3 Asian Exclusion: What does it mean to be Asian? 3 Asian Exclusion: What does it mean to be Asian?

This chapter will examine a series of cases that considered whether potential immigrants from various countries or regions could be classified as "White."

Note:  While the I dislike capitalizing the word "White," well-thought out opinions, expressed in pieces such as Time to Capitalize 'Black'—And 'White' - The Atlantic, have won me over.  However, capitalization from original sources, including cases, statutes, and articles, have been left as they were in the original.

3.1 Contextual Timeline 3.1 Contextual Timeline

The following timeline of some relevant dates in U.S. history may help place the cases in this chapter in context.

  • Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution prevented the U.S. Congress from restricting the slave trade
    • “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”
  • January 1, 1808 – the "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect, with a penalty of up to $20,000. International traders continued to illegally bring enslaved persons into the U.S., and the domestic sale of enslaved persons continued to be legal.
  • 1850s – thousands of Chinese workers migrate to the U.S., finding work in gold mines, agriculture, manufacturing, and the railroad industry; in response, California began restricting Chinese residents from certain occupations, business ownership, etc.
  • 1860 – nearly 4 million enslaved persons were present in the U.S.
  • January 1, 1863 – the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, declaring all enslaved people in the Confederacy to be free
  • June 19, 1865 – the effective end of slavery occurred when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of slavery
  • December 18, 1865 – the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime
  • 1875 – the Page Act banned recruitment of laborers from “China, Japan or any Oriental country,” and “the importation of women for the purposes of prostitution”; as a result, invasive and degrading “medical” examinations were forced on women attempting to immigrate
  • 1882 – the Chinese Exclusion Act (Immigration Act of 1882) is passed, suspending immigration of Chinese laborers, and, with later amendments, restricting travel of Chinese persons residing in the U.S.
  • 1902 – the exclusion was extended to residents of Hawaii and the Philippines
  • 1924 – the Asian Exclusion Act excluded all persons who were not eligible for naturalization; because prior laws excluded persons of Asian lineage from naturalizing, this law prevent virtually all Asian immigration
  • 1943 – the various exclusion acts were repealed, allowing immigration with an annual limit of 105 Chinese immigrants

3.2 United States v. Balsara (2d Cir. 1910) 3.2 United States v. Balsara (2d Cir. 1910)

In 1935, the Iranian government requested that the country formerly known as “Persia” be referred to as “Iran.”  "Iran" has been said to mean “land of Aryans” in Persian, derived from “arya” or “ariya,” terms for the people of Persia.  In the 20th Century, the term “Aryan” was often used to refer to non-Jewish persons.  Over time, Aryan has also been used to mean Indo-European, “White,” and non-Arab, as well as to invoke racist Nazi and neo-Nazi ideals of a “pure race” of Aryan blond, blue-eyed people.

 

Follow this link for an interesting suggestion of how "Persia" became "Iran."

UNITED STATES v. BALSARA.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

July 1, 1910.)

No. 186.

1. Aliens (§ 61*) — Naturalization—“Free White Persons.”

“Free white persons,” within Rev. St. § 2169 (U. S. Comp.- St. 1901, p. 1333), limiting the naturalization act (Act June 29, 1906, c. 3592, 34 Stat. 596 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, p. 97]) to such persons, includes members of the white, or Caucasian race, as distinct from the black, red, yellow, and brown races; and hence a Parsee is entitled to admission to citizenship.

[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Aliens, Cent. Dig. §§ 119-122; Dec. Dig. § 61.*

Por other definitions, see Words and Phrases, vol. 8, pp. 7446, 7447.]

2. Statutes (§ 159*) — Repeal by Implication.

A statute inconsistent with or repugnant to a subsequent act is repealed by the latter, though not mentioned therein.

[Ed. Note. — Por other cases, see Statutes, Cent. Dig. §§ 229, 231; Dec. Dig. § 159.*

Repeal of statutes by implication, see note to First Nat. Bank v. Wei-denbeck, 38 C. C. A. 136.]

3. Aliens (§ 61*) — Naturalization—Statutes Not Repealed.

Naturalization Act June 29, 1906, c. 3592, 34 Stat. 596 (U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, p. 97), did not impliedly repeal Rev. St. § 2169 (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1333), limiting the naturalization provisions of such statutes to “free white persons.”

[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Aliens, Cent. Dig. §§ 119-122; Dec. Dig. § 61.*]

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Application by Bhicaji Franyi Belsara for admission to citizenship. From an order admitting applicant (171 Fed. 294), the United States appeals.

Order affirmed.

Henry A. Wise, U. S. Dist. Atty., and A. S. Pratt and Carl E. Whitney, Asst. U. S. Attys.

Rounds & Shurman, for appellee.

Louis Marshall and Max J. Kohler, for Syrian interveners.

*695Before COXE and WARD, Circuit Judges, and HAZEE, District Judge.

WARD, Circuit Judge.

The Farsees emigrated some 1,200 years ago from Persia into India, and now live in the neighborhood of Bombay, to the number of about 100,000. They constitute a settlement by themselves of intelligent and well-to-do persons, principally engaged in commerce, and are as distinct from the Hindus as are the English who dwell in India. Balsara himself is a merchant of this city, entirely qualified for citizenship but for the fact, as the government contends, that he is not within section-2169 of the United States Revised Statutes (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1333), which provides as to naturalization:

“The provisions of this title shall apply to aliens being free white persons and. to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

Counsel have furnished us with such complete and interesting briefs that detailed consideration of the cases, laws colonial, state and federal and public documents referred to would extend this opinion to inordinate length. Therefore we will state our conclusions only.

The expression “free white persons” is found in all our naturalization acts since 1790, except for the brief period between 1873 and 1875, when they were omitted from the Revised Statutes. The government contends that the words must be construed to mean what the Congress which passed the first naturalization act in 1790 understood them to mean, and, no immigration being then known except from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Sweden, Prance, and Holland, Congress must be taken to have intended aliens coming from those countries only. The consequence of this argument, viz., that Russians, Poles, Italians, Greeks, and others, who had not theretofore immigrated, are to be excluded, is so absurd that the government extends the intention of Congress to all Europeans.

On the other hand, counsel for Balsara insist that Congress intended by the words “free white persons” to confer the privilege of naturalization upon members of the white or Caucasian race only. This we think the right conclusion and the one supported by the great weight •of authority. In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155, Fed. Cas. No. 104; In re Saito (C. C.) 62 Fed. 126; In re Camille (C. C.) 6 Fed. 256; Matter of San C. Po., 7 Misc. Rep. 471, 28 N. Y. Supp. 383; In re Buntaro Kumagai (D. C.) 163 Fed. 922; In re Knight (D. C.) 171 Fed. 297; In re Najour (C. C.) 174 Fed. 735; In re Halladjian (C. C.) 174 Fed. 834. Doubtless Congressmen in 1790 were not conversant with ethnological distinctions and had never heard of the term “Caucasian race” mentioned in some of the foregoing decisions. They probably had principally in mind the exclusion of Africans, whether slave or free, and Indians, both of which races were and had been objects of serious public consideration. The adjective “free” need not have been used, because the words “white persons” alone would have excluded Africans,, whether slave or free, and Indians. Still effect must be given to the words “white persons.” The Congressmen certainly knew that there were white, yellow, black, red, and brown races. If a Hebrew, a native of Jerusalem, had applied for naturalization in 1790, we cannot *696believe he would have been excluded on the ground that he was not a white person, and, if a Parsee had applied, the court would have had to determine then just as the Circuit Court did in this case, whether the words used in the act did or did not cover him.

We think that the words refer to race and include all persons of the white race, as distinguished from- the black, red, yellow, or brown races, which differ in so many respects from it. Whether there is.any pure white race and what peoples belong to it may involve nice dis-criminations, but for practical purposes there is no difficulty in saying that the Chinese, Japanese, and Malays and the American Indians do not belong to the white race. Difficult questions may arise and Congress may have to settle them by more specific legislation, but in our opinion the Parsees do belong to the white race and the Circuit Court properly admitted Balsara to citizenship.

We think this view is confirmed by the legislation enacted between 1870 and 1875. Act July 14, 1870, c. 254, 16 Stat. 254, amending-the naturalization laws, provided in section 7:

“That the naturalization laws are hereby extended to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

As negro immigration from Africa is and was totally unknown, the legislation can only be explained as a result of the sentiment created by the Civil War. The words “free white persons” were left in the law, indicating the intention to exclude other races than the African. The revisers of the laws of the United States, whose revision was adopted at the first session of the Forty-Third Congress, 1873, to 1874, reported (section 2169, title 30), on the subject'of naturalization in the following words: “The provisions of this title shall apply to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” As the revisers were not authorized to change the law, the omission of the words “free white persons” was evidently an oversight and it was corrected by Act Feb. 18, 1875, c. 80, 18 Stat. 318, .entitled, “An act to correct errors and to supply omissions in the Revised Statutes of the United States” as follows:

“Sec. 2169 is amended by inserting in the first line after the word ‘aliens’ the words ‘being free white persons and to aliens.’

Of course, between 1873 and 1875, Congress having adopted the Revised Statutes, any alien was eligible to naturalization. In re Ah Chong (C. C.) 2 Fed. 733, 739. If in 1875, when they were amended, Congress had intended the privilege of naturalization to be restricted to Europeans and Africans, as contended by the government, it would presumably have inserted a more accurate expression than “free white persons” in the section. On the other hand, if it had intended the law to apply to all aliens except those expressly excluded, it would have repealed the section altogether, leaving section 2165 to apply as it reads to all aliens.

Counsel for certain Syrian interveners as amici curiae contend that the words “free white persons” were used simply to exclude slaves and free negroes. If so, of course, all other aliens were included. This is enforced by the further argument that the act of June 29, 1906 (Act *697June 29, 1906, c. 3592, 34 Stat. 596 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, p. 97]), repealed section 2169, Rev. St. U. S., by necessary implication, and that all aliens except those expressly excluded, like the Chinese, are now eligible to citizenship. The act of 1906 does provide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout the United States. Section 4, regulating proceedings, like section 2165, Rev. St. U. S., provides “that an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following manner and not otherwise.” But section 2169, supra, limited the application of the whole title to persons being free white persons or of the African race, and section 26, the repealing clause of the act of 1906, makes no mention of section 2169. Of course, if the latter is inconsistent with or repugnant to the act, it is repealed, though not mentioned. But we do not think it is. Indeed, the form annexed for declaration of intention requires the applicant to state his color as well as his complexion. It seems to us incredible that Congress could have intended to make such a departure from existing law by implication merely.

The order is affirmed.

3.3 The Case of Balsara (May 29, 1910) 3.3 The Case of Balsara (May 29, 1910)

The New York Times

The following was published in The New York Times on May 29, 1910.  The opinion in United States v. Balsara was published on July 1, 1910.

THE CASE OF BALSARA

What are “free white persons”?  Do they belong exclusively to those Northern European nations who peopled the American States when the Fathers passed their statute to bar from citizenship all but “free white persons”?  That is the question which the Judges of the United States Circuit Court in this city are trying to decide in the case of Bhicaji Framji Balsara, a Parsee immigrant from Bombay, India.  Mr. Balsara is a pure descendant of the Persian sect who, during their twelve centuries of residence in India, have religiously abstained from intermarriage with any other people.  He is an Asiatic, not a European.  Is he a “free white person”?

 

Judge Lacombe, admitting Mr. Balsara to citizenship in June, 1909, stated that “the applicant appears to be a gentleman of high character and exceptional intelligence.”  The United States in its appeal from the order of naturalization does not contend that he suffers any physical, mental, or moral handicap, but that he belongs to one of the Asiatic nations whose emigration to this country was never contemplated by the framers of the statute.

 

But the brief for the appellee points out that while Congress in the early days could not have had in mind the naturalization of Asiatic whites, in the same sense it could not have thought  of the naturalization of Italians, Poles, Bohemians, Hungarians, Russians, and other white people who have since come in from Eastern and Southern Europe.  The immigrants in 1790 were English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, and German.  The interpretation of the statute urged by the appellant would also exclude all white nationals from the south and east of Europe who are now, and long have been, freely admitted to citizenship.  Contemporary accounts are adduced showing that the Fathers knew perfectly well that the white race included the swarthy or brown peoples of Asia and Africa who possess the characteristic features of Europeans.  The olive complexions of the Persians, Armenians, and Syrians, whose citizenship has recently been challenged, are in no respect different from the skins of the Greeks, Italians, and Spaniards of Southern Europe.  Besides, in Asia are millions of native Greeks, Slavs—the Russians and Poles are Slavs—Armenians and Circassians, who are also in great numbers natives of Europe.  Practically, it would be impossible to limit the words “white persons” to former inhabitants of Europe in considering their claims to citizenship.

 

Until very recently no attempt has been made by our courts so to limit it.  No reason of public policy is urged in defense of such a change.  The precedent of limitation seems to have been set simply by officials who were not good students of ethnology.

 

The New York Times

Published May 29, 1910

3.4 In re Alverto (1912) 3.4 In re Alverto (1912)

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

In re ALVERTO.

(District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

September 24, 1912.)

No. 7233.

1. ALIENS (§ 61*) — NATURALIZATION—STATUTES-REPEAL.

Rev. St. § 2169 (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1333), providing that the naturalization law shall apply to aliens who are free white persons and aliens of African nativity or descent, was not repealed by Naturalization Act (Act June 29, 1906, c. 3592, 34 Stat. 596 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 528]).

[Ed. Note. — For other cases, see Aliens, Cent. Dig. §§ 119-122; Dec. Dig. § 61.*]

2. Aliens (§ 61*) — Naturalization—Military Service.

Service in and honorable discharge from military service of the United States does not extend the right of naturalization to those persons who are neither free white persons nor persons of African nativity or descent, and therefore not entitled to naturalization under Rev. St. § 2109 (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1333).

[Ed. Note. — For other eases, see Aliens, Cent. Dig. §§ 119-122; Dec. Dig. § 61.*]

3. Aliens (§ 61*) — Naturalization—Philippines.

Rev. St. § 2169 (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1333), limiting naturalization to. aliens who are free white persons and aliens of African nativity or descent, was applicable to Naturalization Act (Act June 29, 1906, c. 3592, 34 Stat. 606 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1911, p. 544]), § 30, providing that the naturalization laws shall apply to authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe allegiance to the United States, and who may become residents of any state or organized territory of the United States on certain conditions; and hence a citizen of the Philippine Islands who ethnologically was one-fourth white and three-fourths brown or Malay could not be naturalized.

[Ed. Note. — For other eases, see Aliens, Cent. Dig. §§ 119-122; Dec. Dig. § 61.*]

Petition for naturalization by Eugenio Alverto.

Denied.

Jerome C. Shear, Special Naturalization Examiner, for the United States.

THOMPSON; District Judge.

The facts adduced at the hearing are as follows:

The petitioner is a native of the Philippine Islands. His paternal grandfather was a Spaniard, who settled in the Philippines while those islands' were under the dominion of Spain, and married a na-*689live Philippino woman. The petitioner’s father, who was born in the Philippines, also married a native Philippino woman, and was a Spanish subject prior to the cession of the Philippine Islands to the United States by the treaty of Paris. Act July 1, 1902 (32 Stat. at L. 691, c. 1369), providing for the administration of the Philippine Islands, declared that:

“All inlialjitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside therein, who were Spanish subjects on the 11th day of April, 1899, and then resided in said islands, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between .the United States and Spain, signed at Paris December 10th, 1898.”

The applicant on April 11, 1899, was a Spanish subject residing in the Philippine Islands, and under the terms of the act became a citizen of the Philippine Islands. At the time of the hearing he had served continuously for seven years as an enlisted man in the United States navy, had been honorably discharged under his first enlistment, and was serving under a second.

Section 30 of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 606, c. 3592 [U. S. Comp. St. 1911, p. 544]), provides as follows:

“All the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States shall apply to and be held to authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe permanent allegiance to the United States, and who may become residents of any state or organized territory of the United States, with the following modifications: The applicant shall not be required to renounce allegiance to any foreign sovereignty; he shall make his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States at least two years prior to his admission; and residence within the jurisdiction of the United States, owing such permanent allegiance, shall be regarded as residence within the United States within the meaning of the five years’ residence clause of the existing law.”

The applicant claims under the above section and under Act July 26, 1894 (28 Stat. 124, c. 165 JU, S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1332]), as a provision of the naturalization laws applicable thereto. The latter act provides that:

"Any alien of the age of twenty-one years and upwards who has enlisted or may enlist in the United States navy or marine corps, and has served or may hereafter serve five consecutive years in the United States navy or one enlistment in the United States marine corps, and has been or may hereafter bo honorably discharged, shall be admitted to become a citizen of the United States opon his petition, without any previous declaration of his intention to become such; and the court admitting such alien shall, in addition to proof of good moral character, be satisfied by competent proof of such person’s service in and honorable discharge from the United States navy, or ''marine corps.”

The question is whether the applicant is debarred by section 2169, Revised Statutes, as amended in 1875 (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1333), which provides:

“The provisions of this title shall apply to aliens' being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

*690 [1] Section 2169 was not repealed by the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906. ' United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. 694, 103 C. C. A. 660.

[2] The applicant’s service in the navy does not affect his status under section 2169. It has been repeatedly held that service in and an honorable discharge from the military service of the United States does not extend the right of naturalization to those persons who are beyond its provision under section 2169. In re Buntaro Kumagai (D. C.) 163 Fed. 922; In re Knight (D. C.) 171 Fed. 299; Bessho v. United States, 178 Fed. 245, 101 C. C. A. 605. It is apparent, therefore, that, however commendable the service of the applicant in the navy, the provisions of law in relation to naturalization of persons in the army and navy were intended by. Congress to grant to those serving in the army and navy, who were of the white or African races, exemption from the necessit) of a previous declaration of intention and from the necessity.of proving residence for five years within- the United States, but were not intended to extend the benefit of the naturalization laws to those not coming within the racial qualifications.

