opportunity which, he had been told, waited for him in
the United States at every street comer and crossroad.

In the earlier days, when industrialism was younger
in this country and immigrants could pass more easily
into agriculture and into access to actual land, there
was a wider and quicker interest on the part of the
inmiigrant in the land question as such. Probably that
is Tf hy he responded more than he does now to such
movements as the individualist single-tax agitation
precipitated by Heniy George. In recent years, when
his opportunities for employment came to be more and
more restricted to the cities and to great industrial
plants and mines, the appeal of the Socialist agitation
seemed more applicable to his situation. Further-
more, the single-tax movement represents, on the whole,
an earlier stage in the development of radical theory.

The same might be said of Greenbackism, Populism,
and the present-day Nonpartisan League movement.
All three of these movements find the body of their
rank and file among the small farmers, small producers,
and the dissatisfied lower grades of the merchandising
class, who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are getting
the worst of it in the development of law, taxation,
finance, monopoly, or what not. The contented foreign
bom, or the contented anybody else, does not partici-
pate in or respond to radical agitation or movements
for drastic reform. There are thousands of foreign-bom
members in the Nonpartisan League, but they are in it
not as foreign bom of any race, but as farmers who

think they are not getting a square deal.

S94

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

The farmers of the Northwest, who make up the bulk
of the Nonpartisan League, are not at present amenable
to Socialist doctrine. The foreign born among them
are largely Scandinavian and old-stock Germans who
have won their way to ownership of land and a measure
of personal prosperity. They might stand for the ex-
propriation of the powerful Eastern capitalist, but they
are not willing to consider the confiscation of their own
hard-earned farms. Peter Alexander Speek, in his
monograph on "The Single Tax and the Labor Move-
ment,"* puts it well:

It may be said that the Socialists understood the labor
movement, its meaning and nature, better than did the Single-
taxers. But what the Socialists failed in was this, that their
philosophy, emphasizing as it did the social side of human
life, was not acceptable to the majority of American wage-
earners, who, though wage conscious and organized as a
separate class, still were not yet class conscious — ^wage-
earners among whom the individualistic spirit and a desire to
become independent small producers prevailed.

Even so early there was visible a racial line of de-
markation. The Irish never have taken kindly to
Socialism. Preponderantly of the Roman Catholic
faith, they were impervious to the implications of the
Socialist doctrines as affecting religion and marriage,
and nothing in their experience tended to modify their
interest in the ownership of land. Mr. Speek says:

It is necessary to mention the fact that nationality of the
members of the party (the United Labor party) also played
its role in the conflict. The majority of the Irish element lined
up with the Single Tax faction, the majority of the Grerman
element with the Socialist.

This division by nationalities was itself quite comprehen-

^ Peter A. Speek, BtdleHn of the University of Wisconsin, No. 878,
1917, p. 129.

895

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

8ive. The Germans have always had a strong communal
senthnent and social viewpoint upon human life, both being
inherited from the centuries l<«g gone by. Furthermore,
many <^ them, before they came to America, were indus-
trial wage earners in Germany — ^the hmneland oi Marxian
Socialism.

The majority dt the Irish immigrants had been formerly
land tenants in Ireland. They had an individualistic view-
point, and were devoted Catholics. Hence their lining up
with Henry George, as a land reformer and agitator for the
Irish cause in Ireland, and with McGlynn, as a Cathdic priest.

A large prop<Hlion of the farmers of the Northwest
are Scandinavians. They are of a naturally conserva-
tive type, they have been successful in . establishing
themselves as individual property owners, and the
property owner does not as a rule afford good material
for the Socialist seed-sowing. You may r^ard the
propaganda of the Nonpartisan League, for example,
as radical and in a general way *' Socialistic," but it
does not aaXMy the Socialist.

The importance of this consideration is fundamental.
There are great areas, even whole states, in the North-
west particularly, where the saturation of the foreign
born is so complete that the foreign-bom and second-
generation folk themselves are the state. As one news-
paper man in St. Paul put it:

It is not a question of "we" and "they"; they are the whde

thing. In Minnesota there is no "Scandinavian problem" —

they are iitf. In a large measure they have become the best

kind €i Americans; others have not advanced beyond the

grade of the ordinary American, but they are the people and

the government, and the comparative handful ci Yankees

cannot pretend to draw a line around them and set them

apart as "foreigners." They are the voters, the l^islature,

the producers, the farmers, the merchants, and they represent

all of us at Washington.

806

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

On the other hand» there has been a tendency in the
Northwest, as elsewhere, for little racial groups to center
in special localities. There are whole towns in Minne-
sota which are virtually entirely German; others are
entirely Bohemian. There is one community which is
entirely Belgian. This is partly due to the fact that
many sections were settled by colonies sent forth as a
part of church missionary effort, especially by the
Lutherans and CathoKcs.

Out of this situation the war suddenly crystallized a
real American sentiment and enthusiasm. There was
much shocking injustice and mob hysteria in those
parts, and many accusations of disloyalty; but the fact
that emerges upon any candid investigation is that these
folk of various foreign races gave a good account of
themselves in every form of war participation, whether
in the furnishing of volunteers or otherwise. North
Dakota, a hotbed of Nonpartisan League sentiment,
and a preponderantly foreign-born population, nearly
doubled its Liberty Bond allotments and exceeded its
quotas in contributions to the Red Cross and the war-
chest funds.

THE NONPARTISAN LEAGUE

In December, 1918, Oliver S. Morris, editor of the
National Magazine of the Nonpartisan League, gave
to an investigator of the Americanization Study an
analysis of approximate membership of the League.
(See Table LIV.)

The membership has shifted this way and that ever
since, and the experience of the Nonpartisan League
government in North Dakota is a matter of history;
but the fact that stands out is that this large member-
ship did not either accomplish or attempt anything
which the radical Socialist would accept as revolu-

897

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

tionary. The Nonpartisan League movement is a true
agrarian movement, on the whole a movement of prop-
erty owners to benefit themselves as such, to insure their
own hold upon the land they have acquired and the

• TABLE LIV

Membership of the Noxa>A9Ti8AN League bt States in Decembeb»

1918

Minnesota. . . .
North Dakota
South Dakota.

Montana

Idaho

Washington

Wisconsin

Nebraska

Iowa

Kansas

Oklahoma

Texas

Colorado

50,000
45,000
25,000
25,000
20,000

165,000

40,000

205,000

processes of stora^» exchange, and marketing upon
which their prosperity depends. John M. Gillette,
professor of sociology in the University of North
Dakota, distinguishes clearly between its underlying
spirit and purpose and those of the revolutionary
Socialists:^

The Nonpartisan League . . . aims at economic and social
reforms through political action; the Bolshevists aim at social

^ John M. Gillette, Tke Survey, March 1, 1910.

398

hWii

[GRANT AS A RADICAL

reforms through eoonomic action. The League does not seek
to disfranchise other classes than farmers; Bolshevism dis--
f ranchises all other classes than the proletariat. • • . The
League is essentially an organization of farmers, the pre-
ponderant majority of the electorate in such states as North
Dakota owning the bulk of the wealth of the commonwealth, .
for the improvement of economic and general welfare condi-
tions by recoin-se to political action. ... It is destroying no
fundamental institution, but is reshaping and redirecting cer-
tain ones to make them more amenable to the public will.

Without any attempt to assess either the righteous-
ness or the wisdom of the League methods or program,
intelligent understanding of its relation to the spirit
and pmpose of political Socialism, and of the reaction
to each on the part of various racial groups among the
foreign bom, requires that the distinction be carefully
kept in mind. The foreign bom who participate in the
Nonpartisan League are not only citizens of the United
States — ^voters — ^but they are preponderantly of the
races whose mental operations tend to be conservative
toward really revolutionary propaganda, and of the
property-owning and property-ambitious class, as con-
trasted with the propertyless, job-holding, wage-earn-
ing class generally implied in the term "proletariat.**

This distinction underlies the reason why the strength
of the League lies in the rural communities rather than
in the cities. The Lea^e certainly showed strength in
the cities, and the Socialistic character of many of its
proposals undoubtedly attracted con^jiderable support
from city radicals who were unsatisfied with the range
of the platform; nevertheless, the Nonpartisan League
represents an agrarian rather than a revolutionary
movement. There is a world of difference between a
Socialist program calling for the establishment of a
wholly co-operative commonwealth, the common
ownership of all the machinery of production, distri*

899

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

bution, and communication, and the League iHt>gram
demanding:

1. Exemption of farm improvements from taxation.

2. Tonnage tax on ore production.

S. Rural credit banks operated at cost.

4. State terminal elevators, warehouses, flour mills, stock-
yards, packing houses, creameries, and cold-storage plants.

5. State hail insurance.

6. A more equitable system of state inspection and grading
t>f grain.

7. Equal taxation of property <^ railroads, mines, telegraph,
telephone, electric light and power companies, and all public
utility cori>orations, as compared with that <^ other property
owners.

Adding to these the *^ national demands" — "that the
government refuse to return to private hands owner-
ship or operation of those public utilities owned, oper-
ated, or controlled by the govenmient during the war,"
and "that the conscription of wealth begun by the gov-
ernment through income and excess-profit taxes shall
be continued and increased, that surplus wealth may
be compelled to pay the money cost of the war" — ^the
program still falls far short of being revolutionary. On
the whole the underlying spirit and purpose are more or
less precisely those of the earlier agrarian Free Soil,
Greenback, Populist, Single Tax, and Free Silver move-
ments.

The Progressive movement of 1912, given extra
"steam" by the magnetic personality of Mr. Roosevelt
and the hero worship of his followers, was a far more
powerful influence in drawing common support from
farms and cities. And its support, like that of the Non*-
partisan League, was essentiially American, as dis-
tinguished from foreign-bom Socialistic support. It

400

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

is interesting to speculate upon the attitude of the
people generally toward the Progressive movement, if
one could imagine it coming into being during the war.
To what extent would its platform and the utterances
of its leaders have been regarded as "seditious"?

ULTBARADICAL MOVEMENTS NONPOLITICAL

From the beginning of any really radical movement in
this country, its unity of spirit has been broken by pro-
found differences of opinion as to the effectiveness of
the appeal to the ballot box. For more than half a cen-
tury the anarchists and other advocates of "direct
action" in the labor movement in America have been
telling the more conservative elements that it would
be of no use to resort to political measures, to the elec-
tion of public officers pledged to carry out radical
programs.

"The moment you succeed in winning enough votes
to elect any considerable number of your candidates,
the representatives of the capitalists will throw them
out and nullify your victory."

