Americans by Choice

by John Palmer Gavit

GENERAL TREND OF JUDGES’ OPINIONS

The returns of this questionnaire, from a sufficiently representative cross-section of the naturalizing agency of the government, self-selected by the operation of substantial personal interest in the problems embodied in the situation (as evidenced by taking the pains to express opinion), make clear the opinion of the judges on several important points, and may be summarized substantially as follows:

(1) The judges on the whole believe that the present law requires no drastic amendment in principle; they believe that the naturalizing function should remain with the courts; should not be confined to the Federal courts, and should be exercised in the open courtrooms as it is at present. And this, notwithstanding the fact that the function adds materially to the burden of ordinary litigation.

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

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

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

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

(6) With regard to married women, the judges are two to one in favor of permitting their naturalization as individuals, regardless of the action of their husbands, and nearly as much so in favor of reserving to American-born women their citizenship, notwithstanding their marriage to aliens. As regards the latter point, most of those expressing themselves in the affirmative insert the proviso that the woman must continue her domicile in this country.

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

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

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