Chairman. that the Democratic party must be very hard up for an issue when they take up so much of the time of the House in going back to these old matters that occurred some eighteen or twenty years ago in the city of New York. and that. too. in a discussion upon a general appropriation bill when the motion is to strike out the last word of a clause that bears no relation whatever to that subject. Mr. Chairman. it is well known to the country. it is well known to gentlemen upon that side of the Chamber. that when this first supervisor of election law was passed there was a regular mill engaged in grinding out naturalization papers in the city of New York. a mill that did not deserve the dignity of being called a court. because those papers were handed out to immigrants upon the streets and were given out generally without any sanction of judicial authority. They were a scandal upon the electivefranchise. They were a scandal upon the privilege which our laws had given to aliens to come here and after five years residence become citizens of the United States. Those naturalization papers being turned out in that way by wholesale. Mr. Davenport. as he had a right to do under the law. seized them. and in doing so he made himself amenable to the process of the court if those papers were legal.
Keywords matched
immigrants naturalization