[3] The applicant’s service in the navy, therefore, has no bearing on the case, and it remains to be determined whether section 2169 is a provision of the naturalization laws applicable to section 30 of the Act of 1906.

Citizens of the Philippine Islands or of Porto Rico, while not citizens of the United States, are not aliens, and, prior to the passage of the Act of 1906, were not capable of becoming naturalized for two reasons: First, the naturalization laws of the United States applied only to aliens; and, second, they required a renunciation of former allegiance. Gonzales v. Williams, 192 U. S. 1, 24 Sup. Ct. 171, 48 L. Ed. 317. The effect of section 30 was to make applicable to citizens of the Philippine Islands and Porto Rico those provisions which had theretofore applied only to aliens. If the limitations of section-2169 apply to one provision of the naturalization laws, they must apply to all and consequently to section 30 of the Act of 1906. Section 2169 was intended to limit the application ■of the whole body of the naturalization laws to aliens being free white persons or of the African race. “Free white persons” includes members of the white, or Caucasian race, as distinct from the black, red, yellow, and brown races. United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. 694, 103 C. C. A. 660; In re Ah Yup, Fed. Cas. No. 104; In re Camille (C. C.) 6 Fed. 256; In re Knight, supra; In re Najour (C. C.) 174 Fed. 735. The use of the words “white persons” clearly indicates the intention of Congress to maintain a line of demarcation ■between races and to extend the privilege of naturalization only to those of the races named. In re Ah Yup, supra; In re Saito (C. C.) 62 Fed. 126; In re Buntaro Kumagai, supra. The petitioner is, ■ethnologically speaking, one-fourth of the white or Caucasian race •and three-fourths of the brown or Malay race. In the case of In re Camille (C. C.) 6 Fed. 256, the applicant, a 'Canadian, with a white father and an Indian mother’, was held not to be a white person. In the case of In re Knight the petitioner was born on a British *691schooner in the Yellow Sea. His father was an Englishman, and his mother half Chinese and half Japanese. It was held that_ the petitioner was not a free white person, and therefore not entitled to naturalization. As was said in the Knight Case:

“Naturalization creates a political status which is entirely the result oí legislation by Congress, and, in the case of a person not born a citizen, naturalization can be obtained only in the way in which Congress has provided that it shall be granted, and upon such a showing of facts as Congress has determined must be set forth. It must have been within the knowledge and foresight, of Congress, when legislating upon this question, that members of other races would serve in the army and navy of the United States under certain conditions, and it must remain with Congress to determine who of this class can obtain, under the statutes, the rights of a citizen of the United States.”

Section 4 of the act provides that “an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following manner and not otherwise.”

The Naturalization Act of 1906 expressly repealed many of the then existing provisions of law in relation to naturalization. Section 2169 was not repealed, and, if Congress had not intended its provisions to apply to section 30 of the Act of 1906, such intention would naturally appear in the act. As it has not excepted section 30 of the act from the provisions of section 2169. Revised Statutes, the latter section must be held to be an applicable provision of the naturalization laws.

I am therefore of the opinion that Congress did not intend to extend the privilege of citizenship to those who had become citizens of the Philippine Islands under the Act of 1902, unless they were free white persons or of African nativity or descent.

The application is denied.

3.5 In re Bautista (1917) 3.5 In re Bautista (1917)

United States District Court for the Northern District of California

In re BAUTISTA.

(District Court, N. D. California, S. D.

November 5, 1917.)

1. Aliens <©^61 — Naturalization—Persons Entitled to be Naturalized —Color ob Race.

Under Naturalization Act June 29, 1906, c. 3592, § 30, 34 Stat. 606 (Comp. St. 1916, § 4366), providing that all the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws shall apply to and authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe permanent allegiance to the United States and who may become residents of any state or organized territory with certain modifications, when read in the light of the debates in Congress showing that it was for the declared benefit of the inhabitants of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, a native Filipino of the Malay race is entitled to naturalization notwithstanding Rev. St. § 2169 (Comp. St. 1916, § 4358), providing that the provisions of that title respecting naturalization shall apply to free white persons and aliens of African nativity or descent, as section 2169 is to that extent amended by the Act of 1906.

2. Aliens i©^>61 — Naturalization—Persons Entitled to be Naturalized— “Persons Who Owe Permanent Allegiance to the United States.”

Aliens born outside the Philippine Islands, but residing therein at the date of the treaty of December 10, 1898 (30 Stat. 1751) between the United States and Spain, and who had never been naturalized under the Spanish laws, are not persons owing a permanent allegiance to the United States and entitled to be naturalized under Naturalization Act June 29, 1906, § 30.

3. Aliens <©^>68 — Naturalization—Declaration of Intention — “Alien.”

A native Filipino bom in the Philippine Islands while under Spanish rule is an “alien.” within Act June 30, 1914, c. 130, 38 Stat. 392, authorizing the naturalization without a previous declaration of intention of aliens who have served an enlistment of not less than four years in the navy and been honorably discharged.

[lid. Note. — Dor other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, Alien.)

In the matter of the petition of Engracio Bautista for naturalization.

Petition granted.

John W. Preston, U. S. Atty., and George A. Crutchfield, Chief Naturalization F,xaminer, both of San Francisco, Cal.

MORROW, Circuit Judge.

The petitioner is a Mestizo. He was born in the Province of Bulacan on the Island of Luzon in the Philip*766pine Islands, on the 14th of March, 1888. The Islands at that time were under Spanish rule, and the petitioner, with respect to the United States, was born an alien.

The islands were ceded to the United States by the treaty between the United States and Spain signed at Paris on December 10, 1898 (30 Stat. 1754). By article 19 of the treaty it was provided that:

“The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.”

By the act of Congress of July 1, 1902, temporarily providing “for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes” (chapter 1369, 32 Stat. 691, 692), it was declared in section 4 that:

“All inhabitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside therein who were Spanish subjects on the 11th day of April, 1899, and then resided in said islands, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain signed at Paris December tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.”

No provision has been made by Congress for conferring the rights of American citizenship upon the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands except such as is contained in section 30 of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 596, 606). It is there provided that:

“All the applicable provisions of the naturalization laios of the United States shall apply to and be held to authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe permanent allegiance to the Umted States, and who may become residents of any state or organized territory of the United States, with the following modifications: The applicant shall not be required to renounce allegiance to any foreign sovereignty; he shall make his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States at least two years prior to his admission; and residence within the jurisdiction of the United States, owing such permanent allegiance, shall be regarded as residence within the United States within the meaning of the five-year residence clause of the existing law.”

The petitioner has not made his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States, as required by this statute, but he claims the right to make his application for citizenship without such declaration, under the Act of June 30, 1914, “making appropriations for the naval service for the fiscal' year ending June 15, 1915, and for other purposes” (chapter 130, 38 Stat. 392, 395 [Comp. St. 1916, § 4356]), which provides as follows:

“Any alien of the age of twenty-one years and upward who may, under existing law, become a citizen of the United States, who has served or may hereafter serve for one enlistment of not less than four years in the United States Navy, • * * and who has received therefrom an honorable dis-. charge * * * with recommendation for re-enlistment, “ * * shall be admitted to become a citizen of the United States upon his petition without any previous declaration of his intention to become such, and without proof of residence on shore, and the court admitting such alien shall, in addition to proof of good moral character, be satisfied by competent proof from naval * * * sources of such service: Provided, that an honorable discharge from the Navy, * * * with recommendation for re-enlistment, shall be accepted *767as proof of good moral character: Provided further, that any court which now has or may hereafter be given jurisdiction to naturalize aliens as citizens of the United States may immediately naturalize any alien applying under and furnishing tile x>roof prescribed by the foregoing provisions.”

The petitioner enlisted in the United States Navy on December 24, 1908. At the end of his enlistment, on December 23, 1912, he received an honorable discharge, and on March 17, 1913, he re-enlisted. At the end of this second enlistment he received a second honorable discharge, and on the next day he again re-enlisted. His discharges have always been accompanied by recommendations for re-enlistment. He is now serving his third term of enlistment of four years each, and comes to court with proof of good moral character from his superior officers. He came to the United States for Manila in 1909, on the United States steamship Logan. He has resided continuously in the United States for more than eight years immediately preceding the date of this petition, and upon examination we find him intelligent, familiar with our form of government, and attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States.

The petitioner claims the right as a Filipino owing permanent allegiance to the United States to be admitted as a citizen under section 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906, and upon his service in the Navy, and the other qualifications possessed by him he asserts the present right to be naturalized-without a previous declaration of an intention to become a citizen.

[1] The first objection urged by the government is that under section 2169 of the Revised Statutes he cannot be admitted to citizenship in the United States. That section provides :

“The provisions of this title [Naturalization] shall apply to aliens [being free white persons, and to aliens] of African nativity, and to persons of African descent.”

The Revised Statutes were approved June 22, 1874, and section 2169 was amended by the Act of February 18, 1875 (chapter 80, 18 Stat. 318), by inserting the words last above printed in brackets. The petitioner belongs to the brown or Malay race. He is therefore not an alien of the white race, nor is he an alien of African nativity or of African descent. It is therefore contended that he cannot be admitted to citizenship.

But for what purpose did Congress provide, in section 30 of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, that all the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States should “apply to and be held to authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe permanent allegiance to the United States and who may become residents of any state or organized territory of the United States”?

Mr. Justice Gray, speaking for a majority of the court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 653, 18 Sup. Ct. 456, 458 (42 L. Ed. 890), began that remarkably able decision upon the subject of citizenship with the statement of the fundamental rule of construction applicable to such an inquiry, as follows:

“In construing any act of legislation, whether a statute enacted by the Legislature, or a Constitution established by the people as the supreme law of *768the land, regard Is to be had, not only to all parts of the act itself, and of any former act of the same lawmaking power, of which the act in question -is an amendment; but also to the condition, and to the history, of the law as previously existing, and in the light of which the new act must be read and interpreted.”

In the late Tap Line Cases, 234 U. S. 1, 27, 34 Sup. Ct, 741, 58 L. Ed. 1185, the court declared that the debates in Congress may be resorted to for the purpose of ascertaining the situation which prompted the legislation.

Following that rule, we find that section 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906, was framed pursuant to the provision of article 9 of the Treaty of Paris, and for the declared benefit of the inhabitants of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, and that such was clearly the understanding of Congress when it enacted the section into law. The act in which this section is found originated in tire House of Representatives in February, 1906. In the Senate an amendment was offered by Sen. Foraker on June 27, 1906, which he explained to the Senate in the following language:

“I offer an amendment to the bill, to be attached to it as an additional section, which has special reference to Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. It is a provision that passed the Senate by a unanimous vote — that is, it passed without any opposition, it is perhaps more proper to state — in the Fifty-Eighth Congress. I send it to the desk and ask that it may be read.”

It was read, and after some discussion was adopted. It was disagreed to in the House, but was afterwards adopted by both houses upon a conference report, and is the section now under consideration. Cong. Record, vol. 40, pt. 10, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. pp. 9359, 9407, 9505, 9576, 9691.

It appears that in the Fifty-Eighth Congress referred to by Sen. Foraker the amendment offered by him' and adopted in the Fifty-Ninth Congress was the first section of a Senate bill introduced by the Senator in the Fifty-Eighth Congress, making “applicable the provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States to Porto Rico, and for other purposes/’ In the report of the committee and in the course of the debate it was stated that the bill was also applicable to the Philippine Islands. Sen. Foraker said:

“I do not know why it should not apply to a citizen of the Philippines living there, an inhabitant there, and owing allegiance to us, owing permanent allegiance to us as a people. That expression was furnished us by the State Department. This measure was referred to the State Department and very carefully considered there. If my memory does wot serve me incorrectly, it originated with the State Department. They communicated to us in regard to it, shying that this trouble constantly arises. The citizens of Porto Rico and the citizens of the Philippines also, for I think it would have equal application to them, owe us permanent allegiance; and yet if they see fit to come here and reside in good faith and for all time they never can become naturalized. Their condition is worst than the condition of their fellow citizens who, under the terms of the treaty of peace, elected to retain their- allegiance to Spain.” Cong. Record, vol. 38, pt. 2, 58th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 1254, 1255.

We are thus informed that “owing permanent allegiance” to the United-States was a term used by the Department of State to desig*769nate a certain class of people residing in Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, and it was the situation of these people that prompted the legislation providing that, by coming into the United States and possessing certain qualifications, they might become citizens of the United States.

In an opinion by Atty. Gen. Bonaparte addressed to the Secretary of the Interior, dated July 10, 1908, replying to the question whether under the Act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 596, 606), a native Filipino, owing permanent allegiance to the United States, who was a resident of one of the states, could become by naturalization a citizen of the United States, he stated that he could. In the course of the opinion the Attorney General said:

‘‘This,” referring to section 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906, “describes exactly the status of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. They are not aliens, for they are not subjects of and do not owe allegiance to any foreign sovereignty. They are not citizens, yet they owe permanent allegiance to the United States, since they owe and can owe it to no other sovereignty. The applicant is not to be required to renounce allegiance to any foreign sovereignty, because be owes none.”

The Attorney General here uses the word “alien” as describing those who are subjects of a foreign sovereignty, and not those who are aliens by birth hut whose allegiance to a foreign sovereignty has been dissolved by treaty. We shall return to this question later.

In the case of In re Alverto, 198 Fed. 688, the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that section 2169 of the Revised Statutes had not been repealed by the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, and that Congress did not intend to extend the privilege of citizenship' to those who became citizens of the Philippine Islands under the Act of July 1, 1902, unless they were free white persons or of African nativity or descent. The court accordingly refused to admit a Filipino to citizenship.

In the case of In re Rallos, 241 Fed. 686, the District Court for the Eastern District of New York followed the decision in the above case and denied the application of a Filipino to be naturalized.

While we -are of opinion that section 2169 of the Revised Statutes was not repealed by the Act of June 29, 1906, we think we have clearly shown by the proceedings in Congress that it was expressly amended by that act so as to admit to citizenship all persons not citizens who, owing “permanent allegiance to the United States,” and possessing the other qualifications provided by the statute, became residents of any state or organized territory of the United States. 'This was done by Congress with full knowledge that the Filipino belonged to the Malay or brown race. It must therefore have been the purpose of Congress to so modify section 2169, R. S., as to admit to citizenship the Filipino otherwise qualified for citizenship, notwithstanding he is not an alien of the white race nor an alien of African nativity or descent. In the naturalization case of Monico Fopez, Naval Digest 1916, p. 207, the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia held that a native Filipino was eligible to citizenship in the United States. And in the case of In re Mallari, 239 Fed. 416, the District Court oí Massachusetts held that a Filipino- was eligible to citizenship notwithstanding the restric*770tion contained in section 2169, R. S., but denied the application for naturalization on the ground that the aoolicant had not shown compliance with the provisions of section 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906, with respect to the declaration of intention and residence.

Upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in the case of Monico Lopez, supra, the Secretary of Labor requested the present Attorney General to take the necessary steps to have the decision reviewed in the appellate court. In reply to this request', Solicitor General Davis, in a letter dated January 4, 1916, stated that the opinion of the court in the Lopez Case was but a reaffirmation of the opinion of Attorney General Bonaparte given to the Secretary of the Interior under date of July 10, 1908, and that the Department of Justice saw no reason for reversing that opinion.

[2] It will be noticed that it is not “all the inhabitants” nor “all the citizens of the Philippine Islands” mentioned in the act of 1902 that are authorized to apply for citizenship in the United States, but only those who, with certain other qualifications, “owe permanent allegiance to the United States”; that is to say, the natural-born inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, who, after becoming residents in the United States and having the other necessary qualifications, were authorized to apply for citizenship in the United States. We say “natural-born” citizens, because we do not find that the government of the Islands ever had any authority to naturalize aliens. Under Spanish rule the application of a foreigner for a certificate of naturalization had to be made to the Spanish Cortez at Madrid through the Governor General of the Philippine Islands, and an indispensable requisite in such an application was that the applicant should show that he professed the Catholic faith. The naturalized inhabitants of the Islands, if any there were at the date of the treaty, must therefore have been a very small part of the population, so that those who on the passage of the Act of June 29, 1906, owed permanent allegiance to the United States were practically only two classes: First, Peninsula Spaniards, that is to say, natives of Spain, who within one year from the date of the treaty had not elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain; and, second, natural-born Filipino's. The first were eligible to citizenship in the United States under section 2169, R. S., but the second were not, and it was to make them eligible that section 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906, was passed.

But there was another class of inhabitants whose status it is thought may be somehow involved in this legislation. This class may be described in a general way as aliens not eligible to citizenship in the United States under section 2169, R. S. But these aliens never owed permanent allegiance to the United States, and do not owe such allegiance now. The aliens who resided in the Islands at the date of the treaty continued to owe their permanent allegiance to the countries of which they were subjects, and only owed a temporary allegiance to the United States. The allegiance they owed to their .sovereigns was not dissolved by the treaty. This temporary allegiance was transferred to the United States, but their permanent allegiance was continued to the sovereignty of which they were subjects. But with the *771Filipino it was different. His allegiance to the Crown of Spain was dissolved by the treaty and his permanent allegiance was transferred to the United States. This limitation of the right of naturalization in the United States under section 30 to those only who owe permanent allegiance to the United States excludes aliens born elsewhere than in Porto Rico and in the Philippine Islands, unless eligible under section 2169 of the Revised Statutes. A Chinese person born in China was a subject of China, and, if residing; in the Philippine Islands at the time of the treaty or at the time of the passage of the act of 1902, he owed only a temporary allegiance to the United States. The same rule would apply to all the other aliens residing in the Islands at that time. This answers the objection that the Act of June 30, 1906, construed as here indicated, would admit to citizenship a large number of persons which the policy of the United States has heretofore excluded. The act would clearly have no such effect.

