Americans by Choice

by John Palmer Gavit

JUDGES DENOUNCE THE ABSURDITY

The judges are all but unanimous in their denunciation of this system. The comment of a United States district judge in the Middle West represents the sentiments of most:

I do not think it tends to raise the standard of citizenship or to do anyone any good to have the requirements such that, if a petitioner has lived in the state for the full five-year period, he must prove that entire residence and his good character and reputation during that entire period by the two petitioning witnesses. The two petitioning witnesses should have known him for at least a year, and be able to make a showing for at least the last year of the period. I know of nothing so sacred about a state line that this great difference should be made between the petitioner who moves here from another state and the petitioner who moves here from a distant part of the same state.

A Michigan judge gives a striking example of the injustice of the discrimination:

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

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

Says one judge:

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

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

A clerk of the court in Arizona who handles the naturalization business, and in his letter displays a keen and intelligent interest in the human aspects of the question, says:

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

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

Nevertheless, it is to be presumed that the Bureau of Naturalization did approve (since the proposal was embodied in the same bill containing one of its attempts to secure a notable extension of its powers)[80] a measure of concession in the matter of witnesses.[81] A proposed amendment to Section 10 of the Naturalization Law would provide:

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

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

Where either or both of the original subscribing witnesses to a petition for naturalization, or those giving evidence by deposition in support thereof, shall be found to be incompetent or not qualified to establish the proof of residence, good moral character, or other evidence required by law, the petitioner may substitute other qualified and competent witnesses at, or prior to, the final hearing. The hearing of the petition may be continued for this purpose and the names of the substituted witnesses may be ordered publicly posted, in the discretion of the court, if such posting shall be deemed necessary. Any petition for naturalization may be amended to correct manifest errors appearing therein and made in good faith.