tive country. Their definition of acts against the safety of the state would be whatever they chose to make it. Working in munitions factories, failure to return to the army upon call, persuading another not to return, and many other acts or omissions might easily come within a carefully worded definition.

The right of a state to punish its citizens for crimes committed in foreign countries is well recognized by the authorities in international law, and is a right with the exercise of which, in strictness, other states have nothing to do. It is founded in the right of sovereignty, which in many countries has a personal as well as territorial character. Continental Europe not only asserts exclusive jurisdiction within its own territory, but also claims a right to hold its subject within the grip of its laws wherever he may go, and to enforce them against him when he returns. This doctrine is not peculiar to the states whose system is founded upon the Roman law. The doctrine of exclusive territorial jurisdiction and the corresponding doctrine that the penal laws of a state have no extra-territorial force, must therefore be taken with this important qualification. The personal jurisdiction of a state over its subjects may follow them abroad and expose them to the possibility of being doubly punished for the same offence, or to the risk of being punished when they return home for an act which was innocent where it was performed; and if the laws of their native country provide for trials in absentia, their estates there may be confiscated and their rights of inheritance forfeited in any manner the sovereign pleases.

Even the United States recognizes the possibility of crimes being committed by its citizens in foreign countries and punishable in our courts. According to section 5335 of the Revised Statutes, 'Every citizen of the United

States, whether actually resident or abiding within the same, or in any foreign country, who without the permission or authority of the government directly or indirectly commences or carries on any verbal or written correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government, or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the government of the United States,' and so forth, shall be fined not more than $5000 and imprisoned. Section 1750 provides for the punishment of the crime of perjury when committed by a person making a false oath, affidavit, or deposition in a foreign country before a secretary of legation or consul of the United States residing there; the person is to be tried, convicted, and punished in the United States courts in the same manner as if the act were committed here. Both of these statutes, however, concern the functions of United States diplomatic and consular officers, and are designed to protect those functionaries and the government against any acts which might impair their efficiency. They strengthen the fiction of ex-territoriality, according to which persons in the diplomatic service of their country carry its territory with them.

That the claim of European nations to control the actions of their subjects while residing in foreign countries is not a mere theory, is illustrated by the action of the German government in enacting a law on October 21, 1915, by which every German subject owning or having a share in any merchant vessel was forbidden to sell or in any way dispose of his interest, this law applying to German subjects residing in foreign countries. The principle is not different from that under which Germany

and Austria hold their subjects, working in American munitions factories, to be criminals or even traitors. In view of the fact that any person violating such a law will never dare go back to his native land, it would be a waste of breath to explain to him that the penal laws of a country have no extra-territorial effect.

Thus the United States is in the unfortunate position of having conferred all the privileges and immunities of citizenship upon multitudes of persons who, in spite of a perfunctory and often farcical renunciation of their foreign allegiance, are bound to their home land by ties of blood, of language, of religion, of law, of sentiment, all woven together into character and rooted in the deepest facts of human nature. And we face the possibility of confronting a nation whose perfect unity has been cemented by the blood of a hundred battles, while our own citizenship is diluted with millions whose allegiance is a legal fiction. Had they not been clothed with citizenship, we could in the hour of need expel them or confine them in concentration camps; but as citizens, until they commit some overt act of treason they are entitled to all the rights of the native-born.

It is most unlikely that any considerable part of our naturalized population would in the event of war take up arms for our enemies; beyond a doubt the vast majority to-day think that in such an event they would fight for their adopted country; but in a state governed by public opinion there are a thousand ways in which the arm of the state may be paralyzed without the use of actual force. It is reported in the papers that the Russian government has caused the execution of two hundred German officers in the Russian army, whose presence there, while they were nominally fighting for Russia, was an element of weakness rather

than of strength. The fact that Austria has been obliged to mix Bohemian and other partially disaffected troops in her armies with those of Hungarian and German blood, is doubtless one of the reasons for the poor showing Austria has made in this war.

