The bill passed by the California legislature avoids the phrase "ineligible to citizenship" by providing two descriptions of aliens and defining the rights of each, as follows: Section 1. "All aliens eligible to citizenship under the laws of the United States may acquire, possess, enjoy, transmit, and inherit real property, or any interest therein, in this state, in the same manner and to the same extent as citizens of the United States, except as otherwise provided by the laws of this state." Section 11. "All aliens other than those mentioned in section one of this act may acquire, possess, enjoy, and transfer real property or any interest therein, in this state, in the manner and to the extent and for the purposes prescribed by any treaty now existing between the government of the United States and the nation or country of which such alien is a citizen or subject, and not otherwise, and may in addition thereto lease lands in this state for agricultural purposes for a term not exceeding three years.'

As the present treaty between the United States and Japan specifies that the Japanese may own and occupy houses, manufactories, warehouses and shops, and to lease land for residential purposes, this law is held to be a rigid restriction upon the acquisition of farming lands by Japanese.

Some of the Progressive leaders in the legislature, according to dispatches, admitted that the law would be ineffective if the Japanese brought a test suit before the United States Supreme Court, according to their announced intention, and were successful in establishing their right to become citizens. This brings up the whole question of the eligibility of the Japanese to become American citizens and a word or two ought to be said concerning it.

Contrary to a number of newspaper reports, and popular opinion, there is no specific federal statute excluding the Japanese from naturalization. Where we have denied them this privilege it has been done by the courts in interpreting the phrase "white persons" as found in our naturalization laws.

The first naturalization act was approved in March, 1790 (I. Statute 103). By section I. of this act it is provided "that any alien being a free white person may be admitted to become a citizen." This law was repealed and new restrictions made by the act approved January 29, 1795 (I. Statutes 414), which was in turn repealed by the act of April 14, 1802. Both of these last named acts confined naturalization to aliens being free white persons.

This rule continued in force until 1870, when the law was amended to include aliens of African nativity, and persons of African descent. It reads as follows: "The provisions of this title shall apply to aliens of African nativity, and persons of African de

scent."

Five years later (1875) this section was so amended as to include free white persons and the law as amended and now in force is 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." (Revised Statutes 2169.)

Different interpretations have been put upon this statute by the courts. Thus in 1893, in the case of Saito vs. United States (62 Fed. 126), the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts laid down the theory that the Japanese do not come within the meaning of the term "white persons" as used in our naturalization laws. Shebato Saito, a native of Japan, applied for naturalization papers and his application was denied by the, Court upon the following grounds: "The act," held the court, "relating to naturlization, declares that the provisions of this title shall apply to aliens being 'free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent.' The Japanese like the Chinese, belong to the Mongolian race, and the question presented is whether they are included within the term 'white persons.' The court rules that the statute must be taken in its ordinary sense, and that the application of Shebato Saito must be denied upon the ground that he was of the Mongolian race and that the term 'white person' excluded the Mongolian race, and therefore the application is denied."

The courts have applied the same ruling touching the Burmese. Thus in the case of Sanc Po, (38 New York Supplement 383), a native of British Burmah, the court ruled that the Burmese are Malays, and under modern ethnological subdivisions are Mongolians. "The petitioner," continues the court, "falls squarely within the provisions of Section 2169, United States Revised Statutes, which limit a naturalization to free white persons and to persons of African nativity and African descent; for he is neither."

Again in the case of Kanaka Nian (21 Pac. 993), a native of the Hawaiian Islands, the defendant was refused citizenship because he was not white.

On the other hand, at least a score of Japanese have been admitted to American citizenship by the Courts. A notable example is the distinguished international lawyer, author, and editor, Misuji Miyakawa, who holds the degree of LL. D., from Indiana State University, and D. C. L. from the University of Paris. Dr. Miyakawa was chief counsel for the Japanese in the famous school controversy in California and counsel for Japan in the Bering Sea seal controversy.

Dr. Miyakawa is the authority for the statement that the Japanese have been admitted to citizenship for twenty years and that

there are at least a dozen Japanese in New York city who are American citizens. He points out further that the Japanese have been admitted to full-fledged citizenship in Federal or state courts in Indiana, Florida, Arizona, California, and New York.

