country as a nonquota immigrant. While a woman in her position was permitted to be repatriated by a shortened process of naturalization, she was required to reside continually for one year in this country, Hawaii, Alaska or Puerto Rico before filing her petition. The courts had interpreted that to mean one year's continuous residence with the intention of residing here permanently. This Mrs. Dilasos might have found difficult to prove.

A somewhat similar case is that of Mrs. Emily Martin. Mrs. Martin is a native-born American woman who married Ernest A. Martin, a German subject, before the passage of the 1922 act. Consequently, the act of 1907 had made her a German citizen because of her marriage. She and Mr. Martin established their home in Germany, and in 1924 Mrs. Martin returned to the United States to recover her American citizenship. After residing here for one year, she filed her petition for repatriation. When the court questioned her, she testified that she intended to return to her husband and children in Germany. For that reason, the court held that she had no intention of residing permanently in the United States, and refused to repatriate her, although she had stayed away from her family and resided in this country for a whole year. This was a great injustice, one that had never befallen a man.

To remove these discriminations, the author introduced a bill, H. R. 10960, in the House of Representatives on March 20, 1930. Hearings on this bill were held in the House caucus room by the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, and presided over by Congressman Albert Johnson, the chairman. At these hearings appeared representatives of strong national organizations. Miss Harlean James appeared in behalf of the American Association of University Women; Mr. James McGrady, for the American Federation of Labor; Miss Alice Edwards, for the American Home Economics Association; Mrs. Clarence Fraim, for the General Federation of Women's Clubs; Miss Dorothy Strauss, for the League of Women Voters; Miss Cecelia Razovsky, for the National Council of Jewish Women; Miss Margaret Lambie, for the National Federation of Business and Professional Women; Miss Maud Younger, for the National Woman's Party; and Miss Elizabeth Christman, for the National Women's Trade Union League. Mrs. Ella A. Boole and Mrs. E. E. Danby wrote letters to the committee expressing the approval of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Young Women's Christian Association in the passage of H. R. 10960. Later the House committee favorably reported H. R. 10960 back to the House. After it had been passed by the House of Representatives without a single objection, it was sent to the Senate, which referred the bill to its Committee on Immigration. That committee added 15 new sections to the House bill and reported it back to the Senate with a recommendation that it pass. The amendments proposed administrative changes in the law and presented a number of other changes wholly unrelated to the law governing citizenship of

women.

7

4 Cf. In re Pezzi, 29 Fed. 2d, 999.

5 U. S. v. Martin, 1925, 10 Fed. (2) 585.

6 Cf. Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Seventy-first Congress, second session, on H. R. 10208, Mar. 6, 1930; subsequently reintroduced as H. R. 10960.

7 House Report No. 1036, Seventy-first Congress, second session; cf. Appendix H, p. 47, infra.

8 Senate Report No. 614, Seventy-first Congress, second session; cf. Appendix I, p. 50, infra.

Because of these fifteen riders, most of which were of a contentious nature, action on the bill was repeatedly objected to by Members of the Senate. Consequently, H. R. 10960 lay on the Vice President's desk from May 5 to June 30, 1930. On that day Senator Royal S. Copeland, a member of the Senate Committee on Immigration and long a sympathetic and energetic adovcate of citizenship equality for women, took charge of the debate, had the 15 amendments rejected en bloc, and persuaded the Senate to pass the bill in the form that it had been approved by the House."

After H. R. 10960 had been signed by the Vice President and the Speaker, it was sent to the White House, where President Hoover signed the bill on July 3, 1930, and it thereupon became law.10

This first amendment of the independent citizenship act provides that the American woman who now marries an alien and goes abroad to reside with him shall no longer be subject to a presumption of loss of citizenship, any more than a man." Of course, if a naturalized American woman goes abroad to reside, the same presumption of loss of citizenship that runs against a naturalized American man under the act of 1907 also runs against her. It also provides that the American woman who lost her native citizenship by marriage to an alien under the act of 1907 shall be permitted to return to the United States for repatriation as a nonquota immigrant.12 The quota of her husband's country no longer bars or delays her. Then, too, such a woman is now permitted to be repatriated after her return to this country, without any proof of residence at all. She may now file her petition for repatriation as soon as she arrives, take the oath of allegiance and be restored to her American citizenship at once.13

Thus, hardships which had developed under the act of 1922 were removed by the 1930 amendment of that act. This amendment was a great benefit as far as it went, but it left much to be done before women should enjoy a citizenship status equal in all respects to that of men.

