The Court of Common Pleas, which save for a year or two previous had done the larger share of the work of naturalization, did but little in 1868, its total for the year being 3,145, of which 1,645 were in October. Justice requires the further statement that there was no evidence whatever of any fraud in this court, although all its judges were elected as Democrats, while proof was abundant that the duty entrusted to it of making citizens of the United States was discharged throughout with marked propriety and dignity.

In the Supreme and Superior Courts only were frauds proven. To what extent we will now consider. The following table was sworn to as being the daily number of applications for naturalization on file in the Supreme Court Clerk's office for 1868:

TABLE III

APPLICANTS FOR NATURALIZATION IN SUPREME
COURT, NEW YORK CITY, IN OCTOBER, 1868

The significance of these great totals of applications for naturalization within a few days before election

appears in Mr. Davenport's summary of the behavior of the judges:1

But the essential aid rendered by these judges need not be further detailed. It was mainly comprised of one or more of the following derelictions of duty:

I. Hasty and incomplete examination of applicants and witnesses.

II. Total neglect at times to examine the one class or the other.

III. Through negligence, imposition, which might easily have been guarded against, or direct complicity, the issue of certificates in the names of persons who never appeared in Court, applied therefor, produced a witness, or took an oath.

IV. Similar issue of certificates to applicants, persons of assumed or fictitious names and others, upon the oath of residence and moral character of persons of assumed and fictitious names, or of known criminals and persons of immoral character.

V. Similar issue of certificates upon "minor applications" when the persons to whom such certificates issued were known, or could readily have been ascertained to be, unentitled thereto on such applications.

VI. Total neglect or refusal to commit known disreputable persons and others whose business it was for pecuniary or other consideration to act as witnesses, and who in such capacity repeatedly appeared before them.

VII. The conducting of naturalization proceedings in a secret manner, by causing citizens and others to be denied admission to the court-room, or ejected therefrom when observed.

The Judiciary Committee of the New York State Assembly, in a report upon the first notorious election frauds made to that House of the state legislature thirty years before, or on April 6, 1838, already had registered the fact that this was no post-war

1 John I. Davenport, The Wig and the Jimmy, pp. 17-18.

were held out to anything in the form of a man who could be brought to help in the task. It was many years before citizenship came to be regarded as a precious thing, to be guarded with scrupulous vigilance. And as both of the great political parties were guilty of crimes against the ballot box, it was taken for granted that they were inevitable in politics.

The vexatious technicalities which now seem so unjust to many an applicant for citizenship are, after all, only reaction at the other extreme to the incredible laxity which characterized the process in the early years. The population of what was then New York City was only 515,547 in 1850; 813,669 in 1860; and 942,292 in 1870; but in the eight years, 1860–67, inclusive, more than 67,000 aliens were naturalized in that city alone. The naturalizations in New York City in each year from 1856 to 1867, inclusive, in only two courts-the Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas an average of more than 9,000 a year is shown in the following table:

TABLE II

NUMBER OF ALIENS NATURALIZED EACH YEAR FROM
1856 TO 1867 IN TWO COURTS IN NEW YORK CITY1

1 John I. Davenport, The Wig and the Jimmy, p. 12.

These figures are taken from a curious pamphlet, published in 1869 by John I. Davenport, who was United States Commissioner and Chief Supervisor of Elections for the Southern District of New York, under the cryptic title, The Wig and the Jimmy, which tells in detail the story of the debauching of naturalization by these two courts. The year 1868, however, saw the scandal reach unprecedented heights. Says Mr. Davenport: 1

... Notwithstanding that the yearly average of naturalizations had been but about 9,000; that the greatest number naturalized in a single year never reached 16,500; that three years had elapsed since the close of the war in which 35,927 aliens had been made citizens, a yearly average of 11,975, or an excess of 3,000 per year above the annual average for twelve years; that the addition of such excess to the diminished numbers naturalized in 1862, 1863, and 1864 would preserve the ratio, and account for those who from fear of being drafted had refrained from applying during those years of the war; that the rebellion had reduced the alien population of New York City, many of whom enlisted, were killed, died from disease, or after the war found homes elsewhere; and, finally, that the yearly average of emigration (sic) from and including 1847 to 1860-a period of 13 years—had been 197,435, while for the four years from 1860 to 1863 inclusive -and none who arrived subsequently could be legally naturalized in 1868-the yearly average of alien arrivals had been but 100,962, or an annual loss of one-half, yet orders were early in September passed along the Democratic line to prepare on a gigantic scale for the naturalization of aliens during the coming month. The Supreme Court also determined for the first time to engage in the work of making citizens. In accordance with this known determination, there were printed for the use of the courts . . . a total of 30,000 applications and 30,000 certificates for the Superior Court, and 75,000 applications and 39,000 certificates for the amateur court [Supreme].

1 John I. Davenport, The Wig and the Jimmy, pp. 12–13.

state of affairs, and depicted the situation of which the frauds of 1868 were only one year's fruit:

Men vote who do not reside in the ward, often not in the state; aliens are frequently brought to the polls and their vote imposed upon the inspectors, although many of them have not been a week in the country; and voters are not infrequently taken from poll to poll, voting in three or four different wards at the same election. These are the frauds constantly practiced at our elections, to the disgrace of the state, and to the manifest wrong of the country.

It was partly the sense of the great public danger lying in such conditions, partly the growing antiforeign feeling, and altogether an improving public morality, that beginning about 1870 and increasing as the years passed, brought about the cleansing of public elections and the reform embodied in the naturalization law of 1906 which has totally abolished the situation into which the immigrants of the mid-century and earlier stepped as into a swamp. Still survives in some quarters the notion that the alien is hurried from the ship to the ballot box, and that he pours therein some corrupting influence brought with him from abroad. The latter never was true; he has accepted and taken advantage of the situation which we ourselves created and suffered for generations to exist. The former was true during three-quarters of a century, but it is true no longer, and has not been true for nearly two decades.

FIRST CHOICE IN POLITICS

Bear it in mind that the chief motive of the newcomer is the same as that which usually leads men to go anywhere the desire to "better himself." It is notable that a very large number of immigrants arrive with the notion that the Republican party is the "party