We conclude, therefore, that the distinction of color contained in section 2169 of the Revised Statutes must yield to the clearly expressed purpose of Congress to modify that section by the Act of June 29, 1906, in favor of the natural-born Filipino coming into the United States and acquiring the other qualifications provided by law. The power to establish rules of naturalization is vested exclusively in Congress, and a rule so established must be observed by the courts. Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Wheat. 259, 268, 4 L. Ed. 234; United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 701, 18 Sup. Ct. 456, 42 L. Ed. 890.

[3] But there is the further objection that the petitioner has not heretofore declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States and that the Act of June 30, 1914, providing that certain persons who have served one enlistment of not less than four years in the United States Navy or Marine Corps and been honorably discharged may be naturalized without such a previous declaration, applies only to aliens, and the petitioner is not an alien. He was born an alien, and until now he has taken no step to change his status. It is true his status was changed by the Treaty of Paris when his allegiance to the Spanish Crown was dissolved, and again when the Act of July 1, 1902, providing temporarily for the administration of the affairs of the civil government of the Philippine Islands, made him a citizen of the Philippine Islands. But now, if otherwise qualified, he may himself take the further step and become a citizen of the United States under section 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906; and this is made possible by the provision enacted expressly for the benefit of those inhabitants of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands whose allegiance to the Crown of Spain has been dissolved by the Treaty of Paris and their permanent allegiance transferred to the United States, and because of that status are not now required to renounce allegiance to any foreign sovereignty.

Who are aliens under the naturalization laws of the United States has not been definitely defined by the Supreme Court of the United States. But in Low Wah Suey v. Backus, 25 U. S. 460, 473, 32 Sup. Ct. 734, 737 (56 L. Ed. 1165), that court, in construing the alien immigration act of February 20, 1907 (chapter 1134, 34 Stat. 898), adopted *772the definition given in 2 Kent, 50; 1 Bouvier’s Law Dic. 129. “An alien has been defined,” says the court, “to be ‘one born out of the jurisdiction of the United States, and who has not been naturalized under their Constitution and laws.’ ” This definition is also found in Webster’s Dictionary; Century Dictionary; Black’s Law Dictionary; 2 Cyc. 85; 2 Corpus Juris, 1043 ; 2 Am. & Eng. Ency. (2d Ed.) 64; 1 Ruling Case Law, 794; Milne v. Huber, 17 Fed. Cas. (No. 9617) p. 406 ; 3 McLean, 212, 219; Buffington v. Grosvenor, 46 Kan. 730, 732, 27 Pac. 137, 138, 13 L. R. A. 282; McGregor v. McGregor, 33 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 456, 458; Lyons v. State of California, 67 Cal. 380, 382, 7 Pac. 763; United States v. Williams (C. C.) 132 Fed. 894, 895; and in the case of In re Gonzales (C. C.) 118 Fed. 941.

In this last case Isabella Gonzales, an unmarried woman, was born and resided in Porto Rico, and was an inhabitant of that island on April 11, 1899, the date of the proclamation of the Treaty of Paris. She arrived at the port of New York from. Porto Rico in 1902, where she was prevented from landing as an “alien immigrant,” in order that she might be returned to Porto Rico if' it appeared that she was likely to become a public charge. Circuit Judge Lacombe held that as she was an alien by birth she was still an alien, unless in some appropriate way she had since become naturalized. This case was taken to the Supreme Court, and appears under the title of Gonzales v. Williams, 192 U. S. 12, 24 Sup. Ct. 177, 48 L. Ed. 317. The court, in determining the question involved, limited its decision to holding that Gonzales was not an alien immigrant within the meaning of the term as used in the Act of March 3,1891, c. 551, 26 Stat. 1084, without passing upon the broader question decided by Judge Lacombe.

In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 702, 18 Sup. Ct. 456, 477 (42 L. Ed. 890), Mr. Justice Gray, in defining citizenship, had this to say concerning naturalization:

“A person born out of the jurisdiction of the United States can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory; or by authority of Congress, exercised either by declaring certain classes of persons to be citizens, as in the enactments conferring citizenship upon foreign-born children of citizens, or by enabling foreigners individually to become citizens by proceedings in the judicial tribunals, as in the ordinary provisions of the naturalization acts.”

We think the petitioner, who was alien born and has not been naturalized in the United States, is an alien as that term is used in the Act of June 30, 1914. Any other definition that would exclude the petitioner would defeat the purpose of the act to encourage enlistment in the services therein mentioned. All statutes must be given a reasonable construction with a view to effecting the object and purposes thereof. Dow Wah Suey v. Backus, 225 U. S. 460, 475, 32 Sup. Ct. 734, 56 L. Ed. 1165. The petitioner has all the essential and determining qualifications required by the act. He is 21 years of age and upwards, and we have determined that under existing laws he may become a citizen of the United States. He has rendered the necessary naval service, has been honorably discharged from such service, and has twice been recommended for re-enlistment, *773and has the intelligence to understand and appreciate our form of government and the constitutional principles under which it is administered. He has all the qualifications for citizenship required by the statute of any alien, and, if the laws of naturalization are to be construed in accordance with the uniform rule required by the Constitution of the United States, we must hold that Congress intended the Act of June 30, 1914, to apply to aliens by birth who, possessing the other necessary qualifications of age, character, and service, may under existing law become citizens of the United States. Under the statute so construed the petitioner is entitled to be admitted as a citizen. This was the conclusion reached by Judge Rose of the District Court of Maryland with respect to an application for citizenship from a native of Porto Rico. In re Giralde, 226 Fed. 826. We concur m that opinion, and deem it applicable to the present case.

The applicant will be admitted to citizenship.

3.6 Reflection and Discussion (Alverto and Bautista) 3.6 Reflection and Discussion (Alverto and Bautista)

1. Filipino immigation hurdles.  During the early 1900s, Filipinos sought, for the most part unsuccessfully, to change their status in the United States from non-citizen nationals to U.S. citizens. Puerto Ricans fared somewhat better outcomes in their citizenship cases during this time, perhaps because as individuals of Spanish descent, some were regarded as "white"; others were classified as being "African" or of "mixed descent." This distinction is displayed in Alverto, where non-white persons are categorized as belonging to the "black, red, yellow, and brown races." Alverto was denied citizenship on the grounds of color, as his ancestors were "three-fourths of the brown or Malay race."

For a comprehensive discussion of the debate over the status of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Ricans, see Benjamin Ringer, "We the People" and Others: Duality and America's Treatment of its Racial Minorities, (New York: Tavistock Publications, 1983), pp. 945-1097. See also Eric Williams, "Race Relations in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands," Foreign Affairs, XXIII (1945), pp. 308-317.

Why then did it matter to the court in Bautista, for purposes of the amended naturalization act of 1906, that Chinese, Japanese, and other immigrants otherwise ineligible for citizenship in the United States, though residents in the Philippine Islands, were not in allegiance to the Crown of Spain at the time of the Philippine cession?

3.7 Petition of Easurk Emsen Charr (1921) 3.7 Petition of Easurk Emsen Charr (1921)

Petition of EASURK EMSEN CHARR.

(District Court, W. D. Missouri, W. D.

April 16, 1921.

On Rehearing, June 6, 1921.)

No. 2453-M.

1. Aliens <J=>G1 — Korean is not a “white person,” within naturalization laws.

Generally speaking, free white persons, within the naturalization laws, aro members of the white or Caucasian race, as distinct from the blade, red, yellow, and brown races, and it clearly does not include a Korean, who is admittedly of the Mongol family.

[Ed. Note. — For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, White Person.]

2. Aliens —Purpose of 1918 amendment to Naturalisation Act was to relieve service men from delays in procedure.

The primary purpose of the amendment of Aet June 29, 1906, § 4, subd. 7, which dealt with procedure for naturalization, not with eligibility, by Act May 9, 1918 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 4352 [7]), *208authorizing naturalization of Filipinos and Porto Ricans who had served in United States forces, and providing that any alien serving in such forces during the present war could he naturalized without the preliminary declaration, was to reward aliens who had entered the service by admitting them to citizenship without many of the slow processes, formalities, and strictness of proof required by the existing naturalization law.

*207For other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes

*2083. Aliens <@=65 — Amendment of naturalization Act in 1D18 did not authorize naturalization of Korean, who served in army.

Act May 9, 1918, amending Act June 29, 1906, § 4, suhd. 7 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 4352 [7]), so as to authorize naturalization of Filipinos and Porto Ricans who. served in the military forces of the United States, and permitting naturalization of all aliens who had so served, without compliance with many formalities required of others, section 2 (section 4352aa) of which amending statutes repealed inconsistent acts, with the proviso that it should not repeal or enlarge Rev. St. § 2169 (Comp. St. § 4358), limiting naturalization to free white persons and persons of African descent, except as specified in subdivision 7, did not enlarge the right to naturalization, except in the cases of Filipinos and Porto Ricans, and therefore did not authorize the naturalization of a Korean, who had been honorably discharged after service in the United States army during the World War.

4. Aliens <@=61 — Naturalization Act of 1916 did not impliedly repeal restriction of naturalization to white persons.

Rev. St. § 2169 (Comp. St. § 4358), restricting the right of naturalization to free white persons and persons of African descent, was not impliedly repealed by Act June 29, 1906, authorizing admission to citizenship of persons, not citizens, who owe allegiance to the United States, which was enacted to permit the naturalization of citizens of the Philippine Islands and of Porto Rico, who could not theretofore be naturalized, because the naturalization laws applied only to aliens and required a renunciation of former allegiance.

5. Aliens <@=65 — Selective Service Act not intended to include aliens not eligible to naturalization, and induction into service did not create eligibility.

The draft law did not contemplate the incorporation into the forces of the United States those not eligible to citizenship, and the fact that such may have been inducted into the service through voluntary enlistment or inadvertence of draft boards cannot affect the purpose of Congress to permit naturalization only of those previously eligible by the amendment of a naturalization act relating to those who had served in the United States forces during the World War.

On Rehearing.

6. Aliens <@=65 — Appropriation Act of 1919 did not authorize naturalization of Korean who had served in army.

Provision of Sundry Civil Appropriation Act July 19, 1919, giving to any alien who served in the forces of the United States during the World War the benefits of Act June 29, 1906, § 4, subd. 7, as amended by Act May 9, 1918 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 4352'[7]), which subdivision authorized naturalization of aliens who had served during the World War without many of the formalities required of other aliens, was not intended to and did not relax the provision of prior amendment, under which naturalization was limited to Filipinos and Porto Ricans in addition to free white persons and Africans, and therefore did not authorize the naturalization of a Korean who served in the army.

In the matter of the petition of Easurk Emsen Charr for naturalization.

Petition denied.

Cameron E. Orr, of Kansas City, Mo., for petitioner.

@=»For other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes

*209M. R. Bevington, of St. Rouis, Mo., and C. A. Ramsey, of Kansas City, Mo., for the United States.

VAN VALKENBURGH, District Judge.

The petitioner is a native of Korea, owing allegiance to and a subject of the Mikado of Japan, a resident of Parkville, Mo., as a student of Park College. He was drafted into the United States army, serving therein from April 15, 1918, to December 28, 1918, receiving an honorable discharge from such service. His service was at military training camps within the United States. His educational qualifications, character, and record of military service are good. His naturalization is not opposed on personal grounds, but upon the contention that all members of his race are barred from naturalization under the provisions of section 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (Comp. St. §■ 4358). He seeks to be naturalized under the provisions of subdivision 7 of section 4 of the Act of June 29,1906, as amended by the Act of May 9, 1918 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 4352 [7]), and by the subsequent Act of July 19, 1919 (41 Stat. 222). Section 2169, imposing limitations upon eligibility for naturalization, reads as follows:

“TTu> provisions of this title [of naturalization] shall apply to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

The applicant is admittedly neither of African nativity nor of African descent. The question at issue is whether he is a white person within the meaning of this section, and, if not, whether he is still entitled to citizenship because of the alleged exceptions made by the acts of Congress to which reference has been made.

[1] The meaning of section 2169 has become so far clarified by late judicial decisions that we are confronted by no embarrassment in determining the question of color in so far as that controls. In ex parte Dow (D. C.) 211 Fed. 486, and In re Dow (D. C.) 213 Fed. 355, it was held that the words do not mean a person white in color, nor do they designate racial distinction, meaning Caucasian or Indo-European, but are to he construed rather as a geographical term, referring to the peoples who were commonly known in the United States as those inhabiting Europe, and whose descendants, at the time of the passage of the act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103), formed the inhabitants of the United States, excluding Africans. In those cases, a Syrian from the Rebauon district — that is to say, from that part of the Mediterranean coast in Asia occupied in ancient times by the Phoenicians — was denied admission to citizenship upon the ground that he was not a free white person within the meaning of section 2169. The holding in those cases was rejected by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the same entitled case. 226 Fed. 145, 140 C. C. A. 549. In accordance with numerous holdings the term includes, as commonly understood, all European races and those Caucasians belonging to the races around the Mediterranean Sea, whether they are considered as fair whites or dark whites, and though certain of the eastern and southern European races are technically classified as of Mongolian or Tartar origin. Generally *210speaking, “free white persons” includes members of the white or Caucasian race as distinct from the black, red, yellow, and brown races.

Whether or not historically the term “Caucasian” is accurate as a designation of the white race, it is a term which, appeals to common understanding and to that of the lawmakers with practical definiteness, and the term “white person” may now be said to have a well understood meaning. In the case at bar we are not troubled by close refinements of definition, either ás to race, color, or geographical location. The petitioner is a Korean, admittedly of the Mongol family. Whatever their precise shade of color may be defined to be, they are confessedly not white persons, either in fact or in accordance with common understanding, and they are about as far removed from Europe and the Mediterranean Sea as could well be imagined. If, then, the applicant is eligible to be admitted to citizenship in this country, it must be because of the provisions of the amendatory acts to which reference has been made.

So much of subdivision 7 of section 4 of the Act of June 29, 1906, as amended by the Act of May 9, 1918, as is material to this discussion, reads as follows:

“Any native-born Filipino of the age of twenty-one years and upward who has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States and who has enlisted or may hereafter enlist in the United States Navy or Marine Corps or the Naval Auxiliary Service, and who, after service of not less than three years, may be honorably discharged therefrom, or who may Receive an ordinary discharge with recommendation for reenlistment; or any alien, or any Porto Rican not a citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one’ years and upward, who has enlisted- or entered or may hereafter enlist in or enter the armies of the United States, either the regular or the volunteer forces, or the national army * * * may, on presentation of the required declaration of intention petition for naturalization without proof of the required five years’ residence within the United States; * * * Any alien serving in the military or naval service of the United States during the time this country is engaged in the present war may file his petition for naturalization without making the preliminary declaration of intention and without proof of the required five years’ residence within the United States; * * * and any alien, or any person owing permanent allegiance to the United States embraced within this subdivision, may file his petition for naturalization in the most convenient court without proof of residence within its jurisdiction, * * * 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.”

Section 2 of the Act of May 9, 1918 (section 4352aa) provides that:

“All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with or repugnant to the provisions of this act are hereby repealed; but nothing in this act shall repeal or in any way enlarge section twenty-one hundred and sixty-nine of the Revised Statutes,'except as specified in the seventh subdivision of this act and under the limitation therein defined. * * * That as to all aliens who, prior to January first, nineteen hundred, served in the armies of the United States and were honorably discharged therefrom, section twenty-one hundred and sixty-six of the Revised Statutes of the United States shall be and remain in full force and effect, anything in this act to the contrary notwithstanding.”

[2] The purpose of this act is well understood. It was to reward those aliens who had entered the military or naval service of the United States, as therein described, by admitting them to citizenship without *211many of the slow processes, formalties, and strictness of proofs which were rigidly provided and enforced under the law affecting naturalization as it existed then, and as it exists now. The amendments made were not to the title as a whole, but primarily to section 4 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 596. This section deals, not with persons eligible to become naturalized, but with the procedure to be taken and the showing to be made by those elsewhere defined to be eligible. This in itself is significant in its bearing upon the specific interpretation we are required to make.

However, in the act of May 9, 1918, it was provided that any native-born Filipino of the age of 21 years, who has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and any Porto Rican not a citizen of the United States of the age of 21 years and upward, who had enlisted, or might thereafter enlist, generally speaking, in the military ‘or naval service of the United States, might become naturalized in the manner therein prescribed. It makes no other reference to the racial or geographical status of any person contemplated by the amendment. The act also provides that “any alien” who might thus enlist or enter the military or naval service of the United States may be natural-* ized in like manner. Section 2 of the amending act, as we have seen, expressly provides that—

“Nothing in this act shall repeal or in any way enlarge section twenty-one hundred and sixty-nine oE the Revised Statutes except as specified in the seventh subdivision of this act and under the limitation therein defined.”

The government contends that this limits the privilege to those races otherwise eligible to naturalization, while the petitioner claims that the privilege embraces all aliens of whatever race provided they have rendered the military or naval service specified.

[3] The question, in some of its aspects, at least, and in those which I believe control the decision in this case, is not a new one. Section 2166 of the Revised Statutes of 1878 was a provision of the same general purpose and import. Its scope was unlimited in terms; but standing, as it did, in the same title with section 2169, it was ruled-to be limited by the sweeping provisions of the latter section. In re Buntaro Kumagai (D. C.) 163 Fed. 922. A statute of like import was passed by Congress, and approved July 26, 1894 (28 Stat. 124). A Japanese alien asked to he admitted as a citizen of. the United States under the provisions of this act. The application was denied. Bessho v. United States, 178 Fed. 245, 101 C. C. A. 605.