The great service which the New York State As-
sembly in 1920 rendered to the ultraradical wing of
the Socialists when it ejected legally elected Socialist
members of that house of the state Legislature was in
the verifying this prediction. It strengthened the
hands of the "Reds" not only all over this country, but
all over the world. It made it just that much harder
for moderates everywhere to convince workingmen that
their grievances could be remedied by parliamentary
action; that it was really worth while for them to pay
any attention to the ballot box.

The history of the Socialist parties in America is
checkered with the ups and downs of the controversy
over this question. lu every labor organization since

401

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the beginnings of the Labor movement in America
there has been a continuing warfare between those who
advocated political action as the means to social reform,
and those who scorned anything except economic pres-
sure and even terrorism. Itbacurious fact that in the
line-up on this issue, Mr. Gompers and the American
Federation of Labor logically belong with the direct-
actionists; he and his supporters always have opposed
the entrance of the Labor movement as such into
politics. It is only fair to add» however^ that one of his
principal motives was that of keeping the solidarity of
labor from being broken by the ordinary appeals and
influences of the politicians.

The National Labor Union of 1864, the Knights of
Labor of 1869, the International Working People's
Association of 1888, the Sovereigns of Industry of 1874,
the Workingmen's party of 1876, the organizations of
brewery workers and miners, the American Railway
Union, the American Labor Union, the Socialist-Labor
party — ^in fact, virtually all the general labor organiza-
tions from the begmning of them untfl to-day— have
fought back and forth over this question. And the abid-
ing fact which remained after every battle seems to have
been that the tendency of the Americans and the foreign
born longest in the country on the whole has been to
favor action through the ballot box and parliamentary
methods generally; the distinctively foreign elements
have inclined to favor economic and industrial meas-
ures, with the '* lunatic fringe" running on toward
'"direct action," sabotage, and the methods of the
terrorist.

The World War brought this division sharply to a
head. It split the Socialist party and drove out of it
most of the American-bom moderates; it led to the
attempt by these moderates and many of the former
Progressives to organize the "National party** and the

402

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

** Farmer-Labor party," which attracted a small follow-
ing in the presidential election of 19^. The excesses
committed against foreign-bom citizens of nearly all
racial groups in the zeal of the war spirit undoubtedly
drove into the extreme radical ranks a large nimiber of
foreign-bom citizens who in normal times would have
been content with political methods and would have
diminished in their radicalism as their economic status
improved. Doubtless, also, the period of unemploy-
ment and industrial depression following the war,
ensuing as it has upon a period of unprecedentedly high
wages, has tended to encourage radical thought.

But it must always be remembered that the extreme
radical movements have directly relatively little polit-
ical influence. This for two very good reasons: In the
first place, experience has not justified the theory of
the "Reds" that terrorism in this country will frighten
government into concessions. It has, in America, any-
way, quite the opposite effect. It alienates public
sympathy and impels the average man, normally
sympathetic toward the "under dog," to approve of
repressive measures. Furthermore, the members of
these ultraradical organizations, although they may
be technically citizens, are not voters in any practical
sense.

THE "l. W. W." AND THE HOMELESS WORKER

This latter consideration is more important than is
commonly realized. The rank and file of the Indus-
trial Workers of the World — ^better known as the
"I. W. W." — ^for example, is made up of men without
fixed abode; itinerant workingmen, largely, though by
no means wholly, of foreign birth. They have left their
homes and families, if they ever had either. The
L W. W. is the only organization which at least

403

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

pretends to look after the interests of the homeless,
jobless worker. The homeless, jobless worker cannot
become naturalized, because the naturalization process
presupposes a fixed residence, and witnesses who can
testify to that residence over long periods of time. And
even if the man be native bom or long since naturalized,
he cannot vote or otherwise function as a political unit
because he has no fixed home from which to register and
vote.

A fixed abiding place, a home, is psychologically a
sine qua non of real and wholesome civic interest, as
well as a legal prerequisite for participation in pubUe
affairs. Theoretically, a native-bom or naturalized
citizen has a membership in and duty toward the
United States. Actually, the degree of his participa-
tion depends upon tiie depths of his roots in some locality,
and the relation of that locality to the civic unit toward
whose welfare the voter contributes, not only his taxes,
but his personal interest. A good part of the trouble
with city government in New York, Chicago, I^adel-
phia, Boston, and other great cities is due to the fact
that so many fine, public-spirited voters live in suburbs.

Thousands of the best men who participate in the
daytime in the life of New York City live in New Jersey
and Connecticut, or, anyway, in towns outside of Greater
New York. Their real interests are in New York, but
they vote in another state. They contribute little to
the local welfare in the places where they live because
of their real interest in New York. Consequently their
civic vitality, so to speak, is entirely lost to both com-
munities — ^and to the United States. The foreign-bom
voter in the crowded East Side of New York is a far
more effective citizen, for good cur ill, than the presum-
ably more intelligent business man who cannot — or at
any rate does not — ^participate substantially in the
political life either of the city where his business and

404

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

daily activities are carried on, or in the village in an-
other state where he has his legal residence.

Over against this anomalous condition put the case
of the well-meaning citizen, native or foreign bom» who
works for a certain mining corporation in Illinois. The
town where he lives belongs absolutely to that corpora-
tion. It so happens that a part of the mining property
of that corporation lies in Illinois and a part in Indiana.
Under stress of business and mining conditions the
company suddenly moves the whole population, men,
women, and children, over the state line. What must
happen then to any possible civic interest or enthu-
siasm — supposing any to exist — on the part of American
citizens, voters, who had begun to think about the
public interests of the state of Illinois? What happens
to the naturalization proceedings begun by any alien
to make himself a useful citizen of his adopted coun-
try? How can any real civic interest live under such
conditions?

It is common to sneer at the city workingman because
he stays in town unemployed when he might get a job
in the wheat fields or at mining or fruit picking where
labor is scant. Laying aside the question of any desire
pn his part to stay with his family, or any doubt in his
mind about his ability as a hodcarrier or a tailor to
make good as a farm hand, or any reluctance on the
part of the railroad to assist him with the gift or loan
of transportation to some distant and practically most
uncertain job — ^what becomes in such a hop-skip-and-
jump sort of industrial — ^and social — existence, of any
interest in civic affairs? To a newly made citizen, who
has faithfully memorized, if you please, the Constitu-
tion of the United States, who knows just how Senators
are elected and what is the relation between the
functions of the President and those of the local dog-
catcher, and who can sing, duly standing uncovered,
27 405

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

aU the stanzas of the ** Star-spangled Banner/' it must
appear that his intellectual equipment for citizenship is
more or less extraneous to the practical and inmiediate
task of feeding his wife and babies!

It is this sort of experience, of shifting employment
and residence and the conditions that go with it» that
has given momentum to the I. W. W. and kindred
movements. "Stag towns** in the Far West, matching
"women towns" in New England; permanently sep-
arated families; the utter impossibility of getting and
keeping wives or maintaining 'any sort of decent, not to
say normal, domestic life, are major factors that have
brought into such organizations not only foreign-bom
wanderers, some of them naturalized, but a surprisingly
large niunber of native Americans — ^the latter particu-
larly among the leadership.

On the other hand, the I. W. W. from its beginning^
has paid close attention to the immigrant. Fifteen
years ago, at the second convention of the I. W. W., it
was urged that propaganda should start in Europe
before the immigrant left the homeland, so that he
would be prepared upon arrival in this country to join
the organization. This was not done, but even so early
there was a large issue of printed matter in foreign
languages, and the whole machinery was conceived on
the presiunption of a polyglot membership. More-
over, the I. W. W. always has taken the most liberal
position as regards any form of race prejudice. At the
opening of the first convention William D. Haywood
took a strong stand against discrimination against the
negro by craft unions, and the organization never has
tolerated any distinction of race, color, nationality^-
or sex. Even with regard to the Japanese of California,
at the third convention a delegate from that state

iPaul Frederick Brissenden, Ph.D., The L TF. W., a Study of
American Stfnddcalism, Columbia University, 1919.

406

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

declared that ""the whole fight against the Japanese is
the fight of the middle class of California, in which
they employ the labor faker to back it up/'

The Communist party, into which to a considerable
extent went the extremists from the older movements
when the effects of the war brought division to their
ranks and made it impossible for moderate and ultra-
radical to abide under the same roof, at first became a
nucleus for the spread of the extreme form of Com-
munist doctrine. It embodies the essentials of the
platform of the Third Internationale. The ruthless
suppression of this organization by^the public authori-
ties may well prevent its having any but a fugitive life.
The I. W. W., too, seems, for the time being, at least, to
be under effective handicap. But whether these," or
either of them, survive or perish, or whatever other
organization may be the residuary legatee of their
- existence, the fact remains, and it is a most important
fact from the point of view of this Study, that such
movements have no room under their (sgis for what
Americans understand as political action. They seek
revolutionary change not only in the form^ but in the
nature of government — ^would, in fact, abolish all gov-
ernment as we know it, and substitute the '' dictator-
ship of the proletariat" as it exists — or has been sup-
posed to exist — ^in Russia. Their theory has no use for
our present parliamentary methods, for representative
government in our understanding of the word; they
scoff at and would utterly destroy what we mean by
Democracy. They would not leave a recognizable
vestige of our Constitution, our courts, our legislatures.
They would provide no political function for the voting
citizen as we visualize him. And — ^what is most im-
portant — ^they would bring about these basic changes
by compulsion. The ballot box has no substantial
place in their program.

407

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Such propaganda, such programs, appeal <mly to
those who have and who, however misjbakenly, believe
they can have, no stake in our present civilization. To
such as these, citizenship in the sense in which we have
here discussed it has no meaning; the "" America"
which has been built up, by native and foreign bom
together, since the landing of the Pilgrims, arouses no
enthusiasm.

It is not surprising that such movements as the
I. W. W. and the Communist parties appeal to the
wandering, homeless folk of any race. And when their
propaganda tells such folk (as it does) that the actual
fruit of their labor is a product of sixty dollars a day,
and that the difference between that figure and what
they receive is the measure of what the capitalist class
is appropriating, it is small wonder that the ignorant
and reckless, without attachment to any home or land,
smarting under concrete conditions about whose reality
— ^whoever may be to blame for them — ^there can be no
dispute, follow such leadership and look to it to bring
them into better conditions.

