Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1907-10-02
Population of Los Angeles 100000
NATURALIZATION

doubtless will be handled vigor-
ously in congress next winter
whatever may be the result-for OBJ
vious reasons is closely related to the
question of alien naturalization. The
naturalization law now in force hardly
will strike the student of sociology as
a particularly luminous or statesman
like presentfnent. However, it is what
1t is and, on its face, appears to indi-
cate determination on the part of it's
trainers that the future American shall
be exclusively white, negro or mon
grel to the extent that denial of natur-
alization to more or less tinted peoples
who cannot show African birth or gen.
esis can be made to accomplish that
black, white and yellow purpose.
Section 2169 of the United States re-
vised statutes. as amended in 1875,
restricts the right to naturalization to
"aliens being free white persons and to
aliens of African nativity and to per-
sons of African descent" One does
not have to be a professor of ethnology
to detect in that provision a whole lot
of obscurity. Does it mean that Africa,
geographically considered, is to be the
measure, or is Africa" to be taken
merely as the birthplace of the negro
race for the purposes of the law?
That matter ought to be cleared up,
because no end of native people are
born, live in and descend from Africa
who are not negro or even negroid.
Some Moorish tribes and some of the
Arabs are instances. Again, persons
of African descent are not confined to
this and adjacent countries; what about
Papuan or negroid races of the Pacific
and Indian oceans? There are hordes
of them and their African descent is
as demopstrable and visible as will be
that of the South Carolina delegation
in the next Republican national con-
vention. \ The same may be said of
some other islanders usually classed
as among the Polynesians. 1t is diff
ficult to see how we are to eagerly
confer citizenship upon the chimpan-
ziac product of the Guinea coast and
in the same breath refuse 1t to his
conqueror from New Guinea, the Solo,
mon islands and Fiji
AS regards it's alternative proposition
the law is a tri1e more transparent,
since everybody thinks he should know
free white alien on sight in the dark
still there may be small question
as to what the statute means or would
be held to mean should ever it wander
into the supreme court.
Blumenbach, in his chronological sys-
TEN, Classics most European peoples
and Circassians, Georgians, Armenians,
Persians. Jews and Hindus as consti-
tuting the Caucasian race and that is
the one generally regarded as the
white race" Webster's dictionary de-
fines Caucasian" as "of or pertaining
to the white races of mankind, of whom
the people about Mt. Caucasus were
formerly taken as the type" Now if
we are to accept white and eau
casian" as synonymous terms and rec
ognize Hindus as both, according to
chronological authority, then we should
welcome our oppressed racemates from
Bellingham and Vancouver and allow
them to declare their intentions with
out delay.
Perhaps most readers are unaware
that the aboriginal inhabitants of
Japan. the Anus, who still are found
in diminished numbers in the northern
part of the empire, are absolutely white
and are regarded as of undoubted
Caucasian origin. Although hopeless
barbarians the Anus are "free white
persons and no doubt entitled to
American citizenship. should they ask
for it in the regular way; while the
intelligent people of Japan are classed
as Monaghan and colored and are rig
orously barred. In his classification of
people belonging to the white or eau
casian race Blumenbach excludes the
Firms and the Hungarians because
they are of Turanian and not Aryan
stock; but he goes step farther and
includes the Jews who also are nom
Aryan and are Semitic and excludes
the Turks who likewise are non-Aryan
Semitic and Of exactly the same race
and family as the Jews. only differing
from them in point OF religion. In
making this exception the suspicion is
excusable that Blumenbach may have
stumbled over his own name; at any
rate between him and the naturaliza.
tion law there Is the aspect of a mud
die. If. for example. the Hungarian
are not Caucasians and. hence, no
white. then it is sadly to be feared
that nearly everybody in this country
including the then Shareholders of tn.
south, made terrible break in enter
tanning and feting Louis Kossuth whel
he visited the United States. becaus
now we see that on strictly ethnoiog
ical ana statutory grounds he may hav
been eolored person in disguise.