OPINIONS OF NATURALIZING JUDGES
The judges see it more directly. The Americanization Study addressed a questionnaire to all of the naturalizing judges, containing two questions on this subject:
First—Would you favor legislation to permit the naturalization of a married woman in her own name, if personally acceptable, regardless of the alienage of her husband, or his failure to obtain or refusal to seek naturalization?
Second—Would you favor reserving to a native-born American woman, if she desired it, the American citizenship which, under the present law, she sacrifices by marriage to a foreigner?
It is impossible to tabulate the answers, because of the many cases in which the judges advance qualifications preventing their replies from being classed as categorical; but generally it may be said that of 333 replies to the first question, 204, or nearly two-thirds, are in the affirmative, 104 are in the, negative, and 25 are noncommittal, uncertain, or so qualified as to represent doubt.
To the second question, of 364 replies, 220, again not quite two-thirds, are in the affirmative, 127, or almost exactly one-third, in the negative, and 17 noncommittal. Curiously enough, many of those who answer “Yes” to the first question answer “No” to the second, and a large number would condition their affirmative to both questions upon the woman’s permanent domicile in this country. Of those who vote “No” on the second point many express the sentiment:
If an American woman isn’t satisfied to marry an American man, let her lose her citizenship.
A somewhat conspicuous fact is that, generally speaking, the judges of the East and South are opposed to any change in the law to admit women on their individual responsibility or to save citizenship for American women marrying immigrants, while those of the West generally favor both—especially the former proposal.
“The law looks upon a married couple as one,” says a New Jersey judge, “and I do not think it would be good public policy to split their nationality.”
“It would introduce great confusion in certain parts of the law,” objects a Federal judge in New England.
“We favor no such pussy-willow policy,” answers one Ohio judge, who, by the way, would require “twenty-one years’ continuous residence,” admit at all “only heads of families with children,” and generally “make it harder for foreigners to become naturalized.”
“Few men,” objects a judge in Indiana, “would feel right toward either the government or his wife (sic). Few men have reached that stage of mind where he would be satisfied with such preference.”
“With the husband of one nationality, and the wife of another, what would be the nationality of the children?” demands a New Jersey judge. “What laws would govern the taking of personal property or the inheritance of real estate? A citizen married woman might have an alien enemy husband!”
A Federal judge in Maryland dwells upon the physical fact, that the children are a joint product, even though husband and wife are separate individuals. And he seems to think that both of the questions imply the opening of large danger, in respect of the enforcement of Chinese and Japanese exclusion, though he does not say why or how such a peril would arise.
From a Texas judge and many others come warnings that such a policy would give rise to endless domestic friction. An Alabama judge would cut round this by permitting the woman’s declaration of her desire to be or remain an American citizen, notwithstanding the alienage of her husband, to naturalize her minor children.
The general trend of opinion among the judges is to the effect that the institution of woman suffrage has abolished the old idea that the wife must accept her politics from her husband. As one Nebraska judge puts it:
It is an outrage that the status of the wife should be influenced by that of the husband. A man and wife are two; we long since departed from the theory that they are one.