[4] Incidentally it has been urged that section 2169 was repealed, by implication, by the act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 596). The contention has uniformly been rejected, and, notably, in cases involving Filipinos. In re Alverto (D. C.) 198 Fed. 688; In re Rallos (D. C.) 241 Fed. 686; In re Lampitoe (D. C.) 232 Fed. 382; United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. 694, 103 C. C. A. 660. The act of June 29, 1906, provided that the naturalization laws shall apply to authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe allegiance to the United States, and who may become residents of any state or organized territory of the United States, on certain conditions. This was done *212to make possible the naturalization of citizens of the Philippine Islands and of Porto Rico, who were theretofore generally excluded because, first, the naturalization laws of the United Stages applied only to aliens, and, second, they required a renunciation of former allegiance. It was contended that this provision of the act of 1906 removed the inhabitants of those islands from the limitation of section 2169. A native of the Philippine Islands applied for citizenship upon that ground. Ethnologically he was found to be one-fourth white and three-fourths brown or Malay. His application was denied for the reason that he was not a white person, and section 2169 controlled and limited the provisions of the act of 1906 as part of the general naturalization statute of the United States. In re Alverto, supra.

It should be borne in mind that the policy of our law, from 1802 down to the present time, has had in view the prevention of all aliens, not free white persons, from becoming citizens. The first exception was introduced by the act of July 14, 1.870 (Comp. St. § 4358), at.which time persons of African nativity and African descent were included, in view, as has been stated, of the peculiar situation of inhabitants in this country of that race. The revisers of the laws of the United States, at the first session of the Forty-Third Congress from 1873 to 1874, inadvertently- omitted the words “free white persons” from section 2169; but this was immediately corrected, upon discovery, by Act of February 18, 1875, entitled “An act to correct errors and to supply omissions in the Revised Statutes of the United States,” and the language of that section was restored to its present reading. The repealing section of the act of 1906 did not include section 2169, and the present act of 1918 expressly preserves it in force, “except as specified in the seventh subdivision of this act and under the limitation therein defined.” The history of legislation upon this subject convincingly demonstrates the purpose of Congress to limit applicants for naturalization-to free white persons and those of African nativity and descent. ■

We have, then, to consider the meaning of the language last quoted. What are the specifications referred to in the seventh subdivision, and what is the limitation therein- defined ? As has been said, the only reference to race contained in that section was as to Filipinos and Porto Ricans. For- this reason, it may well have been deemed necessary, or at least expedient, to reaffirm the binding force and effect of section 2169. It has already been shown that Filipinos, in certain cases, have been adjudged inadmissible to citizenship because of racial disqualification. Some citizens of Porto Rico may be conceived to present similar disabilities. Congress, in passing this law, must be presumed to have acted with knowledge of all previous legislation and of its interpretation by the courts. The exceptions referred to must have been the races especially mentioned in the seventh subdivision, and the limitation was the military or naval service performed. In other words; under the general law, neither a Filipino nor a Porto Rican could necessarily have been admitted to citizenship. Under this subdivision, he may. be, irrespective of race, if he has performed the service specified.

If, as contended by the petitioner, the exception reserved was in*213tended to mean any alien who should perform military service, it is difficult to perceive why the provision as to the continuing force of section 2169 was necessary at all; the limitation of military or naval service being sufficient to preserve that section intact in all its general features. This view is corroborated and emphasized by the fact that, throughout the original title 30, Revised Statutes of 1878, the term “any alien” is used repeatedly without qualification, the limitation to free white persons and those of African nativity and descent being raised entirely from section 2169; and the same is true of section 2166 and other acts conferring special privileges upon soldiers and sailors. Moreover, as has been previously stated, the Act of May 9, 1918, was chiefly intended to modify section 4 of the Act of 1906 as to procedure merely, shortening the time and smoothing the way to citizenship. Section 2169 has to do only with racial qualification, and out of abunance of caution it was expressly reaffirmed.

[5] It may be added that the provisions of the draft law clearly did not contemplate the incorporation of those not eligible to citizenship into the land and naval forces of the United States. That such may have been inducted into the service through voluntary enlistment or inadvertence of draft boards cannot affect the purpose of Congress, It must be remembered that:

“Naturalization creates a political status which is entirely the result of legislation by Congress, and, in the case of a person not born a citizen, naturalization can be obtained only in tlio way in which Congress has provided that it shall be granted, and upon such showing of facts as Congress lias determined must be set forth.” In re Alverto (D. C.) 198 Fed. 688; In re Knight (D. C.) 171 Fed. 299.

The objection to this applicant .is not founded upon any personal consideration. On the contrary, recognition of his educational qualifications and character is supplemented by appreciation of his military service. It may very well be conceded that that service should be appropriately rewarded, but the' privilege of citizenship rests with Congress, and with Congress alone, and the courts have no power to alter or extend the provisions of law to that end.

The petition is accordingly denied.

On Rehearing.

[6] On petition for rehearing the attention of the court has been urgently called to the provision of the subsequent Act of July 19, 1919, to which reference was made, but which was not discussed in brief or argument at the former hearing. The provision referred to reads as follows:

“Any person of foreign birth who served in the military or naval forces of the United States during the present war, after final examination and acceptance by the said military or naval authorities, and shall have been honorably discharged after such acceptance and service, shail have the benefits of the seventh subdivision of section 4 of the Act of June 29, 1906, Thirty-fourth Statutes at Large, part 1, page 596, as amended, and shall not be required to pay any fee therefor; and this provision shall continue for the period of one year after all of the American troops are returned to the United States.”

*214Because of the importance of the question involved and the earnestness of counsel, the court has made further investigation of the proceedings in Congress attending this legislation, in Order, if possible, to ascertain the intent and purpose of that body in view of the claimed ambiguity in the lánguage employed. This enactment appears in the naturalization section of the Sundry Civil Act, Public No. 21. 66th Congress. It is not mentioned in the report on the bill, and a search of the Congressional Record discloses that it was not mentioned in any of the debates either in the House or Senate, and therefore there is nothing in the records of Congress to show the intent of Congress as to this particular section. It is worthy of note in this connection that a bill of similar purport, PI. R. 6804, entitled “A bill to facilitate the naturalization of persons who served in the military or naval forces of the United States since April 6, 1917, who have been, or who may be, honorably discharged therefrom,” introduced June 27, 1919, by Congressman Rogers, and referred to the committee on immigration and naturalization, failed to pass. It would seem, therefore, that this clause of the naturalization section of the Act approved July 19, 1919, was simply attached as a rider to an appropriation bill, and went through without scrutiny or debate by either house. It cannot, therefore, in the absence of language clearly expressing that purpose, be held to relax the provisions- of the prior Act of May 9, 1918, which have been duly considered.

The court has also received a copy of the report of the Senate committee on immigration upon the Act of May 9, 1918, aforesaid. It contains this significant language:

“It [section 2 of the act] also declares that nothing in the act shall enlarge or repeal in any way section 2169 of the Revised Statutes, except as specified in the seventh subdivision and under-the limitation therein defined. This means that Filipinos may be naturalized who are enlisted in the army or navy of the United States and are honorably discharged therefrom.”

This confirms the purpose and intent of Congress as deduced and declared in the foregoing memorandum. The words “any person of foreign birth” occurring in the Act of July 19, supra, do not enlarge the word “alien” as contemplated by these acts, in view of their specific reservations. A reason for the later legislation, if one is necessary to be advanced, is found in the further limitation of the application of the provisions of section 7 to a period of one year after all the American troops are returned to the United States, which provision is not found in the earlier act.

For the foregoing reasons, I am constrained to adhere to the conclusion reached in my original opinion. -

3.8 Takao Ozawa v. United States (1922) 3.8 Takao Ozawa v. United States (1922)

TAKAO OZAWA v. UNITED STATES.

CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

No. 1.

Argued October 3, 4, 1922.

Decided November 13, 1922.

1. Section 2169 of the Revised’ Statutes, which is part of Title XXX dealing with naturalization, and which declares: “The provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” is consistent with the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, and was not impliedly repealed by it. P. 192.

2. Revised Statutes, § 2169, supra, stands as a limitation upon the Naturalization Act, and not merely upon those other provisions of Title XXX which remain unrepealed. P. 192.

3. The. intent of legislation is to be ascertained primarily by giving words their natural significance; but if this leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation' as a whole, the court must look to the reason of the enactment, inquiring into its antecedents, and give it effect in accordance with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning, in order that the purpose may not fail. P. 194.

4. The term “white person,” as used in Rev. Stats., •§ 2169, and in all the earlier naturalization laws, beginning in 1790, applies to such persons as were known in this country as “white,” in the racial sense, when it was first adopted, and is confined to persons of the. Caucasian Race. P. 195.

5. The effect of the conclusion that “ white person ” means a Caucasian is merely to establish a zone on one side of which are those clearly eligible, and on the other those clearly ineligible, to citizenship; individual cases within this zone must be determined as they arise. P. 198.

6. A Japanese, born in Japan, being clearly not a Caucasian, cannot be made a citizen of the United States under Rev. Stats., § 2169, and the Naturalization Act. P. 198.

Questions certified by the court below,' arising upon an appeal to it from a judgment of the District Court of Hawaii which dismissed a petition for naturalization. The case was argued with Yamashita v. Hinkle, post, 199, and was decided at the same time.

*179 Mr. George W. Wickersham, with whom Mr. David L. Withington was on the briefs, for Takao Ozawa.

The Act of June 29, 1906, establishes a uniform rule of naturalization, and that rule is not controlled or modified by § 2169, Rev. Stats.

The constitutional grant of power, the title of the act, its scope and terms, show that, save in definitely excepted cases, it is a complete, exclusive and uniform rule of naturalization.

Congress exercised this power in the first Congress, second session, and passed the Act of March 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 103, entitled, “An Act tó establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” This act was repealed by a like act, with a like title in 1795, and that by the Act of April 14, 1802, 2 Stat. 153,'which in turn was entitled, “An Act to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” This in turn became Title XXX of the Revised Statutes, which comprised the uniform rule of naturalization until the passage of the Act of June 29, 1906, which purports to be and is entitled, “An Act To establish a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and to provide for. a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout the United States.”

This act purports to be a complete act. It provides, in § 3, for exclusive jurisdiction of naturalizing' aliens, and in § 4, “'that any alien may be admitted to become a "citizen of the United States in the following manner, and not otherwise; ” followed by five paragraphs prescribing the conditions of admission, among them, in paragraph two, that the petition shall set forth “ every fact material to his naturalization and required to be proved upon the final hearing of his application.” In § 27 the form of this petition is given, containing, the allegations which Congress believed were “ material to his naturalization and required to be proved,” but nothing with reference to color or race.

*180The intent of Congress to enact, and its belief .that it had enacted, a uniform rule for naturalization, covering the entire subject and even' giving to the rules ■ and regulations the force of law, are clear. In re Brejo, 217 Fed. 131; United States v. Rodiek, 162 Fed. 469; Bessho v. United States', 178 Fed. 245; In re Leichtag, 211 Fed. 681; In re Mallari,' 239 Fed. 416; Hampden County v. Morris, 207 Mass.167; United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472; United States v. Ness, 245 U. S. 319; United States v. Peterson, 182 Fed. 289, 291.

The unrepealed sections of Title XXX and a few other special acts provide' for naturalization in cases excepted from the uniform law. In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; In re Lojtus, 165 Fed. 1002; United States v. Meyer, 170 Fed. 983; In re McNabb, 175 Fed. 511; In re Leichtag, supra; United States v. Lengyel, 220 Fed. 720; In re Sterbuck, 224 Fed. 1013; In re Tancrel, 227 Fed. 329.

Section 2169 is not restrictive in terms, and if restrictive only applies to Title XXX, Rev. Stats., and the cases excepted from the general rule. Section 2169, as originally enacted, is an enlarging provision, derived from the Act of 1870, c. 254, 16 Stat. 256, which extended the naturalization laws .to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent. It is ■ not a restrictive declaration; and the introduction into it of the words “being free white persons and to aliens,” by the Act of 1875, c. 80, 18 Stat. 318, does not change the provision from an enlarging to a restrictive one. There is nothing in the language used to show the intention of Congress to restrict naturalization to free white persons and Africans by this amendment of 1875.

If construed otherwise, naturalization from the passage of the Revised Statutes to the amendatory Act of 1875, would have been restricted to those of African nativity or. descent.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882, c. 126, § 14, 22 Stat. 58, 61, — passed after it had been held that the *181language of § 2169 excluded the Chinese, In re Ah Yup, 5. Sawy. 155; and.a half Indian, In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256,— supports this view. In any event, § 2169 is applicable only to Title XXX and does not apply to the Act of June 29, 1906.

The origin of the Act of 1906 shows that it was intended to be a complete scheme for naturalization, the test being “ fitness for'citizenship,” with no discrimination against Japanese. Message of President Roosevelt, December 5, 1905, 40 Cong. Rec., pt. 1, p. 99. This policy,' announced by President Roosevelt, has been steadily followed in legislation in respect both to naturalization and immigration, including the Immigration Act of 1917.

These, acts show the traditional policy of the United States to welcome aliens, modified only by restrictions against contract laborers, those morally, mentally and physically unfit for citizenship and the Chinese,.but with no restrictions against the Japanese race.

Numerous Chinese Exclusion Acts have been passed; but there is no line in any statute before or since 1875 which indicates any intention to classify the Japanese with chose excluded or to discriminate against them in any. way.

This Court in a recent case, in reviewing the history of the Immigration Acts, has held that the purpose of applying these prohibitions against the admission of aliens is to exclude classes (with the possible exception’ of contract laborers) who are undesirable as members of the community, even if previously domiciled in the United States. Lapina v. Williams, 232 U. S. 78; In re Gee Hop, 71 Fed. 274-275.

The Immigration Act of 1917, and the circumstances of its passage in Congress,- show the clear intention of that body to make- no declaration that Japanese are excluded from naturalization. Any other construction would be violative of the existing treaty with Japan.

*182The Act of May 9, 1918, amending the Act of June 29, 1906, tends to support the view that § 2169 is only restrictive of Title XXX of which it is a part. No court, excepting Judge Lowell, In re Halladjian, 174 Fed. 834, has taken into consideration what that section plainly says.

Section 2169, if applicable to the Act of 1906, must be construed like' the Act of March 26, 1790, and, so construed, “ free white persons ” means one not black, not a negro; which does not exclude Japanese.

At the time the original law was passed, which provided for the admission of “ aliens being free white persons,” there, can be no question but white was used in counterdistinction from black, and “ free white persons ” included all who were not black. The latter were chiefly slaves, regarded as an inferior race.

“White person,” as' construed by this Court and by the state courts, means a person without negro blood. United States v. Perryman, 100 U. S. 236; Bred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 420; Du Val v. Johnson, 39 Ark. 182, 192.

The primary definition of these words, as' given by the great dictionaries, is one who is white, not black, nor a negro.

The insertion by Congress of the word “free” in § 2169, in 1875, a word which had a definite.meaning in 1790, but has no meaning if construed as a new enactment in 1876, shows the intention tó reenact the old section with the old meaning.

Giving the words “ freé white persons ” their common and popular acceptation in 1875, no “ uniform rule ” can be laid down, based on color, race or locality of origin, and there is nothing in the laws of the United States, its treaties, in the history of the time, or the proceedings of Congress, to show that Japanese were intended to be excluded. Up to 1875, there had been no Japanese immigration,. no suggestion of their exclusion. • America had *183recently opened Japan to the western civilization, which Japan was gladly welcoming. f

Judicial construction of the phrase, up to 1875, does not sustain such an exclusion. See Dred Scott and Du Val Cases, supra; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sandf. 583; People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399; People v. Elyea, 14 Cal. 145. Cf. 2 Kent’s Comm., p. 72. ■

No “uniform rulé,” applicable in all. cases, can be drawn from- the decisions since 1875.- Low Wah Buey v. Backus, 225 U. S. 460; In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155; In re Hong Yen Chang, 84 Cal. 163; In re Po, 28 N. Y. S. 383; In re Alverto,' 198 Fed. 688; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed.-115; In re Dow, 213 Fed. 355; Ex parte Shahid, 205 Fed. '812; In re Dow, 226 Fed: 145; United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. 694; In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256; In re Mudarri, 176 Fed. 465; In re Saito, 62 Fed. 126; In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; Bessho v. United States, 178 Fed. 245; In re' Knight, 171 Fed. 299; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234; In re Nian, 6 Utah, 259; In re Rodriquez, 8Í Fed. 337.

The policy of the United States has been to include into its citizenship by annexation vast numbers of members of races not Caucasian, including many Mongolians. The annexation of Hawaii converted thousands of Japanese, not to mention other nationalities, into American citizens. The most recent is the Porto Rico Act, which makes the Porto Ricans, who are as dark as the Japanese, American citizens.

The petitioner in the court below presented an incomplete list of fourteen naturalizations in various courts, and that court says -it is understood that about, fifty Japanese have been naturalized in state and federal courts. In fact, the census of 1910 shows 209 American born citizens, 420 naturalized, and 389 with first papers, who are Japanese.

The words “ free white persons,” neither in their common and popular meaning, nor in their scientific defini*184tion, define a race or races, or prescribe a nativity or locus .of origin. They deal with personalities and the qualities of personalities, and are only susceptible of meaning those persons fit for citizenship and of the kind admitted to citizenship by the policy of the United States. The words deal with individuals, not with races, nor with natives of any country or of any particular descent.

The word “free” is an essential part of the clause. Under the Constitution, it is used'in opposition to- slave. It imports a freeman, a superior, as against an inferior class.

“White” we have already sufficiently defined, and shown that the words “ free white persons ” had in 1875 acquired 'a signification in American statute law as expressing a superior class as against a lower class, or, to speak explicitly, a class called “white” as against a-class called “ black ” ;. the white man against the negro.

“ Person ” is “ a living human being; a man,-woman or child; an individual of the human race.” United, States v. Crook, 25 Fed. Cas. 695. The provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment in reference to persons “ are universal in the application to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction without regard to any difference of race, or color, or nationality.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 369. The same rule has been applied- to include aliens under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments'. Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 235.

