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provided he appears with his two witnesses before the appropriate representative of the Bureau of Naturalization and passes the preliminary examination hereby required before filing his petition for naturalization in the office of the clerk of the court, and in each case the record of this examination shall be offered in evidence by the representative of the government from the Bureau of Naturalization and made a part of the record at the original and any subsequent hearings; and, except as otherwise herein provided, the honorable discharge certificate of such alien, or person owing permanent allegiance to the United States, or the certificate of service showing good conduct, signed by a duly authorized officer, or by the masters of said vessels, shall be deemed prima facie evidence to satisfy all of the requirements of residence within the United States and within the State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, and good moral character required by law, when supported by the affidavits of two witnesses, citizens of the United States, identifying the applicant as the person named in the certificate or honorable discharge, and in those cases only where the alien is actually in the military or naval service of the United States, the certificate of arrival shall not be filed with the petition for naturalization in the manner prescribed; and any petition for naturalization filed under the provisions of this subdivision may be heard immediately, notwithstanding the law prohibits the hearing of a petition for naturalization during thirty days preceding any election in the jurisdiction of the court.

It will be noted in this connection that in addition to the repeal of the requirement of the declaration of intention, the requirement of residence is either modified or omitted, and the period of time required by the former Act eliminated.

But it may happen that an alien meeting the other requirements of the amending Act is not in a position to present himself in person before the clerk of the court, and to take the oath of allegiance in open court, according to the provisions of the original Act. Therefore, the last portion of this section provides that:

Any alien, who, at the time of the passage of this Act, is in the military service of the United States, who may not be within the jurisdiction of any court authorized to naturalize aliens, may file his petition for naturalization without appearing in person in the office of the clerk of the court and shall not be required to take the prescribed oath of allegiance in open court. The petition shall be verified by the affidavits of at least two credible witnesses who are citizens of the United States, and who shall prove in their affidavits the portion of the residence that they have personally known the applicant to have resided within the United States. The time of military service may be established by the affidavits of at least two other citizens of the United States, which, together with the oath of allegiance, may be taken in accordance with the terms of section seventeen hundred and fifty of the Revised Statutes of the United States after notice from and under regulations of the Bureau of Naturalization.

The eighth section added to the Act deals with seamen, providing briefly that such an alien, after the declaration of intention and three years' service upon a merchant or fishing vessel of the United States, shall be deemed a citizen of the United States for the purpose of serving on board any such merchant or fishing vessel of the United States, and that he shall "for all purposes of protection as an American citizen, be deemed such after the filing of his declaration to become such citizen."

The ninth of the new sections is very interesting and important, showing that candidates for citizenship are to be trained in the duties, as well as in the rights thereof, and text-books provided for them.

The tenth of the new sections is an attempt to regularize the status of persons qualified for citizenship on July 1, 1914, who, without a declaration of intention, erroneously exercised the rights, privileges, and duties of citizenship, by permitting them to be naturalized without making the preliminary declaration of intention upon satisfactory proof thereof.

The eleventh of the additional sections is very interesting, instructive, showing the faith of this country in the right even of an alien enemy to determine his nationality. The first part of this section dealing with this question is thus worded:

No alien who is a native, citizen, subject, or denizen of any country, State, or sovereignty with which the United States is at war shall be admitted to become a citizen of the United States unless he made his declaration of intention not less than two nor more than seven years prior to the existence of the state of war, or was at that time entitled to become a citizen of the United States, without making a declaration of intention, or unless his petition for naturalization shall then be pending and is otherwise entitled to admission, notwithstanding he shall be an alien enemy at the time and in the manner prescribed by the laws passed upon that subject.

It is recognized that the proceedings in such a case should be carefully supervised, and that every reasonable precaution should be taken in order to prevent an abuse of what can not be regarded as other than a very great and exceptional provision. Therefore, the hearing is to be had only after a notice of ninety days, given by the clerk of the court in which it is to take place, to the commissioner or deputy commissioner of naturalization, to be present, and the final hearing to be held in open court can take place only "after such notice to the representative of the Government from the Bureau of Naturalization, whose objection shall cause the petition to be continued from time to time for so long as the Government may require." The experimental

nature of this proceeding is recognized and sought to be safeguarded by allowing "the apprehension and removal, agreeably to law, of any alien enemy at any time previous to the actual naturalization of such alien." Recognizing that there might be aliens not included within the previous enumeration who are loyal and deserving of citizenship, the President is authorized by the last proviso of this section to exempt an alien enemy from the category of alien enemy upon an investigation and report by the Department of Justice fully establishing his loyalty. The twelfth of the new sections deals with a situation appealing very strongly to our sense of justice by prescribing an appropriate method to enable those of our fellow countrymen who took service against our enemy before our country itself felt justified in going to war with the Imperial German Government, to resume citizenship.