Coming nearer home we have the case of U. S. Kaneko, a native of Japan, who became an American citizen in 1896. Mr. Kaneko is now living at 636 West Eighth street, Riverside, California. Below is a copy of the record of the Court that granted him the naturalization papers.

DECLARATION OF INTENTION.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

State of California.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, County of San Bernardino.

I, Ulysses S. Kaneko, do declare on oath, that it is my bona fide intention to become a citizen of the United States of America; and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to all foreign Princes, Potentate, State and Sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to the Emperor of Japan.

(Signed) ULYSSES S. KANEKO. Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 9th day of February, A. D. 1892.

(Signed) GEORGE L. HISOм, Clerk.
By G. R. FREEMAN, Dep. Clerk.

FINAL PAPERS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

State of California.

In the Superior Court of the County of San Bernardino,
State of California.

Present Hon. Geo. E. Otis, Judge.

This is to certify, that on this 27th day of March, 1896, it appearing to the satisfaction of this Court, by the oaths of J. W. F. Diss and E. G. Judson, citizens of the United States of America, witnesses for that purpose, first duly sworn and examined, that Ulysses S. Kaneko, a native of Japan, resided in the United States of America three years next preceding his arriving at the age of twenty-one years, and that he has continued to reside in the United States to the present time and has resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States five years at least, last past, and that during all of said five years time he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order

and happiness of the same, and said applicant has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and having now here before this court, taken an oath he will support the Constitution of the United States of America and that he doth absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every sovereign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan. It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that the said Ulysses S. Kaneko, be, and he is hereby admitted and declared to be a citizen of the United States of America.

Attest: J. W. F. Diss, Clerk.

(Seal)

By L. A. PFEIFFER, Deputy Clerk.

GEO. E. OTIS, Judge.

To sum up: The Japanese are not excluded from naturalization by specific federal statutes, but only by the interpretation that the courts have put upon the laws, and, as we have seen, these rulings have not been uniform. The only race excluded by special statute is the Chinese.

Thus far it has been largely an ethnological question with the courts. The matter might be finally settled in favor of the Japanese in one of two ways. First, the Supreme Court of the United States could interpret the Federal statutes in such a way as to include the Japanese within the term "white persons"; or secondly, Congress might pass a law granting to them the privilege of becoming naturalized.

Legally speaking, every nation has the right to determine what aliens, if any, it will admit into the body politic; but in the absence of treaties governing these matters there is always a moral responsibility resting upon the nation to treat with justice and fairness the aliens who come within its borders.

THE ATTITUDE OF CALIFORNIA TO THE CIVIL WAR.

BY IMOGENE SPAULDING.

SECESSION SENTIMENT AND MOVEMENTS.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, California occupied a position in the United States that was unique in many ways. Separated from the East by natural physical barriers in the Rocky Mountains and Great American Desert, and lacking telegraphic communication with the States about to go to war,1 California had naturally come to have a feeling of remoteness with respect to her sister States. Economically, as interest throughout the United States was sectional rather than national in 1861, California had no connection with the growth of the middle-western, eastern or southern States; as a growing State, she was busy developing her own resources and building up her own budding industries. Politically, California was not interested from a material and selfish standpoint in the questions which were tearing the Union asunder in 1861. She had no cause for grievance against the national government: the States Rights question had never been a disturbing element in her politics as it was in the East; slavery had always been forbidden. A comparatively new State, situated almost beyond the margin of the nation's life, and almost forgotten by her sister States in the anxious days of '61, it would seem that California would not play a role of any consequence in the great national drama of 1861-1865. That she did display a deep-seated interest in the struggle so far from her borders, and that she played a part which redounds to her honor, is especially noteworthy and remarkable.

California's interest in the Civil War may be attributed in part to the newness of the State and the fact that so many of her inhabitants had recently come from the States about to engage in the life-and-death struggle of the Union. Those who were from the northern States were unqualifiedly Union men in California, while those who were from slave States, or whose families, relatives or friends were living in the South, where-after the war beganhomes were being ruined and devastated by war, were naturally

1. The Pony Express, established in 1859, was the quickest conveyor of war news at first. The Northern Overland Mail stage line was organized in 1861. The Southern stage by way of the Santa Fe trail, El Paso, Yuma and Los Angeles to San Francisco had to be abandoned when the war began.