. No case has considered this point or given emphasis in the construction of the section to the words “ free ” and “persons,” which are as important to the construction As the word “white.” Nearly all think the section deals with races.

The question certified does-not deal with- individuals, but with a people, and the affirmative answer would exclude a Japanese who is “white” in color and is of the Caucasian type and race.

*185The Japanese are “ free.” They, or at least the dominant strains, are “white persons,” speaking an Aryan tongue and having Caucasian root stocks; a superior class, fit for citizenship.

The Japanese are assimilable.

Congress in repeating without qualification the words “ white persons ” has left the subject in great uncertainty. All authorities without exception agree on dismissing the idea of white as a characteristic to be demonstrated by ocular inspection. If it is sought to interpret it as an ethnological term, authorities are so conflicting that it opens the way .to serious inequalities of application. To apply the ambulatory definition which some of the learned judges have adopted, is to rob the law of all definiteness and to leave it to the whim of the particular judge or court. The only safe rule to adopt is to take the term as it undoubtedly was used when the naturalization law was first adopted, and construe it as embracing all persons not black, until the Act of 1870, and after that date, as having no practical significance. If this would run counter to the intention of Congress, that body can readily amend the act so as to make clear the legislative intention. But the subject certainly should not be left in the uncertain state in which it now is.

So far as the petitioners in the Yamashita cash [post, 199,] are concerned, all that appears is that they were born in Japan and that they were duly .naturalized by a/ state court in 1902. Every intendment of fact in favor of the jurisdiction therefore must be presumed.. They may have been pure blooded Ainos, and as such “ Caucasian” within the meaning of that term, as employed by most of the ethnologists and in a majority of the decisions construing the term “white persons” to mean those of the Caucasian race, so that in any event the judgment of the lower court must be reversed.

*186 Mr. Solicitor General Beck, with whom. Air. Alfred A. Wheat, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, was on the brief, for the United States. .

The Act of June 29, 1906, is not complete in itself but is limited in its application to the eligible classes of persons mentioned in § 2169, Rev. Stats. At the time of the passage of the Act of 1906, through a uniform course of judicial-construction of statutory language, continued in the law for over a century, it had become settled that Japanese and • all other people not of .the white or- Caucasian race were not .eligible for naturalization as “ white persons.” In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155; In re Hong Yen Chang, .84 Cal. 163; In re Gee Hop, 71 Fed. 274; In re Po, 28 N. Y. S. 383; In re Nian, 6 .Utah, 259; In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256; In re Burton, 1'Alaska, 111; In re Saito, 62 Fed. 126.

The Act of 1906 did not extend the privilege of naturalization to any persons not theretofore eligible. Section 2169, Rev. Stats., was not repealed, and was specifically 'reaffirmed by the Act of May 9, 1918, c. 69, .40 Stat. 542, making special' provision for the naturalization of Filipinos, Porto Ricans, and aliens who served in the-military and naval forces of the United States.' Petition of Charr, 273 Fed. 207, 210-212.

Since the passage of. the Act of 1906, the courts without exception have continued to hold that § 2169 was still in force, its limitation still binding. In re Alverto, 198 Fed. 688; In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; In re Knight, 1.71 Fed. 299; In re Young, 198 Fed. 715; Bessho v. United States, 178 Fed. 245; United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. ’694; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234;.In re Dow, 226 Fed. 145; Petition of Charr, 273 Fed. 207; In re Halladjian, 174 Fed. 834; In re Bautista, 245 Fed. 765; In re Singh, 257 Fed. 209; 246 Fed. 496; In re Lampitoe, 232 Fed. 382; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed. 115.

• So the ultimate question is, is the Japanese a white person, and it presents itself as á question of statutory *187construction. In the . first place it is said that we must give to these words the meaning which they had in the minds of the legislators of 1790, which is probably true; and that they were then used as a sort of “ catchall ” and meant all men except Negroes and Indians, which is surely untrue. It is undoubtedly true that the men of 1790 used the words as they understood them, and that their purview of possible and probable immigration comprised only Negroes and white men. But there is no warrant for believing that in their minds the whole human race Consisted of black men, red men, and white men. To do so is to deny them the intelligence which they surely possessed. But on the other hand, to argue that they cast their eyes over the earth and considered the races thereof, and then, with deliberation, chose to exclude Chinese, Japanese, and the other yellow and brown peoples, is to give them credit for an imagination which they did not have. To ascertain their intent, it is not necessary to entangle one’s common sense in a web of theory. The men who settled this country were white men from Europe and the men who fought the Revolutionary War, framed the Constitution and established the Government, were white men from Europe and their descendants. They were eager for more of their kind to come, and it was to men of their own kind that they held out the opportunity for citizenship in the new nation. It is quite probable that no member of the first Congress had ever seen a Chinese, Japanese or Malay, or knew much about them beyond the fact that they were people living in remote and almost inaccessible parts of the world having .manners, customs and language which seemed strange, and unwilling to mingle with western people. Chinese immigration to this country did not begin until after the discovery of gold in California, and the census of 1870 was the first to report Japanese, 55 in number.

*188It is a matter of common knowledge that for many years Japan, and to a somewhat less degree, China, maintained a policy , of isolation, and this policy continued from the middle of the seventeenth century until the Perry Expedition in 1853. American thought and statesmanship were directed toward Europe, not toward Asia. It was Europe and its “set of primary interests” with ■ which Washington was concerned in his farewell address, and it was against interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, or entangling our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambitions that he warned his countrymen. It was European trade that was sought and, beyond doubt, European immigration which was desired and expected. Citizenship has always been deemed a choice possession, and it is not to be presumed that our fathers regarded it lightly, to be conferred promiscuously, according to a “catchall” classification. It could only be obtained by those to whom it was given, and the men of 1790 gave it only to those whom they knew and regarded as worthy to share it with them,- men of their own type, white men. This does not imply the drawing of any narrow or bigoted racial lines, but a broad classification inclusive of all commonly ■called''white and exclusive of all not commonly so called. This has been the rule followed by the courts, and the cases already cited, many of which show exhaustive research and wealth of learning, leave very little to be said. A reading of the opinions of the judges, who have written in these cases reveals impressive unanimity in one respect. Each person admitted, with the single exception of the. Filipino (In re 'Bautista, supra, a special case), was admitted because he was deemed as matter of' fact to be white; each person refused was refused because' he was deemed as matter of fact not to be white. The ethnological discussions have covered a wide range of most interesting subjects, par-ticfilarly in the border-line cases, the Syrian case (In re *189 Dow, 226 Fed. 145), and the Armenian case (In re Halladjian, 174 Fed. 834). But the present case can not be regarded as a doubtful case. The Japanese is not, and never has been, regarded as white or of the race of white people.

While the views of ethnologists have changed in details from time to time, it is safe to say that the classification of the Japanese as members of the yellow race is prac-V. tically the unanimous view. Unless it could be dem- , onstrated that the Japanese were of the white race, eth- ' nological differences would be unimportant, even if other-. wise relevant. ¡

Mr. U. S. Webb, Attorney General of the State of Cali-, fornia, and Mr. Frank English, by leave of court, filed a1 brief as amici curiae.

Mr. Justice Sutherland

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The appellant is a person of the Japanese race born in Japan. He applied, on October 16, 1914, to the United States'District Court for the Territory of Hawaii to be admitted as a citizen of the United States. His petition was opposed by the United States District Attorney for the District of Hawaii. Including the period of his residence in Hawaii, .appellant had continuously resided in the United States for twenty years. He was a graduate of the Berkeley, California, High School, had been nearly three years a student in the University of California) had educated his children in American schools; his family had attended American churches and he had maintained the use of the-English language in his home. That he was well qualified by character and education, for citizenship is conceded.

The District Court of Hawaii, however, held that, having been born in Japan and being of the Japanese race, *190be was not eligible, to naturalization under § 2169 of the Revised Statutes, and denied the petition. Thereupon the appellant brought the cause to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and that court has certified the following questions, upon which it desires to be instructed : ■

“ 1. Is the Act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stats, at Large, Part I, Page 596), providing ‘for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens ’ complete in itself, or is it limited by Section 2169 of the' Revised Statutes of the United States?
“ 2. Is one who is of the Japanese race and born ■ in Japan eligible to citizenship under the Naturalization laws?
“3. If said Act of June 29, 1906, is limited by said. Section 2169 and naturalization is limited to aliens being free white persons and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent, is one of the Japanese race) born in Japan, under any circumstances eligible to naturalization? ”

These questions for purposes of discussion may be briefly restated:

1. Is the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, limited by the provisions of § 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States? .

2. If so limited, is the appellant eligible to naturaliza-, tion under that section?

• First.. Section 2169 is found in Title XXX of the Revised Statutes, under the heading “ Naturalization,” and reads as follows:

“ The provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons, and to. aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

. The Act of June 29, 1906, entitled “An Act To establish a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and to vprovide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens *191throughout the United States ”, consists of thirty-one sections and deals primarily with thé subject of procedure. There is nothing in the circumstances leading up to or accompanying the passage of the act which suggests that any modification of § 2169, or of its application, was contemplated.

The report of tire House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization/ recommending its passage, contains this statement:

“It is the opinion of your committee that the frauds and crimes which have been committed in regard to naturalization. have resulted more from the lack of any uniform system of procedure in such matters than from any radical defect in the fundamental principles of existing law governing in such cases. The two changes which the committee has recommended in the principles controlling in naturalization matters, and which are embodied in the bill submitted herewith are as follows: First. The requirement that before an alien can be naturalized he must be able to write either in his own language or in the English language, and read, speak; and understand the English language; and, Second. That the alien must intend "to reside permanently in the United States before he shall be entitled to naturalization.” House Report No. 1789, 59th Cong., 1st sess.,- p. 3. '.

This seems to make it quite clear that no change of the fundamental character here involved was in mind.

Section 26 of the act expressly repeals §§ 2165, 2167, 2168, 2173 of Title XXX, the subject-matter thereof being covered by new provisions. The sections of Title XXX remaining without repeal are: Section 2166, relating to honorably discharged soldiers; § 2169, now under consideration; § 2170, requiring five years’-residence prior to admissign; § 2171, forbidding the admission of alien enemies; § 2172, relating to the status of children of naturalized persons, and § 2174, making special provision in respecttfof the naturalization' oTseamfen.

*192There is nothing in § 2169 which is repugnant to anything in the Act of 1906. Both may stand and be given •effect. It is clear, therefore, that there is no repeal by implication.

But it is insisted by appellant that §"2169, by its terms is made applicable only to the provisions of Title XXX and that it will not admit of being construed as a restriction upon the Act of 1906. Since.§ 2169, it is in effect argued, declares that “ the provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons -. . . ,” it should be confined to the classes provided, for in the unre-pealed- sections , of that title, leaving the Act of 1906 to govern in respect of all other, aliens, without any restriction except such as may be imposed by that act itself.

It is contended that thus construed the Act of 1906 confers the privilege of naturalization without limitation as to-racé, since the . general introductory words of § 4 are: “ That an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following manner and not otherwise.” But, obviously, this clause does not relate to the subject of .eligibility but to the “manner,” that is the procedure, to' be followed. Exactly the same words are used to introduce the similar provisions contained in § 2165 of the Revised Statutes. In 1790 the first Naturalization Act provided that, “Any-alien, being a free white person, . . .. may be admitted to become a citizen, . . .” C. 3, 1 Stat. 103. This was subsequently enlarged to include aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent. These provisions were restated in the Revised Statutes, so that § 2165 included only the procedural portion, while the substantive parts were carried into a separate section (2169) and the words “An alien ” substituted for thejvords “Any alien.”

In all of the Naturalization Acts from 1790 to 1906 the privilege of naturalization was confined to white persons

*193(with the addition m 1870 of those of African nativity and descent), although the exact wording of the various statutes was not always the same. If Congress in 1906 desired to alter a rule so well and so long established, it may be assumed that its purpose would have been definitely disclosed and its legislation to that end put in unmistakable terms.

The argument that because § 2169 is in terms made applicable only to the title in which it is found, it should now be confined to the unrepealed sections of that title is not convincing. The persons entitled to naturalization under these unrepealed sections include only honorably discharged soldiers and seamen who have served three years on board an American vessel, both of whom were entitled from the beginning to admission on more generous terms than were accorded to other aliens. It is not conceivable that Congress would deliberately • have allowed the racial limitation to continue as to- soldiers and seamen to whom the statute had accorded an - especially favored status, and have removed it as to all other aliens. Such a construction can not be adopted unless it be unavoidable.

The division of the Revised Statutes into titles and chapters is chiefly a matter of convenience,, and reference to a given title or chapter is simply a ready method of identifying the particular provisions which are meant. The provisions of Title XXX affected by the limitation of § 2169, originally embraced the whole subject of naturalization of aliens. The generality of the words in § 2165, "An alien may be admitted ...” was restricted by § 2169 in common with the other provisions of the title. The words “this Title” were used'for the purpose of identifying that provision (and others), but it was the ;-provision -which was restricted. That provision having been amended and carried into the Act of 1906, § 2169 being left intact and unrepealed, it will require some*194thing more persuasive than a narrowly literal reading of the identifying words “ this Title ” to justify the conclusion that Congress intended the restriction to be no longer applicable to the provision.-

It is the duty of this Court to give effect to the intent of Congress. Primarily this intent is ascertained by giving the words their natural significance, but if this leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, we must examine the matter further. We may then look to the reason of the enactment and inquire into its antecedent history and give it effect in accordance with its design and purpose, 'sacrificing, -if necessary, the literal meaning in order that the purpose may not fail. See Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Heydenfeldt v. Daney Gold Mining Co., 93 U. S. 634, 638. We are asked to conclude that Congress, without the consideration or recommendation of any committee, without a suggestion as to the effect, or a word of. debate as to the desirability, of so fundamental a change, nevertheless, by failing to alter the identifying words of.§ 2169, which section we may assume was continued for some serious purpose, has radically ’ modified a statute always theretofore maintained and considered as of great importance. It is inconceivable. that a rule in force from the beginning of the Government, a part of our history as well.as our law, welded into the structure of oür national polity by a century of legislative and administrative acts and judicial decisions, would have been deprived of its force in such dubious and casual fashion. We are, therefore, constrained to hold that the Act of 1906 is limited by the provisions of § 2169 of the Revised Statutes.

Second. This brings us to. inquire whether, under § 2169, the appellant is eligible to naturalization. The language of the naturalization laws from 1790 to 1870 had been uniformly such as to deny the privilege of *195naturalization to. an alien unless he came within the description “ free white person.” By § 7 of the Act of July 14, 1870, c. 254, 16 Stat. 254,.256, the naturalization laws were “ extended to aliens of African nativity and- to persons of African descent.” Section 2169 of the Revised Statutes, as already pointed out, restricts the privilege to the same classes of persons, viz: “ to aliens [being free white persons, and to aliens] of African nativity and persons of African descent.” It is true that in the first edition of the Revised Statutes of 1873 the words in brackets, being free white persons, and to aliens ” were omitted, but this was clearly an error of the compilers and was corrected by the subsequent legislation of -1875 (c. 80, 18 Stat. 316' 318). Is appellant, therefore, a“ free white’ person,” within the meaning of. that phrase as found in the statute?

On behalf of the appellant it is urged that we should give to this phrase the meaning which it had in the minds-of its original framers in 1790 and that it was employed by them for the sole purpose of excluding the black or African race and the Indians then inhabiting this country. It may be true that these two races were alone thought of as being_ excluded, but to say' that they were the only ones within the intent of the statute would be to ignore the affirmative form of the legislation. The provision is not that Negroes and Indians shall be excluded but it is, in effect, that only free white persons shall be included. The intention was to confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class- of persons whom the fathers knew as white, and to deny it to all who could not be so classified. It is not enough to say that the framers did not have in mind the brown or yellow races of Asia. It is necessary to go farther and be able to say that had these particular races been suggested the language of the act would have been so varied as to include them within its privileges^ As said by Chief Justice Marshall in Dartmouth College *196v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 644, in deciding a question of constitutional construction: It is not enough to say, that this particular case .was not in the mind of the convention, when the article was framed, nor of the Ameri-' can people, when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further, and to say that, had this particular- case been suggested, the language would have been so varied, as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception. The case being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction, so obviously absurd, or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of- the instrument, as to justify those who expound the constitution in making it an -exception.” If it be assumed that the opinion of the framers was that the only persons who would fall outside the designation “ white ” were Negroes and Indians, this would go no farther than to demonstrate their lack of sufficient information to enable them to foresee precisely who would be excluded by that term in the subsequent administration of the statute. It is not important in construing their words to consider the extent of their ethnological knowledge or whether they thought that under the statute the only persons who would be denied naturalization would be Negroes and Indians. It is sufficient to ascertain whom they intended to include and having ascertained that it follows, as a necessary corollary, that all others are to be excluded.

The question then is, Who are comprehended within the phrase free white persons? ” Undoubtedly the word “free” was originally used in recognition of the fact that slavery then existed and that some white persons occupied that status. The word, however, has long since ceased to have any practical significance and may now be disregarded.

