ATTACHED TO THE CONSTITUTION
The applicant must be “attached to the principles of the Constitution,” and “well disposed toward the good order and happiness of the United States.” Can a man be “attached to the principles of the Constitution” without having read it? If not, then the vast majority of the native-born citizens of the United States are not so “attached,” for it is a matter of the most notorious fact that very few Americans, not professional lawyers, ever have read it or could pass the most rudimentary examination upon its substance. There is, however, a widely prevalent tendency on the part of the courts to require petitioners not only to swear that they have read the document, but to pass a pretty stiff examination, either before the naturalization examiner who may certify the fact, or even in open court. And it is upon the phrase “attached to the principles of the Constitution” that the Naturalization Bureau has erected its whole elaborate and ambitious campaign of education for citizenship. But its interpretation is so vague and unsettled, so subject to the whims, theories, prejudices, and intellectual limitations of the individuals upon whom its enforcement devolves, that it seems highly desirable for Congress to establish by law definite and simple requirements embodying the minimum qualification to be demanded of applicants for citizenship to demonstrate both their understanding of our form of government and their “attachment to the principles of the Constitution.”
One of the classic anecdotes of the Naturalization Service has to do with this matter of attachment to and understanding of the Constitution. In the court of a judge who insisted upon every petitioner having at least read it, an Irish petitioner at the morning session of court was ordered to read the Constitution, or have it read to him, and to come back in the afternoon for further hearing.
“Well, did you read the Constitution to him?” demanded the judge of the citizen who was acting as mentor of the petitioner.
“I did, your Honor; I read it to him—all of it.”
“Is he ready to swear that he is attached to the principles of it?”
“He is, your Honor; when I got through readin’ it to him he said he thought it was a blame fine Constitution.”
What more could be asked—even of a native?
An Italian petitioner in one of the Southern courts exhibited a good knowledge of current political history, and at the same time a realization of his own limitations.