From the moment of his arrival in this country,
every hardship that the inmiigrant of any race suffers,
every injustice practiced upon him by his own country-
men or other foreign-born persons who preceded him
hither, by the police and other local officiab (to him
the embodiment of government), by landlord or em-
ployer or others in more prosperous circumstances,
every hour of unemployment and privation, every en-
forced separa,tion from his family, every disillusioning
experience, contributes just so much to his readiness of
mind to accept the **Bed'' teachings and promises.
Revolution finds no hospitality in contented minds.
Injustice, real or fancied, is, in the last analysis, the
only agitator we have to combat.

Every particle of information conning to the Amer-

408

IMMIGRANT AS A RADICAL

icanization Study on the subject of the mental attitude
of the immigrant of any race in America confirms the
fact which ought to be obvious as a matter of ordinary
common sense: that the opportimity to work, at fair
wages, under anything like decent conditions of home
and social surroundings, and from that work to gain a
place to Uve, the means of maintaining and supporting
a family and making a reasonably comfortable and
happy home, establishing a real stake in the com-
munity, assures the making of a good citizen and a
well-meaning voter, a valuable active member in our
body politic.

xra

SOBIE GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The one thing that emerges most clearly in the results
of this or any other candid stu4y of the naturalizatioii
and political activity of the foreign-bom citizen oi the
United States is that admission to active membership
in our political society should be based upon the personal
qucMficaiions of the indimdtud.

No sound basis is disclosed for discrimination on the
ground of race or color, religious beliefs or political
predilection. Even the statutory bar against beli^ in
anarchism or polygamy is obviously ineffectual, because
the anarchist theory per se involves, if not virtual
atheism, at least repudiation of government and a dis-
belief in the sanctity of an oath. And a declaration of
disbeli^ in polygamy, so far as it may be assumed to
imply anything concerning personal morality, convqrs
no assurance of chastity in any sense of the word.
Furthermore, what is the practical use of inquiring into
a person's beliefs to-day, when there can be no guaranty
as to what they will be to-morrow?

The educational test assures no safety as to character.
The ability to speak, read, and write English or any
other language, intelligence and general or even exact
information as to our form of government and the
"high spots** of American history, are little in the way
of assurance of loyalty or usefulness as a citizen. The
most noxious propagandist that we could import or
admit to citizenship could pass the most rigid intellec-

410

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

tual test. During the debate on the naturalization law
in the House of Representatives in June, 1906/ Repre-
sentative Steenerson of Minnesota said:

. . . The qualifications that we have required of people in
the past who intend to become citizens is that they be men of
good moral character and that they are attached to the prin-
ciples of the Constitution of the United States. . . . They
may be men of good moral character and attached to the
principles of the Constitution, and yet be unable to comply
with this requirement. Ability to torite the English language.
... If , for instance, an elderly man like President Falli^res
of France should decide to emigrate to the United States, he
cannot be naturalized, because in all probability he would
not be able to learn the English language within five years;
whereas Count Boni de Castellane, who has undoubtedly had
opportunities in the past ten years of learning the English
language, could be naturalized, because he could speak and
write English. . . .

It is not from the immigrants who come here to settle on
our public domain, who come here to abide permanently and
to build homes and raise families, that we may expect frauds
upon our election laws or danger to our free institutions. Such
immigrants should not be denied citizenship because of in-
ability to speak and write English. They may, notwithstand-
ing, be as loyal and as patriotic as any. Nothing has been
shown that connects inability to speak English with any of
the evils complained of. There is no relation of cause and
effect between them. The frauds and perjury against nat-
uralization laws were committed by persons proficient in
English.

One of the naturalizing judges in Kansas, long
familiar with the workings of the law, said in his answer
to the questionnaire of the Americanization Study:

My judgment is that this government has occasion for
greater fear from many of the educated foreigners than from

^ Congressional Record, June 2, 1906.

411

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

the uneducated foreigner. More stress should be placed upon
the character of the man and his loyalty to this government,
and his willingness to abide by its laws and uphold its Con-
stitution than upon his mere educational qualificati<His. My
observation has led me to ccmdude that one of the chief diffi-
culties with the administration oi our naturalization laws is
that the Department seems inclined to ai^ly to all foreigners
the same test; whether the applicant has been a resident of
the community for twenty-five years, leading an exemplary
life, upholding all the institutions, interested in all the efforts
to upbuild the state physically, mentally, and morally, os
whether he be a unit in the slum hordes of the city. The
Department seems to have conceived it to be its duty to force
all of than into the same strait-jacket. ... I have in
mind cases where the Department has endeavored to with-
hold citizenship on the merest technicality from men who
for years have been our best citizens, thcnoughly loyal and
devoted to the best interests of the state. W^ seem to have
gone upon the theory that the educated foreigner, by reason
of his education alone, will necessarily be a good citizen, and
that the ignorant foreigner is necessarily an undesirable citizen.

An educational test, such as that to which petitioners
for naturalization are subjected by some judges and
some naturalization examiners, applied at the ballot
box to^all who would vote» would wreak havoc upon
the enrollment of both native and naturalized. It is
sale to say that not one out of a hundred of native-born
citizens, even college educated, could pass rei^)ectably
the examination. A very small proportion of American-
bom citizens of any age or of either sex have read the
Constitution of the United States or have even a super-
ficial knowledge of its contents. The present writer
has deriVed some amusement during his conduct of
this investigation from asking of more than ordinarily
inteUigent acquaintances some of the questions to
which applicants for naturalization have to respond in
various courts. The ignorance of even fundamental

SOME GENERAX CONSIDERATIONS

matters displayed by these scions of the ** old stock '' has
been almost invariably both ludicrous and lamentable.

One of the questions which the Americanization
Study asked of the naturalization judges was whether
th^ would favor a standard intellectual test for both
native fuid foreign bom as a prerequisite for admission
to the ballot box. Of 3^ judges who answered the
question a substantial majority (180) answered, ** Yes,*'
and 44 were not sure but that it would be a good thing.
The best answer that the 102 who opposed the idea
could make was valid enough — i.e., that the native bom
have had 21 years of residence in the atmosphere of
American institutions, and may be assumed to have a
general intellectual fitness. The other objections were
legalistic; but they all came out to the same fact — ^that
fitness for citizenship and the ballot is a question of
personal character and general attitude toward the
public welfare.

At first glance it might seem simple enough to devise
an oral or written examination by which to test the
individual equipment of an applicant for citizenship —
or a native-bom citizen seeking access to the ballot
box; actually it is impracticable. A set of questions
would permit memorizing and recital by rote; to leave it
as at present to the wit of the examiner or the judge
means that no two applicants will be subjected to the
same test. The naturalization judges say frankly that
th^ cannot outline an examination, though they think
that somebody might!

The Merchants' Association of New York appointed
a committee on immigration and naturalization which
gave considerable study to this subject, and came out
where everybody else comes out:

In recommending that unnecessary obstructions and tech-
nical difficulties be eliminated from naturalization procedure
your oonunittee does not believe qualifications for citizenship

413

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

should be lowered. On the contrary, it believes they should
be raised. In addition to present requirements concerning
residence and moral character there should be an educational
qualification requiring proficiency in English and reasonable
familiarity with our history and government. Your com-
mittee wUl not attempt to enumerate the details of svch require^
menty but reconmiends that a suitable and well-defined educa-
tional standard for citizenship be fixed by statute.

Every applicant for citizenship — ^including the wives
who now are swept in regardless of then- own fitness by
the naturalization of their husbands, or kept out by their
rejection or failure to apply, should be considered in
the light of his own personal character and record of
behavior during the preliminary-period residence here.
And character and behavior should be proved as any
other material facts are proved — ^by preponderance of
evidence. The present practice is quite otherwise.
The whole procedure woidd be revolutionized if the
applicant were required, or permitted, to produce a body
of reasonable and competent evidence sufficient to convince
the court or its representative assigned to take the testi-
mony. His neighbors, his employer, his pastor, the
school-teacher, his fellow workmen, by word of mouth
or afiidavit — ^in short, all those who know what sort of
person he (or she) has been during the five years of
required residence — could readily satisfy the court as
to the essential fact. The judges themselves in most
cases would welcome this change. As it is now, the
whole business is wound up with red tape, and thou-
sands of persons have been excluded on the flimsiest
technical grounds, simply because the evidence pre-
sented to the court must be, in the typical case, that of
two witnesses, only two, and the sam>e two throughout
the whole proceeding. If anything can be found amiss
with these or either of them, the application must be
rejected.

414

SOME GENERAL CONSmERATIONS

It may even be argued that the prestimptioiis and the
benefit of doubts should be in favor of the applicant;
that the burden of proof should lie upon those who
oppose admission. During the whole period, 1908-18,
in the whole United States only 14.3 per cent of all
deniak of petitions for naturalization were for reasons
involving the personal fitness of the applicant — *' igno-
rance*' and ** immoral character."^ This means that
if every alien who applied for diissenship during those
eleven years had been granted his certificate of naturaUza-
turn vntiumt investigation or formality^ the proportion of
**ignorant*^ and **immoral** admitted wonJd have been
only 1.7 per cent — less than two in a hundred!

Whatever might have been the merits, real or imagi-
nary, of the hairspHtting, meticulous policy which has
governed the operations of our naturalization iiystem
since the Act of 1906 swept into ancient history the
scandals of the previous years, that policy was effec-
tively junked during the war. Since the beginning of
the fiscal year, 1918-19, under the operation of the
military naturalization plan, more aliens have been
naturalized on the sole ground that they were in the
war service— practically without regard to race, declara-
tion of intention, previous residence, educational or
moral qualifications — ^than the ordinary naturaliza-
tions of any year since the beginning of the present
system. These are direct admissions; we have no
means of knowing how many "'derivative" citizens
these soldiers and sailors carried in with them, or have
made by marriage to alien women since their natural-
ization.

This wholesale letting down of all the bars, however
necessary and innocuous it may be deemed, at least
has redu ced to absurdity the policy of hand picking

^ See Appendix, Tables LIX and LX, Analysis of Denials, pp.
433-435.

415

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

and superscreening practiced in the ordinary cases.
It furnishes a soimd and logical starting point for a
new, more reasonable, and more humane system, under
which the alien may know with greater certainty what
he must do and prove in order to establish his right to
join us; a system which will give him a different im-
pression of our common sense and efficiency, as well as
of our attitude toward him not only as a petitioner for
fellow citizenship with us, but as a fellow member of
the hiunan race.

