====================================================================
| CAUSES OF DENIAL--PER CENT
COUNTRY |--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+----------
OF | Want of Ignorance Immoral
BIRTH |Prosecution Character
| Incompetent Declaration “Old-Law”
| Witnesses Invalid Declaration{1}
--------------+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+----------
All countries | 22.7 | 13.9 | 5.2 | 7.2 | 1.9 | 37.5
| | | | | |
Greece | 48.1 | 11.1 | 3.7 | .... | .... | 3.7
France | 15.7 | 26.3 | | | | 42.1
Italy | 28.1 | 11.1 | 2.9 | 14.2 | 1.7 | 34.2
Turkey in | | | | | |
Europe | 26.6 | 7.6 | 26.6 | .... | 7.6 | 20.9
Holland | 28.5 | 33.3 | .... | .... | .... | 14.0
Scotland | 21.4 | 11.9 | 9.5 | 2.4 | .... | 31.0
Denmark | 17.2 | 27.6 | 3.5 | .... | 6.9 | 31.0
England | 30.0 | 19.2 | 4.2 | 1.7 | 2.5 | 27.5
Sweden | 13.7 | 13.7 | 11.3 | 3.8 | 5.0 | 30.0
Germany | 17.2 | 14.5 | 5.4 | 4.7 | 2.4 | 47.3
Switzerland | 24.0 | 20.0 | 4.0 | 8.0 | .... | 36.0
Turkey in | | | | | |
Asia | 44.4 | 11.1 | 16.7 | 5.6 | .... | 16.7
Norway | 25.0 | 27.1 | 14.6 | 8.3 | .... | 4.2
Belgium | 40.0 | 20.0 | .... | 20.0 | .... | ....
Canada | 30.2 | 14.0 | 9.3 | | 4.6 | 20.9
Hungary | 32.2 | 12.5 | 4.8 | 7.6 | 3.2 | 24.9
Finland | 42.8 | 14.3 | 14.3 | .... | .... | ....
Rumania | 7.4 | 11.1 | 5.6 | 7.4 | 3.7 | 63.0
Russia | 15.1 | 15.7 | 5.5 | 6.2 | 1.7 | 46.2
Ireland | 27.1 | 11.4 | 3.0 | 1.8 | 0.6 | 46.3
Austria | 21.6 | 10.4 | 5.5 | 7.2 | 1.4 | 44.8
Other | .... | .... | .... | .... | .... | ....
No information| .... | .... | .... | .... | .... | ....
====================================================================
[note 1: Denied because declaration of intention was more than seven
years old.]
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 attaining 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
country as a whole and for most countries are “want of prosecution”
and the invalidity of their “old-law” declaration. That so large a
proportion of immigrants 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 percentages. The following
table shows denials for “immoral character.”
TABLE XIX
PER CENT OF DENIALS DUE TO “IMMORAL CHARACTER,” BY RACE
=================================
Country of Birth Denials
Per Cent
---------------------------------
Total cases 1.9
Turkey in Europe 7.6
Denmark 6.9
Sweden 5.0
Canada 4.6
Rumania 3.7
Hungary 3.2
England 2.5
Germany 2.4
Russia 1.7
Italy 1.7
Austria 1.4
Ireland 0.6
=================================
The average percentage of denials for the whole United States for the
period 1908-18 on the ground of “immoral character” was 4.0 per cent.
With the exception 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 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 examinations which
disclose this “ignorance” do not go as a rule to the subject of
illiteracy or general intelligence, but deal in the majority of
cases with the understanding of the petitioner as to the form of
government, and sometimes decidedly minute details of the history, of
the United States. The average percentage of denials on the ground
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 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
PER CENT OF DENIALS DUE TO “IGNORANCE,” BY RACE
================================
Country of Birth Denials
Per Cent
--------------------------------
Total cases 7.2
Italy 14.2
Norway 8.3
Switzerland 8.0
Hungary 7.6
Rumania 7.4
Austria 7.2
Russia 6.2
Turkey in Asia 5.6
Germany 4.7
Sweden 3.8
Scotland 2.4
Ireland 1.8
England 1.7
================================
TIME-INTERVALS IN NATURALIZATION
Generally speaking, judging by the 26,284 petitions examined, 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, Massachusetts. The extreme exceptions were 9.4 years in
the Superior Court for Middlesex County, at Middletown, Connecticut,
and 12.7 years in the Androscoggin Supreme Judicial Court at
Auburn, Maine. The latter court in naturalization matters deals
largely with French-Canadians; of all the 385 Canadian petitioners
falling under this analysis, this one court passed upon 61.5 per cent.
TABLE XXI
THE AVERAGE TIME ELAPSING BETWEEN ARRIVAL AND DECLARATION OF
INTENTION; BETWEEN DECLARATION AND PETITION, AND BETWEEN PETITION
AND NATURALIZATION AS SHOWN BY 26,284 CERTIFICATES, 1913-14
=====================================================================
| AVERAGE | AVERAGE | AVERAGE
| INTERVAL | INTERVAL | INTERVAL
| BETWEEN | BETWEEN | BETWEEN
COURTS | ARRIVAL |DECLARATION| PETITION
| AND | AND | AND
|DECLARATION| PETITION |CERTIFICATE
| (Years) | (Years) | (Months)
---------------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------
New York Co. Supm. Ct. | 6.7 | 4.7 | 5.1
U. S. Dist. Ct., Southern Dist. | | |
New York, N. Y. C. | 7.2 | 4.3 | 3.9
U. S. Dist. Ct., Eastern Dist. | | |
New York, Brooklyn | 7.1 | 5.2 | 4.1
Bronx Co. Supm. Ct., N. Y. C. | 7.7 | 3.9 | 5.0
Queens Co. Supm. Ct., Jamaica, | | |
L. I. | 7.4 | 6.5 | 4.6
Westchester Co. Supm. Ct., White | | |
Plains, N. Y. | 6.9 | 5.2 | 5.8
Nassau Co. Supm. Ct., Mineola, | | |
L. I. | 7.0 | 4.9 | 4.7
Passaic Co. Ct. Com. Pls., | | |
Paterson, N. J. | 6.3 | 5.2 | 4.1
Fairfield Co. Supr. Ct., | | |
Bridgeport, Conn. | 7.7 | 4.8 | 5.3
Knox Co. Circt. Ct., Galesburg, | | |
Ill. | 7.7 | 4.6 | 4.8
