Evening star., 1926-10-12
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
RY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

and dual citizenship is one of the
most complicated problems or Gov
ernment. AS an illustration of how
complicated it may become, is clted
the instance of a native California
lady who married a Canadian living
in California but not naturalized. She
thereby lost her American citizen
ship and acquired that of her hus-
band-Canadian Later the husband
became a naturaliZed American. but
the law, at that time. did not permit
the wife to be naturaliZed, although
q born American.
She lost her Canadian rights with
out acquiring American rights. If
she wanted to travel abroad she
could not get a visa either from
America or Canada, and if she were
imposed upon abroad she could not
claim protection from any country
not even of her native land. (See
Mackenzie VS.. Hare) The wisdom
of the United States Supreme Court
found that the lady had not been
compelled to marry Mr.. Mackenzie,
hence she got herself into all that
tangle by her voluntary aCt-she
should have married n Yankee--which
raises the question as to what the
Supreme Court knows about "lovin."
as kipling says about the English
maids. i'm comparison with the East
Indian maidenS.
The latest American law upon the
subject of citizenship under mar
riage with aliens is the Cable act.
passed in 1923, which was criticized
by Prof. Garner I'm the course Of a.
discussion in the meeting of the
American Society of International
Law last April:
First of all, it produces a number
or stateless women. which 1t ought
not to do. Any country. in my opin-
ION, which deliberately enacts legisla-
ton the effect of which is to donation
alize any class of its own citizens or
| the nationals of other countries for no
| offenSe whatever il seems to me. is
committing an act of public immoral.
! lty. That is what the Cable act does,
! In the second place, it produces a
class of women who have two ma
| tionalities. do not consider that very
! serious. Any person who is blessed
with a double nationality has no rea-
son to worry"
| Not all statesmen agree that do,I-
bic nationality is a blessing. nor that
it is consistent with sound public
policy, for citizenship involves al
| legiance and duty aside from war or
| property. In the same discussion,
Prof. Philip Marshall Brown said:
! Mr. Chairman. this subject has in
! terested me enormously of late, in
view of the rather large list of appli-
cations which the Permanent Court OF
| international Justice has received
from individuals who are without any
| redress whatever In regard to their
! nationality, property rights and other
interests, who find them
| selves not only without any rights but
without any agent to represent them"
| Mr.. Richard w. Flournoy, assistant
| solicitor Of the Department of State.
opened the discussion above men.
| toned and in the course of his anal
ysis of the situation he criticized the
socalled model statute" evolved by
the International Law Association as
| a basis for international law codifca-
ton. He found that the proposed
model statute made nationality at
birth based primarily upon jus soil
place of birth-rather than jus san
| guinis- He added:
at appears to the writer that the
rule proposed by the International
Law Association is also subject TO the
second objection mentioned above, To-
| the rule proposed by the American
| able that a person born within n
country should. while remaining
domiciled therein. be divested Of the
nationality of that country. either by
, his own act or the act Of his parent.
! "As to our country, there are mil
lions Of persons in the United States
who were born in this country of alien
| parents It is believed that this coun-
try would never agree that such per-
sons should be divested Of their
American nationality while they re-
main domiciled in this country
"The subcommittee of the League
| of Nations seems to have despaired or
devising any rule for preventing or
terminating dual nationality which
| would be acceptable to all or most
countries. The proposed convention
prepared by it merely contained
statement in Article l to the effect
that person having dual nationality
cannot be protected by one Of the
countries claiming his allegiance
against a claim made by the other and
statements in the following four ar
ticles, concerning the status OF chill
dren of diplomatic officers and other
officials. children of unknown parents
or parents whose nationality Is un-
known, children born abroad who
have not their parents nationality
and persons having dual nationality
who are in third countries"a
Where the League of Nations fears
to tread some critics rush In, to de-
mand war, If Europe touches one Of
our naturalized "duals" who failed to
keep out Of foreign jurisdiction. Let
us have peace"'
Copyright 1926. by Paul v. collin.A