So much for standards. What have we done about states’ rights? In the chapter on the American Vote, I have dealt with the confusion between our state and Federal voting laws. We have a more serious problem in the economic imprint we have permitted states and cities to put upon citizenship. As a result of these laws citizenship has become in many states a kind of economic patchwork. In order to preserve certain rights, advantages, and fields of effort to native-born and naturalized citizens, we have made certain discriminations against aliens which have resulted in a purely commercial incentive to citizenship or evasions of law. As illustrative of America’s attitude in these matters, let us take public service. Aliens are shut out from public service by several laws and many municipal ordinances. The state laws are sometimes very sweeping, excluding the alien from employment in any capacity in any department of the state. In California, for instance, only citizens may be employed in any department of the state, county, city, or town. This law was invoked last winter to prevent the payment of salaries of several Canadians who had been employed as teachers in the public schools. This law was later amended, allowing aliens who had made their declaration of intention to be employed as teachers and exempting the University of California from the operation of the act. State civil service laws prescribe citizenship as a qualification in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The Federal civil service law has a similar requirement. In most states these laws apply to unskilled labor on public improvements, road building and ditch digging, even where sublet by the city to a contractor. The result is a wholesale evasion of the law, made necessary in order for the city to get its work done. The alien knows he is a law breaker and gets his first lesson in American law enforcement. He works in peace and security while some one else pays the necessary fines. If the worst happens, he applies for his first papers and then works under an injunction until the law can be interpreted or amended--which is done if labor is very scarce.