“It would introduce great confusion in certain parts of the law,” objects a Federal judge in New England. “We favor no such pussy-willow policy,” answers one Ohio judge, who, by the way, would require “twenty-one years’ continuous residence,” admit at all “only heads of families with children,” and generally “make it harder for foreigners to become naturalized.” “Few men,” objects a judge in Indiana, “would feel right toward either the government or his wife (_sic_). Few men have reached that stage of mind where he would be satisfied with such preference.” “With the husband of one nationality, and the wife of another, what would be the nationality of the children?” demands a New Jersey judge. “What laws would govern the taking of personal property or the inheritance of real estate? A citizen married woman might have an alien enemy husband!” A Federal judge in Maryland dwells upon the physical fact, that the children are a joint product, even though husband and wife are separate individuals. And he seems to think that both of the questions imply the opening of large danger, in respect of the enforcement of Chinese and Japanese exclusion, though he does not say why or how such a peril would arise. From a Texas judge and many others come warnings that such a policy would give rise to endless domestic friction. An Alabama judge would cut round this by permitting the woman’s declaration of her desire to be or remain an American citizen, notwithstanding the alienage of her husband, to naturalize her minor children. The general trend of opinion among the judges is to the effect that the institution of woman suffrage has abolished the old idea that the wife must accept her politics from her husband. As one Nebraska judge puts it: It is an outrage that the status of the wife should be influenced by that of the husband. A man and wife are two; we long since departed from the theory that they are one. 650,000 “DERIVATIVE VOTERS” EXTANT The logic of the situation in which we find ourselves seems inexorable. Whatever the theory upon which a woman takes the nationality of her husband, the fact is that once she has been naturalized and become available as a voter, she is potentially as much a force for good or ill politically as he. However much pains may have been taken to ascertain and certify his fitness, she comes in substantially without examination, without any of the precautions which are at least presumed to protect the ballot box from unfit or unworthy approach.