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tack upon any of them. And all the Powers, except China, which had no privilege to sacrifice, renounced opportunities for commercial or political gain in the Far East, and most of them even existing rights and spheres of influence.

The treaties pledging these acts of renunciation are seven in number, and are thus described by President Harding in submitting them to the Senate:

The covenant of limitation to naval
armament between our Republic, the
British Empire, France, Italy, and
Japan.

The treaty between the same Pow-
ers in relation to the use of subma-
rines and noxious gases in warfare.

The treaty between the United States, the British Empire, France, and Japan, relating to their insular possessions and their insular dominions in the Pacific.

A declaration accompanying the Four-Power Treaty reserving American rights in mandated territory.

An agreement supplementary to the Four-Power Treaty defining the application of the term "insular possessions and insular dominions," as relating to Japan.

A treaty between the nine Powers in the Conference relating to principles and policies to be followed in matters concerning China.

A treaty between the nine Powers relating to the Chinese customs tariff. Accompanying the treaties were "the complete minutes of both plenary sessions and committee meetings and a copy of the official report" to the President "by the American delegation to the Conference." As the President pointed out, the transmission of such full accounts of the negotiation of treaties is unprecedented, but it is, to use the President's words, evidence of "that open and simpler diplomacy for which the world has asked and the practice of which contributed largely to the success of the Conference so recently adjourned."

Such renunciation as is recorded in these treaties would not be possible except by agreement among nations which felt themselves warranted in exercising mutual trust. "It was," said the President, "a conference of friends, proceeding in deliberation and sympathy."

In renouncing elements of naval strength the nations were first assured of mutual rènunciation in claims and ambitions. Without limitation in policies there would have been no limitation in battleships. Therefore, as the President declared, "the particular justification of this progressive and highly gratifying step was the settlement of the international problems of the Pacific, attended by new understandings in place of menacing disagreements and established sureties instead of uncertainties which easily might lead to conflict."

The President was stating only a fact, not an opinion, when he said that "the Powers in this Conference sought no concert to dispossess any Power of its rights or properties," and added:

All the signatories have given up certain rights which they had, as

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It is not necessary to remind you that the Conference work was not directed against any Power or group of Powers. There were no punishments to inflict, no rewards to bestow. . . . The conclusions reached and the covenants written neither require nor contemplate compulsive measures against any power in the world, signatory or non-signatory. The offerings are free will; the conscience is that of world opinion; the observance is a matter of national honor.

The effect upon the nations assembled of this practice of mutual renunciation is described by the President as follows:

I can assure you the nine Powers have been brought more closely together, they are stancher neighbors and friends, they have clearer and better estimates of one another; they have seen suspicion challenged and selfishness made to retreat, they have keener and more sympathetic understandings, and they are more strongly willed for right and justice in international relations than ever before.

In particular, the effect of this Conference upon the policies of the United States was thus stated by the President:

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I am not unmindful, nor was the Conference, of the sentiment in this chamber against Old World entanglements. . . . I can bring you every assurance that nothing in any of these treaties commits the United States, or any other Power, to any kind of an alliance, entanglement, or involvement. It has been said, if this be true, these are mere meaningless treaties, and therefore valueless. Let us accept no such doctrine of despair as that. If nations may not establish by mutual understanding the rules and principles which are to govern their relationship; if a sovereign and solemn plight of faith by leading nations of the earth is valueless; if nations may not trust one another, then, indeed, there is little on which to hang our faith in advancing civilization or the furtherance of peace.

Speaking in particular of the FourPower Treaty, which, as he said, "covenants the respect of each nation's rights in relation to its insular possessions," the President pointed out that there was no "war commitment;" for, as he said, "in case of controversy between the covenanting Powers it is agreed to confer and seek adjustment, and if said rights are threatened by the aggressive action of any outside Power, these friendly Powers, respecting one another, are to communicate, perhaps confer, in order to understand what action may be

taken, jointly or separately, to meet a menacing situation."

In dealing with this specific treaty, as with the seven treaties jointly, the President emphasized the fact that there was no international force erected to which to appeal and not even any promise to use national forces in a joint enterprise of enforcement. Although he pointed out the moral warning implicit in a conference of the four Powers, he stated, with a repetition of phrase that seems still to be needed in order to make a simple thing plain, that

There is no commitment to armed force, no alliance, no written or moral obligation to join in defense, no expressed or implied commitment to arrive at any agreement except in accordance with our Constitutional methods.