In the first place, no provision was made in the 1930 amendment for the repatriation of those American women who suffered a presumptive loss of their native citizenship. True, this amendment did repeal the presumptive loss provision of the act of 1922, but that was not enough. For instance, women in the situation of Mrs. Louise Mariano, who suffered presumptive loss of citizenship before 1930, were still without means of repatriation.

Another discrimination which persisted even after the amendment was this provision of the 1922 act:

* * * any woman citizen who marries an alien ineligible to citizenship shall cease to be a citizen of the United States.14

Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, criticized this provision of the independent citizenship act. She stated:

A curious inconsistency of the Cable Act is that it takes away the birthright of an American-born woman if she marries an ineligible-i. e., a man from a country whose people can not be made citizens-although it is precisely under such circumstances that a woman most needs her citizenship.15

Legislative procedure, cf. Congressional Record, vol. 72, Seventy-first Congress, second session, pp. 5782, 6219, 6220, 7364, 7365, 7395, 8334, 8592, 8763, 9857, 9922, 10081, 10174, 10864, 11884, 12052, 12164, 12264, 12265, 12511.

10 Act of July 3, 1930 (46 Stat. L. 854); cf. Appendix G. p. 46, infra.

11 Sec. 1, act of July 3, 1930.

12 Sec. 3, act of July 3, 1930.

13 Sec. 2, act of July 3, 1930.

14 Sec. 4, act of Sept. 22, 1922 (42 Stats. L. 1022).

18 Graphic Survey, November, 1929, p. 136.

Then, too, against this class of American women there was another discrimination. The amended act of 1922 still specified "That no woman whose husband is not eligible to citizenship shall be naturalized during the continuance of the marital status." 16 This provision meant that the American woman who had been deprived of her citizenship by marrying an ineligible could not be repatriated, and that the eligible alien wife of an ineligible alien could not be naturalized so long as the marital status continued.

These provisions were unsatisfactory. No American man has ever been deprived of his American citizenship because he has married an ineligible alien, and no alien man has ever been denied naturalization because his wife happened to be of a class disqualified from naturalization.

As chairman of the subcommittee of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, the author introduced H. R. 16975 on February 9, 1931, to remove these last remaining inequalities between the citizenship status of men and women. Among the many women's organizations which urged the introduction of this bill and threw behind it their united strength were the General Federation of Women's Clubs, National Association of Women Lawyers, National Council of Jewish Women, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, National League of Women Voters, National Woman's Party, and the Woman's Bar Association of the District of Columbia.1 17

At the hearings on the bill Dr. Emma Wold, technical adviser to the United States delegates to The Hague Conference on Codification of International Law, made this observation:

If the objection to removing the present discrimination against women in our Cable Act is due to sentiment against racial mixtures, let me call your attention to the fact that it largely fails of its purpose. It does not affect many white or Caucasian women. The provision in the law touches the large number of Chinese and Japanese girls born in the United States with the precious heritage of United States citizenship. If, unfortunately, but perfectly legitimately, such a girl falls in love with one of her own race who is an alien and marries him, she is the one who is penalized.

So far as white women are concerned, the fact is that under the laws of many of our States, especially the Western States, where Japanese, Chinese, and Hindus are found in large numbers, the laws make illegal a marriage between a white person and a Mongolian or Asiatic person. A white woman who enters upon an attempted marriage of this sort may be punished for the violation of the laws on marriage, but the penalty of loss of citizenship can not fall upon her for the reason that there is no marriage.18

The report of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization recommended favorable consideration of H. R. 16975.19 The interested women's organizations persistently backed the measure, but the House refused to take action. Earlier in the session, however, the House had approved H. R. 10672, a bill to eliminate the posting of notices in naturalization proceedings, and had sent it to the Senate. The Senate Committee on Immigration added to this bill the one to amend the act of 1922, H. R. 16975, and sent to the Senate a favorable

16 Sec. 5, act of Sept. 22, 1922, as amended (42 Stat. L. 1022).

17 Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Seventy-first Congress, third session, on H. R. 14684, H. R. 14685, H. R. 16303; Dec. 17, 1930, and Jan. 23, 1931; subsequently reintroduced as H. R. 16975.

18 House Report No. 2693, Seventy-first Congress, third session; cf. Appendix K, p. 59, infra. 19 Ibidem.

report.20 10672.

Thereafter both bills proceeded under the number, H. R. When the bill with its amendments came up for consideration in the Senate, Senator David A. Reed, a member of the Senate Committee on Immigration, took charge of the debate and succeeded in having the bill and its amendments passed by the Senate on February 26, 1931. The House, however, refused to approve the Senate amendments, and asked for a conference. The bill as ameded by the Senate thereupon went to conference.

