proposed legislation disclose the conviction of the Commission as to the essential qualifications of a desirable citizen. If each of these is deemed indispensable to sufficiently safeguard the body politic from undesirable or dangerous additions, it seems difficult to justify a waiver of all of them in any case simply upon the score of prescription or of regard to the convenience of those who have no individual claim upon this country and who may prove hostile to its Constitution and laws, or totally unfit to become citizens.

The situation of this country in regard to its needs of citizens is as remote from that occupied by it at the time the measure under consideration was adopted as it is with respect to the immigration of aliens, and ordinary prudence, therefore, dictates no less absolute a departure from the standards of the early days of the Republic respecting the admission of aliens to citizenship than has already been taken as a measure of their admissibility to reside in the United States.

The Government should carefully reserve, therefore, the right to pass upon the fitness, individually, of every alien before naturalizing him, and should exact of all proof of the possession of those qualifications which it deems indispensable to aliens worthy to become citizens of this country.

RICHD. K. CAMPBELL, Department of Commerce and Labor.

MINORITY REPORT.

I. As to the registration of old certificates.

The majority of the Commission propose that no certificate of naturalization heretofore issued shall be considered as evidence of the citizenship of the person to whom it was granted for the purpose of voting at a Congressional or Presidential election, or for any purpose whatsoever by an officer of the United States, until it shall have been registered by the clerk of a court having power to confer naturalization that is to say, unless it has been registered it shall not be taken as prima facie proof or as evidence at all of the facts which it sets forth.

"A naturalized citizen," said Chief Justice Marshall (9 Wheat., 738, 827), "becomes a member of the society possessing all the rights of a native citizen and standing, in the view of the Constitution, on the footing of a native." The certificate of naturalization is the written testimony by the court that these rights have been conferred, and the court issues no other single document in attestation thereof. It is the only evidence, except a transcript of the testimony and findings in the naturalization proceedings, which can be issued by the court, and is the best evidence attainable that the naturalization took

place, upon which point it is proof positive. It is not alleged, for it is not the fact, that any courts have issued certificates that they have conferred naturalization unless they have actually done so.

The proposed regulation would be unjust, unwise, and impolitic— impolitic because it would inevitably arouse antagonism to a reform of the naturalization laws on the part of the whole body of naturalized citizens, without whose cooperation we must not expect that the reform can be accomplished; unwise because it would cast out certificates of citizenship which have heretofore been universally accepted and bring doubt upon the vital point of the citizenship of the holders of the certificates; unjust because it would entail upon all citizens of alien birth, now resting secure in their rights, the hardship of taking additional acts to conserve those rights.

New legislation on the subject of naturalization should mark a point from which to move forward, and retroactive legislation would be impracticable and ineffective.

There were by the census of 1900 approximately 2,862,546 naturalized males in the United States. A large number of females, naturalized themselves or naturalized by their marriage or by the naturalization of their parents, are not included in this enumeration. Many naturalizations have been conferred since 1900-our investigations show about 100,000 a year. There are to-day, therefore, in the United States at least 3,000,000 naturalized citizens, every one of whom would, if the scheme of the majority of the Commission prevailed, be in duty bound to appear before the clerks of the various courts having authority to confer naturalization to have their certificates of citizenship, or the certificates of their fathers or mothers or husbands, registered and indorsed with the description of the persons presenting them. If the proposed law were obeyed the inflow upon the clerks of persons holding citizenship through naturalization would be so overwhelming that the wheels of justice throughout the land would stop, and for a time at any rate the courts would be able to do little else besides registering certificates of naturalization.

What would be the use of the registration? The clerk is to register the certificate, "if valid upon its face and if he has no good reason to believe that the certificate was obtained through fraud or in any illegal manner." It would be nobody's business to question the certificate, and the clerk would have no personal reason for questioning it. He would register every certificate presented to him, and the registration would furnish no reason for assuming that the certificate had been properly issued. It is contended that the certificate, having indorsed upon it a description of the holder and his signature, would not be transferable and would be difficult to forge. This is true in a very limited sense. The description has some value,

but it would not prevent anyone of the most general similarity of appearance with the person described in the certificate from impersonating him. My experience in examining many thousands of personal descriptions in applications for passports is that two people rarely describe the same person in the same way, and that he is often described in a different way by the same person on different occasions. Furthermore, the appearance of the person changes with the passage of time, and a description that is correct to-day may be incorrect to-morrow.

It would be easy, therefore, to transfer a registered certificate from one person to another, and forgery need not necessarily be committed by one who receives another's certificate in the course of the ordinary use of the document. The proposed scheme allows five years in which to register certificates. There is nothing to prevent the wholesale transfer of certificates before registration; nothing to prevent the resurrection and registration of thousands of old certificates of dead men; nothing to prevent the manufacture of spurious certificates, which, after being registered, would be more apt to find acceptance than if unregistered. Thus a provision intended to prevent crime might actually encourage it. There is force in the observation of the majority of the Commission, that if a stricter naturalization law were enacted traffic in certificates issued under existing law might be attempted, but a remedy should be found in greater vigilance to detect those guilty of this crime. Under existing law it is punishable by heavy penalty (sec. 5424, R. S. U. S.).