NO LOWERING OF STANDARDS

There is no argument here for lowering the standards of
admission. The applicant should be able to speak in-
telligibly the English language. This is not very im-
portant practically, because in the years which ordi-
narily elapse before the average alien £3es his petition he
win have learned to speak English anyway. Th«« is
good ground for requiring also the ability to read
English. The intelligent participation in the politics of
this country requires some knowledge of current events
and political argument; the vot^ should be able to
read the English-language newspapers. We are unable
to follow those who would enforce also a requirement of
ability to wri^ in English. Such ability probaUy will
exist in a majority of cases, anyway. It is no sine qua
non of either intelligence or character.

Theoretically, one might argue for a distinction to
be made between the general ri^ts and responsibilities
of bare citizenship (such as diplomatic protection, the
right to own property, exemption from taxes imposed
upon aliens as such, etc.) and the specific right to vote.
This, however, is almost completely academic, because,
except for the limitations of age and residence for a
period prior to election which apply alike to all citizens,

416

SOME GENEEAJL CONSIDERATIONS

our Constitution — especially with the Nineteenth
Amendment in force — ^assumes that citizenship includes
the ballot. It is difScult to see any reason for requiring
of the naturalized citizen^ as a qualification for voting,
educational attainments other than those required of
the native bom. It is equally difficult to see how even
a native-bom citizen can be an intelligent voter if he
cannot speak and read the language in which the issues
of elections are discussed. Our own statistics of illit-
eracy, in states where the proportion of the foreign bom
in the population is negligible, call for educational
measures having no exclusive reference to the foreign
born.

There is a growing custom in the courts, properly
urged by the Naturalization Bureau, of accepting, in
lieu of any other educational test, a certificate of
graduation or proficiency from teachers in public and
other schools. The Naturalization Bureau now sup-
plies the forms for such certificates. A majority of the
judges who answered the questionnaire of the American-
ization Study not only favored this practice, but declared
that it was their own. A good many, however — ^a full
third of those who expressed themselves on the subject
— insisted upon their own right and duty to examine the
petitioner themselves, or minimized the importance of
the educational test altogether. It seems obvious,
however, that the certificate of properly accredited
American schools should be accepted for this purpose.
Whatever may be said in favor of having no educational
test whatever, and of admitting a petitioner who has no
such certificate, there seems no reason for not giving
the petitions the benefit of the extra credit implied in
his having attained such a graduation.

The declaration of intention (to become a citizen)

ishould be retained, notwithstanding the opii^on of

many persons, including some attentive and di?-

417

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

criminating students of the subject favoring Hs aban-
donment. But the declaration in its present form and
practice is not satisfactory from any point of view.
The procedure surrounding it is now far too casual.
It should be protected by substantial saf guards and
attended by a far greater degree of solemnity. Its
sufficiency in f orm, its technical correctness, should be
certified at the time of its issue by the officer of the
court before whom it is attested. There should be a
preliminary period of residence in this country before
the declaration is made.

The identity of the declarant should be clearly estab-
lished; he should have and present a certificate of
"lawful entry" into the coimtry; there should be no
confusion or doubt about the name under which he
goes; his photograph, fingerprints, signature, or other
means of unmistakable identificlation should be at-
tached; all of the essential facts concerning his nativity,
previous residence, marital^ ^status, occupation, and
other things germane to an application for so vital a
change of relationship should be set forth clearly and
suitably attested. As at present, copies of the declara-
tion should be in the possession of the declarant, and
on file in the court and in the Naturalization Bureau.

It might well be required that the declarant should
register with the court or with the Naturalization
Bureau every change of residence, so that the record
of his movements and behavior during the entire period
of his "probation" would be available.

The fact of the making of the declaration should be
publicly posted, so that not only the court and the
government, but the general public, should be put
upon notice that a "new member'* is applying for
admission. And when it comes into court at last as
an indispensable part of the record in the case, its
sufficiency as a dociunent should be taken for granted.

418

SOME GENERAL CONSmERATIONS

The responsibility for technical errors in it should lie
upon the oflScer who accepted and attested it; sub-
stantial errors of fact should exist only under penalties
as for other kinds of perjury. The burden of proof
against its validity should lie upon the government or
any other person attacking it.

Under the law as now enforced, the declaration of
intention expires at the end of seven years; but there
is nothing to prevent its renewal, and in those states
in which formerly declarants had the right to vote, all
the politically important rights of citizenship could
be, and in many cases were, kept alive, as it were, per-
petually by such renewals without any other test or
ceremony. Even now, the other privileges of citizen-
ship may be thus perpetuated by persons who on no
theory could "get by" in a naturalization court. It
should be made at least much more difficult to renew
a declaration once expired. The burden of proof
should rest upon the alien to show why he did not make
final application for citizenship within the period during
which his declaration was valid. A judge in Oregon,
expressing the opinion of many judges on this point said :

Declarant should not be permitted to renew his decla-
ration of intention. Too many use the declaration as a
means of escaping something or obtaining employment; after
expiration, the old declaration is surrendered and a new one
requested. The declaration should disclose the ;scope of the
educational attainments of the declarant and a willingness to
attain practical working knowledge of the English language,
as well as an insight into our system of government and the
names of public officials, their manner of election and most
important duties.

Let it be borne in mind that this is a very different
matter from the question of restrictions upon immi-
gration, literacy, and sanitary tests for mere admission
to the country. The declarant is making his initial

419

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

application for fellow membership with us; he desires
to become flesh of our flesh, to share our sovereignty.
The essential value of the declaration of intention is that
it registers as of a certain date a state of mind toward
our country and its citizenship. It has a moral value
for the declarant in putting him on notice that he has
definitely determined to put off his old allegiance; it
ought to warn him also that he is passing under scru-
tiny by his neighbors and by the government; that his
behavior has become in a special way important to
him and to the community. It is conclusive evidence
of at least two of the necessary five years of residence.
Rightly safeguarded and estimated, it would be a most
precious possession.

But the corollaiy of this is that the process of final
naturalization should be greatly simplified. The great
number of denials for "want of prosecution" is in itself
an index of the degree to which the procedure is sur-
rounded by vexatious technicalities, delays, expense,
discouragements which drive the petitioners and their
witnesses out of the business, mostly during the ninety
days' interval between the filing of the petition and the
time for the final hearing. In the normal case, the
witnesses should appear once for all; the reccMxl
should come before the court complete, in writing, and
once for all, except in disputed or appealed cases when
a deeper inquiry is called for. Make the standards of
admission as severe as you please — ^the procedure of
complying with them should be simple, direct, as inex-
pensive as possible, and readily understood by anyone
of ordinary intelligence.

A PUNCTION ADMINISTBATIVE OB JUDICIAL?

It may be debatable whether the whole function ol
naturiJization should be taken out of the hands of the

420

SOME GEiraiRAL CONSIDERATIONS

courts and made a purely administrative activity ci
the executive department of government. A good
many students of the subject favor such a course. The
present study has not led to this conclusion. The
judges generally, while th^ would be glad to be re-
lieved of a peculiarly exacting and vexatious duty, do
not favor it. From the beginning of our history the
function has been judicial, and very sound reasons
should be advanced for making so radical a change.
It would require the establishment of an enormous
machinery at a time when every consideration cries
out for the simplification of the government. The
present Naturalization Bureau, if adequately manned
and properly directed, and required to attend to its
own business rather than to expand itself into an
educational institution, could save the time of the
courts to a great extent, and at the same time save to
the situation the digmty and solemnity purporting at
least to abide in the judicial atmodphere.

There has been a proposal to create a i^stem of
traveling naturalization commissions, sitting from
time to time at the various county seats and passing
upon petitions. But it b vitally important to the
petitioners, who are almost always folk of limited
means and time, that the place to which they must
go shall be as near at hand as possible, and the neces-
sary traveling for themselves and their witnesses as
little as is absolutely necessary.

Another consideration, too often overlooked, espe-
cially by those to whom the naturalization problem is
seen chiefly from the point of view of the great cities,
Ues in the fact that in the rural districts the judges
have a wide acquaintance, and are likely to know, or
to have direct means of knowing, all about the peti-
tioner. Once we rid our minds of the current impres-
sion that ignorant immigrants rush from the landing
28 421

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

port to the ballot box, and remember that in the aver-
age case the petitioner has been in this country more
than ten years, and in a vast majority of cases has
lived for five years in the same state, if not in the
same commmiity » the matter takes on a wholly different
aspect. It is quite conceivable that in the great cities
a special court, or a special term of court, might be set
aside for the consideration of naturalization cases.

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND DIGNITY

What is most needed is a better arrangement for
taking care of this business — a physical as well as an
administrative arrangement. The physical surround-
ings leave much to be desired. Merton A. Sturges,
Chief Naturalization Examiner at New York, thus
describes^ the conditions under which final hearings are
conducted in some of the courts.

... In many instances the court-room has a seating
capacity for less than half the number of persons notified to
appear, and often there is bardy space enough to crowd the
applicants and witnesses into the court-room in a standing
position. . • . The applicants and witnesses are sometimes
rushed through as fast as one hundred cases in half as many
minutes. The natural query, especially on the part of wit-
nesses, ia, *'Why have we been brought here and kept stand-
ing in a crowded court-room for hours for no apparent
reason?"

Of course, in connection with a small percentage of appli-
cations, some question arises which it is desirable to present
for determination by the judges, but aside from these few in-
stances there is no good reason for witnesses to appear in
court, except that the law requires their appearance. . . .

The oath of allegiance is administered in anything but a
dignified and impressive manner. In fact, the whole pro-

^ In an artide in Better Times, organ of the United Neighboriiood
Houses of New York City.

422

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

ceeding is lacking in that solemnity and impressiveness which
should be the characteristic of so important a ceremony.
Would it be a great innovation to inaugiurate and maintain
orderly and patriotic ceremonies for the conferring of final
naturalization? Invite the applicants to appear in court,
accompanied by members of their family; have the certif-
icates prepared in advance; provide an appropriately dec-
orated court-room with seating capacity for as many as are
present; call the applicants and their families in groups by
nationality before the judge's bench; have the judge admin-
ister the oath of allegiance to each group in a fittingly digni-
fied manner, and present the certificates of naturalization to
each new citizen; have the judge, and perhaps one other
prominent and esteemed citizen, deliver addresses dealing with
the responsibilities and duties of good citizenship.