It would be interesting to speculate on the influence which would be exerted on the conduct of the war if there were in Germany millions of naturalized men and women of English birth, owning their fair share of the wealth, holding many of the most important posts in church and state, in schools and universities, constantly preaching the superiority of everything British over everything German, denouncing the government, prophesying disaster, dissuading men from enlistment, maintaining secret correspondence with the enemy, doing their best to infect the army with locomotor ataxia and neurasthenia. But (one hastens to add) it is unthinkable that Germany would ever be guilty of the imbecility of allowing so dangerous an element to intrench itself so near the sources of power and authority. Our danger is the natural concomitant of a loose democracy, of a political philosophy which refuses to take thought for the morrow, and of an unheard-of prosperity, so widespread and long-continued as to breed an individualism utterly blind to the deeper interests of society as a whole.

III

The weakness of the United States as compared with other countries in the mobilizing of its spiritual forces, is further shown by the different views taken here and abroad of the right of voluntary expatriation. The attitude of the American government, at least of the legislative department, was expressed in the Act of Congress in 1868 declaring it 'an inherent right of all people,'

and declaring that any 'declaration, instruction, opinion, order, or decision of any officer of this government which denies, restricts, impairs, or questions the right of expatriation' is 'inconsistent with the fundamental principles of this government'; and that all naturalized citizens should, while abroad, be entitled to receive from the United States the same protection of person and property that is accorded to native-born citizens in like circumstances and conditions.

This idea of the inherent right of expatriation, however, is not generally recognized, and it requires something more than an act of Congress to give a subject of a European state the right to divest himself of his native allegiance on becoming an American citizen. The government of the United States has not, as a matter of fact, attempted to extend its full protection to naturalized citizens who have gone back to their native countries and have there been seized and compelled to perform military service. The completeness of the exemption from foreign allegiance depends entirely upon the consent of the foreign government to the expatriation of its subjects, and European governments have generally not consented to the emancipation of their subjects from obligations incurred before emigration. The extent to which these obligations still hang over the naturalized American is vague and difficult to state in anything like intelligible form; and even highly educated and intelligent naturalized citizens have often been caught in the meshes of European military rules on their return to their native land. It is altogether probable that over the vast majority of the uneducated the old allegiance hangs like a huge shadow, incapable of statement in definite rules, portentous by reason of its very indefiniteness, and exercising a dominion over the imagination

from which no process of naturalization can absolve them. Our government in actual practice recognizes the possibility that a naturalized American may owe military duties to his native state whose fulfillment it is very likely to demand in case of his return; and it has repeatedly endeavored in vain to extricate such citizens from the clutches of their former governments.

A naturalized citizen who realizes that his adopted country cannot and will not protect him against the claims of his native government, and whose heart still yearns for the land of his birth, is only half a citizen; he is as useless to his country in its hour of need as a sword with a steel blade and a hilt of clay.

Our country furnishes many examples of that curious phenomenon, double allegiance. All persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are declared by the Constitution to be citizens. This is true of the children of non-naturalized aliens domiciled here. But the children of aliens have the same nationality as their parents, according to the laws of nearly all foreign countries, and such children are therefore subject to a double allegiance. In this way, if a German living in this country chooses not to accept the citizenship which we so generously urge upon him, his children born here may, when they grow up, disclaim their American citizenship. A young man born here of alien parents may, if he goes to Europe for study, be forced into the army, and the United States will be powerless to protect him, even though he intends to return and reside here. Even if the alien father be naturalized here, the minor son born here before the father's naturalization, if he returns to his father's native country, is liable to be seized and compelled to perform military service, and his American citizenship will prove to be a mere

fiction. If a German domiciled here is so attached to the memories of the fatherland as to refuse the proffer of American citizenship, and his children while growing up are diligently nurtured in the same sentiments of loyalty, they cannot be relied on by the United States in time of war as Germany and France are now relying on their subjects at home. If in addition to this consciousness of divided allegiance, there are family ties and expectations of inheritance in the old country, it is clear that the Americanism of such persons, considered as an asset in time of war with Germany, must be charged off as worthless, if it be not an actual liability.

IV

Heretofore, most of the questions arising under the naturalization laws have had reference to the duty of the United States to extricate its newly made citizens from difficulties into which they get themselves upon returning to their native land, or in other countries; but the great European war is forcing us to look with some anxiety upon the millions whom we have thus invested with the privileges of citizenship, to see whether their duties and their privileges are reciprocal. We find that many of them seem to think they have conferred a favor upon the United States by accepting its citizenship, with little or no conception of its obligations. They have now two countries instead of one, and are at liberty to evade the burdens of one by seeking shelter under the wing of the other, or to respond to that call which on the whole is most appealing. Germany and France are not fighting this war with soldiers of that kind. Their armies are filled with men whose patriotism is at white heat. So long as all is peaceful the quality of patriotism is not strained;

but when the cannon's roar calls every man to his duty, no man can love two countries: for either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will cleave to the one and despise the other. A country that will not protect its citizens abroad and on the high seas is certain to be despised. A man may have two citizenships in law, but not in his heart of hearts.