Johnson Co. Dist. Ct., Iowa City,| | |
Iowa | 6.1 | 3.5 | 4.6
Androscoggin Co. Supm. Jud. Ct., | | |
Auburn, Me. | 12.7 | 3.0 | 4.2
Tompkins Co. Supm. Ct., Ithaca, | | |
N. Y. | 8.0 | 3.5 | 6.4
Middlesex Co. Ct. Com Pls., New | | |
Brunswick, N. J. | 6.6 | 4.6 | 5.2
U. S. Dist. Ct. Northern Dist., | | |
Cleveland, Ohio | 5.4 | 5.0 | 4.5
Cuyahoga Co. Ct. Com. Pls., | | |
Cleveland, Ohio | 6.7 | 5.0 | 4.5
Multnomah Co. Circt. Ct., | | |
Portland, Ore. | 7.2 | 11.1 | 5.1
Monroe Co. Supm. Ct., Rochester, | | |
N. Y. | 6.3 | 5.5 | 4.6
U. S. Dist. Ct. Western Dist. | | |
Washington, Seattle | 6.1 | 7.1 | 4.8
King Co. Supm. Ct., Seattle, | | |
Wash. | 6.0 | 8.8 | 11.1
Chemung Co. Supm. Ct., Elmira, | | |
N. Y. | 7.0 | 4.8 | 12.7
Summit Co. Ct. Com. Pls., Akron, | | |
Ohio | 6.2 | 4.2 | 5.7
Northampton Co. Ct. Com. Pls., | | |
Easton, Pa. | 7.5 | 4.2 | 5.5
Worcester Co. Supr. Ct., | | |
Worcester, Mass. | 8.6 | 4.1 | 5.4
Middlesex Co. Supr. Ct., | | |
Middletown, Conn. | 9.4 | 3.7 | 5.3
Rensselaer Co. Supm. Ct., Troy, | | |
N. Y. | 6.2 | 4.1 | 7.7
U. S. Dist. Ct. Southern Dist. | | |
O., Cincinnati | 5.7 | 5.4 | 5.1
New London Co. Supr. Ct., | | |
Norwich, Conn. | 8.5 | 4.2 | 6.8
| | |
Average | 6.8 | 5.1 | 4.9
=====================================================================
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 citizenship--our average immigrant _waits more
than five years_ longer before he files his final petition for
naturalization--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 Androscoggin County, Auburn, Maine, and 11.1 years
in the Circuit Court at Portland, Oregon. The whole average 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
aliens 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 petition and certificate of naturalization
of 4.9 months; the range is between 3.9 months in the United States
District 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 subtracted, 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 political interest” of the various 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 XXII
AVERAGE INTERVAL BEFORE FILING PETITION, AFTER ATTAINMENT OF
TWENTY-ONE YEARS, FOR THOSE ARRIVING AT AGES OF ONE TO FOURTEEN, BY
RACES
=========================================
| NUMBER IN | AVERAGE
COUNTRY OF BIRTH | AGE GROUP | INTERVAL
| 1-14 | (Years)
------------------+-----------+----------
All countries | 2,900 | 6.2
| |
France | 19 | 12.9
Norway | 13 | 12.5
Switzerland | 7 | 12.4
Sweden | 31 | 12.4
Scotland | 13 | 11.8
England | 77 | 11.6
Ireland | 77 | 10.8
Germany | 280 | 10.3
Canada | 88 | 9.8
Denmark | 13 | 9.5
Holland | 17 | 9.5
Hungary | 192 | 5.8
Greece | 12 | 5.5
Finland | 6 | 5.3
Russia | 873 | 5.0
Italy | 651 | 4.9
Austria | 389 | 4.5
Turkey in Asia | 10 | 4.0
Rumania | 89 | 3.8
Turkey in Europe | 8 | 3.6
=========================================
We have three groups of statistics on this point: those petitioners
arriving at the ages of 1 to 14, those at 15 to 20 years, and those
21 years and over. In the following 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 XXIII
AVERAGE INTERVAL BEFORE FILING PETITION, AFTER ARRIVAL, AT AGES OF
FIFTEEN TO TWENTY, BY RACES
=========================================
| NUMBER IN | AVERAGE
COUNTRY OF BIRTH | AGE GROUP | INTERVAL
| 15-20 | (Years)
------------------+-----------+----------
All countries | 9,512 | 11.0{1}
| |
France | 10 | 17.7
Canada | 99 | 17.3
Switzerland | 50 | 15.6
Germany | 600 | 14.1
England | 216 | 13.6
Sweden | 269 | 12.7
Scotland | 57 | 12.7
Denmark | 65 | 12.2
Holland | 32 | 12.2
Finland | 54 | 11.7
Ireland | 609 | 11.5
Norway | 148 | 11.3
Italy | 1,198 | 10.8
Hungary | 960 | 10.8
Austria | 1,658 | 10.6
Rumania | 202 | 10.2
Russia | 3,055 | 9.9
Greece | 47 | 9.7
Turkey in Asia | 69 | 9.0
Turkey in Europe | 42 | 7.9
=========================================
[note 1: 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 almost without
exception the countries showing the longest intervals are those
representing the old immigration.
TABLE XXIV
AVERAGE INTERVAL BEFORE FILING PETITION, AFTER ARRIVAL, AT AGES
TWENTY-ONE OR OVER, BY RACES
=========================================
| NUMBER IN |
| AGE GROUP | AVERAGE
COUNTRY OF BIRTH | 21 YEARS | INTERVAL
| AND OVER | (Years)
------------------+-----------+----------
All countries | 13,849 | 10.6{1}
| |
Canada | 198 | 16.4
Sweden | 316 | 13.1
Switzerland | 140 | 12.2
France | 57 | 11.9
Germany | 1,425 | 11.9
England | 538 | 11.7
Italy | 1,742 | 11.4
Norway | 228 | 10.8
Scotland | 218 | 10.6
Finland | 84 | 10.5
Austria | 1,828 | 10.5
Denmark | 122 | 10.2
Holland | 90 | 10.1
Hungary | 1,291 | 9.9
Rumania | 278 | 9.8
Russia | 3,936 | 9.6
Ireland | 1,087 | 9.6
Greece | 31 | 8.6
Turkey in Asia | 63 | 8.5
Turkey in Europe | 42 | 8.1
=========================================
[note 1: This average includes the figures for races whose numbers
are too small to justify generalization.]
THEY ARE YOUNG 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 30. The preponderance is
striking:
TABLE XXV
NUMBER AND PER CENT OF PETITIONERS FOR THREE AGE GROUPS{1}
=======================================
AGE AT ARRIVAL | NUMBER | PER CENT
-------------------+--------+----------
1-17 | 6,589 | 25.1
18-30 | 16,586 | 63.1
31 and over | 3,093 | 11.5
No data | 16 | ....