We have been furnished -\ "th elaborate briefs in which the meaning of the words ‘ 'white person ” is discussed *197with ability and at length, both, from the standpoint of judicial decision and from that of the science of ethnology. It does not seem to us necessary, however, to follow counsel in their extensive researches in these fields. It is sufficient to note the fact that these decisions are, in substance, to the effect that the words import a racial and not an individual test, and with this conclusion, fortified as it is by reason and authority, we entirely agree. Manifestly, the test afforded by the mere color of the' skin of each individual is impracticable as that differs greatly among persons of the same race, even among Anglo-Saxons, ranging by imperceptible gradations from the fair blond to the swarthy brunette, the latter being darker than many of the lighter hued persons of the brown or yellow races. Hence to adopt the color test alone would result in a confused overlapping of races and a gradual' merging of one into the other, without any practical line of separation. Beginning with the decision of Circuit Judge Sawyer, in In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy, 155 (1878), the federal and state courts, in an almost unbroken line, have held that the words “ white person ” were meant to indicate only a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race. Among these decisions, see for example: In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256; In re Saito, 62 Fed. 126; In re Nian, 6 Utah, 259; In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234, 237; In re Ellis, 179 Fed. 1002; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed. 115, 117; In re Singh, 257 Fed. 209, 211-212; and Petition of Charr, 273 Fed. 207. With the conclusion reached in these several decisions we see no reason to differ. Moreover, that conclusion has become so well established by judicial and executive concurrence and legislative acquiescence that we should not-at this late day feel at liberty to disturb it, in the absence of reasons far more cogent than any that have been suggested. United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U. S. 459, 472.

*198The determination that the words “ white person ” are ' synonymous with the words “ a person of the Caucasian race simplifies the problem, although it does not entirely dispose of it. Controversies have arisen and will no doubt arise again in respect of the proper classification of individuals in border line cases. The effect of the conclusion that the words “ white person ” mean a Caucasian is not to establish a sharp line of demarcation between those who are entitled and those who are not entitled to naturalization, but rather a zone of more or less debatable ground outside of which, upon the one hand, are those clearly eligible, and outside of which, upon the other hand, are those clearly ineligible for citizenship. Individual cases falling within this zone must be determined as they arise from time to time by what this Court has called, in another connection (Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 104) “ the gradual process of judicial inclusion and exclusion.”

The appellant, in the case now under consideration, however, is clearly of a race "which is not Caucasian and therefore belongs entirely outside the zone on the negative side. A large number of the federal and state courts have so decided and we find no reported case definitely to the contrary. These decisions are sustained by numerous scientific authorities, which we do not deem it necessary to review.. We,think these decisions are right and so hold.

The briefs filed on behalf of appellant refer in complimentary terms to the culture and enlightenment of the Japanese people, and with this estimate we have no reason to disagree; but these are matters which cannot enter into our consideration of the questions here at issue. We have no function in the matter other than to ascertain the will of Congress and declare it. Of course there is not implied—either in the legislation or in our interpretation of it—any suggestion of individual unworthiness or racial inferiority. These considerations are in no manner involved.

*199The questions submitted are, therefore, answered as follows:

Question No. 1. The Act of June 29, 1906, is not complete in itself but is limited by § 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.

Question No. 2. No.

Question No. 3. No.

It will be so certified.

3.9 United States v. Thind (1923) 3.9 United States v. Thind (1923)

UNITED STATES v. BHAGAT SINGH THIND.

CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

No. 202.

Argued January 11, 12, 1923.

Decided February 19, 1923.

,1. 'A high caste Hindu, of full Indian blood,, born at Amrit Sat, • Punjab, India, is not a “white person”, within the meaning of Rev. Stats., .§ 2169, relating to the naturalization- of aliens. P. 207. . '

. 2. “ Free white persons,” as used in that section, are words of common'speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the under- ■ standing of the common man, synonymous with the word “ Caucasian” only as that word is popularly understood. P. 214. Ozawa v. United States, 260 U. S. 178. -

3. The action of Congress in excluding from admission to this ' oountry all natives of Asia within designated limits including all of India, is evidence of a like attitude toward naturalization of Asians within those limits. P. 215.

Questions certified by the Circuit Court of Appeals, arising upon an appeal to that court from a decree of the District Court dismissing, on motion, a bill brought by the United States to cancel a certificate of naturalization.

*205 Mr. Solicitor General Beck, with whom Mr. Alfred A. Wheat, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, was on the brief, for the United States.

Mr. Will R. King, with whom Mr. Thomas Mannix was on the brief, for Bhagat Singh Thind. ■

Section 2169, Rev. Stats., applies “ to aliens being free white persons and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” It may be assumed that the terms “Caucasian”- and “white persons” are synonymous.

In the latter part of the Eighteenth Century Blumen-bach, divided the human race into five groups, namely, the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Ethiopian, the Malay and the American Indian; and, while -this classification has been the subject of much criticism, it has stood the test of time and is practical. Blumenbach’s Life and Works, p. 265; Enc. Brit., tit. “Anthropology;” Huxley; Man’s Place in Nature, p. 372; In re Saito, 62 Fed. 126; Taylor, Origin of the Aryans,'p. 2; Bopp’s Comparative Grammar (1833-1835); Mueller, .Survey of Languages, p: 29; Mueller, Home of Aryans, p. 48;' 14 Enc. Brit., pp. 382, 487; Peschel, Races of Men (Leipsic, 1874), pp. 20, 270; Keane; Man: Past and Present, pp. 442, 443, 557; Keane, The World’s Peoples, p.' 404; Anderson, The ..Peoples of India (London, 1913), pp. 21, 27, 68; 2 Enc. -Brit., pp. 712, 749.

The foregoing authorities show that the people residr ing in many- of the states of India, particularly in the north and northwest, including the Punjab, belong to the' Aryan race. The Aryan race is the race which speaks the Aryan language.. It has been pointed out by many scholars' that -identity of language does not necessarily prove identity of. blood, for ordinarily' anyone can learn a foreign language. But this argument has no application to the Aryan of India; for, as far back as history *206goes, the Aryans themselves have been the conquering race.' No other race superimposed any foreign language upon them. The Aryan language is indigenous to the Aryan of India as well as to the Aryan of Europe.

The high-class Hindu regards the aboriginal Indian Mongoloid in the same manner as the American regards the negro, speaking from a matrimonial standpoint. The caste system prevails in India to a degree unsurpassed elsewhere. Roughly, a caste is a group of human beings who may not intermarry, or (usually) eat with members of any other caste.” Anderson, Peoples of India, p.. 35.

With this caste system prevailing, there was comparatively a small mixture of blood between the different castes. Besides ethnological and philological aspects, it is a historical fact that the Aryans came to India, probably about the year 2000 B. C.,' and conquered the aborigines. See 2 Historians’ History of the World, p. 475.

Upon the interpretation of § 2169, Rev. Stats., by the different- federal courts, see In re Singh, 257 Fed. 209; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed. 115; In re Halladjian, 174 Fed. 834; United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. 694; Dow v. United States, 226 Fed. 145; In re Najour, 174 Fed. 735; In re Ellis, 179 Fed. 1002.

The Naturalization Act and the Immigration Act of February 5,1917, relate to two entirely different subjects, and for that reason alone there could be no amendment to the Naturalization Act by implication. .

MR. Justice Sutherland

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This cause is here upon a certificate from the Circuit Court qf Appeals, requesting the instruction of this Court in respect of the following questions:

“1. Is a'high caste Hindu of full Indian blood, born at Amrit Sar, Punjab, India, a white person within the meaning of section 2169, Revised Statutes?
*207 2. Does the act of February 5, 1917, (39 Stat. L. 875, section 3) disqualify from naturalization as citizens those Hindus, now barred by that act, who had lawfully entered the United States prior to the passage of said act? ”

The appellee was granted a certificate of citizenship by the District Court of the United States for the District of Oregon, over the objection of the naturalization examiner for the United States. A bill in equity was then filed by the United States, seeking a cancellation of the certificate on the ground that the appellee was not a white person and therefore not lawfully entitled to naturalization. The District Court, on motion, dismissed the bill (268 Fed. 683) and an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals. No question is made in respect of the individual qualifications of the appellee. The sole question is whether he falls within the class designated by Congress as eligible.

Section 2169, Revised Statutes, provides that the provisions of the Naturalization Act “ shall apply to aliens, being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

If the applicant is a white person within the meaning of this section he is entitled to naturalization; otherwise not. In Ozawa v. United States, 260 U. S. 178, we had occasion to consider the application of these words to the case of a cultivated Japanese and were constrained to hold that he was not within' their meaning. As there pointed out, the provision is not that any particular class of persons shall be excluded, but it is, in effect, that only white persons shall be included within the privilege of the statute. “ The intention was to confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class of persons whom the fathers knew as white, and to deny it to all who could not be so classified. It is not enough to say that the framers did not have in mind the brown or yellow races of Asia. It is necessary to go farther and be able to say that had these particular *208races been suggested the language of the act would have been so varied as to include them within its privileges,” (p. 195) citing Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 644. Following a long line of decisions of the lower federal courts, we held that the words imported a racial and not an individual test and were meant to indicate only-persons. of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race. But, as there pointed out, the conclusion that the phrase “ white persons ” and the word “ Caucasian ” are synonymous does not end the matter. It enabled us to dispose of the problem as it was there presented, since the applicant for citizenship clearly fell outside the zone of debatable ground on the negative side; but the decision still left the question to be dealt with, in doubtful and different cases; by the “ process of judicial inclusion and exclusion.” Mere ability on the part of an applicant for naturalization to establish a line of descent from a Caucasian ancestor will not ipso facto and necessarily conclude the inquiry. • Caucasian ” is a conventional word of much flexibility, as a study of the literature dealing with racial questions will disclose, and while it and the words “ white persons ” are treated as synonymous for the purposes of that case, they are not of identical meaning— idem per idem.

In the endeavor to ascertain the meaning of the statute we must not fail to keep in mind that it does not employ the word “ Caucasian ” but the words “ white persons,” and these are words of common speech and not of scientific origin. The word Caucasian ” not only was not employed in the law but was probably wholly unfamiliar to the original framers of the statute in 1790. When we employ it we do so as an aid to the ascertainment of the legislative intent and not as an invariable substitute for the statutory words. Indeed, as used in the science of ethnology, the connotation of the word is by no means clear and the use of it in its scientific sense as an equiva*209lent for the words of the statute, other considerations aside, would simply mean the substitution of one perplexity for another. But in this country, during the last half century especially, the word by common usage has acquired a popular meaning, not clearly defined to be sure, but sufficiently so to enable us to say that its popular as distinguished from its scientific application is of appreciably narrower scope. It is in the popular sense of die word, therefore, that we employ it as an aid to the construction of the statute, for it would be obviously illogical to ■ convert words of common speech used in a statute into words of scientific terminology when neither the latter nor the science for whose purposes they were coined was within the, contemplation of the framers of the statute or of' the people for whom it was framed. The words of the statute are to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man from whose vocabulary they were taken. See Maillard v. Lawrence, 16 How. 251, 261.

They imply, as we have said, a racial test; but the term “ race is one which, for the practical purposes of the statute, must be applied to a group of living persons now possessing in common the requisite characteristics, not to groups of persons who are supposed to be or really are descended from some remote, common ancestor, but who, whether they both resemble him to a greater or less extent, have, at any rate, ceased altogether to resemble one another. It may be tr-ue' that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today; and it is not impossible, if that common ancestor could be materialized in the flesh, we should discover that he was himself sufficiently differentiated from both of his descendants to preclude his racial classification with either. The question for deter*210mination is not, therefore, whether by the speculative processes of ethnological reasoning we may present a probability to the scientific mind that they have the same origin, but whether we can satisfy the common understanding that they are now the same or sufficiently the same to justify the interpreters of a statute — written in the words of common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men — in classifying them together in the /statutory category as white persons. In 1790 the Adamite theory of creation — which gave a common ancestor to all mankind — was generally accepted, and it is not at all probable that it was intended by the legislators of that day to submit the question of the application of the words “ white .persons ” to the mere test of ah indefinitely remote common ancestry, without regard to the extent of the subsequent divergence of the various branches from such common ancestry or from one another.

The eligibility of this applicant for citizenship is based on the sole fact that he is of high caste Hindu stock, bom in Punjab, one of the extreme northwestern districts of India, and classified by certain scientific authorities as of the Caucasian or Aryan race. The Aryan theory as a racial basis seems to bé discredited by most, if not all, modem writers on the subject of ethnology. A review of their contentions would serve no useful purpose. It is enough to refer to the works of Deniker (Races of Man, 317), Keane (Man:- Past and Present, 445-6), Huxley (Man’s Place in Nature, 278) and to the Dictionary of Races, Senate Document No. 662, 61st Cong., 3d sess.,, 1910-1911, p. 17.

The term “Aryan/’ has.to do with linguistic and not at all with physical characteristics, and it would seem reasonably clear that mere resemblance in language, indicating a common linguistic root buried in remotely ancient soil, is altogether inadequate to prove common racial origin. There is, and can be, no assurance that the' so-called *211Aryan language was not. spoken by a variety of races living in proximity to one another. Our own history has witnessed the adoption of the English tongue by millions of Negroes, whose descendants can never be classified racially with the descendants of white persons notwithstanding both may speak a common root language.

The word “ Caucasian ” is in scarcely better repute.1 It is at best a conventional term, with an altogether fortuitous origin,2 which, under scientific manipulation, has come to include far more .than the unscientific mind suspects. According to Keane, for example, (The World’s Peoples, 24, 28, 307, et seq.) it .includes not only the Hindu but some of the Polynesians,3 (that is the Maori, Tahitians, Samoans, Hawaiians and others), the Hamites of Africa, upon the ground of the Caucasic cast of their features, though in .color they range from brown to black. We venture to think that the average well informed white American would learn with some degree of astonishment that the race to which he belongs is made up of such heterogeneous elements.4

*212The various authorities are in irreconcilable disagreement as to what constitutes a proper racial division. For instance, Blumenbach has five races; Keane following Linnaeus, four; Deniker, twenty-nine.5 The explanation probably is that the innumerable varieties of mankind run into one another by insensible degrees/’6 and to arrange them in sharply bounded divisions is an undertaking of such uncertainty that common agreement is practically impossible.

It.may be, therefore, that a given group cannot be properly assigned to any of the enumerated grand racial divisions. The type may have been so changed by inter-mixture of blood as to justify an intermediate classification. Something very like this has actually taken place in India. Thus, in Hindustan and Berar there was such an intermixture of the “Aryan ” invader with the dark-skinned Dravidian.7

In the Punjab and Rajputana, while the invaders seem to have met with more success in the effort to preserve *213their racial purity,8 intermarriages did occur producing an intermingling of the two and destroying to a greater or less degree the purity of thé “Aryan ” blood. The rules of caste, while calculated to prevent this intermixture, seem not to have been entirely successful.9

It does not seem necessary to pursue the matter of scientific classification further. We are unable to agree with the District Court, or with other lower federal courts, in the conclusion that a native Hindu is eligible for naturalization under § 2169. The words of familiar speech, which were used by the original framers of the law, were intended to include only the type of man whom they knew' as white. The immigration of that day "was almost exclusively from the British Isles and Northwestern Europe, whence they and their forbears had come. When they extended the privilege of American citizenship to “ any alien, being a free white person,” it was these immigrants — bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh — and their kind whom they must have had affirmatively in mind. The succeeding years brought immigrants from Eastern, Southern and Middle Europe, among them the Slavs and the dark-eyed, swarthy people of Alpine and Mediterranean stock, and these were received as unquestionably akin to those already here and readily amalgamated with them. It was the descendants of these, and *214other immigrants of like origin, who constituted the white population of the country when § 2169, reenacting the naturalization test of 1790, was adopted; and there is no reason to doubt, with like intent and meaning.

What, if any, people of primarily Asiatic stock come within the words of the section we do not deem it necessary now to decide. There is much in the origin and historic development of the statute to suggest that no Asiatic whatever was included. The debates in Congress, during the consideration of the subject in 1870 and 1875, are persuasively of this character. In 1873, for example, the words “ free white persons were unintentionally omitted from the compilation of the Revised Statutes. This omission was supplied in 1875 by the act to correct errors and supply omissions. C. 80, 18 Stat. 318. When this act was under consideration by Congress efforts were made to strike out the words quoted, and it was insisted upon the one hand and conceded upon the other, that the effect of their retention was to exclude Asiatics generally from citizenship. While what was said upon that occasion, to be sute, furnishes no basis for judicial construction of the statute, it is, nevertheless, an important historic incident^ which, may not be altogether ignored in the search for the true meaning of words which are themselves historic. That question, however, may well be left for final determination until the details have been more completely disclosed by the consideration of particular cases, as they from time to. time arise. The words of the statute, it must be conceded, do not readily yield to exact interpretation, and it is probably better to leave them as they are than to risk undue extension or undue limitation of their meaning by any general paraphrase at this time.

What we now hold is that the words “ free white persons” are words of common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word Caucasian ” only as that *215word is popularly understood. As so understood and used, whatever may be the speculations of the ethnologist, it does not include the body of people to whom the ap-pellee belongs. It is a matter of familiar observation and knowledge that the physical group characteristics of the Hindus render them readily distinguishable from the various groups of persons in this country commonly recognized as white. The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born.in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry. It is very far from our thought to suggest the slightest question of racial superiority or inferiority. What we suggest is merely racial difference, and it is of such character and extent that the great body of our people instinctively recognize it and reject the thought of assimilation.

It is not without significance in this connection that Congress, by the Act of February 5, 1917, c. 29, § 3, 39 Stat. 874, has now excluded from admission into this country all natives of Asia within designated limits of latitude and longitude, including the whole of India. This not only constitutes conclusive evidence of the congressional attitude of opposition to Asiatic immigration generally, but is persuasive of a similar attitude toward Asiatic naturalization as well, since it is not likely that Congress would be willing to accept as citizens a class of persons whom it rejects as immigrants.

It follows that a negative answer must be given to the first question, which disposes of the case and renders an answer to the second question unnecessary, and it will be so certified.

Answer to question No. 1, No.

3.10 Inconsistencies in the Court (Ozawa v. Thind) 3.10 Inconsistencies in the Court (Ozawa v. Thind)

Despite Asian Americans' demonstrated acculturation and integration in during the early 1900s, steadfast domestic isolationist attitudes set the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Asian American citizenship because they were not "white." In 1922, the Ozawa court denied the applicant's petition for citizenship, stating,

the appellant, in the case now under consideration . . . is clearly of a race which is not Caucasian and therefore belongs entirely outside the zone on the negative side. A large number of the federal and state courts have so decided and we find no reported case definitely to the contrary. These decisions are sustained by numerous scientific authorities, which we do not deem it necessary to review. We think these decisions are right and so hold.