Roman citizenship commanded respect wherever in the world it was asserted; American citizenship seems to mean little either to the great Republic which lightly bestows it or to him who casually accepts it. When St. Paul declared himself a Roman citizen and appealed to Cæsar, it created something of a sensation among his persecutors. When the American flag was displayed during the shelling of the Ancona, to inform the Austrians that there were American citizens on board entitled to protection, it was quite naturally disregarded.

Aside from that large number of naturalized citizens who have taken the oath of allegiance honestly, and who fully believe they have cast off the old ties, there is evidently a considerable number who treat their naturalization as a mere convenience, glory in their loyalty to some foreign country, and would embrace the first opportunity to betray us. Warmed at our hearth, accorded all the privileges and opportunities of a free and too generous republic, they would rejoice at a chance to sting us. We trust they are few in number, but we have no means of knowing. We have conferred the boon of citizenship with such undiscriminating recklessness, we have so neglected the culture of the spirit of patriotism, we have so dulled the sense of duty to the state, that the number of those ready to betray us may be larger than we think.

The Supreme Court of Minnesota, as late as 1909, held a man fit for citizen

ship who, though forty-six years of age, did not know whether the President of the United States was George Washington or Theodore Roosevelt, but thought it was Washington; did not know where the capital of the state was located, but thought it was probably Minneapolis or Duluth; did not know who was governor of Minnesota, the state in which he had lived for twenty-four years, or where the laws of Minnesota are made, or who makes them, but guessed it was the governor; did not know what it did not know what it means to take the oath of allegiance to this country; did not know anything whatever about the Constitution, although he had heard of it; admitted that if he took the oath to support the Constitution of the United States he would not know what it meant. The court, with these facts in mind, considered that this man was 'attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States.' With courts of last resort holding such views respecting the sacredness of citizenship; with presidents vetoing every proposal of Congress to adopt a literacy test for immigration; with every corrupt political machine eager to increase the mass of stupid, ignorant, purchasable, criminal, and generally indigestible electors, it is high time we began to look at the matter with a different eye.

In some countries, patriotism has become almost a disease; in the United States, since the inflated Fourth-ofJuly oration went out of fashion, love of country has become almost a jest: any one who uses the phrase is suspected of spouting. There, its abnormal growth has made it the instrument of a monstrous militarism; here, its neglect has exposed us naked to the depredations of any nation which makes war the supreme science.

It is the spiritual resources of a nation that give value to its material resources; of the two, the spiritual are

the more important. There never was a moment during our Revolution when England could not have crushed the Colonies had she been united and determined; what made the outcome of our Civil War dubious was the presence in the North of a vast number of Southern sympathizers, pouring cold water on the national enthusiasm and declaring the war a failure. Success in our next war may be jeopardized by the presence of a large foreign unassimilated element, which, though finding freedom and prosperity among us, is anything but American.

Two lessons seem very plain. The first is that we must reverse our policy in regard to naturalization. Instead of thrusting it upon reluctant immigrants before they have shown any appreciation of its meaning or any desire to become genuine Americans, we should withhold it from the unfit, and when it is mistakenly granted, we should cancel it as having been fraudulently obtained. In the era that may be approaching, we dare not leave the keys to our house in the hands of persons who, while taking advantage of our hospitality, are meditating how to let in the enemy. We must begin to treat American citizenship as a boon, to be conferred only upon those fit to receive it, capable of appreciating it, and willing to assume the sacred obligations that attend it. Hitherto we have degraded it and rendered it contemptible by bestowing it upon multitudes who had no conception of its meaning; and we have made it seem cheap and worthless by hesitating to afford protection to those entitled to claim its shelter. Having bestowed it as a precious thing upon the deserving, instead of timorously and penuriously shirking its national obligations, and counting the cost of making good its promises, we must make it respectable in the eyes of the whole world.