-------------------+--------+----------
Total | 26,284 | 99.8
=======================================
[note 1: The full table showing distribution of ages at arrival from
infancy to fifty years or over, is given in the Appendix, Table 57.]
RELATIVE 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:
[Illustration:
+-----------------+
| 1 to 14 years. | 6.2
+-----------------+
+---------------------------------+
| 15 to 20 years. | 11.0
+---------------------------------+
+-------------------------------+
| 21 years and over. | 10.6
+-------------------------------+
DIAGRAM 1
Average interval before filing petition after attainment of
21 years (or time of arrival, if arriving after 21 years) for
petitioners, arriving 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 childhood are more prompt than those who arrive between 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 immigrants, 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 average 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--regardless 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 their examinations and were admitted.
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
difference of racial quality or character. Indeed, it redounds on
the whole to the credit of the more recent immigration, 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, the 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 is the subject peoples who come
to this country 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 migration, there
was either autocratic government or political discontent, or inferior
economic opportunity, head the list of those who seek, and upon
examination prove their title to, fellow-membership with us._
_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?
[Illustration:
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
AVERAGE FOR ALL | | | | | | | | | | | | 10.6
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
TURKEY IN EUROPE | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 8.1
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
TURKEY IN ASIA | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 8.5
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
GREECE | | | | | | | | | | 8.6
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
IRELAND | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 9.6
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
RUSSIA | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 9.6
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
ROUMANIA | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 9.8
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
HUNGARY | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 9.9
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
HOLLAND | | | | | | | | | | | | 10.1
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
DENMARK | | | | | | | | | | | | 10.2
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
AUSTRIA | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 10.5
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
FINLAND | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 10.5
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
SCOTLAND | | | | | | | | | | | | 10.6
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
NORWAY | /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| /| 10.8
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
ITALY | | | | | | | | | | | | |11.4
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
ENGLAND | | | | | | | | | | | | | 11.7
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
GERMANY | | | | | | | | | | | | | 11.9
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
FRANCE | | | | | | | | | | | | | 11.9
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
SWITZERLAND | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 12.2
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
SWEDEN | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 13.1
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
CANADA | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 16.4
+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
DIAGRAM 2
Average interval before filing petition after arrival at ages
21 or over by races. The bars which are in black ((filled with
/ character)) represent countries from which the subject people
constituted almost entirely the immigration to this country.]
RACE AND RELATIVE AGE AT ARRIVAL
The racial distribution of these petitioners, with reference to
age at arrival, is interesting and to some extent significant.
Table XXVI, including only those 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 DISTRIBUTION OF PETITIONERS, SHOWING PERCENTAGES FOR THE
AGE PERIODS “OVER TWENTY-ONE,” “FIFTEEN TO TWENTY,” AND “ONE TO
FOURTEEN,” IN THE ORDER OF THE FIRST-MENTIONED AGE GROUP
=======================================================================
| | NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF THOSE
| | ARRIVING AT AGES
| WHOLE +----------------------------------------------
COUNTRY | NUMBER | 21 and Over | 15 TO 20 | 1 TO 14
OF BIRTH | OF +--------+------+--------+------+--------+-----
|PETITIONERS| Number | Per | Number | Per | Number | Per
| | | Cent | | Cent | | Cent
------------+-----------+--------+------+--------+------+--------+-----
Scotland | 288 | 218 | 75.7 | 57 | 19.8 | 13 | 4.5
Switzerland | 197 | 140 | 71.7 | 50 | 25.4 | 7 | 3.5
France | 86 | 57 | 66.3 | 10 | 11.6 | 19 | 22.1
England | 831 | 538 | 64.7 | 216 | 26.0 | 77 | 9.3
Holland | 139 | 90 | 64.7 | 32 | 23.0 | 17 | 12.2
Germany | 2,305 | 1,425 | 61.8 | 600 | 26.0 | 280 | 12.1
Ireland | 1,773 | 1,087 | 61.3 | 609 | 34.3 | 77 | 4.3
Denmark | 200 | 122 | 61.0 | 65 | 32.5 | 13 | 6.5
Norway | 389 | 228 | 58.6 | 148 | 38.0 | 13 | 3.3
Finland | 144 | 84 | 58.3 | 54 | 37.5 | 6 | 4.1
Hungary | 2,443 | 1,291 | 52.8 | 960 | 39.3 | 192 | 7.9
Canada | 385 | 198 | 51.4 | 99 | 25.7 | 88 | 22.9
Sweden | 616 | 316 | 51.3 | 269 | 43.7 | 31 | 5.0
Russia | 7,864 | 3,936 | 50.1 | 3,055 | 38.8 | 873 | 11.1
Rumania | 569 | 278 | 48.9 | 202 | 35.5 | 89 | 15.6
Italy | 3,591 | 1,742 | 48.5 | 1,198 | 33.4 | 651 | 18.1
Austria | 3,875 | 1,828 | 47.2 | 1,658 | 42.8 | 389 | 10.0
Turkey in | | | | | | |
Europe | 92 | 42 | 45.7 | 42 | 45.7 | 8 | 8.7
Turkey in | | | | | | |
Asia | 142 | 63 | 44.4 | 69 | 48.6 | 10 | 7.0
Greece | 90 | 31 | 34.4 | 47 | 52.2 | 12 | 13.3
=======================================================================
Inferences or generalizations from this table in connection with the
age statistics given heretofore would be perilous, since we have not
tabulated the data which would show, 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” immigration left their
homelands at a later age, while a larger proportion of those of the
“newer” came in younger manhood. The larger percentages in the column
“over 21” are credited to the “older”; the larger in the second
column, “15 to 20,” to the “newer.”
AT THE BEGINNING OF MARRIED LIFE
More than two-thirds (68.5 per cent) of the petitioners were married
at the time of their petition for naturalization. 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 exclusively 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 children under 21 years of
age.[118]
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 information. 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. Very little statistical data on this point
is available, and it is unsafe to generalize. There is, however, a
somewhat startling disclosure in the 1915 census of the state of
Massachusetts, showing that in the class of otherwise “justified”
voters disqualified solely by reason of not having resided one year
in the state or six months in the city or town, there were 21,226
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-born 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 declaration in another state. Of the total of 26,284, there
were 1,859 of these, or 7.1 per cent. Undoubtedly this moving 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 declaration 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 Cleveland, Bridgeport, Paterson,
New Brunswick, New Jersey.
