PROGRAM HENRY E. CROW, President of the Board of Education, Judge Willis B. Perkins, Circuit Court Pledge of Allegiance to Flag-Audience, led by Boy Scouts: "I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the country for which it stands; one nation, Address to New Citizens. A. P. Johnson, Mrs. Henrietta Briggs-Wall of Washington, D. C., has presented admirably the spirit of this movement in a pamphlet proposing a general "New Patriot Plan," to utilize the Fourth of July throughout the country for the celebration of the "civic birthday," alike of the native born who, during the past year, have attained the voting age of 21 years, and the newly naturalized foreign born. "In other countries," says Mrs. BriggsWall, "much ado is made over the crowning of kings and queens who attempt to rule over others; there is much more occasion for general rejoicing when newly enfranchised citizens attain their share in the honors and duties of self-government." The plan proposes in general a Fourth-of-July celebration in every community in America to which the newly enfranchised shall be invited as guests of honor. The author says, among other things: The natural birthday is remembered by the family; the "civic birthday" should be honored by the community. Inauguration ceremonies should accompany this newly acquired power. These exercises may consist of addresses to them [the newly enfranchised], music, a variety of activities for their entertainment and instruction; all of which, as an object lesson, will promote the patriotism of all the people. Prizes may be offered to those who bring the greatest number to register in the "Record Book of New Patriots"; also to those who may try, if they choose, to write the best essays on "true patriotism." The customs and convenience of different localities will suggest varying methods. It is appropriate that the birthday of freedom, the civic birthday of our country, should be chosen to celebrate the civic birthday of the citizen. It is the best possible holiday for patriotic purposes; the audience is already furnished, and the minds of the people are in a receptive mood. It occurs at the time of year when picnics, excursions, and out-of-door celebrations of all sorts can be easily arranged in honor, and for the pleasure, of the new patriots. Criticism, commendation and reform alike, to be either fair or judicious, must bear in mind that the naturalization system which has been built up-and such parts, absurdities, inhumanities, and bureaucratic excrescences as have grown up-under the Naturalization Act of 1906 represents when all is said an honest, diligent, and wholly patriotic effort to make impossible the now almost incredible scandals of former times; to establish and vigilantly maintain proper standards of character and intelligence by which to test those of other nativity who desire to join our fellowship and participate in our sovereignty; and to fit and educate those who are admitted for the better appreciation and performance of the unique privileges and responsibilities of American citizenship. The remediable evils, some of the more conspicuous of which have been indicated, seem to be due in part to survival among us of general race and anti-foreign prejudices, despite our historic professions and democratic traditions; in part to the mere inertia of custom and habit characterizing all governmental institutions; in part to the "personal equation" of those upon whom, in various parts of the country, falls the duty of administering the law. The experience of these fifteen years has demonstrated that the law, as it stands, is on the whole just and effective for its purposes. Its defects can be remedied; its sound features strengthened and clarified. It is time to modify it in some respects; to standardize the tests and conditions enforced under its provisions, to the end of removing, or anyway diminishing, the opportunity for the erratic operation of "personal equation" and the theories, whims, negligences, together with the illegal and extra-legal practices, in both the executive departments and the courts, of which the aspirant for citizenship is the hapless victim. VI PERSONAL EQUATION IN NATURALIZATION WHEN we speak of the "personal equation" as an important factor in the adoption or rejection of an alien applicant for citizenship, we are likely to be thinking chiefly of the personality of the petitioner; of his character, intelligence, education, social training and experience; of his general fitness and capacity for assimilation of our language, customs, traditions, institutional relations-what we are pleased to call our "fundamental principles." But this is only a part, and not always or necessarily the most significant and controlling part, of the situation. There are other "personal equations" to be considered. For while it is true in one sense that the applicant does pass into the maw of a machine, constructed "of law rather than of men," and governed by more or less precise and automatically operating regulations from whose technic the individuals on either side of the process may not materially depart, the fact is that there is hardly any other legal process in our governmental system in which personality-individual ideas, prejudices, idiosyncrasies-plays so large a part. In no other activity of the courts is the individual petitioner so entirely at the mercy of the court, so completely without recourse in the event of a decision against him. Strictly speaking, the proceeding is judicial; an exparte case in an important court, in which a petition is filed with the clerk, comes in due course before the judge in person; evidence is received for and against the granting of the privilege requested, and the judge decides in a formal order and decree, pro or contra; the petition is granted or denied, as the case may be. For every petition is decided and disposed of in some final way, even though it may be continued or postponed once or more. It is doubtful, however, whether anywhere in our judicial procedure even in the minor courts where so often farcically unjust "law" is inflicted upon defenseless persons-may be found a class of cases departing so far in practice from the apparent simplicity of the theory; where the petitioner is subject to so heavy handicaps of technicality; to so great an extent at the mercy of personal whims and mental limitations, of blunders and negligences—and “red tape”—of persons over whose activities he has not the slightest control, with very little right or opportunity to have beside him anyone to protect him from encroachment upon his rights. 1 The Constitution of the United States gave to Congress exclusive authority "to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." It might have been inferred that the intention was to make the process strictly an affair of Federal administration; but Congress did not so construe or utilize the authority. It established, by the original statute and subsequent legislation, uniform standards of requirement as to racial restriction, preliminary period of residence, literacy, and moral qualifications; but in effect it gave the jurisdiction and administration of the law back to the states-not in so many words, to be sure, but by committing the naturalization function to local as well as to Federal judges in every state and territory. Nothing could have been devised more surely to subject the operation of the law 1 Art. I, sec. 8, par. 4. |