To contend that the certificate is the record is. in my judgment. to imitate the emphatic style of the gentleman from Illinois . preposterous. If the position of that gentleman is correct. a court may have its records all over the United States. and. for that matter. in foreign countries. too. But the courts have held. and. as I maintain. properly held. that the certificate of naturalization. the exemplification of the recordcall it by wharever name youpleaseis nothing more than an instrument of evidence. "vhich shall be sufficient evidence of the fact of naturalization. Not a single authority. not a single case. whether from a United States court or a State court. has been produced here to sustain the position of the friends of the coutestee. I maintain there can not be found a case involving proof of naturalization in which there was not either some record madea small record. it my be. but at least a recordor the certificate of naturalization was produced. Now. when the citizenship of this contestee was challenged he went to the court in which he claimed to have been naturalized and failed to find any record. The powerful presumption of fact from the absence of the record is. I think. that the naturalization did not take place. As was said by my colleague on the committee. the gentleman from Texas [Mr. MooRE]. the absence of any record. the fact that no record was made. is the most powerful evidence that the party was not then and there naturalized. as he claims. Now. how do gentlemen propose to meet this absence of any recordthis omission. as they claim. of the clerk to make the record of Mr. Whites naturalization?
Keywords matched
naturalized naturalization