The tendency in the past few years has been in the
direction indicated by Mr. Sturges. Increasingly, all
over the country, judges have awakened to the need
of a greater solemnity in the conferring of citizenship;
a few judges have, at their own expense, furnished a
printed address or book of instructions to the new
citizens, and even a small American flag which is enor-
mously prized by the recipients. In one court in
North Dakota the judge serves upon each declarant,
at the time of his filing of his declaration of intention,
the following formal notice under seal of the court:

State of North Dakota ) In District Court

County of Cass y Judicial District

Give this notice your most careful attention and respect.
, Take notice:

That your Declaration of Intention to become a citizen of

the United States, made this day of , A. D.,

19 in this County, Judicial District and State, gives

notice to our Government that your intent is to fit yourself
for citizenship before the time arrives to make your applica-
tion for your final adoption. That you will, in good faith,

423

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

inquire into and acquaint yourself with not only our form c^
Grovemment, but the intent and purpose of its formation and
the duties and responsibilities that will be yours when you are
finally adopted. That you believe in, and will at all times
faithfully and energetically uphold, the principles of our pec^le
and the various government agencies. That you will be pre-
pared» at the time of the hearing of your application for final
ad<^ticm, to prove to the Court b^ore which the hearing is
had, and to the representatives of the GrovemmeT«t of the
United States then present, that this applicaticm is made in
good faith and all sincerity and with love and respect for the
Government of which you are seeking to become a part

(Signed)

Clerk of the District Court,
Cass County, North Dakota.

By order of

Judge of said Court.

In this court there is a ceremony just such as Mr.
Sturges recommends — a talk by some one selected by
the presiding judge, on the history and meaning of the
flag and government, and what it means to take on the
new citizenship. Then there is offered, and of course
taken by all the accepted petitioners, the following
pledge, devised by the judge:

OBLIGATION OP FIDELITY

(Taken voluntarily)

I of

being this day about to be adopted into the full citizenship of
the United States, and believing in a people's form of govern-
ment as exemplified by our now common Grovemment, do
solemnly pledge myself to devote a considerable portion of
my spare time for not less than three years hereafter to la*
quire into and more fully understand our f om^ of government,
its purposes and practices, the method and manner of select-
ing all public officials in this country, the manner in which and

424

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

the method by which we can change our laws as changes be-
come necessary, in a peaceful and lawful manner, all of which
is for the purpose of fitting myself to become a loyal and use-
ful citizen of this, my adopted country.

This pledge is solemnly taken by me, and is made one of
the representations as to my good intent and purpose in ask-
ing to become a fellow citizen, with the rights, duties, and
responsibilities coming to and depending upon me as a loyal
citizen.

Dated at Fargo, N. D., this day of , 19. ..

(Signed)

In many parts of the country it has become a custom
to hold public ceremonies, at which the new citizens
naturalized within the past year or other definite period
are assembled with their families to hear addresses,
join in patriotic singing, and otherwise celebrate their
adoption into the new fellowship.

FUNCTION OF THE NATURALIZATION BUREAU

The Naturalization Biu*eau should be, as it is now,
the watchdog of all this business, the investigating
agency of the government. But its work should not
be confined, as it is now to so great an extent, to picking
flaws in papers, straining shrewd technical points of
law and procedure, or trying to find something wrong
with the two witnesses or the intellectual attainments
of the petitioner. Being informed at least two years
in advance that George Kristopoulos, whose address
is registered with the court and in its own files, has
declared his intention to apply for citizenship, it can
ascertain affirmatively at all times what he is about,
and present to the court at the time of the final appli-
cation a complete record of his conduct, upon which
the court can act intelligently. Its functions in this
direction should be materially expanded.

425

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

The naturalization examiner should represent the
court) in the relation of a master, taking the necessary
testimony, examining depositions, and presenting to
the court at last a record complete in writing, upon
which, in the great majority of cases, the judicial order
would be entered witiiout further ado. This would
seem to be indeed its logical function. The Bureau
needs a real job; in fact, has a real job instead of its
present largely self -assumed adventiu*es in the field of
public education, for which it is not properly equipped,
which has bedeviled its legitimate work and demoral-
ized its correspondence and its whole system of records,
upon which the proper administration of the law so
greatly depends.

Except as the carrying out of the existing procedure
has unjustly or imreasonably affected the individual
petitioner for citizenship, it has not been conceived as
the piupose of this study to investigate the Naturaliza-
tion Bureau as an exhibit of public administration.
Neither the available time nor the space in this volume
has permitted such a study as would have been ade-
quate in scope or just to the Bureau. Grenerally
speakmg, the thing which has been impressed upon
those who have carried on this branch of the Ameri-
canization Study has been the zeal and honesty and
vigilance for the public welfare with which the Bureau
has done its work ever since its establishment in its
present functions by the Act of 1906.

No serious charge or insinuation of corruption or
willful misconduct of any kind on the part of any
member of that service has come to the attention of
the Study, and it may be predicted without reservation
that no such charge or insinuation would be sustained
by the facts. For fifteen years and more the Bureau
has "carried on," under conditions of great difficulty,
generally undermanned and insufficiently appropriated

426

SOME GENERAL CONSmERATIONS

for — although its business has from the beginning not
only been self-supporting, but brought into the treasury
of the United States money ample to have paid for
adequate personnel — except during the war, when the
prevailing hysteria about immigrants and the ill-
informed rage for all manner of things that might be
called "Americanization" led to the hasty and extrava-
gant subsidizing of anything that could be tagged with
that word. The Bureau deserves great credit for what
it has accomplished. More than that, it is in no cap-
tious spirit that any demurrer has been entered here
to what it has gone out of its way to attempt.

The time is ripe now to review and construct to better
purpose on the basis of this long and informing experi-
ence, for an overhauling of the whole process by which
aliens are taken into our political system. The Nat-
uralization Law of 1906 and the amendments thereto
should be revised as a whole, and what has been learned
should be built into a new Act, retaining the substance
which experience has abundantly justified, and slough-
ing off the excrescences which have grown up and
accumulated. This should be done on the basis of a
thorough investigation under the authority of Congress,
and in a wholly constructive spirit.

Such an investigation would disclose the utter insuffi-
ciency of the force now available at headquarters and
in the field; the lack of precision in the scope and
technic of the Bureau; the chaos existing in its records;
the need of intelligent and consistent direction of the
field force by a supervising chief examiner or similar
officer; the waste of effort and money in directions
having nothing substantial or logical to do with the
main work of the Bureau; the need of one or more
competent law officers to unify the poUcy of the service
in its practice under the decisions of the courts; the
crying need of a simplffication of the standards and

427

,.^

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

procedure of admission and of the practices of the
clerks of courts in handling the papers and records
upon whose sufiSciency and accuracy hang the welfare
of thousands of weU-intending human beings who
desire to join us and are needed in our citizenry. The
whole subject has gone too long without due under-
standing by the public and its representatives in
Congress.

Meanwhile our would-be citizens have been chased
from pillar to post and back again, losing in hundreds
of thousands of cases their affection and respect for
the country to whose fellowship they asked only the
privilege of contributing what th^r might with aJl
goodwill.

»«.>
Jii

APPENDIX

TABLE LV

DiSTBIBUnON OF PETITIONS STUDIED, BT .COUBTS

Cods

NXTM-
BBB

01
02

03
04

05
06
07
08

09
10
12
13

14
15
16
17

18
19
20

22
23
24
25

26
27
28
29

Namb of Cottbt

New York Co. (N. Y.) Supm. Ct. . .
U. S. Diet. Ct. for S. Dirt, of N. Y. .
U. S. Dist. Ct. for E. Diet, of N. Y..
Bronx Co. (N. Y.) Supm. Ct

Qpeens Co. (N. Y^ Supm. Ct.

Westchester Co. m. Y.) Supm. Ct.

>. (N. Y.) Supm. Ct ,

Passaic Co. (N. J.) Ct. of Com. Fte.,

Nassau Co.

Fairfield Co. (Conn.) Supr. Ct

Knox Co. (HI.) Ciro. Ct

Johnson Co. (Iowa) Dist. Ct.

Androscoggin Co. (Me.) Supm. Judi-
cial Ct.

Tompkins Co. (N. Y.) Supm. Ct

Middlesex Co. (N. J.) Ct. of Com. Pis.
U. S. Dist. Ct. for N. Dist. of Ohio. .
Chiyahoga Co. (Ohio) Ct. of Com. Pis.

Multnomah Co. (Ore.) Ciro. Ct

Monroe Co. (N. Y.) Buj»n. Ct

U. S. Dist. Ct. for W. Diet, of Wash-
ington

King Co. (Wash.) Supm. Ct ,

Chemung Co. (N. Y.) Supm. Ct

Summit Co. (Ohio) Ct. of Com. Pis.
Northampton Co. (Pa.) Ct. of Com. Pis.
Worcester Co. (Mass.) Supr. Ct

Middlesex Co. <Conn.) Supr. Ct.

Rensellaer Co. (N. YJ Supr. Ct

U. S. Diet. Ct. for S. Dist. of Ohio

New London Co. (Conn.) Supr. Ct. . .

All courts

Location
or Cottbt

New York City
New York City
BrooUyn, N. Y.
New York CSty

Jamaica, N. Y.
White Plains. N.Y.
Mineola, L.|I., N. Y.
Paterson, N. J.

Bridgeport, Conn.
Qalesburg, DL
Iowa City, Iowa

Auburn, Me.

Ithaca, N. Y.
New Brunswick, N. J
Clereland, Ohio
Cleycland, Ohio

Portland, Ore.
Rochester, N. Y.

Seatile, Wash.
Seattle, Wash.

EHmira, N. Y.
Akron, Ohio
Easton, Pa.
Worcester, Mass.

Middletown, Conn.
Troy, N. Y.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Norwich, Conn.

NUM-
BBBOF

Pbti-

TION8

Tabu-

LATKD
11.058

2,401
1.553
1,355

598
647
135
742

410

129

389

1,175

1,703

714
813

703
143

19
199
115
635

74
104
363
119

26.284

429

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE LVn

NcvBBB AMD Natititt of Fbtitiohxbb' Childben Undeb Twxntt-
om Ybabs ow Aob

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

TABLE LVm

AGE aw rnnrioNBBB .

hH ABBKVAJj, A

18 or Age (or 1

BID J.IMB r^LA]

tfHJLHU JDJDTWKSN

iWENTT-OME XEAI

1918-14.