TABLE XXVII
PETITIONERS WHOSE DECLARATIONS WERE MADE IN A STATE OTHER THAN THE
ONE IN WHICH THE COURT IS LOCATED
===========================================================
| PETITIONERS WHO DECLARED
COURT | IN OTHER STATES
+-------------+-----------
| Number | Per Cent
---------------------------------+-------------+-----------
Norwich, Conn. | 52 | 43.7
Portland, Ore. | 234 | 32.8
Seattle, Wash. (state court) | 42 | 29.4
Bridgeport, Conn. | 96 | 23.4
New Brunswick, N. J. | 84 | 21.6
Cleveland, Ohio (U. S. court) | 158 | 13.4
Paterson, N. J. | 76 | 10.2
Seattle, Wash. (U. S. court) | 69 | 9.8
Middletown, Conn. | 7 | 9.5
Cincinnati, Ohio | 34 | 9.4
Cleveland, Ohio (state court) | 152 | 8.9
Easton, Pa. | 10 | 8.7
Ithaca, N. Y. | 2 | 8.7
Akron, Ohio | 16 | 8.0
Iowa City, Iowa | 1 | 7.7
Rochester, N. Y. | 57 | 7.0
Jamaica, L. I. | 39 | 6.5
Elmira, N. Y. | 1 | 5.3
Mineola, L. I. | 7 | 5.2
New York City (U. S. court) | 121 | 5.0
White Plains, N. Y. | 28 | 4.3
Worcester, Mass. | 27 | 4.3
New York City (state court) | 452 | 4.1
Bronx, N. Y. C. (state court) | 47 | 3.5
Brooklyn, N. Y. C. (U. S. court) | 47 | 3.0
---------------------------------+-------------+-----------
Total | 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 more than 26,000, should
have been able to file their final petitions in the same states
in which, on an average 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-born residents of the country. And it would seem also to
justify the inference that those who become naturalized have
generally become well assimilated into the life of the communities
where they live.
INTELLECTUAL EQUIPMENT AND OCCUPATION
As for the intellectual equipment and the general usefulness 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 in seven cities,[119] 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, illuminating
to those who have supposed that the naturalization process swept
into citizenship the dregs of immigration, is that the smallest
percentage is shown in the class of common labor; the highest in the
grade of executives, and the preponderance throughout attaching 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 percentages, because of the relatively
small numbers represented 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 peddlers. The
distribution of occupations is here set forth in the order of the
percentages:
TABLE XXVIII
LIST OF PRINCIPAL OCCUPATIONS REPRESENTED IN PETITIONS FOR
NATURALIZATION FILED IN SEVEN CITIES, 1913-14; SHOWING RATIO
BETWEEN NUMBER OF PETITIONS AND TOTAL OF FOREIGN-BORN WHITE MALES
IN THOSE OCCUPATIONS IN THOSE CITIES IN 1910
=========================================================
| NUMBER OF | RATIO TO
OCCUPATIONS | PETITIONERS | FOREIGN BORN
| IN THOSE | IN THOSE
| OCCUPATIONS | OCCUPATIONS
-----------------------------+-------------+-------------
Total | 9,930 | 3.0
| |
Managers and superintendents | 154 | 7.1
Chauffeurs | 176 | 5.9
Tailors | 2,120 | 5.3
Clergymen | 67 | 4.7
Bartenders | 248 | 3.6
Plumbers | 193 | 3.6
Barbers | 372 | 3.2
Bakers | 328 | 3.1
Retail dealers | 2,103 | 3.1
Painters and glaziers | 514 | 3.1
Carpenters | 779 | 3.0
Salesmen | 591 | 2.8
Manufacturing and officials | 511 | 2.7
Blacksmiths | 161 | 2.7
Motormen | 92 | 2.4
Brick and stone masons | 219 | 2.2
Laborers | 1,302 | 1.5
=========================================================
Analysis of the entire total of 26,284 petitions from which the data
were obtained shows a general occupation distribution as follows:
TABLE XXIX
NUMBER AND PER CENT OF PETITIONERS IN EACH OCCUPATION
===============================================================
| PETITIONERS
OCCUPATIONS +--------+---------
| Number | Per Cent
--------------------------------------------+--------+---------
Total | 26,284 | 100.0
| |
Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 15,335 | 58.3
Trade | 4,427 | 16.8
Domestic and personal service | 2,382 | 9.1
Clerical | 1,388 | 5.3
Transportation | 1,010 | 3.8
Professional service | 1,026 | 3.9
Agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry | 454 | 1.8
Public service. | 170 | 0.6
Extraction of minerals | 40 | 0.2
No information | 52 | 0.2
===============================================================
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 Commission of 1907, the Naturalization, Bureau and the
Americanization 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_.
Second, it is evident that such difference as exists among races
is not an inherent racial quality, but _a difference between the
political, social, and economic conditions at 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 immigrants to America;
their emigrants come at a later age, and when they do come they
retain longest or altogether 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 residence_. 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
residence 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 even 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 working
knowledge of the language.
Sixth--and from the common-sense point of view it ought to occasion
no surprise--is the evident influence upon the display of “civic
and political interest” as shown in the desire for citizenship, of
social and economic 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 immigrant 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.
IX
CITIZENSHIP VIA MILITARY SERVICE
We do not yet realize--perhaps we never shall fully realize--the
profound effect 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 turned
into solemn farce most of the pontifical preachments by which that
policy was justified. Almost overnight the whole long campaign for
the establishment of an educational standard of admission, the system
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 naturalization. The body of native-born citizens, even
together with the great mass of those among the foreign-born 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 Marshal General of the Army:[120]
As soon as the estimates of population made by the Census Bureau
had been received, it began to be apparent that the rule of the
Selective Service Act, which based the apportionment of quotas
on total population, and yet drew the quotas from citizens and
declarants only, would operate quite differently upon communities
having largely differing percentages of aliens in their population.
In certain local-board jurisdictions, in which the element of
alien population exceeded 30 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 other 50 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[121] reported 1,243,801 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 hundred--certified for service; a
few in ignorance of their right to exemption, but virtually all of
them voluntarily waiving that right.
The position of the aliens, even if they had declared their intention
to become citizens, was unenviable. They still owed technical
allegiance to European sovereignty--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 Central Powers--only the dismal
certainty of summary execution as traitors. Their only possible
shadow of protection would lie in completed American citizenship.
Furthermore, there was the fact that only American citizens are
eligible for commissions 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 number 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 of 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:[122]
No man engaged in the actual military and naval operations 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....
... The foreign-born residents of the United States, nondeclarants
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:[123]
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 eliminated 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 certain 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 naturalization
and immediate hearing for any alien who serves in the military or
naval branches of the Government, 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 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 provisions 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 naturalization 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 location 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 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 accomplishing
this great need for our military forces. In less than two weeks the
process of naturalization had begun in many of the cantonments, and
by the end of June, 63,993 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 Provost Marshal General, from which it appears that there
were 123,277 soldiers not naturalized. This total comprised 76,545
foreigners who had not declared their intention, and 46,732
declarants.
