It would require a very long list of names to give specific mention of all those who have rendered substantial aid in gathering the information on which this volume is based. The Commissioner of Naturalization, Mr. Richard K. Campbell; the former Director of Citizenship, Mr. Raymond F. Crist, and the chief examiners under their direction, have done all in their power to afford information and other assistance. Several hundred judges of naturalization courts in all parts of the country, took pains to answer our questionnaire and personal letters on special questions. Students of immigration and naturalization problems have been ungrudging in their co-operation. The tedious and painstaking work of compiling the information contained in more than 26,000 petitions for naturalization, analyzed in the statistical chapters of this book, was done more especially under the direction of Professor Raymond Moley, then at Western Reserve University, Cleveland; Hornell Hart, of Cincinnati; Professor S. C. Kohs, of Reed College, for Portland, Oregon; Professor T. T. Waterman, of the University of the state of Washington, for Seattle, and Professor L. H. Hawkins, of Clark University, for Worcester, Mass. Aside from the service of these volunteer assistants, thanks are due in more than perfunctory manner to the members of the staff of the Americanization Study who devoted long hours to this exacting task. Professor Moley compiled most of the material used in the chapter on the legal aspects of citizenship, and afforded information of the utmost value woven into other parts of this volume. The thanks of the author are due in particular to his personal associates in the work, Mr. Paul Lee Ellerbe, formerly Chief Naturalization Examiner at Denver, and Miss Elizabeth Miner King, then of the staff of the New York Evening Post, now Mrs. Harold Phelps Stokes, of Washington, D. C. JOHN PALMER GAVIT AMERICANS BY CHOICE AMERICANS BY CHOICE I OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL From the point of view of citizenship there are two kinds of Americans--those who are American involuntarily by birth, and those who are _American by choice_. This book devotes itself to those who have become Americans not by birth, but of their own free will and accord, by that process of voluntarily adopting a fatherland known as Naturalization. It endeavors to tell generally what happens to them in that process, and something of what they do and contribute to our _political_ life after they have been admitted to active membership in our body politic.