The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., October 01, 1925, Page 13, Image 13

OCTOBER 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
Page Thirteen
Observing the Workings of the Present Naturalization Laws
By GEORGE ARTHUR GREEN, Director Citizens Bureau, Cleveland, Ohio
T IMITLESS examples taken from the administration
of what is supposed to be a uniform Naturalization
law would seem to indicate that the goal of idealism in
uniformity is yet far from attained; there being as
yet neither any uniform code of requirements in law to
be followed by the judges, any uniform plan for
examiners, nor any uniform statutes to be followed by
the clerks. And yet, after all, laws exist only in the
incarnation of the living court, and the validity of
democratic institutions depends upon human nature as
epitomized in the individual.
The past year or two might be designated in the
i annals of Naturalization procedure as the era of con-
| flicting judicial interpretations of what Congress has
not said and enlightened rulings, coming with gattling-
gun rapidity from the Department of Labor on what
its views were as to what Congress should have said
before it ever went into the business of enacting depor­
tation, and quota immigration, laws.
Throughout the country in general, and even within
I the confines of each political division there exists at
I the present time an unfortunate state of affairs in
I respect to various conflicting opinions of the courts
regarding the question of admissibility to citizenship
I of aliens who claimed exemption from Military Service
I during the war. If a citizenship applicant happens to
I file in one court, he is admitted; if he files in another,
I equally available and under identical circumstances, he
I is denied. Several petitioners in a particular city are,
I for instance, in the Federal Courts being consistently*
I denied citizenship because of the drastic draft ruling
I obtaining therein, all of whom would be admitted, had
[they filed in the State court, a tribunal exercising
■ equal and concurrent jurisdiction within the same
I municipality.
In some jurisdictions the World War terminated
Ion Nov. 11th, 1918; in others it was by judicial decree
■ prolonged to July 2nd, 1921. In an Oregon court
I hostilities ceased immediately after the registering
■ alien had returned and filed his draft questionnaire,
I some months before the Armistice. In some sections
■ of California so far as an alien petitioner is concerned,
I the conflict is still on in all its fury. This inability
I to arrive at a definite date for the termination of the
I war, has not resulted in the only subtlety to bothei*
I Naturalization judges, for they are still very much con-
I fused in their efforts to construe such technical Natu-
I ralization terms as “white person,” continuous resi-
I dence” and “attachment to the Constitution.” But if
I the judiciary has failed to come to a common under-
I standing in one direction, it has made notable progress
■ in another, for it is now practically conceded that if
I it was assumed that a claim of exemption from Military
■ Service by an alien was in and of itself such a breach
I of one’s attachment to the principles of the Constitu-
I tion as to deny him Citizenship, then there should be
I a locus poenitentia whence such attachment might
I again be presumed to begin since Congress has not by
I legislation, as in the case of Neutrals, forever debarred
■ from Citizenship any particular class of aliens. This
■ day of repentance has been fixed by many courts as
being identical with the time the World War actually
ended.
The most startling and apparently most novel
method of determining the date, was announced in the
U. S. District Court of the Southern Division of Cali­
fornia known among students as the Bledsoe decision.
This court held that a claim of exemption from the
draft for non-citizenship conclusively showed a dis­
loyal attitude and that such attitude was presumed to
continue indefinitely thereafter until a new Declaration
of Intention was executed. It may be observed that
since this decision goes beyond all others, yet reported,
in its extreme presumptions against the petitioner, and
since it is still being followed in some jurisdictions—
although it has been in substance repudiated by the
Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States of the
Ninth District—it might not here be amiss to accord
it brief consideration.
In the first place a superior court has held that
there is no ground for holding that a claim of exemp­
tion from Military Service because of alienage abso­
lutely proved that the applicant’s Declaration of Inten­
tion was made malafide, or that he was not attached
to the principles of the Constitution. One could not
therefore accept without qualification the major pre­
mise of the Bledsoe decision not only in view of its
practical reversal by a higher court, but because of
the fact that disloyalty to a yet unadopted country
could ill be presumed from the friendly acts of the
resident subjects of another nation. An alien enemy,
who had not expressed an intention to become a citizen
of the United States during the war, owed total
allegiance to his native Government and not to the
United States. His claiming exemption was not only
an unquestioned right of privilege but the very form
of the questionnaire suggested to him an affirmative
answer. Particularly unhappy was the plight of. the
German, Austrian, Bulgarian or Turk who, upon
capture, while fighting against his own kin, could ex­
pect naught other than the dismal certainty of exe­
cution as a traitor. His only vestige of protection could
lie in American Citizenship, which was utterly im­
possible of attainment at the time.
This contention in behalf of the alien enemy should
mean no disparagement to the claims of an alien friend
and, too, so far as he is concerned the world holocaust
should be considered a thing of the past. Although
the cause of the Italian, Roumanian, or Russian was
our cause, yet were he a slacker he was no more con­
temptible than the native born citizen who was like­
wise seized with an attack of chilblains in his pedal
extremities when the draft came on. The President
has long since pardoned political prisoners of war,
believing that justice would best be served by for­
getting the differences and animosities of a past hys­
teria. If criminals, duly convicted by court action for
offenses against the Government, have been pardoned
by executive clemency, how much more should the alien
of co-belligerent nations be accorded an equal degree
of mercy in a judicial proceeding, especially where he
has been convicted of no crime, but may have com­
mitted an indiscretion seven years in the past—a rather