CITIZENS AT HEART 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 volunteers 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.[124]
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. Ever since
the States of Indiana, Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
Arkansas, and Texas have been admitted to statehood, aliens have
been allowed to vote under the constitutions of these States upon
the making of their declarations 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 provisions of the law requiring alien enemies to register
there were disclosures of hundreds of thousands of loyal residents
of the United States who believed themselves to be citizens, but
were found never to have completed their naturalization. Cases
have been reported of unnaturalized foreign-born residents 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 in 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 other capacities.
The registration required of persons born 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 provided 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 interpose 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 Immigration 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 faith 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,[125] providing that
at least a declaration of intention should be required for a first
enlistment. This was suspended during the Spanish-American War, but
reinstated in force after the close of that war.[126]
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.[127] Space
is not here available for even an outline of what this inquiry
discloses; suffice it to say--though it is obvious enough--that
never in the history of any modern nation save this has there
been a wholesale sweeping into citizenship, by reason of military
service alone, of a very large number of aliens upon an exhibit of
qualifications consisting 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 fitness was
maintained; but the fact is substantially, that not only was full
citizenship conferred upon every foreign-born soldier who desired
it, but appreciable moral pressure, 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 variously stated and interpreted; a
few could not get the required indorsement of their officers (who
in absence of others were accepted as witnesses); on the whole,
however, it may be said that the mass of those admitted under the
“military naturalization” procedure knew well enough what was
happening, welcomed it gladly, and were proud of the new status thus
suddenly conferred 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.
ALL SAFEGUARDS ABANDONED
In the previous year, 1917-18, even though the war was already in
full blast, of 12,182 petitions denied more than two-thirds (8,422)
were denied for the strictly technical reason of “incompetent
witnesses,” “declaration 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 disposed 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 “ignorance.” These figures are cited only
to emphasize the fact that up to the moment 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 scooped into citizenship complete for every purpose.
One year later, June 30, 1919, the total number of these military
naturalizations had reached 128,335. The total number of petitions
granted in the entire period 1908-18, even including the military
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 without
proof of five years’ residence 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 petition for naturalization
without previous declaration or proof of residence, and the machinery
of naturalization, hitherto enlisted in the cause of delay, was
now devoted to every possible expedition. 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 discharges
from previous service were accepted as evidence of both residence
and satisfactory character when supported by the evidence of two
witnesses, and where such persons were actually in the service there
was complete waiver of the requirement of certificates of arrival, as
well as of the usual ninety days’ posting and the statutory interval
of thirty days before an election.
The proceeding might be held in the most convenient court. Persons,
other than enemy aliens, who had erroneously believed themselves
to be citizens, who had lived in the United States for at least
five years preceding July 1, 1914, could be naturalized without
declaration of intention. And the payment of any fees was excused in
applicants in the military service, except in those states where the
clerk of court is required to turn into the state treasury his half
of the receipts; in those states only that half needed to be paid.
ALL RACE RESTRICTIONS REMOVED
Furthermore, the effect 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 entitled to citizenship under the law. Indeed,
the law does say, repeatedly, “_any_ alien.”
It was provided, too, that any American citizen, native or
foreign-born, 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 everything the Bureau
of Naturalization and the courts had been contending for and making
into law at great expense of time, money, and devoted labor. The bars
were not simply let down; they were obliterated.
ORDINARY NATURALIZATION DISRUPTED
“The soldier naturalization work completely disrupted,” says
Commissioner Campbell, “the other 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 endured
the perils by sea involved in transport to the other side. A large
number of them never got farther from home than the army camp 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 Service, 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 armistice 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 encampments, and particularly at the points of
rendezvous for embarkation, worked overtime. Eight courts were used
at Newport News alone. Every effort was bent to catch the men before
they went overseas; in many cases aliens thrown into casual units
were quickly naturalized 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 Transylvania, which was then a part of
Austria-Hungary, 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 hearings at one of the far Western
camps surreptitiously brought 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 Selective Service
Act, during the whole period, June 5, 1917-September 12, 1918,
according to the report of the Provost Marshal General,[128] was
23,908,576. Of these registrants--roughly speaking, one-fifth of the
total population of the United States--20,031,493 were citizens;
3,877,083 were aliens. Of the citizens, 1,336,967 (6.67 per cent)
were foreign-born 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 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 REGISTERED UNDER THE SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT{1}
===========================================================
| NUMBER | PER CENT
-------------------------------+--------------+------------
Total registration | 3,877,083 | 100.00
Ages 21-31 | 1,703,006 | ....
Ages 18-20, 32-45 | 2,174,077 | ....
| |
Cobelligerents (the Allies) | 2,228,980 | 57.49
Ages 21-31 | 1,021,063 | ....
Ages 18-20, 32-45 | 1,207,917 | ....
| |
Neutrals | 636,601 | 16.42
Ages 21-31 | 249,034 | ....
Ages 18-20, 32-45 | 387,567 | ....
| |
Enemy and allied enemy | 1,011,502 | 26.09
Ages 21-31 | 432,909 | ....
Ages 18-20, 32-45 | 578,593 | ....
===========================================================
[note 1: _Second Report of the Provost Marshal General to the
Secretary of War_, on the Selective Service System to December 20,
1918, p. 90, Table 23.]
We have no figures to show how many of those aliens and declarants
registered in the registration of September 12, 1918, were below
the age of 21 years; therefore it is not possible to say just what
proportion were available 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 class 32-45 were naturalizable
so far as age was concerned.
The classification of registrants under the registration 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 1,703,006 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 FOR SERVICE OF ALIEN REGISTRANTS{1}
===========================================================
| NUMBER | PER CENT
-------------------------------+--------------+------------
Placed in Class I | 414,389 | 24.33
Declarants | 160,594 | 29.64
Nondeclarants | 253,795 | 21.79
| |
Placed in deferred classes | 1,288,617 | 75.67
Declarants | 377,769 | 71.36
Nondeclarants | 910,848 | 78.21
===========================================================
[note 1: _Second Report of the Provost Marshal General to the
Secretary of War_, on the Operations of the Selective Service
System to December 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:[129]
(a) An alien occupying a diplomatic post enjoys immunity from
military service, as well as from many other burdens, for he
is the representative 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 diplomatic 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 intercourse would
be interrupted and the person might be required to aid a country in
which he is a stranger.
(c) An alien friend who is domiciled, that is to say, who is a
permanent resident, can be compelled to serve, for otherwise 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 country.
(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 of the high contracting parties. Others exempt
only certain designated classes.
