Louis is a Democratic court with three Democratic judges. It is a court of appeals and for the correction of errors. It has absolutely no jurisdiction or authority to grant naturalization papers. But it so happened that the judges of the circuit court and its clerk were Republican. the clerk required the Democrats to pay the statutory fees to be naturalized as he required Republicans to pay these fees. This court of appeals of the city of St. Louis proceeded in defiance of all law. and without one vestige of authority. State or Federal. to sit for naturalization of aliens. because. forsooth. the Democratic clerk offered to the State committee to issue papers gratuitously. There is not an authority. so far as I know. in this country. and none has been called to my attention. which holds that a court of appeals can sit for the naturalization of aliens. On the contrary. it has been specifically held by the courts of South Carolina and of California that no such power exists. The authority is conferred by law upon the courts of commonlaw jurisdiction. Courts of appeal do not have commonlaw jurisdiction within the meaning of that term as used in this statute. It has never been the practice in this country. so far as I know. to go to appellate tribunals for naturalization papers. This court was composed of three judges. They sat night after night in October. 1900. granting naturalization papers as high as five to six hundred a night. One of the judges of that court had too much decency and too much selfrespect to sit during these proceedings. But two of these judges sat there and granted these papers. Every paper thus issued was void for want of jurisdiction in the court. But I propose to call attention to the proceedings of that tribunal and show that fraud wasr everywhere. The laws of the United States provide that minors whose parents are naturalized during their minority are naturalized by the naturalization of the parents. The laws of the United States provide that persons who come here under 18 years of age may take out both sets of papers at the same time. Minors as a body. coming here under 16 years. are naturalized by the naturalization of their parents. the great body of them. Minors coming here over 18 years of age have no right to take out both papers at once. And so it is that those who take out both papers at once are substantially confined to those who come here between 16 and 18 years of age. Now. what does the record show in this court in St. Louis? It shows that prior to October. 1900. only 218 persons in all have been naturalized in this court in its history. but in the month of October. 1900. 1.530 persons were naturalized. Of that number 842 were naturalized adults and 688 were naturalized as having come here minors under 18 years of age. In other words. nearly onehalf of those naturalized in that court of appeals succeeded in getting second papers without producing first papers. upon the pretense that they came here under 18 years of age. It has been my privilege through a course of ten years to have some observation of what percentage of naturalizations are of persons who are entitled to take out both papers at once as having come here under 18 and what percentage have to wait two years between their papers. and I assert that it is the common experience of everyone that not more than 5 to 10 per cent are entitled to take out both sets of paprs at once. But down at St. Louis. of this body of Democrats naturalized in a court that had no jurisdiction. substantially onehalf of all pretended that they came here under 18 years of age. when if they came here under 16 most of them would have been naturalized by the naturalization of their fathers. It so happens that the years between 16 and 18. of all the years of man between 1 and 70. seem to be the years during which migration takes place. and nearly onehalf of all who came here came between 16 and 18 years of age. Has there ever been a record of a high judicial tribunal which bore upon its face more manifest evidence of fraud than this record to which I have referred?
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naturalized naturalization naturalizations