The second section of an Act in reference to the expatriation of citizens and their protection abroad, approved March 2, 1907, provided that "Any American citizen shall be deemed to have expatriated himself when he has been naturalized in any foreign State in conformity with its laws, or when he has taken an oath of allegiance to any foreign State."

The purpose of this section was twofold. First, to allow our citizens to obtain foreign nationality, and to recognize the new status thus created; second, to recognize a loss of American citizenship by those of our countrymen who should take an oath of allegiance to a foreign state without acquiring the nationality of or citizenship in that country. According to either of these provisions, American citizens who had taken service in the armies of Great Britain and France would seem to have renounced their American citizenship. To enable them to regain what they had sacrificed, an Act was passed and approved on October 5, 1917, defining their status. This Act apparently was considered defective, in that it required the person desiring to repatriate himself to have been discharged from foreign service, and required of him evidence and formalities with which he might find it difficult to comply. Therefore this Act was repealed, and in lieu thereof the following substituted which constitutes the twelfth of the new sections:

That any person who, while a citizen of the United States and during the existing war in Europe, entered the military or naval service of any country at war with a country with which the United States is now at war, who shall be deemed to have lost his citizenship by reason of any oath or obligation taken by him for the purpose of entering such service, may resume his citizenship by taking the oath

of allegiance to the United States prescribed by the naturalization law and regulations, and such oath may be taken before any court of the United States or of any State authorized by law to naturalize aliens or before any consul of the United States, and certified copies thereof shall be sent by such court or consul to the Department of State and the Bureau of Naturalization, and the Act (Public fifty-five, Sixty-fifth Congress, approved October fifth, nineteen hundred and seventeen) is hereby repealed.

Very properly, a person serving in the military or naval forces of the United States at the end of the war, or honorably discharged therefrom during its continuance, on account of disability incurred in the line of duty, is by the thirteenth of the new sections "relieved from the necessity of proving that immediately preceding the date of his application he has resided continuously within the United States the time required by law of other aliens."

Finally, a third section of this Act clears up the doubt which might have existed as to the validity for military purposes of a declaration of intention filed before the Naturalization Act of 1906 went into effect, by providing that

All certificates of naturalization granted by courts of competent jurisdiction prior to December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and eighteen, upon petitions for naturalization filed prior to January thirty-first, nineteen hundred and eighteen, upon declarations of intention filed prior to September twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and six, are hereby declared to be valid in so far as the declaration of intention is concerned, but shall not be by this Act further validated or legalized.

Such are the most important provisions of this Act.

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

SUITS BETWEEN STATES

The Supreme Court of the United States, as if to call attention to its fitness to decide controversies between States by the application of principles of justice, has already handed down in this year of war two decisions; the first on March 4, 1918, in a boundary dispute between the States of Arkansas and Tennessee, the second on April 22, 1918, in the long drawn out controversy between the States of Virginia and West Virginia as to the obligation of the latter State to pay a proportional part of the debt contracted by Virginia before West Virginia was separated from it. In addition the Supreme Court, on June 10, 1918, entered a decree in the controversy between Arkansas and Tennessee, appointing a commission, with the approval and upon request

of counsel for the States, to draw and mark the boundary and to report its proceedings to the court for its confirmation or such further action as may be deemed necessary in the premises. The court also heard argument, upon its own suggestion, of counsel for the United States. in the controversy between the States of Wyoming and Colorado in a matter of irrigation, in order that the rights of the States should be considered with due regard to the rights of the United States as trustee of the States forming the American Union. The decision of this case, expected before the adjournment of the court on June 10, 1918, has apparently gone over because of its importance, but will probably be delivered in the October term of the present year.

From this brief statement it will be seen that, in the course of a year which has not yet sped, the Supreme Court of these United States has had before it not merely a dispute involving sovereignty over a particular region claimed by two of these States; a controversy involving an obligation of a State to assume and to pay a proportional part of expenses incurred in its behalf before separation from that State and to pay a judgment fixing that obligation in the sum of twelve million dollars, with interest, but also a controversy between two States of the Union and the United States, as the representative of the Union, each litigant appearing by its counsel in due course to have a question involving the rights of sovereign communities and of sovereign States determined by that due process of law and the application of principles of justice obtaining between individuals.

The determination of a boundary between States of the American Union has become such a matter of course, that the only feature in it attracting attention may be said to be the suggestion of the court, made in the trial of Cissna v. Tennessee (242 U. S. 195, 198), that the two States should file their bill in equity in the Supreme Court to determine the boundary between them, upon which the decision in the case then before them depended. So familiar has the process of judicial settlement become in the course of the century, that the judges of the Supreme Court are no longer appalled by the appearance of States at their bar, but, in the course of argument, suggest, as it were offhand, that the Supreme Court is open to the august litigants should they desire to avail themselves of the jurisdiction with which it was wisely invested by the framers of the Constitution in order to prevent a resort to arms upon the breakdown of negotiations between political communities.