The situation described in paragraph (c) was the one under force
of which Congress, in the Selective 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 nondeclarants would have created
great injustice in the enforcement of the local quotas in states and
regions disparate in the ratios of native born and aliens; therefore,
in legislation of May and June, 1918, Congress changed the basis
of apportionment to meet this inequity, and incidentally so that
thereafter it became incumbent upon the alien to bear the burden of
proof of his right to exemption.
It is fair to assume, as the Provost Marshal General said,[130]
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[131] to ascertain
a negative--_viz._, whether a person had not declared his intention
(“an obviously impossible and absurd inquiry,” as one judge has
said).... The regulations 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 exempt him.
Legal advisory boards were established to aid registrants--the
courts 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 throughout the country. The Naturalization
Bureau--virtually helpless as it was to prove or disprove claims of
alleged nondeclarants--had referred to it more than 50,000 cases.
FOREIGN BORN EAGER TO SERVE
The Provost Marshal General declares that the mass of foreign-born
residents were themselves permeated by the spirit of readiness to
waive their exemptions and voluntarily accepted the call to military
service.[132]
Thousands of nondeclarant 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 eloquent testimony to this spirit. The figures of
alien classification indicate this, and the local boards report
explicitly that the number of nondeclarant aliens waiving their
exemption was very large (191,491).
There came eventually into being a “Foreign Legion,” made up
principally of nondeclarant aliens, a large proportion of
whom, because of birth within the territorial sovereignty of
Austria-Hungary, were technically 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 political 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 clothes sent from Cleveland, and at the
same time a thought occurred to me which never left me--that I
should feel 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 command 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
opportunity to fight for liberty. Indeed, they fought for hundreds
of years under the command of Hapsburgs to continue slavery and
tyranny.... Good by, my beloved young life; I shall 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 shall 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 withdrew their declarations of intention 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:[133]
TABLE XXXII
NEUTRALS WITHDRAWING FROM THE SERVICE
==============================================================
Total neutral alien declarants registered June 5, |
1917-Sept. 11, 1918 | 77,644
Placed in deferred class (66.62 per cent) | 51,726
Placed in Class I | 25,918
Exempted on withdrawal of declaration | 818
==============================================================
In this group only three per cent availed themselves of the
privilege.
Of the significance and extent of the response to the opportunity for
immediate naturalization, the Provost Marshal General says:[134]
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
sentiment of admiration for their readiness to enter the war in
the service of their adopted country. The Bureau of Naturalization
reports that the total number 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 naturalizations accomplished in camp, up to November
30, 1918, was 155,246. And there were only 414,389 aliens placed
in Class I up to September 11, 1918 (including declarants and
nondeclarants), 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
aliens to whom it was offered.
AUSTRIANS WHO WERE NOT FOR AUSTRIA
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 deferred on
ordinary grounds, and also a large number (probably about 9,000)
of Austro-Hungarian nondeclarants who had waived their alienage
exemption.”[135]
“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 an evidence of this the report cites the fact that in
one camp, regarded as typical in 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:[136]
Out of a total of 1,589 aliens in this camp in October, 1918,
only 289 asked for discharge when the opportunity 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 139, 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 applied for
discharge, or 42 per cent. These contrasts between the several
groups show just such cleavage as we might expect. The general
figures indicate how slight was the disposition of these alien
groups to withdraw from the opportunity of taking arms against the
world foe.
THERE WAS HUMAN WAR-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-born or naturalized
citizens.
The Provost Marshal General is to some degree candid about this:[137]
That the boards occasionally allowed 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 claim
exemption on account of alien citizenship.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked the chairman of the board.
“Why not?” was the inquiry.
“There are two reasons,” said the official. “One is the United
States, the other is Italy. Two flags call you to the colors. There
is a double reason for you.”
“I’ll 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 carelessness and of bias
which led to improper inductions.... These various instances of
induction of nondeclarant aliens, whether properly or improperly
made, led to a number of diplomatic protests on their behalf by
the representatives of foreign governments. The number of these
protests reaching this office from the Secretary of State was some
5,852 in all.
DIPLOMATIC REQUESTS FOR EXEMPTION
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 status, and the relative proportions, of the nationalities
represented in the total registration. These statistics are not in
all cases available; but so far as the report of the Provost Marshal
General gives them, they are given in the last column:
TABLE XXXIII
DIPLOMATIC REQUESTS FOR DISCHARGE OF ALIENS, AND TOTAL REGISTRATION
OF ALIENS, BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH
=======================================================================
| NUMBER | NUMBER{2} | | NUMBER | NUMBER{2}
COBELLIG- | OF{1} | REGISTERED | NEUTRALS | OF{1} | REGISTERED
ERENTS |REQUESTS| | |REQUESTS|
--------------+--------+------------+-------------+--------+-----------
| | | | |
Russia | 1,433 | 808,503 |Switzerland | 995 | 21,888
Italy | 166 | 652,971 |Spain | 592 | 44,320
Greece | 119 | 88,831 |Norway | 404 | 62,656
Portugal | 65 | 62,434 |Denmark | 241 | 33,457
Cuba | 23 | .... |Sweden | 216 | 99,995
Great Britain | 22 | 467,468{3}|Mexico | 109 | 192,617
Japan | 13 | 56,697 |Netherlands | 85 | 27,190
Brazil | 12 | ....{4}|Persia | 61 | ....{4}
Belgium | 5 | 16,701 |Colombia | 7 | ....{4}
China | 5 | 23,599 |Argentina | 5 | ....{4}
Panama | 4 | ....{4}|Ecuador | 4 | ....{4}
France | 3 | 18,314 |Peru | 4 | ....{4}
Guatemala | 3 | ....{4}|Venezuela | 4 | ....{4}
Honduras | 2 | ....{4}|Chile | 2 | ....{4}
Siam | 2 | ....{4}|Santo Domingo| 1 | ....{4}
--------------+--------+------------+-------------+--------+-----------
Total | 1,877 |2,228,980{5}| Total | 2,730 | 636,601{5}
=======================================================================
===========================================================
ENEMY AND | NUMBER OF | NUMBER
ALLIED-ENEMY | REQUESTS{1}| REGISTERED{2}
-------------------------------+------------+--------------
Turkey | 971 | 81,608
Bulgaria | 304 | 19,873
Austria | 62 | 751,212
Germany | 8 | 158,809
-------------------------------+------------+--------------
Total | 1,345 | 1,011,502{5}
-------------------------------+------------+--------------
Grand total | 5,852{6} | ....
===========================================================
[note 1: _Second Report of the Provost Marshal General_, 1918, p. 400.]
[note 2: _Ibid._, p. 399.]
[note 3: This total represents the registration from all the British
Empire.]