Recognizing the fact that the United States is a part of the world and "can no more do without international negotiations and agreements in these modern days than we could maintain orderly neighborliness at home without the prescribed rules of conduct which are more the guaranties of freedom than the restraint thereof," the President strongly supported the doctrine that such international negotiations among friendly Powers are more soundly based upon trust than force. He did so by this declaration:

Frankly, Senators, if nations may not safely agree to respect each other's rights, and may not agree to confer if one party to the compact threatens trespass, or may not agree to advise if one party to the pact is threatened by an outside Power, then all concerted efforts to tranquilize the world and stabilize peace must be flung to the winds.

Briefly outlining the events which led in succession to our treaty relations with China, to our peculiar connection with Japan as the opener of her gates to the world, to our acquisition of Hawaii, and to the presence of our flag in Samoa, the Philippines, and Guam, the President showed how the Pacific and its menaces have deeply concerned us and asked, "Why should we not make reciprocal engagements to respect the territory of others and contract their respect of ours, and thus quiet apprehension and put an end to suspicion?" And he added: "I am ready to assume the sincerity and the dependability of the assurances of our neighbors of the Old World that they will respect our rights, just as I know we mean to respect theirs."

This is the Harding doctrine of achievement by renunciation. Whether it is a sound doctrine or not I do not undertake to discuss; I am simply concerned in pointing out what that doctrine is and indicating that it is different from the doctrine of achievement by force and is not to be confused with it. It is this doctrine of renunciation which explains the origin, the proceedings, and the product of the Armament Conference at Washington.

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HUGHES

SIGNING
THE NAVAL

HOLIDAY

TREATY IN THE

ASSEMBLY

HALL OF THE

DAUGHTERS

OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The three others in
the American delega-
tion are standing to
the left of the pic-
ture. Senator Under-
wood in the fore-
ground, just beyond
him Mr. Root, and,
looking over Secre-
tary Hughes's shoul-
der, Senator Lodge.
Facing Secretary

Hughes is John W.
Garrett, Secretary-
General of the Con-
ference

[merged small][graphic][merged small][subsumed][subsumed]

A JAPANESE REPRESENTATIVE SIGNING THE TREATY

Baron Shidehara is standing at the end of the center table preparing to sign. Admiral Baron Kato, who is signing the treaty, is hidden from view. At the corner of the table to the left is Mr. Hanihara, another of the Japanese delegates. At the large table in the shape of a horseshoe is seated, in the farther corner at the left, the Japanese interpreter. To the right of the vacant space is M. Jusserand, the French Ambassador to the United States, and next to him, just around the corner of the table, is M. Sarraut, the head of the French delegation. Next to him are, successively, Senator Underwood, Mr. Root, Senator Lodge (with his hands clasped in front of him), Secretary Hughes, Mr. Balfour (with his face toward the reader). At the extreme right of the picture is Lord Lee of Fareham. Sir Auckland Geddes, the British Ambassador, is represented only by his hand. Along the nearer side of the table, from right to left, are Sir Robert Borden of Canada, Senator Pearce of Australia, Sir John Salmond of New Zealand, Srinavasa Sastri of India, and the three Italian delegatesSenator Schanzer, Ambassador Ricci, and Senator Albertini. Among the ladies in the box beyond the flags is Mrs. Harding. In front of the flags are the American advisers. Under the balcony in the front rows are the French advisers, and in the rear are press representatives

THE GOATS'

OUR FOREIGN-BORN WHO CAN'T BE NATURALIZED, AND WHY

BY PAUL LEE ELLERBE

FORMERLY CHIEF NATURALIZATION EXAMINER AT DENVER

F you work for the Government, there are few things in the gamut

I

of the objectionable that you can't do and brag about afterwards in print, if only you can persuade Congress to pass the right kind of a law on the subject. Nor is this as difficult as the average hundred percenter thinks it is. Every now and then Congress passes a law without knowing what it means, and I have helped enforce at least one of its statutes that nobody knew the meaning of.

You do your bragging in a pamphlet bearing the imprint of the Government Printing Office and the seal of your department. And nobody reads it. That is, nobody who understands it. Except of course those who helped you do the job. And so you are quite safe-unless one of them takes a notion to translate your official cant into plain English.

I'm going to do that to a few pages of the "Annual Report of the Commissioner of Naturalization to the Secretary of Labor. Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1921."

For ten years I worked for the Commissioner. For three years and a half I was one of his chief examiners, in charge of the naturalization work of five Western States. I happen to know what his neat gray annual report really

means.

He says in it that during that year his official force (given by him in 1919 as 2,772 persons) examined 393,888 documents, interviewed half a million people, and handled over a million pieces of mail.

