Each nationality has in this country name-complications of this character peculiarly its own. The Swedes, for an example, have a habit of taking for their own surname the Christian name of a favorite aunt, uncle, or other relative, upon reaching the age of twenty-one years. Sven Svensen—which means “Sven, the son of Sven”—may undertake to compliment his uncle Olaf by calling himself Sven Olafsen. Suppose he came to this country under the name of Sven Svensen, before he was eighteen; but for several years before filing his declaration came to be known to everybody—including himself—as Sven Olafsen, and regarded his old name as a “childish thing” of no consequence to anybody. He applies as Sven Olafsen for his certificate of arrival, the immigration and naturalization bureaus have great difficulty in finding it, and when it does come along it is in the name of Sven Svensen. Often names are adopted in affectionate memory of the town from which the alien comes. Many Italians, for convenience, drop off a couple of syllables of awkwardly long names. Among the Greeks a typical case would be that of one, “Harris,” whose old-country name was Harralabopoulos.
Another kind of complication appears in the case of an alien whose true name was Isaac Brody; but he came on a steamship ticket issued to, and in the name of, his uncle, Isaac Boovris, and was recorded under that name by the immigration authorities. When he filed his declaration of intention he was advised to file under the name Boovris, to facilitate his certificate of arrival when that should be required. When he filed his final petition, after living and doing business for several years in this country under his true name of Brody, he asked to be naturalized under that name. The court refused, requiring him to file a new declaration as Isaac Brody and wait two years longer, calling attention to the penal statute which makes it an offense to apply for naturalization under an assumed or fictitious name; remarking that the court might have changed the name or amended the petition “if the error in the original declaration had been clerical, or had been innocent.”[77]
A Pennsylvania court said in the case of one Wicenty Pilipos, who after arrival informally changed his name to William Phillips:
We may concede that any person may change his name, and be naturalized under his new name; yet, if he does so, he must petition the court for that purpose, so that the record will show the whole transaction, and identify him as the person who has discarded his original name, under which he landed in this country. This is especially necessary to prevent any other person from perpetrating a fraud, by being naturalized under the discarded name.[78]
THE PETITION FOR NATURALIZATION
There are other technicalities with which the alien occasionally collides—such, for example, as the question of jurisdiction where there is a difference of definition in the term “judicial district,” or where boundaries may conflict between states, counties, or other distinct municipalities, with reference to the alien’s place of residence; or where the court to which he could naturally and conveniently repair by the shortest line of travel is in another jurisdiction, and he and his witnesses must journey perhaps even hundreds of miles to the court to which the letter of the law compels him to go. Such cases are numerous, but comparatively uncommon. Let us assume that he has reached the right court, has successfully unearthed, through the clerk, the Naturalization Bureau and the Immigration Service, his proper certificate of arrival, and has a valid declaration of intention. What next?
In large cities or other places reasonably convenient in respect of distance, the clerk is likely, as the Commissioner of Naturalization says in his report already quoted, to send the alien to the office of the Naturalization Service; there is filled out the “Facts Form,” as it is called, on which the final petition for naturalization is to be based. The petitioner is closely interrogated as to his general eligibility, and the principal business is under way. If the naturalization office is far distant, the petition is filled out by or in the presence of the clerk.
As required by the law quoted at the beginning of this chapter, the petition must set forth the full name, residence, occupation; date and place of birth; port of emigration; name of vessel, if any; port of arrival; date and court of declaration of intention; whether married, single, or widowed; wife’s name, nativity, and present residence; number, names, birthplaces, and residences of minor children; assurances that the applicant is not a practicing or believing anarchist or polygamist; intention to renounce former national allegiance and make permanent residence in the United States; attachment to the principles of the Constitution; ability to speak the English language; dates upon which began residence in the United States and in this state or territory; assertion that this is his first petition for citizenship, or, if a former petition was denied, the reasons for denial and the fact that these reasons have since been cured or removed.
In addition there must be the affidavit of two witnesses (each of whom must swear that he is himself a citizen of the United States), who must declare on his oath that he knows the petitioner to have been a resident of the United States at least since a certain specified date five years ago, and of the particular state at least since a certain specified date not less than a year ago; and that he personally knows the petitioner to be a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution, well disposed toward the good order and happiness of the same, and generally qualified in every way to be admitted as a citizen of the United States.
To the petition at the time of filing (that is rigidly required by the law and the decisions of many courts) must be physically attached the declaration of intention made at least two years before, and the certificate of arrival.