[note 4: Not separately listed.]
[note 5: Includes nationalities not listed in this table.]
[note 6: _Sic._ as per Reports.]
RECIPROCAL CONSCRIPTION AMONG COBELLIGERENTS
A large factor in the diplomatic interchanges arising out of
induction or attempted induction of aliens into the military service
was the situation regarding cobelligerents. It does not call for
extended description here; suffice it to say that the policy of
reciprocal conscription 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 situation, so far
as the nondeclarant alien was concerned. A collateral development
was the upgrowth of desire on the part of representatives of the
oppressed races of Central Europe to organize armed forces under
their own commanders, and to proceed more or less independently to
the battle line. Of this the Provost Marshal General says:[138]
The situation thus presented ... was finally relieved in part by
two measures. In the first place, the War Department conceded that
aliens of the oppressed races, who had already enlisted in the
Polish foreign legion, should not be required to be discharged
and returned to the American draft; but that in future no such
enlistment should be sanctioned. In the second place, the Army
Appropriation 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.... Computations ...
give estimates for the number of males of military age who would
have been eligible for enlistment under this act ranging between
188,000 and 330,000.
OF GERMAN DESCENT, BUT LOYAL AMERICANS
The Provost Marshal General takes occasion to pay high tribute to
the thousands of registrants of German stock who “loyally stood by
the American flag,” notwithstanding 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 numbers. It is regrettable that, as the Provost
Marshal General says:[139]
Unfortunately, time has not sufficed to analyze the naturalization
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 deficiencies and evil tendencies
to the immigrant as such, and on the other those who seem to think
that the immigrant as such is somehow superior to the native-born
American, either that the desertions from the army or evasions of
military service were inordinately numerous on the part of foreign
born as compared with the native born; or, _per contra_, that “the
proportion of desertions among the native born is about twice as
great as among the foreign born.”[140] In point of exact fact and
essential justice, neither of these views is justified. The Provost
Marshal General deals directly, and with broad justice, with this
situation:[141]
Of the 474,861 deserters reported, the registration cards of
185,081 state that they are aliens. Of this number, 22,706 had
declared their intention to become citizens, 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 33,107 enemy aliens, 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 proof of 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 local boards informed of their addresses,
and failed to realize their obligations to this country under the
selective-service law. And the difficulty experienced 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 of aliens from some of the border
states, and those near to the seaboard, where the easiest course
for these ignorant and misguided 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.[142]
TABLE XXXIV
COMPARISON OF REPORTED DESERTIONS OF ALIEN AND CITIZEN REGISTRANTS
================================================================
DESERTIONS | NUMBER
--------------------------------------------------+-------------
Total alien and citizen registrants, June 5, 1917 |
to Sept. 11, 1918 | 10,679,814
Total desertions | 474,861
Total alien registrants | 1,703,006
Reported alien desertions | 185,081
Total citizen registrants | 8,976,808
Reported citizen desertions | 289,780
================================================================
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
“the proportion of desertions among the native born was about twice
as great as among the foreign born.” True, the citizen-deserter
percentage of the whole number of registrants is 2.71, as against
an alien-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
available figures to show how many of the citizens who thus evaded
service were of foreign birth.
WAR’S TEST OF “THE MELTING-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 German 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 events of the World War. Then the
melting pot stood in the fierce fires of the national emergency; and
its contents, heated in the flames, either fused into the compact
mass or floated off as dross.” And he goes on to say:[143]
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 confounded the cynical plans of
our archenemy, and surpassed our own highest expectations. No man
can peruse the muster roll of one of our camps, or the casualty
list from a battlefield in France, without realizing that America
has fulfilled one of its highest missions 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 demonstrated that America makes Americans.
It is no part of the province of this volume to multiply words about
the way in which these adopted citizens of every racial blood gave
account of themselves 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 born side by side, their intermingling blood
poured forth for “America.” The diary of a German officer, found on
the battlefield,[144] 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 born sons of
their country.
AN OLD PRACTICE WITH A NEW SIGNIFICANCE
Who shall forecast the effect of this wholesale admission of aliens
to full citizenship and potential political power 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 residence at all! There can be no checking up,
even now, to see whether even a criminal record should have debarred
the applicant; the Bureau of Naturalization was more than 500,000
behind in the examination of naturalization certificates even before
this flood of new ones was poured in upon its overworked force!
In the old days, before the establishment of the Naturalization
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 from 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 JUDGES THOUGHT OF IT
The questions addressed by the Americanization Study in the summer 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 attention at all to the question, 110
frankly declared themselves unable to express any opinion whatever.
Thirteen were in grave doubt, inclining to the negative; 16 said
only, “I hope so”; 108 replied flatly, “No.” The others (109) in
various phrases expressed their affirmative. 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 admission of the otherwise unqualified individual.
Many argued that, whatever the doubts about the wisdom of 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 blunder!”
“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 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 debarkation. Here are a few characteristic
expressions from others:
“They gave the best evidence of loyalty.”
“It was the best thing to do under the 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 this country, which, in my judgment, 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-born sons.”
HERE WAS “ATTACHMENT TO OUR PRINCIPLES”!
The naturalization of an alien under our laws [says Commissioner
Campbell][145] 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 attainment 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
blind 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 important, must obey
the laws from an inward and self-imposed sense of obligation....
Genuine citizenship is primarily a state of inward feeling, 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,[146] “when
the things of the spirit are held in common and cherished by all,”
or, as Renan expresses it, when the people “have a common glory,” by
reason of having “done great things together.”
* * * * *
How may a man more convincingly show his “attachment 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 conditions 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 community.
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, what better evidence can he offer, 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 all our smug self-sufficiency in what the Bohemians bore on their
banner in that Cleveland parade:
AMERICANS, DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED:
WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING THESE TYRANTS
FOR THREE HUNDRED YEARS!
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 ENEMIES OF TYRANNY
We are hardly yet awake to the wonder of what happened, to the
magnitude of the work of national assimilation that took place all
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, naïvely 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 overthrow 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”!
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 “Austrians” 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, unpardonably vague, notions as to what an “Austrian”
might be! It required a vigorous campaign of education before there
could emerge even a fair, working intelligence 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 grâce_ to the old oppressor of
themselves, their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers.
EPISODES OF MILITARY 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 Riley 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 allegiance in one operation, lined up on the
parade-ground by nationalities. 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, “Oyez! Oyez!” and a procession of
dignitaries, military and 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, in which he welcomed each of those who a little while before
had been “strangers and foreigners,” and dubbed him “one of _our_
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 committed. There is no
power on earth that can keep us from our purpose!”
