The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1919-07-04
Duties OF American
Citizenship
BY JUDGE LESLIE L. BURR


term american citizen meant as
much at it does now. Also, there has
perhaps never been a time when APP
plicants for citizenship have received
the close scrutiny that they do today.
Becoming an American citizen used
to be considered more or less as a
matter of mere form. The alien re-
sided the requisite number of years
in the United States, his application
was made, and in due time he receiv-
ed American citizenship, and became
a voter. In some parts of the United
States, where the principal political
parties were of about equal power
and the public conscience at a low
ebb,-it vas about as difficult for any
alien prospective voter to avoid be
coming an American Citizen as it
was for a school boy to escape the
measles. Those were the times when
the politicians were looking for votes,
and not for citizens.
But the days when any alien could
become a citizen are things of the
past. The years of war that the world
has just experienced have opened the
eyes of the people of the United
States, to the fact that an applicant
for citizenship must in fact be at
tached to the principles of the Con-
stitutiOn of the United States. Also,
the ideas Of the people of the entire
civilized world have changed in re-
gard 10 forms of governments. 1t
used 10 be, that any form of govern
ment,-provided the people living
hereunder were not too badly OPP
pressed was considered as all right.
Democracy those days was just a
term, and did not in the mind of the
average thinking person constitute Il
vital principle as it does today. For
our awakening we have to thank the
German kaiser,-as it is doubtful
whether anything less than the great
war just ended could have focused
the attention of the world on the mat
ter of form and structure of govern
ment, as it now is. In fact, the
various governments of the world
are now on trial. There has perhaps
never been a time when there was
as much dissatisfaction and unrest
among the people of the civilized ma
tons rs now exists.
Whiln thn nhinot nf thic nrtio1o Sc
not the troubles of the monarchies of
the old world,-or the theories of the
revolutionary parties that are turn
ing Asia t~opsy-turvy, but to discuss
American citizenship,-yet autocracy
and anarchy are the two rocks be-
tween which the ship of American
craftsmanship must be steered.
Autocracy is a government wherein
democracy is lacking,-and Bolshev-
ism is where democracy being denied
the people they refuse to suffer
alone,-and so tear down the govern
ment that has previously dominated
them. The first is mob rule from the
top, the second mob rule from the
bottom. Democracy occupies the
middle ground, where all the people
rule.
AS a democracy, the United States
is entitled to first place. Not only
have we the people and the wealth,
but our democracy is not hedged in
by having an hereditary chief execu-
tive, OF the balance of power in our
Legislative halls in the hands of a
body of nobility. The sovereign pow
er of the United States is lodged in
an American sovereign, for collective
ly the American citizens are the
sovereign power of the United States.
1t necessarily follows then, that the
American citizen must be capable of
exercising that sovereignty, if the
wheels of government are to run true.
And the qualities needed by the Am
erican citizen, that this may be so,
are two in number and
integrity: intelligence that he may
know what he is doing, and integrity,
that he may honestly use the power
his citizenship gives him.
AS between a lack of intelligence
and a lack of integrity among its
citizens, the United States perhaps
suffers the most by reason of the lat
ter. 1t is easier to impart knowledge
to a man than it is character. Yet,
perhaps most of the lack of integrity
is caused by a lack of intelligence.
For example, there is a general idea
current among certain classes of our
inhabitants that the Government is
an institution that should always be
taken advantage of. 70 put anything