Speech #530057605

I do not think I shall yield for a campmeeting story. Mr. President. that Senator was pressed with a good deal of vigor by my honorable friend from Maine . and was asked what he thought of the admitted. unquestioned fact. proved upon the records of the Senate and certified to by a Democratic committee. that in the city of New York under Democratic management there were 60.000I think was the numberof fraudulent naturalization papers. all purporting to have been made in two courts in the space of three or four days. What was the Senators answer to that proposition? He was asked whether he thought all the State processes had been quite sufficient to protect the State and the nation against that enormous fraud. by which the great State of New York was carried by a minority in 1868. His reply was that the true way was to take that out of the hands of the State courts and let nobody but the courts of the United States do the naturalization. He gave up the whole case. The State courts. under the Constitution and the laws. have been permitted to share this function with the judiciary of the United States. and if you can trust. anybody anywhere you can trust the courts of this country everywhere. and yet that Senator. put forward as the leading champion of the friends of repeal. is obliged to confess that there is but one safety in this matter. and that is not to trust the State courts with the great function of naturalization. If it would be no insult to the State of Illinois or to the State of New York to say. as that Senator would say. that the State courts are not to be trusted to pass on the judicial question of whether a man has been five years in this country and has made his preliminary declaration. what sort of an insult is it to say that the political workers about the polls are not always to be trusted with the great function of suffrage? Mr.