Americanization; Civics; Immigrants -- United States; Naturalization -- United States; Noncitizens -- United States
... are men who have had such opportunities to acquire knowledge
of our language and of our institutions of government, and to
adopt American customs, as their environments permitted. They
have not been passing their lives within the four walls of their
homes; they have had a much greater opportunity for contact with
the American public than the foreign-born women. The husband may
have gone to the public schools of his community and acquired a
practical equipment not only of our language, but of such character
as is attained through what is usually called a “common-school
education.” Because he has acquired these qualifications for
American citizenship he may be admitted. His admission to
citizenship confers a like right upon his wife to exercise the
franchise to-day in those states where suffrage is universal.
To-morrow, when that right is acquired by all, the conferring of
citizenship upon the wife will also enfranchise her.
The man has to pass an increasingly rigid examination; he is
_personally_ put through a severe inspection of his antecedents, his
character, his personal opinions. His wife becomes a citizen without
any examination whatever. The most meticulously particular court, the
most painstaking naturalization examiner, cannot prevent her becoming
a citizen and a voter without excluding the husband, who may, on his
own account, be exceptionally desirable.
The Director of Citizenship goes on to say:
Generally the foreign-born women reside in an atmosphere and an
environment wholly foreign. They have no opportunity, as a rule,
to come into any sort of contact with American thought. They
are as though they had never left their European homelands and
were still in their native cities and towns. However much their
condition of ignorance of our language, customs, or governmental
institutions may be in evidence, they are, nevertheless, clothed
with full American citizenship upon the naturalization of their
husbands. There are approximately 2,000,000 women who will receive
citizenship through the naturalization of their husbands within
the next few years, and the addition of such a large number of
citizens who know nothing whatsoever of their responsibilities
presents a grave problem, and one which should be given the most
attentive consideration by the legislative body. It would seem
to be advisable to have some restrictive measure provided in the
admission to citizenship that would condition the admission of
a married man to the responsibilities of citizenship upon the
qualifying of his wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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