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.”