It is proper to call attention in passing to certain mechanical difficulties in the way of carrying out the proposed regulation. The woman who derives her citizenship through her husband's naturalization and the children who derive it through their father would each and all be in duty bound to have their several descriptions indorsed upon one certificate, and if the certificate were small and the family were large it would be a physical impossibility for a clerk to comply with the law, for some certificates of naturalization are no larger than a sheet of note paper. Where a man has married twice, there would be two families, each member of which must be described on the back of one small piece of paper.

Many thousands of the 3,000,000 of naturalized citizens would never hear of the new obligation imposed upon them until they might attempt to use their certificates of citizenship, when it might be too late to register them, so as to make them effective for the purpose desired. They might thus suffer in their most vital interests, because of an unexpected retroactive law.

The most serious hardship of this kind would fall upon those who might go abroad with unregistered certificates as the only proof of

their American citizenship. If they should present these documents when in need of protection, our diplomatic and consular officers would be unable to accept them, and it would be impossible to have them registered so as to make them acceptable. In consequence, they could be deprived of their rights as Americans and would be at the mercy of any foreign government. In the scheme proposed, provision is made for the relief of those Americans who may be in foreign lands when the law goes into effect, but none is made for those who may go abroad in ignorance of the law and of the consequences which may follow their ignorance.

The scheme provides that no certificates shall be registered after the year 1911, except upon petition to a court having jurisdiction in naturalization cases and a full showing before such court that the person to whom the certificate was issued was duly naturalized and entitled to registration. Thus, a woman marrying, after 1911, a man naturalized under existing law would not be able to have her husband's certificate, which is the usual proof of her citizenship, indorsed with her description and signature, yet the certificate would be unacceptable as evidence of her citizenship without this indorsement. Each minor child, born abroad after 1911, whose father was naturalized under existing law, would be in the same predicament. The husband and father would have acceptable proof of his citizenship which his wife and children could not use. I suppose they would have to go before a court and prove that he was duly naturalized.

The proposed scheme forbids the acceptance of the certificate as evidence of citizenship and consequent right to vote at a Presidential or Congressional election. This would be an order on certain State officers, and would be legislation stretching the power of Congress to the utmost limit, but in every essential object which it seeks to attain it is already covered by existing laws which are not subject to the objections which lie against it. Sections 5425, 5426, and 5427 of the Revised Statutes provide that every person who attempts to use a false certificate of naturalization for any purpose and specifically for the purpose of voting at any election, and every person who aids and abets any person in the commission of the crime, shall be punished, upon conviction, by fine and imprisonment.

The scheme declares that election officers shall not accept an unregistered certificate, but leaves it valid for use before all other State officers, thus encouraging lack of uniformity in the acceptance of evidence on a matter of supreme importance. Rather than do this it would be better to declare unregistered certificates invalid for all purposes.

II. The naturalization of minor children by the naturalization of their parents.

Mr. Purdy proposes that the existing statute relative to the naturalization of the foreign-born minor children through the naturalization of their parents shall be so amended as to apply only to children who are under the age of 16 years at the time of their parents' naturalization, or who come to the United States under the age of 16, their parents having been already naturalized.

Mr. Campbell proposes that the existing statute be repealed, and that the naturalization of the parents shall confer no rights of citizenship upon the foreign-born minor children.

Fundamental doctrines of citizenship are involved in the two opposing recommendations, and their consideration might properly come before another commission, if one should be created, to consider and report on the doctrine of American citizenship and any changes therein that may be desirable. Senator Cullom and Representative Hitt introduced a joint resolution in the last Congress providing for such a commission, and the President, in his annual message of 1904, separated the questions of citizenship and naturalization, recommending scientific examination into the former and specific changes in the laws governing the latter. But while the question of the effect the naturalization of the parents shall have upon the citizenship of their children concerns the doctrine of citizenship, it is regulated by the naturalizaton laws and naturally comes before us, although I think it ought to have the benefit of fuller review by a citizenship commission to be created at some future time.

So far as Mr. Campbell's proposition is concerned it would tend to eliminate from our laws any recognition of the doctrine of citizenship by descent and would strengthen the doctrine of citizenship by birth, by applying to children born abroad the same principle which we now apply to children born in the United States. The latter are all citizens of the United States, and the former would all be aliens. The proposition is perfectly logical and would fasten upon us the fell doctrine of the common law without any of the mitigation thereof which was ingrafted into our statutes at the very beginning of our national existence and has remained an accepted part of our policy ever since. Great Britain herself abandoned her traditional policy on this point in 1870 and brought her law into harmony with ours. The British statute, however, goes even farther than ours and says:

Where the father, being a British subject, or the mother, being a British subject and a widow, becomes an alien in pursuance of this act (by naturalization in a foreign state) every child of such father or mother who during infancy has become resident in the country where the father or mother is naturalized, and has, according to the