The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-11
THE MAKING OF CITIZENS.

For a month or more frantic efforts
political organizations and committees
to secure to those foreigners who have
come to this country to make a living
the additional privilege Of becoming
citizens of the republic. The singular
thing in all this scurrying about for
the unnaturalized, this crowding Of
the courts into special night sessions,
this grinding out citizens from this
mass of raw material in the most per-
functOry manner, a hundred or more
being made at sitting-the singular
aspect, we say, is that these persons
should have TO be hunted out, urged
to become citizens and induced to con-
sent by the promise that the process
shall cost them nothing. Is, then, citi-
zenship in the greatest republic of the
globe, the 'grandest of all history, so
valueless a thing that men coming here
to make their homes, raise families and
gain livelihoods have to be coaXed and
honeyed into and paid for accepting it?
Is American citizenship become so
cheap a thing as that?
And then go into one of these courts
and witness the perfunctory manner
in which this process of conversion
goes on. a set Of stock questions,
framed to meet the requirements Of
the federal law, are put to the wit
nesses which the Indifferent applicant
for citizenship presents, asked in the
hurried manner and tone of a querist
caring rather for speed than for infor-
nation on which to base judicial &C
ton; the whole proceeding an ex parte
one, no one there to represent the
cause of citizenship in the republic and
to test the truthfulness of the testi-
mony offered as to character and fit
ness, and the farce ending with the
administration Of the oath Of renun-
citation of the foreign king, prince or
potentate and of allegiance to the
United States, ratified off at break-neck
speed, jumbled, inarticulate. Thus are
citizens made in this great republic
from the raw material of foreign coun-
tries. The later drift is toward re-
striction of this privilege of member
ship. Congress passed a bill intended
to severely limit the incoming, a bill
vetoed by President Cleveland for suf-
ficient reasons, not touching the gen.
eTal principle. The very amendment
rush of business to the naturalizing
side of the court is due was an ex-
preston of the voters in favor Of
greater precautions around admission
to citizenship. Societies exist for the
purpose of securing legislation restrict
ing the mere coming of foreigners here,
not to mention their becoming of US.
And, in contrast to all that, we have
this vigorous hunt for the unnaturaliz-
ed.
A contemporary puts under the sug-
gestive headline Job Lot Naturaliza-
ton not a stout protest against this
degradation Of membership in our re-
public, but a whimsical complaint that
st. Paul courts are being used to grind
the grist instead of those of Minneap-
oils, and that the fees go to the clerks
of courts of the former instead of the
latter city. It manages to reach the
conclusion that this job-lot process Of
making citizens of these Indifferent
and reluctant foreigners is not in har-
mony with our laws. But the remedy
lies with the judges of the court. Adj
mission is a judicial act, and should
be made one. Some of them apply it.
Judge Dallas, in the case of Bodek,
held that the requirement of the oath
to support the constitution presuppos-
ed and required "such an understand
Ing Of the constitution as is essential