III

CITIZENSHIP: UNDER THIS FLAG, AND OTHERS

THERE is, indeed, such a thing as a "man without a country," and it is only a few years since the United States, even if inadvertently, legislated so that there may easily be now a woman without one. But the laws of nations make no provisions for the existence voluntarily of anyone who may regard himself as "a citizen of the world." With the vanishment of terra incognita in the final achievement of human exploration at the two poles of the earth, virtually every foot of the surface of the globe has come, at least constructively, under the dominion of some government. And with it every man, woman, and child on earth has acquired or had thrust upon him a legal nationality of some sort, from which, generally speaking, he can escape only by choosing or having thrust upon him another-however feeble or tenuous its grasp, however slight or contemptuous his perception and recognition of it.

The Great War emphatically registered this fact, with its ruthless inclusion of friend, neutral, and foe within some category of practicable citizenship. In the United States the Selective Service Act, and other legislation as well-to say nothing of the extra-legal practices indulged in under cover of the popular state of mind-permitted no human being to regard himself as immune to effective classification under some sovereignty. The "conscientious objector," the "phil

osophical anarchist," and every sort of philosopher, however much he previously may have imagined himself free to abjure allegiance to government, found that his property, his food, his sons, his own very personal flesh-and-blood, were, after all, not his own, but were subject to conscription by the state. However much his spirit might be of fellowship with the saints of his cult or religion, in all material respects he must render unto Cæsar the things that Cæsar said were Cæsar's.

From the most primitive times this has been so, even if in the America of the happy-go-lucky times of peace it has been lightly regarded or scarcely realized at all. The "gang spirit," under the sway of which men always have held loyalty to the local clan to be one of the chief of obligatory virtues, is of the essence and fabric of group life, and is the tap-root of patriotism. It embodies an allegiance both to blood and to locality. Through the warp of all political history are woven two kindred threads representing these two allegiances; sometimes one, sometimes the otherin later development something of both. The lawyers speak of them as the Jus Sanguinis, the Law of the Blood, and the Jus Solis, the Law of the Soil, and distinguish between them; but both represent the claim of the community upon the loyalty and, if need be, the sacrifice and bodily service of the individual.

A classic illustration of the deeply embedded feeling that man cannot separate himself from the virtues, the sins, and the limitations of his clan, his country, is the tragedy in the valley of Achor, related in the Old Testament Book of Joshua,1 wherein it was held that the sin of Achan the son of Zerah was ipso facto the sin of all Israel. And for the offense of one man,

1 Joshua vi, vii.

Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had; . . . and all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. 1

This, with a vengeance, was a dramatization of the Jus Sanguinis, the Law of the Blood, by virtue of which an individual acquires nationality and civic responsibility through the blood of his ancestry, regardless of the place of his birth!

ROOTS OF POLITICAL SOCIETY

The principle was a natural consequence upon the nomadic life of families and tribes, of primitive groups wandering often in strange and even hostile territory, to whom in absence of fixed abode and boundaries locality was of little importance, but tribal solidarity and unity of purpose and allegiance were vital to defense, to group survival. The family, and after it the clan or group of blood-related families, were the beginnings of political society.

Throughout ancient times the Law of the Blood persisted; the law of citizenship in early Greece and Rome was based upon the idea of family inheritance. But with the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the rise of feudalism, the Jus Sanguinis gradually gave way to a standard of citizenship based upon locality -to Jus Solis, under which a child became ipso facto a citizen or subject of the jurisdiction within which he was born, more or less regardless of the nationality or allegiance of his parents. This was a natural concomitant of feudalism; as the conflicts between military chieftains and groups divided the land into relatively 1 Joshua vii: 24, 25.

definite jurisdictions, and the tenure of territory and the stability of boundaries and peace in the realm depended almost wholly upon military strength, it was to the interest of both lord and vassal to maintain the largest possible forces for defense, and conservation of population depended chiefly upon birth. Even to the peasant subject, maintenance of almost any status quo was comparatively worth while for the sake of the peaceful enjoyment of such home and happiness as were his lot.

INFLUENCE OF EMIGRATION TO AMERICA

Beginning with the period immediately following the French Revolution-which, it should be remembered, was only the most violent and impressive of the upheavals of that general epoch in many parts of Europe -a distinct reaction toward the Jus Sanguinis appeared. This is variously accounted for; but most historians attribute it to a desire on the part of the older countries of Europe to offset the serious loss of subjects threatened by emigration to America, which had begun to tempt adventurous souls by the opportunity for individual liberty and initiative and escape from the tyrannies of feudalism and religious autocracy.

Whatever the reason, the nineteenth century witnessed on the one hand the return of the nations of the Old World to the Law of the Blood, and on the other the development in the New World of the Law of the Soil.

This is a theoretical statement. In point of fact, in the designation of the mode of acquisition or loss of citizenship, no two of the nations of the world are exactly in accord; the most hopeless confusion exists; but with a constant and increasing effort to harmonize the procedure, and now with a good hope that in the

coming days some measure of uniformity may become practicable. In matters of secondary importance, such as the international postal regulations, telegraphic communication and sanitary co-operation, it has been virtually impossible thus far to bring about a common policy. How much more difficult must it be to harmonize the principles of citizenship, involving, as that does, intricate historical and political considerations-immensely complicated by the shifts of boundary due to the war-and the very bases of national existence in the control by the community of the allegiance and the industrial and military service of subjects and citizens?

THE RIGHT TO EMIGRATE

Nevertheless, all countries have in some measure practically recognized the right of the human individual to emigrate, though there have persisted laws and decrees expressing the attempt to retain legal jurisdiction and allegiance. The strength of these efforts depends largely upon whether the basic theory of citizenship has its roots in the Jus Sanguinis or the Jus Solis. For it may be said generally that the nations of the world are divided roughly in this regard by their adherence to the one theory or the other, though we look almost in vain for a pure example of either; in some countries there are interwoven lines of both, and in many it is almost impossible to determine which prevails. For practical purposes, and subject to such modifications as may be made in the era of readjustment upon which the World War has launched us, we may depend upon the following general classification:

The Jus Sanguinis dominates in Austria, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Monaco, Norway, Persia, Rumania, Serbia.