However, just a year later, in 1923, the Thind Court appears to have contradicted its dependency on "science," in holding that Bhagat Singh Thind was ineligible for citizenship.  The Court reasoned that, although he would have been categorized as Aryan or Caucasian as an Indian, according to the prevailing racial science of the time, that was not sufficient to establish his whiteness. The Court held, contradictory to Ozawa that, "the question for determination is not, therefore, whether, by the speculative processes of ethnological reasoning, we may present a probability to the scientific mind that they have the same origin, but whether we can satisfy the common understanding that they are now the same or sufficiently the same to justify the interpreters of a statute–written in the words of common speech, for common understanding, by unscientific men–in classifying them together in the statutory category as white persons.” 

How are the terms "white" and "Caucasian" defined in Ozawa as compared to Thind?  How does the Courts' reliance on science change over the course of the two cases?  Viewed together, what do the two cases say about citizenship and its relationship to race in the U.S. in the early 20th century?

Section 2169 of the U.S. Revised Statutes limited naturalization to “aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.”  Do you think the drafters of that statute intended to thereby include Bhicaji Framji Balsara and exclude Bhagat Singh Thind?  Include both?  Exclude both?

How does the court describe (or not describe) Balsara and Thind?  What do you know about each from merely reading the text of the opinion?  Do you think those were intentional choices by the opinions’ authors or a result of something else?

Follow these links for some additional information about Bhicaji Framji Balsara and Bhagat Singh Thind

3.11 Akhay Kumar Mozumdar v. United States (9th Cir. 1924) 3.11 Akhay Kumar Mozumdar v. United States (9th Cir. 1924)

AKHAY KUMAR MOZUMDAR v. UNITED STATES.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

June 16, 1924.)

No. 4229.

I. Allens <§=>7 i 1/2 — Certificate of citizenship of person belonging to ineligible class may be set asirte.

Certificate of citizenship to a person of a particular race, members of which are not eligible for naturalization, may be set aside, under Act June 29, 1906, § 15 (Comp. St. § 4374), as illegally procured, notwithstanding that admission to citizenship was granted over objection that petitioner was not a “free white person,” within Rev. St.' § 2169 (Comp. St. § 4358).

*2412. Aliens <@=561 — High-caste Hindu not “white person,” within statute.

A high-caste Hindu of pure hlood is not a “white person,” within Rev.. St. § 2169 (Comp. St. § 4358), and is therefore not eligible to citizenship.

[Ed. Note. — For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, White Person.]

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern Division of the Southern District of California; William P. James, Judge.

Action by the United States to cancel the naturalization of Akhay Kumar Mozumdar. From an adverse decree (296 Fed. 173), defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

S. G. Pandit, of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

Joseph C. Burke, U. S. Atty., and J. Edwin Simpson, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Dos Angeles, Cal.

Before GIDBERT, ROSS, and RUDKIN, Circuit Judges.

ROSS, Circuit Judge.

The agreed statement of facts upon which

this case was submitted to and decided by the court below shows, among other things, that the appellant, pursuant to his declaration of intention to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Washington on the 11th day of July, 1912, his petition to be so naturalized, and, omitting some now unimportant proceedings, the application came on to -be heard before that court on February 24, 1913,. at which time the applicant “testified under oath that he came from the northern part of India, that he was a high-caste Hindu of pure blood, and that he considered himself a member of the Aryan race,” upon which showing the court, over the objection of the naturalization examiner of the government that the petitioner “was not a free white person, within the meaning of section 2169, Revised Statutes of the United States,” ordered that the petitioner be admitted to citizenship upon taking the oath prescribed by law.

Subsequently, and on the 28th day of March, 1923, the same naturalization examiner made affidavit that he “verily believes, and therefore states the fact to be, that citizenship in the United States was illegally procured by Akhay Kumar. Mozumdar, as held by the Supreme Court of the United States during the October, 1922, term, February 19, 1923, No 202, in the case entitled ‘United States, Appellant, v. Bhagat Singh Thinch’ ” Thereafter, and on the 8th of August, 1923, the United States attorney for the Southern district of California filed on behalf of the government in the court below a petition for the cancellation of the appellant’s naturalization, wherein he alleged: ■ '

“That your petitioner is informed and believes, and upon such information and belief alleges, that the said order and decree of court and certificate of naturalization were illegally procured from said court in this: That said defendant was at all times herein mentioned a high-qaste Hindu of fuil Indian blood, and not a white person entitled to be naturalized under the provisions of section 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. That prior to the institution of this suit a certain affidavit showing cause therefor was received by the United States attorney for the Southern district of California, made by George W. Tyler, a duly appointed, qualified, and acting examiner of *242the Bureau of Naturalization, United States Department of Babor, * * * and praying a cancellation of the order of the court complained of, as well as the certificate of naturalization.”

It is from the judgment of the court below, canceling the naturalization of tire appellant, that he brought the present appeal.

[1] The provision of the law by virtue of which the United States attorney initiated the proceeding in the court below is that clause of section 15 of the act entitled “An act to establish a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and to provide for a uniform rule for the' naturalization of aliens throughout the United States'” (34 Stat. pt. 1, p. 601 [Comp. St. § 4374]), reading as follows:

“That it shall be the duty of the United States district attorneys for the respective districts, upon affidavit showing good cause therefor, to institute proceedings in any court having jurisdiction to naturalize aliens in the judicial district in which the naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing the suit, for the purpose of setting aside and cancelling a certificate of citizenship on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such certificate of citizenship was illegally procured.”

If the certificate annulled was “illegally procured” by the appellant in the District Court for the District of Washington, there was, therefore, clear statutory authority for the action here complained of. “If-procured,” said the Supreme Court in United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472, 475, 37 Sup. Ct. 422, 425 (61 L. Ed. 853), in speaking of section 15 of the statute in question, “when prescribed qualifications have no existence in fact, it is illegally procured; a manifest mistake by the judge cannot supply these, nor render their existence nonessential.” And the court there further declared:

“No alien has the slightest right to naturalization, unless all statutory requirements .are complied with; and every certificate of citizenship must be treated as granted upon condition that the government may challenge it as •provided in section 15, and demand its cancellation, unless issued in accordance with such requirements.”

[2] Nothing more need be said respecting the power of the court below to cancel the appellant’s certificate of naturalization; and the correctness of the decision of the court below is established by the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of United States v. Thind, 261 U. S. 204, 43 Sup. Ct. 338, 67 L. Ed. 616, where the Supreme Court held that a high-caste Hindu of full Indian blood, born at Amrit Sar, Punjab, India, is not a “white person,” within the meaning of section 2169 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. § 4358), relating to the naturalization of aliens; the court saying at page 207 (43 Sup. Ct. 339):

“If the applicant is a white person within the meaning of this section, he is entitled to naturalization; otherwise, not. In Ozawa v. United States, 260 U. S. 178, we had occasion to consider the application of these words to the case of a cultivated Japanese, and were constrained to hold that he was not within their meaning. As there pointed out, the provision is not that any particular class of persons shall be excluded, but it is, in effect, that only white persons shall be included within the privilege of the statute. ‘The intention was to confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class of persons whom the fathers knew as white, and to deny it to all who could not he so classified. It is not enough to say that the framers did not have in mind *243the brown or yellow races of Asia. It is necessary to go farther and be able to say that, had these particular races been suggested, the language of the act would have been so varied.as to include them within its privileges.’ Page 195, citing Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 644. Following a long line of decisions of the lower federal courts, vte held that the words imported a racial and not an individual test, and were meant to indicate only persons of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race. But, as there pointed out, the conclusion that the phrase ‘white persons’ and the word ‘Caucasian’ are synonymous does not end the matter. It enabled us to dispose of the problem as it was there presented, since the applicant for citizenship clearly fell, outside the zone of debatable ground on the negative side; but the decision still left the question to be dealt with, in doubtful and different cases, by the ■‘process of judicial inclusion and exclusion.’ ”

The Supreme Court also there further held that the action of Congress in excluding from admission into this country all natives of Asia within designated limits, including all of India, is evidence of a like attitude toward naturalization of Asians within those limits. See, also, Ozawa v. United States, 260 U. S. 178, 43 Sup. Ct. 65, 67 L. Ed. 199.

The decree is affirmed.

3.12 Toyota v. United States (1925) 3.12 Toyota v. United States (1925)

TOYOTA v. UNITED STATES

No. 231.

Argued March 18, 1925.

Decided May 25, 1925.

*404 Mr. Laurence M. Lombard, for appellant.

The necessary inference from the repealing clause, Act of 1918, § 2, is that in subdivision 7 we shall find some class specified which but for the words “ except as specified ” would be restricted by Rev. Stats. § 2169. Obviously this must refer to a class of persons who under prior laws were not subject to naturalization. Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419 at page 438.

Looking at subdivision 7, what persons are specified? None of its provisions has any bearing on the question except as they, show that every provision of the 7th subdivision h,as in view the speedy naturalization of those engaged in any public service of the United States having relation to the conduct of the War. The natural meaning of these words is that any Filipino and any alien and any Porto Rican, all having the qualifications set forth, are the persons “ specified ” in the 7th subdivision.

As both. Filipinos and Porto Ricans were already eligible to naturalization and needed nothing to save them from the limitation of Rev. Stats. § 2169, the words “except as ’specified ” must have had reference to- “ any aliens’” as the class as to which that section was repealed or enlarged.

This construction of the Act of May 9, 1918, is the only one which will give effect to all the words. From the language, it is clear that Congress intended to enlarge § 2169 as to certain persons. That section does not set forth the qualifications’necessary to obtain naturalization, but spates the races to whom the privileges of naturalization are limited.- Therefore, any enlargement of it *405must extend the privileges of naturalization to some race or races not heretofore .eligible — not to all members of the race, released from the limitations of § 2169, but only to those bearing the qualifications required by subdivision 7.

The Government has argued that the addition was solely the inclusion of Filipinos and Porto* Ricans. This cannot have been the fact because Filipinos arid Porto Ricans could already be naturalized under § 30 of the Act of June 29, 1906, and therefore as to them any addition would be unnecessary and superfluous. In re Bautista, 245 Fed. 765; In re Giralde, 226 Fed. 826; In re Mallari, 239 Fed. 416; In re Monico Lopez, Naval Digest 1916, p. 207 (Supreme Court of D. C. 1915); 27 Op. Atty. Gen. 12; Letter of Solicitor Gen. Davis to Secretary of Labor, January 4, 1916, reaffirming opinion of Atty. Gen. Bonaparte.

All other aliens except Asiatics could of course be naturalized under § 2169; so, unless the words “ except as specified ” refer to “ any aliens ” as specified in subdivision 7 and these words in turn include in their meaning Asiatics,” the entire exception becomes superfluous. The words “ any alien ” as used in the naturalization laws are nowhere defined, and retain their natural meaning.

The Act of 1918 repealed part of the Act of June 30, 1914, and part of the Act of June 25, 1910, restating the repealed parts but omitting in the re-enactment of the Act of 1914 significant words used in the former act. Such omission implies an alteration in the purpose. As the language of the Act of May 9, 1918, is clear, congressional debates and committee reports are not admissible to influence the interpretation.

The weight of authority is in favor of the naturalization of the appellant. The records of the Bureau of Naturalization show that at least eighty-seven Asiatics have been naturalized in continerital United States under *406the Acts in question divided among ten naturalization districts. All but nine of these were naturalized prior to the enactment of the statute of July 19, 1919. In addition two hundred and thirteen Asiatics were naturalized by the United States. District Court for the District of Hawaii.

The construction placed upon a statute by an executive department charged with its administration is entitled to great weight. The fact that, after the war was over and the need for further recruits had ceased, the Department altered the interpretation formerly placed on the Act of 1918, is of little value in showing the construction contemporaneously with its passage. Aliens-having rendered military service upon promise of citizenship should not later have the citizenship withdrawn.

Appellant is entitled to naturalization under the Act of July 19, 1919.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Donovan, with whom the Solicitor General was on the brief, for appellee.

Mr. Justice Butler

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Hidemitsu Toyota, a person of the Japanese race, born in Japan, entered -the United States in 1913. He served .substantially-all-the time between November of that year and May, 1923, in the United States Coast Guard Service. This was a part of the naval force of the United States nearly ail of the'time the United States was engaged in the recent war. He received eight, or more honorable discharges, arid, some óf therii were for service during the war. May 14, 1921, he filed his petition for naturalization in the United States district court for the district of Massachusetts. The petition was granted, and a certificate of naturalization was issued to him. This case arises on a petition to cancel the certificate -on the ground that *407it was illegally procured. § 15, Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3592, 34 Stat. 596, 601. It is agreed that if a person of the Japanese race, born in Japan, may legally be naturalized under the seventh subdivision of § 4 of the Act of June 29, 1906, as amended by the Act of May 9, 1918, c. 69, 40 Stat. 542, or under the Act of July 19, 1919, c. 24, 41 Stat. 222, Toyota is legally naturalized. The district court held he was- not entitled to be naturalized, and entered a decree canceling his certificate of citizenship. 290 Fed. 971. An appeal was taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals, and that court under § 239, Judiciál Code, certified to this court. the following questions: (1) Whether a person of the Japanese race, born in Japan, may legally be naturalized under the seventh subdivision of § 4 of the Act of June 29, 1906, as amended by the Act of May 9, 1918, and (2) whether such subject may legally be naturalized under the Act of July 19, 1919. The material provisions of these enactments are printed in the margin.*

*408Until 1870, only aliens being free white persons were eligible to citizenship. In that year,, aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent were made eligible. See Ozawa v. United States, 260 U. S. 178, 192. The substance of prior legislation is expressed in § 2169, Revised Statutes, which is: “ The provisions of this Title [Naturalization] shall apply to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” A person of the Japanese race, born in Japan, is not eligible under that section. Ozawa v. United States, supra, 198.

It has. long been the rule that in ordér tó be .admitted to citizenship, an alien is required, at least two years prior to his admission, to declare his intention to become a citizen, and to show that he has resided continuously in the United States for at least five years immediately preceding his admission. Revised Statues, §§ 2165, 2170; *409subd. 1, § 4, c. 3592, 34. Stat. 596. But at different timés, as to specially designated aliens serving in the armed forces of the United States, Congress modified and lessened these requirements. § 2166, Revised Statutes (Act of July 17, 1862, § 21, c. 200, 12 Stat. 594, 597); Act of July 26, 1894, c. 165, 28 Stat. 123, 124; Act of June 30, 1914, c. 130, 38 Stat. 392, 395. In each of the first two of these acts,, the-phrase “any alien” is used'as a part of the description of the. person for whose benefit the act was passed. In the last, the language is “ any alien . . . who may, under existing law, become a citizen, of the United States.” Prior to this act, it had been held .that the phrase “ any alien,” used in the earlier acts, did not enlarge the classes defined in § 2169, In re Buntaro Kumagai, (1908) 163 Eed. 922; In re Knight, (1909) 171 Fed. 299; Bessho v. United States, (1910) 178. Fed. 245; In re Alverto, (1912) 198 Fed. 688. The language used in the Act of 1914 merely expresses what was implied in the earlier provisions.

The seventh subdivision of § 4, of the act of 1918, per-: mits “ any native-born Filipino ” or “ any alien, or any Porto Rican not a citizen of the United States ” belonging respectively to the classes there described, on presentation of the required declaration of intention,, to pen tition for naturalization without proof of five years’ residence within the United States; and the act permits “ any alien ” serving in the forces of the United. States “ during the timé this country is engaged in the present, war ” to file his petition for naturalization without making the preliminary declaration of intention and without proof of five years’ residence in the United States. The act of. 1919 gave “ any person of foreign birth ” there mentioned," the benefits of the seventh subdivision of § 4. Evidently, a principal purpose of these acts was to facilitate the naturalization of service-men of the classes specified, there is hothing to show an intention to eliminate from the *410definition of eligibility in § 2169 the distinction based on color or face. Nor is there anything to indicate that, if the seventh subdivision stood .alone, the words “ any alien ” should be taken to mean more than did the same words when used in the acts of 1862 and 1894. But § 2 of the act of 1918 provides that nothing in the act shall repeal or in any way enlarge § 2169 except as specified in the seventh subdivision of this Act and under the limitation therein defined.” This .implies some enlargement of § 2169 in respect of color and race; but it also indicates a purpose.not to eliminate all distinction based on color .and race so long continued in the naturalization laws. If it was intended to make such change and to extend the privilege of naturalization to all races, the provision of § 2 so limiting the enlargement of § 2169 would be inappropriate. And if the phrase “ any .alien ” in the seventh subdivision is-read literally, the qualifying words “ being free white persons ” and of African nativity ” in § 2169 are without significance. See In re Para, 269 Fed. 643, 646; Petition of Charr, 273 Fed. 207, 213.

When the act of 1918 was passed, it was doubtful whether § 30 of the act of 1908 extended , the privilége of naturalization to all citizens "of the Philippine Islands. They were held eligible for naturalization in In re Bautista, 245 Fed. 765, and in In re Mallari, 239 Fed. 416. And see 27 Op. Atty. Gen. 12. They were held not eligible in In re Alverto, 198 Fed. 688, in In re Lampitoe, 232 Fed. 382, and in In re Rallos, 241 Fed. 686. But we hold that until the passage, of that act, Filipinos not heing “ free white persons ” or “ of African nativity ” were not eligible, and that the effect of the act of 1918 was to make eligible, and to.authorize the naturalization of, nativebom Filipinos of whatever color or race having the qualifications specified in the seventh subdivision of § 4.