Why? To put it simply, for the purpose of separating the sheep from the goats among the foreign-born people who applied for citizenship. There were 182,637 such people in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1921, and, according to the Commissioner, ten out of every hundred of them were goats. In other words, 18,981 filed petitions for naturalization that were denied.

Nothing short of a trigonometry book could look duller than the table of tiny figures in the lower right-hand corner of which the gist of that information is contained. And yet, if you had stood where I stood for a decade, guarding 164 of the intakes through which these people come into citizenship, watching their faces, hearing their stories, seeing the difficulties that confront them, you'd find those little figures swelling themselves out into an army of 18,981 human beings, and you'd want to know why they were turned back from the Gates of Hope, and whether it was necessary.

The second of two articles by Mr. Ellerbe on the problem of naturalization. Last week we published "Treating 'Em Human."

Suppose, conservatively, that the fortunes of each are linked up with a family of four. That's 76,000 peopleenough to populate Jacksonville, Florida, say-disappointed by our Government in "the fiscal year ended June 30, 1921." And just for a rough approximation, suppose the figures were the same every year; the total for the last ten years would be 760,000, which is more people than there are in the State of North Dakota.

Now disappointed people are a nuisance, even when they are as voiceless and as patient and forgiving as the foreign-born population of America. They are a kind of slow poison. A standard of reasonable efficiency demands that we turn out no more of them

than necessary. Was it necessary to disappoint these 760,000? If it was, we've got a good thing in our elaborate protective machinery, with its official force of 2,772, its 393,888 documents examined, its million pieces of mail handled, and half a million people interviewed per annum.

Well, it wasn't.

Of the fifteen reasons for denial enumerated by the Commissioner, two go unequivocally into the merits of the matter, "Immoral Character" and "Ignorance." "Immoral Character" speaks for itself. And "Ignorance" covers those who didn't appear to know enough to exercise the rights of citizenship intelligently. Those are real reasons why we need a naturalization service: to keep out the morally undesirable and those who don't care enough about us to understand our system of government. How many of them did that official force of 2,772 find during 1921? A little more than half a one apiece. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, out of 182,637 who applied. A trifle more than one per cent.

What were the other 17,142 citizenship seekers denied for?

By far the largest number, 5,215, almost one-third, for-what would you suppose? "Want of Prosecution." That is, they paid their money, filed their petitions for naturalization, and then gave up. If there was any way to make Congress realize the poignancy and the volume of deferred hope hidden behind those figures (for one year alone!), things might be changed. It can only be suggested here.

Why did they give up, these 5,215 alien friends who spent their money and their time getting themselves legally on record to the effect that they wanted to be Americans? Out of an intimate and extended personal knowledge I give you the answer for nearly

all of them in two words: Red tape. If you had it wound about your neck as tightly as I used to have to help wind it about theirs, you'd give up too.

The whole of the naturalization routine is printable only in a neat gray pamphlet, but consider the simplest possible statement of the most important parts of it.

Leaving entirely out of consideration the great gaunt West, where some of the naturalization courts hold hearings only once a year, and where I have known homesteaders, too poor to own horses and waiting for citizenship in order to prove up on their land, walk twenty-five miles every time they were called to court-leaving all that out entirely, consider what you'd have to do if you were an alien and applied for citizenship anywhere in the United States.

The actual work of naturalization is done by the courts. The report before me says that there were 2,265 of them attending to it in 1921. The first thing would be to go before the clerk of one within whose jurisdiction you resided, pay a dollar, and file a declaration of intention, or first paper, declaring your intention to renounce your own country and, in due time, to join this one.

Then, not less than two nor more than seven years thereafter, you'd follow that up by paying four dollars and filing in the same or, in case you had moved, in another court a petition stating that you had been in the United States at least five years and in the State of filing at least one year, and that you were attached to the principles of the Constitution, and a good deal more. You'd have to have two witnesses, citizens of the United States, verify your petition by signing affidavits to the effect that they had known you five years in this country and had personal knowledge that you were a person of good moral character, etc.

That done, you and your witnesseswho might very possibly have stood in line for many hours to get to the clerk's desk-would have to go to the office of the Chief Naturalization Examiner and be thoroughly examined all over again. This might be the same or another day. Very frequently it's another day, and takes the whole of it, for you and your witnesses. And often you have to pay the wages your witnesses lose, and their traveling expenses if a journey is necessary on filing day and then on examination day.