The conference committee made some changes and reported the bill, H. R. 10672, with its amendments back to the respective houses on March 2, 1931. The conference report on the combined bills 21 was adopted by both the House and the Senate as H. R. 10672 on March 3, 1931, and it then was sent to the President.22

Immediately the women went to the White House to urge the President to sign the bill and not to let it die because of a pocket veto. Late the night of March 3, 1931, just a few hours before the Seventy-first Congress adjourned, Mr. Hoover signed the bill and it became law.

The second amendment of the women's independent citizenship act did in fact place men and women on exactly the same footing, so far as citizenship is concerned. The last vestige of discrimination against women was eliminated. Our law for the first time now completely recognizes the dignity of an American woman's citizenship and permits her to feel that her allegiance to our government is as fine, intimate and sincere as a man's.

Within a decade this great transformation of our law has taken place. No longer will an American-born woman ever be deprived of her American citizenship, regardless of whom she may marry or where or how long she may reside, unless she herself formally renounces her allegiance to the United States, becomes naturalized in some foreign country or takes the oath of allegiance to another sovereign. The woman who lost her citizenship by marriage to an alien before 1922 or because of her residence abroad after marrying an alien subsequent to 1922, may now return to the United States as a nonquota immigrant and regain her native citizenship by a simple process of repatriation. No proof of residence here is required. She is no longer dominated by the will of her alien husband in this regard.

An alien woman who marries an American now is permitted to be naturalized by shortening proceedings requiring only one year's residence before filing her petition, instead of the customary five.

Whether an alien man wishes to be naturalized or not, his alien wife may become a citizen in her own right by the regular naturalization proceedings. That is true, even though her husband himself be ineligible for citizenship.

To-day women in America enjoy citizenship status truly equal to and independent of that of men. Woman's citizenship victory is complete.

20 Senate Report No. 1723, Seventy-first Congress, third session; cf. Appendix L, p. 86, infra.

21 House Report No. 2937, Seventy-first Congress, Third Session; cf. Appendix M, p. 87, infra.

22 Legislative procedure; cf. Congressional Record, vol. 74, pp. 1430, 1445, 4424, 5121, 5253, 5584, 6124, 6473, 6528, 6660, 6905, 6985, 7153, 7154, 7155, 7250, 7392.

RÉSUMÉ OF THE EFFECT OF MARRIAGE ON THE CITIZENSHIP OF

WOMEN

I. AMERICAN WOMEN

A. MARRIAGE PRIOR TO MARCH 2, 1907

1. Marriage to an alien, followed by continuous residence in the United States, did not affect her nationality; she did not lose her American citizenship.

2. Marriage to an alien, followed by residence abroad with her husband, if she took up permanent residence abroad with here husband at any time prior to September 22, 1922, and if she acquired as a result of the marriage the nationality of the country of which her husband was a citizen or subject, she lost her American citizenship.

3. If the American woman who was married to an alien continued to reside in the United States until after September 22, 1922, she did not lose her American citizenship by reason of such marriage; nor did she lose such citizenship if she took up permanent residence abroad with her husband prior to September 22, 1922, unless she acquired nationality of the country of which her husband was a subject or citizen under its laws.

B. RESUMPTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP LOST BY MARRIAGE PRIOR TO MARCH 2, 1907

1. When the marital relation terminated prior to March 2, 1907, American citizenship was resumed if, subsequent to the termination of the marital status, and prior to March 2, 1907, she resumed a permanent residence in the United States.

2. When the marital relation terminated between March 2, 1907, and September 22, 1922, American citizenship could be reacquired in any one of three ways:

(a) If abroad, by registering as an American citizen, or

(b) By returning to reside in the United States, or

(c) If residing in the United States, by continuing to reside therein. 3. After September 22, 1922

(a) It is not material whether the marital relation has terminated. American citizenship can be reacquired only by petition for naturalization in her own name. However, the woman who married an alien not eligible to citizenship could not be naturalized during the continuance of the marital status until after March 3, 1931.

C. MARRIAGE BETWEEN MARCH 2, 1907, AND SEPTEMBER 22, 1922

1. The American woman who married an alien took the nationality of her busband.

D. RESUMPTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP LOST BY MARRIAGE BETWEEN MARCH 2, 1907, AND SEPTEMBER 22, 1922

1. When the marital relation terminated prior to September 22, 1922, American citizenship could be reacquired in any one of the three ways set forth in I, B, 2, (a), (b), and (c), supra.

2. After September 22, 1922, it is not material whether the marital relationship has terminated. American citizenship may be reacquired only by petition for naturalization in her own name.

How