Under the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, December 10, 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, Congress *411was'authorized to determine the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. And by the act of July 1, 1902, § 4, c. 1369, 32 Stat. 691, 692, it was declared that all inhabitants continuing to reside therein who were Spanish subjects on April 11, 1899, and then resided in the Islands, and their childreq born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands and as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain,” according to the treaty. The citizens of the Philippine Islands are not aliens. See Gonzales v. Williams, 192 U. S. 1, 13. They owe no allegiance to any foreign government. They were not eligible for naturalization under § 2169 because not. aliens and so not within its -terms. By § 30 of the Act of 1906, it is provided: That all the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States shall apply to and be held to authorize the admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe permanent allegiance to the United States, and who may become residents of any State or organized Territory of the United States, with the following modifications: The applicant shall not be required to renounce allegiance to any foreign sovereignty; he shall make his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States at least two years prior to his admission; and residence within the jurisdiction of the United States, owing.such permanent allegiance, Shall be regarded as residence within the United States within the. meaning of the five years’' residence clause of the existing law.”. (34 Stat. 606.)

Section 26 of that act repeals certain sections of Title XXX of the Revised Statutes, but leaves § 2169 in force. It is to be applied as if it were included in the act of 1906. Plainly, the element of alienage included in § 2169 did not apply to the class made eligible by § 30 of the act of 1906. The element of color and race included in that section *412is not specifically dealt with by § 30, and, ás it has long been the national policy to maintain the distinction of color and race, radical change is not lightly to be deemed to have been intended. “ Persons not citizens who owe permanent allegiance to the United States, and who may become residents of any State ” may include Malays, Japanese and Chinese and others not eligible under the distinction as to color and race. As under § 30 all the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws apply, the limitations based on color and race remain; and the class made' eligible by § 30 must be limited to those of the color and racé included by § 2169. As Filipinos are not aliens and owe. allegiance to the United States, there are strong reasons for relaxing as to them the restrictions which do not exist in favor of aliens.who are barred because of their color and race. And in view of thojpolicy of Congress to limit the naturalization of aliens to white persons and to those of African^nativity or descent the implied enlargement of § 2169 should be taken at the minimum. The legislative history of the act indicates that the intention of Congress was not to enlarge § 2169, except in respect of Filipinos qualified by the specified service. Senate Report No. 388, pp. 2, 3, 8. House Report No. 502, pp. 1, 4, Sixty-fifth Congress, Second Session. See also Congressional Record, vol. 56, part 6, pp. 6000-6003. And we hold that the words “ any alien ” in the seventh subdivision are limited by § 2169 to aliens of the color and race there specified. We also hold that the phrase “.any person of foreign birth ” in the act of 1919 is not more comprehensive than the words “ any alien ” in the act of 1918. It follows that the questions certified must be answered in the negative.

The answer to the first question is: No.

The answer to the second question is: No.

The Chief J¡ustice dissents.

3.13 Reflection and Discussion (Thind, Mozumbar, and Toyota) 3.13 Reflection and Discussion (Thind, Mozumbar, and Toyota)

1.  On Gaining Citizenship & Losing Identity.

It’s a real privilege to become a United States citizen, and I’m not sure how many American-born people realize what immigrants give up – both physically and symbolically – and how grateful they are to become citizens. That’s why it stings when throughout history, American-ness has been conflated with whiteness, and this sentiment lingers to this very day. 

-Roma Gujarathi, United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind: On Gaining Citizenship & Losing Identity

2.  Compounded Effects.  How did the holding in Thind lead to judicial attempts to strip already-naturalized citizens of their status and enforce statutes like California's "alien land law" in Mozumdar?

Consider this brief excerpt from Dorr v. U.S., 195 U.S. 138 (1904), regarding the relationship between the U.S Constitution and the Philippines:

If the treaty-making power could incorporate territory into the United States without congressional action, it is apparent that the treaty with Spain, ceding the Philippines to the United States [30 Stat. at L. 1759], carefully refrained from so doing; for it is expressly provided that (article 9): ‘The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.’ In this language it is clear that it was the intention of the framers of the treaty to reserve to Congress, so far as it could be constitutionally done, a free hand in dealing with these newly-acquired possessions . . . . 

The legislation upon the subject shows that not only has Congress hitherto refrained from incorporating the Philippines into the United States, but in the act of 1902, providing for temporary civil government (32 Stat. at L. 691, chap. 1369), there is express provision that § 1891 of the Revised Statutes of 1878 shall not apply to the Philippine Islands.  This is the section giving force and effect to the Constitution and laws of the United States, not locally inapplicable, within all the organized territories, and every territory thereafter organized, as elsewhere within the United States.

Now recall back to the earlier discussion regarding congressional control of immigration law and policies. If the U.S. Congress can grant privileges of citizenship, does it follow that they can take them away too? 

3.  National Policy (of Racism).  Does the Toyota court use the history of congressional action in the area of naturalization or the normative goals of military naturalization to conclude that Congress intended for the racial requirements to apply to the military naturalization provisions? The court goes on to state that "it has long been the national policy to maintain the distinction of color and race, [and] radical change is not lightly to be deemed to have been intended.” Does this sound more like Ozawa or Thind?

3.14 Additional Resources 3.14 Additional Resources

The additional resources in this section are optional readings; they have been compiled because of their historical importance, relationship to other readings, or because they are otherwise noteworthy.

3.14.2 Ghadiali v. Delaware State Medical Society 3.14.2 Ghadiali v. Delaware State Medical Society

This case is unrelated to Mr. Ghadiali's immigration matter, but is an interesting look at his attempt to practice medicine using his "Spectro-Chrome-Metry" for the "treatment of human disorders by attuned color waves."

GHADIALI v. DELAWARE STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY et al.

No. 1022.

District Court, D. Delaware.

Jan. 26, 1943.

*790Plaintiff appeared in pro. per.

James R. Morford, Atty. Gen. of Delaware, for defendant.

BIGGS, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff has appeared pro se in this proceeding and is the author of the amended complaint. In view of these facts the court will endeavor to construe the pleading and the plaintiff’s contentions without regard for technicalities. The plaintiff, a Parsee Zoroastrian by birth, is a naturalized American citizen and a resident of the State of New Jersey. The amended complaint alleges that Delaware State Medical Association (actually the President and Fellows of the Medical Society of Delaware), the Attorney General of Delaware and the other defendants have interfered with his constitutional rights as an American citizen in that they have prevented him and. will continue to prevent him from lecturing on the subject of “Spectro-Chrome-Metry”. Spectro-Chrome-Metry was described by the plaintiff in his testimony as “ * * * the treatment of human disorders by attuned color waves”, and he alleges that Spectro-Chrome-Metry is an original science which he developed. He contends that he does not cure or attempt to cure disease, that what he does is to “tonate the imbalance” of the human body by attuned color waves supplied by an appliance called a “Spectro-Chrome”.

The plaintiff is the owner of a patent issued in 1925 by the United States Patent Office for a “Color-Wave-Projection Apparatus”. The specification states that his invention “relates to a color wave *791projection apparatus intended primarily for use in the treatment of diseases by means of color waves emanating from selected portions of the spectrum. * * * ” The claims of the patent are for an ordinary projection apparatus. The plaintiff testified that he possessed other patents and copyrights. During 1932 and for some years thereafter he received royalties from this patent through a license issued by him to a company of which he was the directing force and the principal stockholder. In later years, however, apparently because of the insolvency of this company, the plaintiff has received the sum of $10 for each Spectro-Chrome sold. This compensation comes to the plaintiff despite the fact that he allegedly “gives” a Spectro-Chrome to each person who completes his course. The plaintiff claims that any “imbalance” can be “tonated” by the proper use of the Spectro-Chrome and has written a “SpectroChrome-Metry Encyclopaedia” which prescribes treatments for most major diseases. These “cures” are claimed to be effected by exposure of the affected part of the body to colored lights emanating from a Westinghouse 1000 watt bulb through the colored glass of the Spectro-Chrome.

The circular which preceded the plaintiff’s lectures at the DuPont-Biltmore Hotel in Wilmington, Delaware in October, 1932, stated in part, “Good News for the Sick! Vital Message to the Suffering!! Plug your Health from the Light Socket!!! Free public lectures on the foremost healing system. Spectro-Chrome Metry. The Health Message of Attuned Color Waves. The Science of Automatic Precision. By the Originator, Colonel Dinshah P. Ghadiali, (Honorary) M.D., M.E., D.C., Ph.D., LL.D., etc — Metaphysician and Psychologist.” In connection with his use of the letters “M.D.”, the plaintiff has testified that he received the honorary degree of medical doctor conferred upon him in Bombay, India, in the year 1899 by an institution known as “Independent Medical College of Chicago, Illinois”.

Following the lectures delivered by the plaintiff at the DuPont-Biltmore Hotel, he began to conduct a class in SpectroChrome-Metry at Odd Fellows Hall, also in Wilmington. The enrollments were “For the study of Spectro-Chrome Metry, The Science of Automatic Precision, the Measurement and Restoration of the Human Radio-Active and Radio-Emanative Equilibrium (Tonation of Imbalance) by Attuned Color Waves, without the use of Diagnosis, Drugs, Manipulation or Surgery.” The applications state the purpose of the plaintiff’s students: to “assist the sick”; “to learn if Spectro-Chrome Metry will benefit an injured spine with which I am afflicted”; “personal use with expectation of practice”; “to help myself”; and “interest of my poor health”. Each application requires the applicant to state what “Therapeutic Color Equipment” he possesses. The lectures and courses were intended to sell Spectro-Chromes.

The plaintiff was arrested on October 22, 1932, as he was about to begin one of his lectures at Odd Fellows Hall, by the police of Wilmington upon a warrant charging him with the misdemeanor of practicing medicine in the State of Delaware without a license. He was held for the Court of General Sessions of New Castle County and was indicted by the Grand Jury at the November Term of that court on the charge of unlawfully engaging in the practice of the profession of medicine without a license. The plaintiff appeared pro se and moved to quash the indictment. The motion was granted for reasons which do not appear in the record before this court. The plaintiff was thereupon rearrested upon another warrant, was again held for the Court of General Sessions, was again indicted by the Grand Jury of that court at the March Term, 1933, in an indictment containing four counts. The first and third counts were stricken out by the court with the consent of the Attorney General and the prosecution of the complaint was proceeded with upon the second and fourth counts. The second count charged that the plaintiff did “ * * * unlawfully engage in the practice of medicine without having obtained a proper license therefor from the Clerk of the Peace of New Castle County, according to law, in that he, * * * then and there, and without having obtained a license as aforesaid, did recommend the use of an appliance for the cure, relief or palliation of ailment of disease of mind or body with the intention of receiving therefor, either directly or indirectly, money or some other form of compensation, in violation of the laws of The State of Delaware.” The fourth count charges that the plaintiff did, “ * * * unlawfully engage in the practice of medicine without having obtained a proper license therefor * * * in that he * * * did use in connection with his name the letters M.D. implying or desig*792nating him as a practicioner of medicine, in violation of the laws of The State of Delaware.” The charges were based upon the provisions of Section 17, Ch. 40, 20 Delaware Laws, embodied in Section 854 of the Revised Code of 1915, Section 935 of the Revised Code of 1935.

Ghadiali was found guilty upon both counts and was sentenced to pay a fine of $250, and thereafter appealed. The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Delaware in an unreported opinion.1 The charge of the Judge of the Court of General Sessions appears in State v. Ghadiali, 1933, 6 W.W.Harr., Del., 308, 175 A. 315. It appears from the bill of exceptions filed by the plaintiff in the Supreme Court of Delaware that the evidence offered in the Court of General Sessions was substantially similar to that offered in the case at bar. The plaintiff testified in the instant case concerning his prosecution by the Delaware authorities and stated that it was his intention, if he could procure an injunction from this court restraining them, to pursue substantially the same course of conduct which had caused his arrests and conviction. The Attorney General of Delaware stated at the bar of this court that if the plaintiff did this, his indictment and trial would follow.

The plaintiff claims the protection of the Constitution of the United States. He has not pointed out any particular Article of the Constitution upon which he relies, aside from the provisions of Section 8, Article I.® I conclude that he bases his case in chief upon the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment and the right to freedom of speech inhering in that Amendment. He attacks the Delaware statute as unconstitutional asserting in effect that he has the right to say what he pleases. He contends, however, that what he has done and what he intends to do in the State of Delaware does not constitute practicing medicine.

In denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint, Judge Nields decided that the complaint stated a cause of action under Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of April 20, 1871, 17 Stat. 13, 8 U.S.C.A. § 43 note. See Ghadiali v. Delaware State Medical Soc., D.C., 28 F.Supp. 84L This section provides, “That any person who, under color of any law, statute, * * * of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall, * * * be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity * * The right of freedom of speech has long been held to be secured by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. See the recent opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals for this Circuit in Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 3 Cir., 130 F.2d 652 and the cases cited therein. This court derives its jurisdiction in the case at bar from the Civil Rights Act, 8 U.S.C.A. § 43 and from Section 24(14) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(14). The constitutional right alleged to be infringed is one of personal liberty. Hence this court may entertain the proceeding without proof that the amount in controversy exceeds $3,000. Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496, 59 S.Ct. 954, 83 L.Ed. 1423.

Section 266 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380, provides in part that “No interlocutory injunction suspending or restraining the enforcement, operation, or execution of any statute of a State by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute, * * * shall be issued or granted by any justice of the Supreme Court, or by any district court of the United States, or by any judge thereof, or by any circuit judge acting as district judge, upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute, unless the application for the same shall be presented to a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, or to a circuit or district judge, and shall be heard and determined by three judges, * * *. The requirement respecting the presence of three judges shall also apply to the final hearing in such suit in the district court; * *

The Supreme Court has held that Section 266 of the Judicial Code does not require a three-judge court upon the final hearing of a cause except when a motion *793for a preliminary injunction or restraining order has been made and pressed. Smith v. Wilson, 273 U.S. 388, 47 S.Ct. 385, 71 L.Ed. 699; In re Buder, 271 U.S. 461, 46 S.Ct. 557, 70 L.Ed. 1036. The amended complaint prays only for a permanent injunction.3 Consequently a three-judge court is not required. I shall proceed, therefore, to consider the plaintiff’s case.

The rights which the Constitution gives are not absolute and the right of freedom of speech must be so governed as to insure orderly and healthful living. Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 593, 62 S.Ct. 1231, 141 A.L.R. 514. The police power of a state is reserved explicitly to the state by the Tenth Amendment. The health of citizens of a state is a proper subject for the exercise of that power. A state may license the practice of medicine within its borders in aid of public health. Section 2, Chapter 139, 24 Laws of Delaware (Section 847, Rev.Code of 1915; Section 926, Rev.Code of 1935) prohibits the practice of medicine without a license. Section 15, Chapter 40, 20 Laws of Delaware, Section 848, Rev.Code of 1915; Section 929, Rev. Code of 1935, provides for the issuance of a license. The plaintiff has not applied for or received a certificate provided for in Chapter 58, 33 Laws of Delaware, Sections 924 and 925, Rev.Code of 1935. Without such a certificate a license to practice medicine would not be issued to him. See State v. Layton, 8 W.W.Harr. 556, 194 A. 886. A state may define what constitutes the practice of medicine. A Delaware statute supplies a definition of what will constitute the practice of medicine in Delaware. That definition is contained in Section 3, Chapter 139, 24 Laws of Delaware, was embodied in Section 849, Code of 1915, and now constitutes Section 930 of the Revised Code of-1935. The Delaware statutes sub judice are reasonable and present no novel or substantial questions of constitutionality.4 See Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 9 S.Ct. 231, 32 L.Ed. 623.

Has the State of Delaware applied the statute arbitrarily to the plaintiff? He is not a medical doctor or a surgeon. He claims that he does not hold himself out as a physician. He contends that he does not diagnose illnesses, cure sickness or treat ill persons, that he merely sells his patented appliance, the Spectro-Chrome and therefore is not engaged in practicing medicine. He claims, none the less, as I have stated, that the Spectro-Chrome can “tonate” the “imbalance” of the body; that is to say, in medical phraseology, that the SpectroChrome applied in accordance with his teachings will cure disease. Thus, although the plaintiff claims to be a mere purveyor of machines, he in effect prescribes methods of treatment for disease. It is immaterial that he disdains the conventional words, “disease” and “cure”, and that he disavows the profession of a doctor though making use of the letters “M.D. (Honorary)” after his name. He offers Spectro-Chrome-Metry as a substitute for medicine for the cure of disease. Since he was not licensed by the State of Delaware he was acting in violation of the statute prohibiting the practice of medicine without a license and his prosecution and conviction did not deprive him of his right of freedom of speech without due process of law.

Upon the witness stand in the case at bar the plaintiff testified that if he were relieved of the threat of future criminal prosecution he intended to proceed in Delaware as heretofore, except in two particulars. He stated that he would not make use of the letters “M.D.” after his name or refer to himself as a doctor. He testified also that he no longer sold SpectroChromes; that he would pursue in the State *794of Delaware the same course as he followed in other states of the United States. This consists of charging each of his students $90 for his lectures. Of this sum the plaintiff concededly receives $10 as his own. He then “gives” each student a Spectro-Chrome and the three volumes of the SpectroChrome-Metry Encyclopaedia. If he were permitted to pursue this course in the State of Delaware, he would still be practicing medicine within the purview of the statute and properly could be subjected to criminal prosecution.

I find the statute to be constitutional. Its application to the plaintiff was lawful.

What has been said renders it unnecessary to discuss the application of Section 265 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 379, to the circumstances of the case at bar or the ruling of the Supreme Court in Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U.S. 118, 62 S.Ct. 139, 86 L.Ed. 100, 137 A.L.R. 967.

The amended complaint will be dismissed with costs against the plaintiff.

Findings of fact and conclusions of law are filed with this opinion in accordance with Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c.

A decree may be submitted in accordance with this opinion.