The Sovereign Citizen. Patrick Weil
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in a small minority on that subject.”59
So, at the beginning of 1909, Bonaparte, who was on excellent terms with the Commerce and Labor Secretary, Oscar Straus, accepted the latter’s suggestion that he meet with Campbell to discuss how the two of them could “shape [their] request for appropriation harmoniously.”60 Despite the potential for interagency conflict, when Campbell and Bonaparte met, they rapidly came to an agreement. Instead of waiting for a prospective citizen to go to court, where precious resources might be needed in order to contest the denaturalization application, it was better, as Bonaparte would testify to Congress a few weeks later, “to advise him how that informality could be removed.” He continued, “In other words it seems to me that the tail is wagging the dog. The court work is a mere incident of a thorough investigation of the facts connected to the case.”61 In the alternative, Bonaparte suggested that responsibility for checking all applications during the ninety-day period between registration with the clerk of court and the swearing of allegiance to the United States be transferred to the Department of Commerce and Labor.
At first, the joint proposal divided the congressional committee, but eventually Congress followed the joint suggestion of Bonaparte and Campbell. As requested, the employment of the naturalization examiners and clerks62 would be transferred from the Department of Justice to the Division of Naturalization in the Department of Commerce and Labor for the 1910 fiscal year, with $125,000 appropriated to cover necessary expenses.63 During the year following this change, the Attorney General expressed his satisfaction over its result: “that, with the exception of some portions of the Southern States which it has not had the means to cover, the naturalization work seems to be most effectively administered.”64 The U.S. attorneys’ offices were, from that point on, only required to participate in contested cases, appeals, and cancellation proceedings, “all of which have been reduced to a minimum.”65 With this adjustment, the Departments of Justice and Labor were able to forge a strong cooperative relationship on naturalization policy, even if they lacked the means to actively represent the government in every court proceeding.
But, while they might increasingly see eye-to-eye on naturalization policy, the views of the two departments diverged with respect to their approaches to denaturalization. The Division of Naturalization advocated an amendment to the existing statute to automatically validate naturalization certificates issued at least ten to fifteen years prior to individuals who had been continuous residents of “the United States and who, appear to have possessed (at the time they were naturalized) the prescribed personal qualifications at the time of their naturalization.”66 Attorney General Bonaparte disagreed with this lax approach. Instead of legalizing illegal naturalizations that occurred under the previous naturalization law, he urged Congress to amend the 1906 Act so that it would place clearly within the scope of its denaturalization provision “certificates issued under the old naturalization law as well as those issued under the present law.”67
But this first conflict over denaturalization ended swiftly with the arrival of the new Taft Administration. On September 20, 1909, after receiving approval from Campbell at the Division of Naturalization,68 George W. Wickersham, Taft’s new Attorney General,69 sent out an important circular to all U.S. attorneys:
In the opinion of the Department, as a general rule, good cause is not shown for the institution of proceedings to cancel certificates of naturalization alleged to have been fraudulently or illegally procured unless some substantial results are to be achieved thereby in the way of the betterment of the citizenship of the country. The legislation referred to, being retroactive, is construed to be remedial rather than penal in its nature; for the protection of the body politics rather than for the punishment of the individual concerned. Ordinarily, nothing less than the betterment of the citizenship of the country should be regarded as sufficient to justify the disturbance of personal and property rights which cancellation proceedings may occasion. This does not mean that such proceedings should not be instituted in any case where willful and deliberate fraud appears, as the perpetration of such fraud would indicate lack of the moral qualifications necessary for citizenship. If, however, many years have elapsed since the judgment of naturalization was apparently so procured, and the party has since conducted himself as a good citizen and possesses the necessary qualifications for citizenship, cancellation proceedings should not, as a rule, be instituted.
Cancellation proceedings should not be instituted merely for correction of errors and irregularities in the naturalization of a person which would properly have been the subject of consideration at the hearing or of correction on appeal.
Mere consent to the cancellation of a certificate of naturalization by the holder thereof, for some defect or irregularity, should not be regarded as in itself sufficient to justify such procedures.70 (Emphasis added)
With this circular, denaturalization was redefined in order to avoid targeting every American fraudulently or illegally naturalized—these first years of implementation had demonstrated that those fitting into this category were far too numerous. Denaturalization would now be pursued only if “some substantial results” could be “achieved thereby in the way of the betterment of the citizenship of the country.”
The result of this new policy was significant: the Circular established a new logic for denaturalization as a tool for the protection of the body politic, rather than for punishment applied, without further judgment, to every individual who violated mere technical requirements. Yet, despite a fleeting appearance of unity, the nomination of Wickersham foreshadowed tension between the Justice, Labor, and State Departments over the enactment and interpretation of denaturalization rules for years to come.
CHAPTER 2
The Installment of the Bureau of Naturalization, 1909–1926
The chief examiner of the Naturalization Service, Morris Bevington, described the pre-1906 naturalization process in St. Louis as follows: “Before elections, the ward leaders would drum up all the alien residents of their particular districts, and herd them together before some one of the courts, and have naturalization papers issued to them, usually ‘minor papers.’ They were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing and more often secured naturalization against their own will, and most reluctantly. They were simply coerced by American citizens, who wanted their votes and who had a stronger will power than they themselves possessed.”1
As the 1909 circular made clear it was this kind of person that the Naturalization Bureau and the new attorney general, George Wickersham, no longer wanted to pursue. The consequence of Wickersham’s instruction was that, only when cases transmitted by the State Department, the Civil Service Commission, or the Steamboat Inspection Service showed fraud or a will to deceive the court, would proceedings be initiated to revoke citizenship. Otherwise, “when the holders of illegally obtained papers were themselves the victims of deception, and not guilty of any design to break the law,” no action would be taken by the Division of Naturalization. In addition, the Division would continue to use cancellation proceedings as a means for protecting the proper functioning of the naturalization process: for instance, when the courts that naturalized immigrants lacked proper jurisdiction, when the naturalization applications were found to have been completed on incorrect forms, or when a court clerk was indicted for corruption.2
The impact of Wickersham’s 1909 instruction was clear and immediate. The number of citizens who were denaturalized dropped from a high of 921 in 1909 to 397 in 1910. From there, the numbers continued to fall: to 225 in 1911 and to 212 in 1912. The trend in St. Paul, Minnesota, was typical. Between July and November 1908, thirty certificates of naturalization were cancelled on various grounds including: false declarations concerning the place of residence or age of naturalized citizens, naturalization petitions signed on the day of the hearing, and witnesses who themselves lacked American citizenship. But within two years the number of denaturalization cases plunged. In 1910 the only denaturalization case in St. Paul concerned Johann Penner, a naturalized American citizen who had since moved back to his native Canada. After a short-lived surge in 1914 (to 414 denaturalization