Agb at

Pbtitiombbs

TnaBBTwvnr

21 YXABS (OB

Abbiyal

Number

Per Cent

Latbb Abbttal)
andPbtition

AH MM

.26.284

149

114

127

118

120

118

165

168

169

213

219

285

896

566

812

1.244

1.626

1.999

1,779

2.036

1.736

1.470

1.371

1.290

1.240

987

827

723

598

530

402

387

336

296

248

204

197

137

118

109

• a •

0.6

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.8

1.1

1.5

2.5

8.1

4.7

6.2

7.6

6.8

7.7

6.6

6.2

4.0

4.7

3.8

3.1

2.8

2.3

2.0

1.5

1.8

1.1

0.0

0.8

0.7

0.5

0.4

0.8

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.3

• • •

6.2

7 4

7!3

7^7

8.5

7.5

7.*0

7.9

6.9

7.4

7.8

7.6

9.5

7.2

7.1

7.0

7.7

8.7

9.5
10.8

10.6

10.7

10.9

10.8

10.6

10.8

10.4

10.5

10.9

10.6

10.3

9.8

10.0

9.5

9.T

9.7

9.9

9.1
9.0

9.7

8.7

9.4

10.3

10.0

8.6

Over 60

No informfttion

• • • •

432

COTJBTB

•

4
8

Unabub to

Pboducb

Witness fob

Deposition

AvRWAnv >

NoCbi

CmZEN

GATE

Abrh

Num-
ber

Per
Cent

Num-
ber

Per
Cent

Num-
ber

0.4

9
3

0.3
0.2

1
1

1.6
0.6

1 . •

1 . .

25.0

9.'

2.4

3
2
1
2

5.4

1.6

1.1

■

• •

7
4

3.7

1.4

1 ' 1 '

»4

147

19
1

• •

4
2
9
1
8
28

• • • •
2

• • • •

• • • ■

• • • •

• "

• • •

• • "

• • • •

, • •

■ • • •

• • • •

. • •

1
1

• • • •

a * • •

, • •

• • • •

- • ' *

• • •

OF Birth

18
714

35
6
3

813

1
39

703

143

22
19

199

24
115

25
635

26
74

27
104

28
363

29
119

6
2

"i"

21
51
14

5
90

6
10
12

37
33

2
54

"'i'

91
4

17
1

26
283

23
55
18

■72'
5
3
10

1
8
2

. . . .

4
8

a • • ■

3
3

1
10

11
1

1
98

100

7
4

1 ....

1 ;....

1
34

....

1
4

• • • •

1
7

3
80
54

3 ' 2

7 > 1

8
10

3
22

12
24

12
27

10
12

' i'
1

• • • ■

4
163

"3"
110

185

18 ....

....

" i "

11
83

L
>

•

■•8)'7'

162

4
3

....

3
1

• • • •

1
9
4
2

• • • ■

1
110
8
2
1

27
2

• • • •

• ■ • •

....
....

5
2

....

66
23

6
2
1

■ • • ■

2
2

■ • • •

4
2
1
3

• • • •

• > • •

• • • •

■■4"

....

• ■ • •

....

• • • ■

t— ~

OF BiBTH

nBBAQK LbNGTH

■}r TiMB noM
Abbxvalto
Petition.
tmnoNKits ABf-

BXVINO AT

to 20

21 Years

tnof

of Age

ige

and Over

aars

Years

1.0

10.6

7.3

g.4

0.6

10.6

7.4

11.0

3.6

17.0

7.3

4.6

16.4

5.5

9.0

3.2

10.2

3.6

11.7

1.7

10.6

7.7

11.9

t.l

11.9

d.7

8.6

3.2

10.1

3.8

9.9

7.5

8.2

1.6

9.6

3.8

11.4

>.o

9.0

3.0

12.3

2.0

10.0

3.0

8.3

5.0

14.6

1.3

10.8

3.6

8.3

3.2

9.8

).9

9.6

2.7

10.6

8.3

)'.2* '

7.9

).3

10.7

2.7

13.1

$.6

12.2

).0

8.5

r.9

8.1

l.l

10.1

r.6

9.8

9.0

, • • ' *

s^^s

^I^ISIS

O)Cntf^C0t9

0» !-«»->

ocooo*4a»

tooti^ai

l^COO

oaoSo

!^282^

>l§

fcOt-

a>oo

to CO

b9 00 CO CO

COHi>t^l^

^t^'OoSoft

cot^-4cn«

OOM

0D(

<»SSI^^

ti5

en Oft

eot-M

otocn(

^S^^S

M^OftOM

kOH'

Ot CO 00 00

00 en

coeoooi-«

h-O

^5^85

kOf*

lOfti

OSMl^OO

MCnfeOi-«

OOMOOi

M«0*<M

*»-a*»

MOft

COI

n^^^

Si:S;SSS

ICOOifeOM

Soo

OlCO

ScSK^SftS

t^t^OtH^tmi

H«C»Sftl-«<

COGOH<<

S*40ftS

h-fcO'

Ml-*

5?ai

Ag!

}
I

Tr.

}
t

D»

APPENDIX

OF BiBTH

^nuOK LBNOtBRAGB NUMBEB
7F TiMB ntoM
Arrival TO
Pktitxon.

BTXnONKRS AJ
RIVINOAT

Occupation

TABLE LXIV

OF Ybabb fbom Date of Abbival to Datb oi*
Petition, by Occupation

21 Ye

of Ai

and^

• occupations.

Yef

lO^rioulture, Forestry, etc.. . .

g uiufactuiing

lOpakers

llpabinetmakers and oarpen-

17^ tf«

yLaborers

lepianagers, supts., mfgrs.,

9 ^ and officers

lOrlumbers

II Jailors

10 All others

III ^ *:

11 jansportation

9 Retul dealers

g^alesmen

9 /Jl others

9 ^buc service

lO^essional service

gClerfESrmen

14 ]Mu8ioians

10]A11 others

9 pmestio and personal service

9 .Barbers

10 .Bartenders

g.All others

lolerioal

NuMBBB OF Fan-

TIOUBBS AbRIVINQ AT

16 to 20

Years of

Age

13^
12.

8.
10.

9,494

139

5,735
170

372
761

844

112

1,072

2,914

387

1.611
911
346
264

342
10
37

296

917
224
136
567

442

21 Years

of Age

and Over

13,861

314

8,362
266

921
1,193

444

1.206

4,240

662

2,266

1,646

264

366

112

608
83
91

334

1,246
226
164
867

601

AvEBAOB Length of

Tma FROM ARRIVAXi

TO Pbtition (Ybabs).
AuRiviNa at

16 to 20

Years of

Age

10.7

14.3

10.3
12.0

10.3
11.0

17.6

9.8

10.1

10.3

11.6
12.2
10.4
12.1

13.4

11.0
11.4
11.5
11.0

10.8
10.4
10.4
11.4

9.6

21 Years

of Age and

Over

10.5

14.2

10.5
10.7

10.4
11.3

10.8
10.4
10.5
10.2

9.7

10.7

9.6

10.9

10.3

9.9

10.3

9.8

10.3

10.2

9.3

10.9

9.3

434

e ^

^ * •

PATION

pBfimBHUONAL SuYioa

nCB

Total

Clergy-
men

Mum-
dans

AU
OtheiB

Tot

15 '"

1,026

148

784

2.3)

^'?

126

6
5

21
2

•
*

Hi
ltd

16
5

• • • •

100

107

877

' "io"

6
18

18
1
7
1

8
55
16
66

295

5
16
10

6
28

• • • 1

^2
RCS

2
84

""48*'

Td 1

%T , • • • •

5
1
2

1
1
1

[alis Ten Ybabs of Acb and

UMB-
IB8

Bmtaxl

flftTMl
MBH

Tailobs

Total

404

193
3.6

67»204

2,103

3.1

21,404
591
2.8

89,918

2,120

5.3

836.170

9,930

8.0

133

3.8

886

6.1

177

5.7

266

6.0

6,191
193
3.1

101

2.0

1,977

2.2

626

1.7

1,120

2.1

9,802
188
1.9

544

6.0

5,125
213
4.2

1,181

1.5

2,824
182
6.4

37,779

1,477

8.9

948
139
3.6

62,323

1,569

3.0

17,578
508
2.9

38,101

1,754

5.8

285.749

6,658

2.8

273

2.2

2,853
50

1.8

630

1.3

602

2.8

15,836
286
1.8

106

7.5

1,197

6.4

259

3.5

288

6.0

5,931
837
6.7

149

3.4

3.0

672

3.8

487

4.6

18.024
854
2.7

150

0.7

1,452

8.6

436

1.8

1,280

6.8

10.868
442
4.1

INDEX

Abbott, Grace^ 208
Addams, Jane, 324
Age:

At arrival, 2S6-247
Limitations for naturaliza-
tion, 95-96
Akron, Ohio:
Naturalisation court, 227
Study, 227-254
Alabama:
Immigrants
Political privileges, 5,
217
Aliens:

(See Immigrants)
Co-belligerents, 257
Enemy, 260-263
Desertion, 279-281
Legal position, 5-7
Naturalization biueau sup-
port, 189-193
Reciprocal conscription,

278
Rights in United States, 6
War registration, 267-277
Allegiance:
National

Indelibility, 56
Oath, 137-142
Registered aliens, 267-269

America, 14-16

Immigrants' vision of, 17
American:

Attitude on naturalization,
195-196

Bom abroad, 51-52

Definition, 7-16

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Types, 1
Americanism:

Essentials, 14-16
Americanization :

Agencies, 177-180, 805-
307, 330-333

Factors, 37-39, 173

Program, 139-140
American Labor Union, 402
American Railway • Union,

402
Argentine:

Jus Solis, 45
Arizona:

Immigrants
Political privilege, 5 ^

Arkansas:

Immigrants
Political privil^es, 5,
217

Naturalization denials, 126
Arthur, Chester A., 79

-K

435

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Assimilation, 88-89, 287-288
Auburn, Maine:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Austrian:
Allegiance, 274-275
Classification, 287-288
Immigration, 19-^, 1979

205
Jus Sanguinis, 44
Naturalization treaties, 56
Vote in New York City,
850, S53
Ayer's American Newspap^
Annual and Directory,
888

Bay City, Michigan:

Women registered, 308
Belgium:

Immigrants, 205

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Naturalization Treaties, 56
Bennett, William S., 845-847,

855
Benton Harbor, Michigan:

Women registered, 868
Bingham, George G., 811
Bkir, A. Z., 845
Bohemians:

In Cleveland, 287, 860

Naturalized, 206
Borchard, Edwin M., 4, 52,

56, 59, 60, 64
Boston:

Naturalization Division, 89

Brazil:

Naturalization treaties, 56
Breckinridge, S. P., 305
Bridgeport, Connecticut:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Briggs-Wall, Henrietta, 141
Brissenden, Paul Frederic,

406
Brooks, John Graham, viii, 8
Brownson, O. A., 878
Buchanan, Pres., 78
Bulgaria:
Jus Sanguinis, 45
Jus Solis, 45
Bureau of Citizenship and
Americanization, 180-
184
Bureau of Education, 180
Bureau of Naturalization,^9,
81, 89-92, 104, 171-
178, 177-198, 200-204,
225, 255, 425-428
Burmese:

Naturalization, 93
Byllcsby, L., 879

Cadillac, Michigan:
Women registered, 368

California:
Gold discoveiy, 25

Campbell, Richard K., zxiii,
81, 82, 89-92, 101-105,
187,285

Canada:
Naturalization, 145

Carpent^, A. H., 72

436

INDEX

Cases

Butchers' Benevolent As-
sociation versus Cres-
cent City Live Stock
Company, 65

Cruikshank vs. United
States, 67

Fernandez vs. United
States, 94

Friedd vs. United States,
99

Lapiz vs. United States, 94

Mhior vs. Happerstadt, 64

PhilUps, WiUiam, 115

Pollock, John, 99

United States vs. Boovris,
115

United States vs. Brefo, 97

United States vs. Gerstein,
136

United Stetes vs. Hill, 162

United States vs. Lagtry,
97

United States vs. McMil-
lan, 162

United States vs. Mackay,
98

United States vs. Mulcreay ,
162

United States vs. Olson,
119

United States vs. Wong
Kim Ark, 49, 51
Certificate of Arrival, 109-112
Certificates of naturalization:

Interval between 1st paper,
238

Interval between petition,
237

Issued 1907-1920, 201

29 437

Character:
Moral, 135-137

Chicago:
Municipal Voters' League,

833-334
Naturalization division, 89
PcJitics, 32-33, 36

Children r
Bom at sea, 52-53
Factor in election, 333-334
Foreign birth, 51-52
Parentage, 84-85, 247, 301-
303
Chinese:
Jus Sanguinis, 44
Naturalization, 93
Cincinnati, Ohio:
Crood Govenmient League,

373-374
Naturalization courts, 227
Study, 227-254

Citizens:
American
Children, 51
Desertion, military, 279-

281
Jurisdiction, 64-68
By birth, 1
By choice, 1, 3, 7
Definition, 46-51

Citizenship:
(See Naturalization)
American, 1, 49-50
Immigrants
Application, 231, 253
Cause, 254

Fitness of candidates,
193-195, 250
Attitude, 17, 25

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Citizenship (continued):
Immigrants (continued)
Essentials, 46-49
Foreign bom w<Hnea,

296-334
Granted
By races, 207H211
For military service,
95
Interval between arrival,

17, 31, 236-254
Legal Recognition^ 65-67
Need for, 32
Sex, 62-63
Tests, 68
Claghom, Kate HoUiday, 7
Clark, John B., 212
Clarke, Frederic, 342
Cl^ks:
Naturalization Court, 2,
161-167
Cleveland, Grover, 79
Cleveland, Ohio:
Bohemians, 287
Natiu'alization court, 227

Study, 227-254
Study of elections, 357-365
Colonies:
American
Immigrants in, 69-70
Naturalization in, 70-73
Foreign bom
Menace of, 2-3
Colorado:

Naturalization deniab, 126
Communists, 377
Commons, John R, 213

Connecticut:
Naturalization denials, 126

488

Constitution of United States,
50, 65, 6^70, 73, 123-
126, 135, 144, 176,
296,304
Cooper, Thomas, 378
Costa Rica:

Natiu'alization treaties, 56
Country:

Person without, 38, 63-64
Courts:
Clerks, 161-167,
Naturalization, 26-29, 87-
88, 93-95, 108, 119-
120, 145-147, 227
Studied, 227-254, 429-434
Crist, Ra3anond F., zziii, 177,

183, 294, 299, 811
Croatians:

Naturalization, 205
Czechs:
Socialists, 384

Dana, Charles A., 379
Danieb, John, 36
Danish: '

Immigrants, 19, 25

Naturalized, 206

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Naturalization treaties, 55-
56
Davenport, John I., 26, 27, 29
Declaration of Intention:

Abolishment, 102-105,
417-420

Attitude of judges, 105-
107, 419

INDEX

I>eclaTatioii of Intention Easton» Pennsylvania :

(continued) :
FHed

In other states, 947-1250

Number, 201
Form, 90^8, 107, 41&-419 Egypt:
Interval from Jus Sanguinis, 45

Natiu'alization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Ecuador:
Naturalization treaties, 56

Arrival to, 96, 236-250
To petition, 218-224
Invalid, 98-102
Suffrage through, 217-218
Time limit, 107-109, 228
Delaware:

Naturalization laws, 73
Democratic, 21-23, 31
Deniab:

415,432-433
Comparison, 232

By race, 233
Spedal,234
By race, 234-236
Denver. Colo.:

Naturalization division, 89
Department of labor, 168
Desertion:

By citizenship, 279-281
Detroit, Michigan:

Women registered, 868
Devoe, Emma Smith, 325
Dillingham, William P., 204
Dutch:
Immigrants, 205

Earnings:
Comparison
By races, 215-217

Jus Solis, 45
Eliot, Charles W., 373
EUerbe, Paul Lee, xxiv .
JSlmira, New York:

Naturalization Court, 227
Study, 227-254
Emmett, Thomas Addis, 23
Employm^it:

Politicians' usage of, 32

Cause, 88-100, 231, 263, England:

Naturalization in, 145
Politics, 24
English:
Ability to speak, 120-123
Factor
Naturalization, 253
Entry, 416
Immigrants:

Naturalization, 205-206
Publications, 345, 348, 422
Expatriation:
Right, 54-55

» F

Fall River, Massachusetts:

Naturalization receptions.
138-139
Filipines:

Natiu^dization, 94
Finnish:

Jus Sanguinis, 44

Socialist, 384

430

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Flint, Michigan:

Women registered, 868
Florida:

Declaration of intention
cases, 97

Naturalization denial, 126
Flourroy, R., 59
Foreign Legion, 273
Fosdick, Raymond B., viii
France:

Citizenship, 55

Jus Sanguinis, 44

Naturalization, 145
French:

Immigrants, 205
Fuller, Margaret, 379

Cralesburg, Illinois:

Naturalization courts* 227
Gay, Edwin F., viii
Greneva:

Jus Solis, 45
Grerman:
Citizenship laws, 57-62
Immigrants
Naturalization of, 205-

206
Number, 22
Politics, 24-25
Immigration, 18-20, 25,

197, 205
Jus Sanguinis, 45
Press, 388
Socialist, 387-390
Vote in New York City,
352-353
Giddings, Franklin H., 9
Gillette, John M., 398

Glenn, John M., viii
Godwin, Parke, 379
Gompers, Samuel, 336
Govonment:

Land possession, 40

Relation between Federal
and State, 6
Graft:

In naturalization courts,
165-167
Grand Rapids,' Michigan:

Americanizaticm society,
330-334

Civic interest in, 365-369

Naturalization program,
139-140

Women registered, 368
Grant U. S., 79
Great Britain:
' Immigrants, 18, 19

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Naturalization treaties, 56-
57
Greeks:

Expatriation rights, 54

Immigration, 197

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45
Greeley, Horace, 379

Haiti:

Naturalization treaties, 56
Hamilton, Alexander, 70
Harrison, Benjamin, 79
Harrison, J. B., 343
Hart, Homell, xxiii
Hawaiians:

Naturalization, 93

440

INDEX

Hawkins, L. H., xdii
Hawthorne, Nathan, 379
Hearst, William R., 355
Higgins, A. Pearce, 59
Hohnes, Edith Knight, 326
Honduras:

Naturalization, 56
Hung, Gaillard, 81
Hungarians:

Jus Sanguinis, 44

Socialists, 384

Illinois:

Distribution
By years, %^
Variation, 17-«0
Indiana:
Comparison — declarations

to petitions, 2S2
Immigrants

Political privileges, 5, 1817

Naturalization denials, 126

Industrial Workers of the

World, 403-409
International Working Peo-
ples Association, 402
Iowa:
Naturalization denials, 126

Declaration of intention Iowa City, Iowa:

cases, 97
Naturalization denials, 126
Immigrants (see aliens) :
Naturalized
Aid, 32
Attitude, S^5
Cause of inunigration,

18-21
Interval between arrival

and citizenship, 17
New, 197-224, 233-254
Number, 19-20
Old, 197-224, 233-254
Proportion of all foreign

bom, 2
Vision of America, 17
Vote, 335-376
Unnaturalized
Refusal to submit to in-
justice, 7
Immigration:
Bighl^, 44-45
To America, 43-44
Cause, 18, 25-30

Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Irish:
Immigrants, 18, 21, 25, 197
Naturalized, 206
Number, 22
Politics, 21-24
Vote in New York City,
352-353
Italian:

Citizenship rights, 55
Lnmigrants, 19-20, 197,

231
Jus Sanguinis, 45
Jus Solis, 45
Naturalization petitioners,

124
Socialist, 384
Vote
Cleveland, 357-365
New York City, 352-353
Ithaca, New York:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254

441

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Jackscm, Michigan:
Women r^istrants» 868

Jvpasiese:
Jus Sanguinis* 44
Naturalization* 93

Jefferson, Hiomas* 75» 78

Jenks, J. W., 843

Jennings* B. L., 879

Jews*
Socialist* 884* 890-391
Vote in Cleveland* 858

Johnson* Andrew* 78

Johnstone* Lucy B.» SK

Judges:
Attitudes
Deniab* 129-183

Kansas:
Immigrants
Political privil^es* 5,
«17
Naturalization denial* IM
Kentucky:
Dedaration of intenti<m

cases, 97
Naturalization denials* IM
Kohs* S. C* xxiii

Labor:

Vote* 885-389
Language:

Naturalization Factor*
j{14-215

Derivative voters* 815- Lapsing* Michigan:

817

Examiners, 170-171
Naturalization* ft9, 105-
107, 118* 120-123,
158 - 161* 174 - 177*
283-285* 411-412*
419
Naturalization Ceremonies*

Women r^^istered* 868
Laws:

Aliens* 5-7

Blood* 42* 44-45

Naturalization* 30, 70-88
Amendment to, 132

Soil, 42* 44-45
Legal:

Bights of aliens, 5-7

137-138, 423-425
Personal equation, 147-158 illation :
Jugoslavs: Immigrant suffrage* 5

Vote in Cleveland* 858
Jurisdiction:

Of citizens, 64-68
Jus Sanguinis, 42, 44-45
Jus Soils* 42, 44-45

Kalamazoo* Michigan:
Women roistered, 868

Naturalization law, 50, 69*
88, 132, 144-145, 181-
186, 259-261
Letts:

Socialists, 384
Lincoln, Abraham, 78
lipsky, Abram, 348, 357
Lithuanian:

Socialist, 384
Lowell, James Bussell, 379

442

INDEX

Luxemburg:
Jus Sanguinisy 45
Jus Solisy 45

Madison, James, 78, 78
Magyar:

Vote in Cleveland, 860
Mariners:

Naturalization of, 77
Maryland:

Naturalization laws, 73
Massachusetts :

Montana:

Naturalization deniab, 126
Moravian:

Naturalized, 206
Morris, Oliver S., 897
Munro, William Bennett, 33,

875
Muskegon, Michigan :

Women registered, 868
Myers, Gustavus, 28-^

MC
McCook, J. J., 843

Naturalization denials, 126 McKinley, President, 77
Naturalization law, 73

Meeker, Jacob, 262
Melting Pot:

Test of, 281-282
Michigan:
Immigrants

Naturalization denials,

126
Political privileges, 5, 217
Middletown, Connecticut:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Military Service:
Natiuralization through, 93,
255-295
Mineola, New York:

Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Missouri:
Immigrants
Naturalization denials,

126
Suffrage, 5, 217
Moley, Raymond, xxiii-xxiv
Monaco:

Jus Sanguinis, 44

Nationality, 40
Denial, 53-54
National Labor Union, 402
Naturalization :
Aid, 82
Attitude
United States Presidents,
78
Comparison
All foreign bom, 2
First to second papers,

218-224
New and old inmiigrants,
204-217
Court clerks, 161-167
Declaration of intention,

98-105
Denials, 120-137, 415
Derivation, 802-303
Factors, 214-224
Educational test, 173-

177
Military service, 255-
295

443

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

NaturaliEation (continued):
Fees, 190

Frauds, «5-80, «65-«67
Intervals, J2S6-«43
Law, 30, 69-88

Operation, 89-142
Personal equation in, 148-

196
Petitioners, 225-254
Women, 809-811
Process, 1, 21, 81, 199-202,

420-422
Requirements, 88-88, 120-

128, 410-412, 416
Restriction, 92-96
Service, 167-178, 185-189>
200,202
Nearing, Scott, 289
Nebraska:
Immigrants

Political privilege, 5, 217
Naturalization denials, 126
Netherlands:

Right to renounce citizen-
ship, 55
New Brunswick, New Jersey:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
New Hampshire:

Naturalization denials, 93
New Jersey:
Naturalization cases, 92-

100
Naturalization denials, 126
New Mexico:

Naturalization denials, 126
New York:
Assembly, 29, 401
Immigration commissioner,
164

Naturalization laws, 71» 78
New York City:
Delays in naturalization

courts, 163
Foreign-bom vote, 847-354
Merchants Association, 413
Naturalization in, 20
Courts, 227

Study, 227-254
Division offices, 89
Nicaragua:

Naturalization treaties, 56
Nonpartisan League, 897-401
North Carolina:
Declaration of intention

cases, 97
Naturalization denials, 126
North Dakota:
Inunigrants
Political privil^e, 5
Norwegians:

Immigrants, 19, 25
Jus Sanguinis, 45
Naturalization treaties, 56
Natiu-alized, 206
Norwich, Connecticut:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254

Occupation:

Petitioners, 250-252, 434
Oregon:
Alien suffrage, 5, 217
Naturalization denials, 126
Organization of Brewery
Workers and Miners,
402
Owen, Robert, 378

444

INDEX

Paterson* New Jersey:
NatuTfdization courts, 9^
Study, ««7-«54
Pennsylvania:
Naturalization laws, 70
Declaration of intention
cases, 97
Persia:

Jus Sanguinis, 44
" Personal equation '*

In naturalization, 148-196
Peru:

Naturalization treaties, 56
Petitioners:
Naturalization
Married, 247, 804
Statistics on, i225H254,

429-434
Types, 289-«91
Petitions:

Corruption, 2» d4H25» 841-

845
Frauds, 29
Lnmigrant influence, 889-

840
Indifference, 820
Interest

In England, 24
Issue, 28
Participation
Lnndgrants, 2-8, 21-25,

296-884, 9S&-97Q,
Parties, 21H85, 81, 854,

877, 880-891, 898
Rights, 5
Political society:
Roots of, 42-48
Politicians:
Interest in humanity, 9>9r'

S5
Interest in immigrants, 81-

88
Labor vote, SS5

Naturalization
Compared with dedara- Popidation:
tion of intention, 218- Foreign bom, 2
224
Examination of, St^t^-^tM
Fned,201
Philadelphia:

Naturalization division, 89
Piggott, F. I., 47
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

Naturalization division, 89
PleydeU, A. C, 874
Polish:

Vote in Cleveland, 858
Political:
Admission, 1
Americanization, 87-89
Clubs, 38-87

445

Grand Rapids, Michigan,
867

Increase, 5
Port Huron, Michigan:

Women registered, 868
Portland, Oregon:

Naturalization courts, 227
Study, 227H854
Porto Ricans:

Naturalization, 94
Portuguese:

Immigrants, 198

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Naturalization treaties, 5Q

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Presidents of United States:
Naturalization discussion,
77-80
Progressive, S54
Publications:
English
Better Times, ^3St
OuOoohUS
Popular Science, 848
German, 888
Socialist
Appeal to Reason, 881
Foreign language, 881
Milwaukee Leader, 880
National Rip-Saw, 881
New York CaU, 880
Purdy, Milton D., 81

R
Race:
Comparison

Old and new, 204-217
Distribution
By age at arrival, 244-

247
By citizenship, 228-232
By denials, 228-236
Interval comparisons, 236-

241,243
Naturalization restrictions,
92-96, 264-^65
Radicalism:
Movement
Foreign bom, 377-409
Registration (War), 267-273
Republican:

German, 24-25
Residence:
Factor
Earning powCT, 215-217

Naturalization, 124-126,
126-135, 208-214

Stability, 247-250
Rhode Island:

Naturalization denials, 126
Ripley, George, 879
Robenson, Helen Ring, 806
Rochester, New York:

Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227H854
Rome:

Classification of alien, 4
Romen, A., 59

Roosevelt, Theodore, viii, 80
Ross, Edward A., 212
Roumanian:

Immigrants, 197

Jus Sanguinis, 44
Russians:

Expatriation rights, 54

Immigrants, 19-20, 197,
231

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Vote in New York City,
852-353

St. Louis, Missouri:

Naturalization division of-
fices, 89, 107
St. Paul, Minnesota:

Naturalization division, of-
fices, 89
Saginaw, Michigan:

Women registrants^ 868
Sailors:

Naturalization, 77, 228

416

INDEX

Salvador:

Naturalization treaties^ 56
San Francisco, California:

Naturalization division of-
fices, 89
Scandinavian:

Immigrants, 197» 205

Socialist, 884
Schools, Public:

Citizenship enrollment,
821-828

Members, 881-882

Press, 880-881

Badal composites, 858, ''
888-885

Vote, 885-887

War effects, 891-898

Work with labor, 402
Social workers, 195
Soldiers:

Alien, 257

Naturalization of, 5, 217

Factor in reaching women. South Carolina:

828-829
Relation with Bureau of
Naturalization, 204
Scotch:

Naturalized, 206
Seattle, Washington:
Naturalization, 227
Court Study, 227-254
Division, 89
Serbian:
Jus Sanguinis, 44

Naturalization denials, 126

Naturalization laws, 70
South Dakota:

Immigrants (Unnatural-
ized)
Political privil^e, 5, 217
Sovereigns of industry, 402
Spanish:

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45
Speek, Peter A.^ 895

Right to renounce citizen- Stokes, Elizabeth King^

ship, 55
Seward, William H., 25
Sex:

Citizenship relaticm, 62-68
Single Tax, 877, 898
Skidmore, Thomas, 879
Slavs:

Socialist, 884
Slovaks:

Socialist, 884
Socialism:

Definition, 879-880

History, 401-402

Influence, German, 887-
890

Influence, Jewish, 890-891

XXIV

Sturges, Merton A., 422-425
Suffrage:

Alien, 5, 217-218

Rights
In American colonies,
78

Women, 808-804, 814-815
Swedish:

Immigrants, 19,^
Naturalization, 205-206

Jus Sanguinis, 45

Jus Solis, 45

Naturalization treaties, 56
Switzerland:

Jus Sanguinis, 45

447

AMERICANS BY CHOICE

Switzerland (continued):

Jus Soils, 45

Right to renounce citizen-
ship, 55
Syria:

Naturalization of, 205

Uruguay:

Naturalization treaties, 55
Utah:

Naturalization denials, 126

Taylor, Graham, 871
Texas:
Immigrants

Van Buren, Martin, 70
Van Deusen, A. C, 81
Vermont:

Naturalization denials, 126
Virginia:

Naturalization laws, 71-73

Political privileges, 5, Voll, John A., viii

217
Thiesing, I. H., 59
Thompson, F. B., 103
Traverse City, Michigan:
Women registered, 368
Troy, New York:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Turkey:
Expatriation rights

Denial, 54
Jus Sanguinis, 45
Jus Solis, 45

United States Census, 288
United States Department of

War:
RepOTt of, 256, 267-260,

271 - 276, 278 - 280,

282,285

Votes:

Foreign bom, 33
Action of, 335-876
Derivative, 802, 317-818
Influence on politics, 2
Socialist, 385-387

Wame, Frank J., 18, 10, 20
^/^ars:
Ci\il, 15, 20, 76
Mexican, 16
Revolutionary, 15
Spanish, 16, 92
World, 6, 13, 14, 16, 82,
40, 61, 68, 177, 195,
227, 255, 299, 354,
884, 391-898
1812, 15, 57, 76
Washington, D. C:

Natiuralization division, 89
Washington, George, 73
United States Immigration Waterman, T. T., xxiii

Commission, 207-209, Weatherly, Ulysses G., 11,

211, 215-216, 220

13,286

448

INDEX

Weiss, Andrew, 47
Welsh:

Naturalized, 1206
Whitehouse, Visa Boardman,

325
White Plains, New York:

Naturalization court, 9Stl
Study, 227-254
Williams, Talcott, viii
Wilson, William B., 183
Wisconsin:

Comparison of declaration
to petitions, 223

Naturalization denial, 126
Wise, I. M., 375

YTitness:
Deposition, 133-135
Incompetent, 126-133
Women:
Citizenship, 62-63
Foreign bom

In politics, 296-334
B^^tered in Michigan,

368
Without country, 38, 63,
64
Worcester, Massachusetts:
Naturalization court, 227
Study, 227-254
Working Men's Party, 402

THE END

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