Yes, and then again on hearing day, and if your case happens to be continued, on two hearing days, or more. For the next step is the hearing of your case in open court, before the judge, at least

three months after you filed your petition..

Again you'd have to see all that in terms of human beings to know what it means, and I haven't the space to try to make you. But perhaps this bare outline will give you a hint of why 5,215 petitions were denied in 1921 for "Want of Prosecution," and at the same time serve as a background for explanations of the other causes of denial.

The next largest one is "Miscellaneous." Four thousand six hundred and fifty-two under that. One thousand seven hundred and thirty-six of these, the Commissioner says, were "reported denied because claimed exemption from military service on account of alienage." The reasons for the denial of the other 2,916 would require an article in themselves. They are akin to those examined here.

Then comes "Incompetent Witnesses." Three thousand and fifty-eight cases denied for that. The witnesses turned out not to have the personal knowledge of the applicants required by the statute. Nearly all of them thought they had it; swore they had it; acted in good faith. I have examined thousands of them, and I know that to be true. Wouldn't you

think that when it was discovered that they were honestly mistaken the men whose petitions they verified would be allowed to go out and get other, competent witnesses to take their places and go on and complete the process begun so often at the cost of so much time and money and inconvenience? How would the great Republic suffer? But not a bit of it. The 3,058 petitions so verified all had to be denied, the time spent wasted, and the (at least) $12,232 paid in lost. (Heaven only knows what the amount really was-it might easily have run to $100,000 with wages what they were.)

And the only thing the applicants could do was to begin again by filing new petitions. And in the meantime of course the declarations of intention of many of them had expired and had to be renewed, and that meant an additional delay of just two years. No wonder some of them feel that they are caught in a vicious circle of alienage from which there is no escape.

Perhaps you will turn hopefully to the next most important heading in the Commissioner's table of figures. You will not find sustenance there for our American quality of optimism. You will learn from it that during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1921, 1,848 petitions for naturalization were denied on account of "Declaration Invalid." "Declaration" is declaration of intention, or first paper. Most of these 1,848, and all other invalid declarations, were either invalid the day they were made, on account of the mistakes of the clerks who issued them, or became invalid by the lapse of the statutory seven years, and in either event should not have been accepted by the clerks who subsequently permitted their holders to use them as bases for peti

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tions for naturalization. But just the same this whole army of people had to go through all the process I have outlined and get an official order of denial over the hand of the Court before they could find that out.

Six hundred and twenty-five cases were denied because of "Petitioners' Motion;" that is, the people who filed them asked that they be denied-for some reason or other gave up hope and withdrew.

"Deceased." Five hundred and thirtythree of those in 1921. One would like to know how long their petitions had been pending when they died.

Then comes "Insufficient Residence," with 313 turned back for that. They had not "resided continuously within the United States for five years and within the State for one year immediately preceding the dates of their petitions." Some of them went back to the old countries for visits, some of them left the States in which their petitions were filed on business trips and for other reasons. But they didn't conceal it. If they couldn't be naturalized, why not tell them so and save them all that journeying and standing in line and filing and paying and oath taking?

I suppose it's because they aren't Americans and rarely protest, and the rest of us are too concerned with other matters to protest for them.

"Already a Citizen." Doesn't it seem that we could devise some way whereby a man who was already a citizen of a nation as intelligent as this one could establish his title to that status without going through the complicated process of applying for what he already had and

setting in motion the whole machinery of a court? Yet 274 citizens of the United States, in order to prove themselves such, had to do just that during the year under consideration. They were people the record of whose naturalization had been destroyed, who came into citizenship through the operation of some obscure or ambiguous statute, etc., etc. The Naturalization Service investigated the facts in the case of every one of them. Why not confer upon that service the power to issue immediately at the close of such investigations satisfactory proofs of citizenship? It is very much better equipped to pass upon points of this kind than are the courts, which in ninety-nine per cent of such cases only follow its recommendations, anyhow.

To carry on the story, 261 of them were denied without protest in 1921 for "No Jurisdiction." Which simply means that careless clerks let them file (and pay!) in the wrong courts, or else that they had to move to other parts of the country after filing and were penalized for it.

"No Certificate of Arrival" is perhaps the extremest instance of injustice in this exhibit. A certificate of arrival is a piece of paper issued by the Department of Labor to aliens who arrived in the United States after June 29, 1906. But the Department of Labor does not give these certificates to the aliens at the time they arrive, nor, in fact, at any time at all, but issues them only when the aliens have signified their readiness to file petitions for naturalization, and then only upon written application made through the clerks of the natural

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