New-York tribune., 1910-05-23
SCIENTIFIC BATTLE
OVER PARSEE'S RIGHTS
Government Goes Deep in Eth
noIogy to Oppose BaIsara's
Contest for Citizenship.
BROWN SKIN RACES AID HIM
Furnish Money to Fight Test
Case - Principal Question
the Meaning of Free 4,
White Persons

VIC ASdu4uS VI EISS
White Persons"
Whether Bhicaji Franyi Balsara is a
free white person and hence entitled
to citizenship will come UP before the
United States Circuit Court of Appeals
this week at the Federal Building on an
appeal by the government from a deci-
sion of Judge Lacombe on June of last
year. Judge Lacombe admitted Balsara
70 citizenship. The government deter
mined to make a test case of it, and the
research OF Addison S. Pratt and Carl
Z Whitney, of the staff of Henry a.
Wise, the United States Attorney, to es-
tablish their case took them to the Con-
gressional Library at Washington, where
! they deIved for a. week into ancient and
modern chronological works.
! Balsara has as counsel Rounds &
! Schurrnan, and Louis Marshall and Max
J. Kohler have been retained by Syrians
| interested in the case. Their prepara-
tions have been extensive and the eth
biological tangle will call forth a scientific
battle in striking contrast to the sugar
fraud trial which is being conducted in
the same building. The whole Syrian
colony and other races with brown skins,
have moved to aid the Parsee with funds,
for they feel that their citizenship is at
stake.
Fears loophole for Brown Men.
If the case is taken to the United
States Supreme Court the decision by
that body will take its place in the liter
ature relating TO the races of men, their
descent, divisions and place in the great
man-family of the earth. The case has
significance apart from the mere admis
sion OF Balsara. The decision will es-
tablish a precedent for the immigration
Commissioner and for the courts in their
naturalization proceedings. Balsara is
Parsee. one of the hundred thousand or
SO of the race left in and about Bombay.
India. IF he is admitted it is believed
by the government that a loophole for
the naturalization of little brown men
and big brown men will be made.
There is q bill before Congress amend
ing the statutes so that no chronological
qufbble may be possible, whether in or
out of the courts, so far as the principle
of naturalization IS concerned. This bill
lis H. R 24.075, amending Section 2,169,
Revised Statutes of the United States. to
read:
And Mongolians, Malays and other
Asatics, except Ar1nenians, Assyrians
and Jews, shall not be naturalized in the
United States
Hitherto the free white persons in
the statute as desirable citizens was
supposed to mean any Caucasian. which
in turn was supposed to mean almost
anybody not an Ethiopian or of Ethi-
opian descent. Just what the trainers of
the original law meant had to be gone
over as completely as possible, and in
order to find this out it was necessary
for Mr. Whitney and Mr.. Pratt to dis
cover what works on ethnology were
accessible TO the trainers of the law
The counsel for the government in pre-
senting their case say:
Meaning of Free White Persons"
THE principal, if not the only, ques-
ton is the meaning of the phrase free
white persons as used in the naturaliza-
ton acts. It was q, phrase in more or
the original thirteen states prior to the
passage of the acts under consideration,
and so we turn naturally to it's meaning
when so used It has been held by the
courts and the appellee and interyenors
so contend that by white persons Con-
gress meant 'Caucasians.
The government counsel insist that the
term Caucasian" was not coined until
after the phrases free white persons" had
been in use some time; that although
"C'aucasisn'' had been used before 1890
it could not have been known TO Con-
gress at that time. They further declare
that encyclopedias, gazetteers, geogra-
phies and histories of the period when
the enactment occurred referred to a
European race" which was synonomous
with the white race" and that all au-
thors of the eighteenth century consid-
cred the races or peoples to which Bal
sara belongs, as well as other Asiatics,
to be not white, but dark.
The amount of reading necessary to
arrive at the conclusion that Balsara IS
not a white person under the act is evil
dent in the brief. and the deduction that
Congress in 1890 could not have known
of the classification of Caucasian" al
though the WORD was coined in 1871 by
German ethnologist, Blumenbach, is
based upon the later publication Of the
work and the fact that the first transla-
tion was not made into English until
1926 in London.
No Outside Room for Parsee-
The reason for this particularly re-
parding the knowledge of the word and
designation meant by Caucasian" is
shown bv the definition by the man who
coined the term. Blumenbach gives it
as follows:
colour more or less white, with forid
cheeks. hair long. soft and brown, run
ming on the one hand into white. on the
| other hand into black; according to the
European ideas of beauty the form of
+be face and skull most perfect It in
| clu6es all Of the Europeans with the ex-
cention OF the Laplanders; the Western
| asiaties on this side of the Oh. the Cas-