Some soldier started the song, “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” 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 home!_”
Down in Alabama, a government official at a similar session
apostrophized Liberty in strident Polish, followed 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 naturalization, and one
aftermath of that was an extraordinary scene in the Walter Reid
Hospital at Washington. The opportunity returned to the wounded
there, in dramatic guise. An orderly walked through the wards
summoning 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 négligé.
The thump of crutches was heard along the halls--more than a hundred
answered the first call. When the officer in charge 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, Kentucky, is a great ash
tree, now come to be known as “Naturalization Tree.” Its arms, in
benediction, 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 country, 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 King 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 from Russian Poland, who
denied having any sovereign at all; the Armenian who said he would
refuse citizenship 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,
all born on this soil, and Americans beyond cavil, took advantage of
the opportunity 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 _Fact_ had been a human reality for nearly sixty
years!
There were not a few officers who had been commissioned in oversight
of the fact that their alienage legally should have barred them. The
defect 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 solemnize and signalize
the transaction. Perhaps the best of all was that tense sentence of
General Bell:
_I beg of you not to take this oath of allegiance to the United
States unless it is in your heart to do so._
Let it not be forgotten that nobody compelled these men to utilize
this privilege. The law stipulated only that they “_may_ petition.”
Their alienage would have exempted them from service and the peril
that awaited them.
At first, the certificates of naturalization were delivered; but
later, as the flood of applicants became overwhelming 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 “last 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 mimeographed temporary certificate,
properly embellished with “SS,” “Be it known,” and all the rest of
the imposing verbiage, with the soldier’s name suitably prominent in
mid-page.
THOSE WHO WENT WITHOUT CITIZENSHIP
Many alien soldiers who were entitled to naturalization 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
citizenship 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:[147]
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 of this service; ... the army is
no longer in a position to render aid.... The demands upon the
field-naturalization offices are so great that both civilian and
soldier naturalization have had to suffer. Because of inability to
furnish a sufficient allotment for additional clerical assistants
in the office of the clerk 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 honorably
discharged soldiers are being turned away without receiving
attention; and this is equally true in the field naturalization
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 applicants 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 the 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 discharged
soldiers and civilian foreign born to take steps toward procuring
their American citizenship to which they are justly entitled.
A GREAT COMPOSITE RECORD OF LOYALTY
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 born, and points to the enhanced
responsibility laid upon us by the service these men gave. In his
report to the Commissioner of Naturalization,[148] “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 born. The names on the
rolls represent all European 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 undoubtedly 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
transformation with them. It has created an after-war debt and
obligation upon the United States. The alien-born soldier has
returned to America an educated and transformed individual. 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 under which these mass ceremonies at
the camps were conducted, nor the act and fact of naturalization
itself, nor yet, in any substantial way, the experiences in
the army, could make new creatures of these men. They were
afterward--they are now, especially in the chill reaction from the
exuberance of that excited period--what they were before--“just
folks”--good, 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 urged or herded
them into voting status and power at any stage of it. For their
American citizenship and share in the common sovereignty 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
functionary in zealous search for undotted or uncrossed letters in
a seven-year-old document, would better test or attest an alien’s
capacity 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.
X
THE FOREIGN-BORN WOMAN, HER HOME AND HER CHILDREN, IN AMERICAN
POLITICS
The foreign-born woman plays directly in American politics a part
somewhat, but not much, more important than that played by snakes in
the zoölogy of Ireland. There are several reasons for this besides
the fact that hitherto she has shared the legal disabilities common
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-born 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 cannot do so unless
her husband chooses to become one; however desirable in her own
right or fitness, the unfitness of her husband, or his rejection for
any other reason, _ipso facto_ excludes _her_. And, _per contra_,
however much she might desire to remain a subject or citizen of
the country of her birth or former residence, the naturalization of
her husband, with or without her consent, even with or without her
knowledge, _ipso facto_ inflicts American citizenship upon her. True,
this is technically 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,[149] 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 continues to reside in
the old country. Some judges will not naturalize a man if his wife
remains abroad. Generally 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 born and residing in another country becomes
an American citizen by her marriage with one; the clergyman, or other
official, who pronounces them man and wife attests also an automatic
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 she was born and has lived
for twenty years, forthwith, and regardless of any wish of hers in
the matter, becomes _instanter_ 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 all, since no country
can actually confer upon any person citizenship 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 Constitution.” Coming to this
country as an American citizen, she cannot be rejected or deported
because of any 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 immunities 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.
UNMARRIED WOMEN HAVE MALE RIGHTS
The unmarried foreign-born woman or widow stands, as far as
citizenship is concerned, upon her own feet, and 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 under the law,
must have resided in the United States or within its jurisdiction
continuously for the five years next preceding her application, and
at least two and not more than seven years before that application
must have filed her declaration 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 believer 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 under 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 OF “DERIVATIVE CITIZENSHIP”
The subject of “derivative citizenship” is one that has been much and
deservedly on the mind of the Naturalization Bureau, especially since
the aspects of citizenship brought to the front by the war came into
wider attention. In his report to the Commissioner of Naturalization
for the year ending June 30, 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 government, and to
adopt American customs, as their environments 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-born 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 by all, the conferring of
citizenship upon the wife will also enfranchise her.
The man has to pass an increasingly rigid examination; he is
_personally_ put through a severe inspection of his 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 prevent her becoming
a citizen and a voter without excluding the husband, who may, on his
own account, be exceptionally desirable.
The Director of Citizenship goes on to say:
Generally the foreign-born women reside in an atmosphere and an
environment wholly foreign. They have no opportunity, as a rule,
to come into any sort of contact with American 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
citizenship 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
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.
The vital importance of this question of “derivative citizenship” is
clear 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-born
women were swept into citizenship by the naturalization of the
husband. For less than one in ten of them were married to women born
in the United States. And even these American-born women had lost
their citizenship through marriage to aliens, regaining it only when
their foreign-born husbands became citizens.
CHILDREN OF ALIENS HERE AMERICAN BORN
These statistics bring out also another extremely interesting, and
to most people surprising, fact; that is, that the children of our
foreign-born citizens largely were born in this country and are
therefore, in their own right, American citizens. Probably most
persons think of the foreign-born population as coming to this
country with a horde of foreign-born 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-born children only. One-fifth
had foreign-born children only, and the rest had both foreign
and native-born. The total number of foreign-born children under
twenty-one years of age was 4,843.
“DERIVATIVE 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 under twenty-one years of age. The number of
unmarried women and widows was altogether negligible. And these 62
women were virtually all foreign born, the proportion of those men
having native-born 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-born wives
varies greatly--from less than 4 per cent in one court to more than
30 per cent in three of the smaller courts.)