[Editorial from World-Telegram April 7, 1933]

WIVES OF FOREIGNERS

If an American man marries a foreign woman and a child is born to them abroad, the child, naturally enough, becomes an American citizen.

If an American woman marries a foreigner and a child is born to her abroad, that child is not an American citizen. If the mother comes back here to live, the child is an alien and can be deported. The Government lately ordered the deportation of a child, Mexican born, of a Mexican father and an American mother. Only an injunction held up enforcement of the order.

Why should an American woman be discriminated against in this way? Why should not her children have the same right to American citizenship though born abroad of a foreign father as a child of an American man married to a foreign woman?

A bill now pending in Congress under the sponsorship of Senator Copeland and Representative Dickstein, of New York City, would put women on the same basis as men in this respect.

Congress has many big problems before it. Yet it has idle moments. One of the slack periods could not be better used, we believe, than in the passage of this bill.

Mr. JEFFERS. I have before me a list of witnesses, headed by Mrs. Donald R. Hooker, and containing also the following names: Mr. Raymond F. Crist, Miss Ruth Taunton, Dr. Taylor Jones, Mrs. Calvin Gabriel, Mrs. Frank Philipps, and Mrs. Burnita S. Matthews. Are there any others in the room this morning who also want to be heard, either for or against this bill? If there are, I should like to get their names at this time.

(There was no response.)

The subcommittee, in determining to hear witnesses this morning, decided that they would be heard because of Judge Kerr's decision to hear them; but we want to ask the witnesses to be as brief as possible, otherwise the subcommittee will not have a chance to go into a consideration of the bill itself. Therefore, we are going to ask witnesses to confine their remarks to not more than 5 minutes. That is the decision arrived at by the subcommittee in an executive session before this hearing started.

I note that Mrs. Hooker is designated here as chairman of this delegation, and I will turn over the time to Mrs. Hooker. She can speak for herself, if she so desires, and introduce others for not more than 5 minutes for each speaker.

STATEMENT OF MRS. DONALD R. HOOKER, MEMBER OF NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE WOMAN'S PARTY

Mrs. HOOKER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the subcommittee, we wish to thank you very heartily in the beginning for your interest in this measure and for the opportunity which you present us to bring our own testimony before you. I think, in point of fact, the evidence which is perhaps the most convincing as to the "rightness" of this measure, are the women themselves from one end of this country to the other.

Throughout every State there is naturally a great demand on the part of women, both organized and unorganized, for equal nationality rights. And that, it seems to me, should be presupposed because, after all, the members of the subcommittee must realize that it is a very proud and noble thing to be an American citizen; and that a mother would naturally desire to give her child-flesh of her flesh

and bone of her bone-the greatest of all benefits, which is American citizenship. I think that you must realize that women, with one voice, from one end of this country to the other, in the name of patriotism, demand this thing.

We have this morning but a very small part of our evidence to present to you. We could have brought to you, literally Mr. Chairman, millions of women to appeal to you in their own behalf and in behalf of their children. But we have brought this morning a few who will speak to you in behalf of other women.

The first one is Miss Ruth Taunton, of California, who represents. an organized group of California women, sufficient, I may say, to sway an election out there. She represents a large number of California women, but she can speak, I think, in behalf of every woman in the State of California.

I present Miss Ruth Taunton, of the Business Women's Legislative Council of California.

Mr. JEFFERS. Miss Taunton is recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF MISS RUTH TAUNTON, REPRESENTING BUSINESS WOMEN'S LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF CALIFORNIA

Miss TAUNTON. Gentlemen, I represent the Business Women's Legislative Council of California, and would like to tell you very briefly what it is and very briefly our reasons for wanting this bill passed.

The council is made up of voting members. The voting members are all women who are engaged in a business or profession or industry, earning their livings as bankers or lawyers or physicians in all the different fields of industry and business. But it also has many associate members composed of women who are not in business. Its membership is made up of representatives of many, many organizations up and down the State, who sends one representative to Los Angeles, where headquarters are maintained and where they hold meetings twice a month, when these measures are considered carefully, discussed, the different phases of them gone into, and carried back to these organizations for the vote of the representative in the club.

I have the authority of this organization to respectfully ask that this subcommittee report this bill favorably out of your hands, and to state the reasons for doing that.

First, I wanted to say that there has been some feeling that it might be a personal measure with us, in the sense that perhaps our members are married to foreigners and they wish to bring in their children. So far as I know, there is not one member of this organization married to a foreigner and who has a child born abroad whom they wish to bring in. There is no such motive as that back of it.

There are two reasons why we favor this legislation. The first reason is a general reason. After going very carefully into this bill, our first reason for favoring it is because we believe that if the law of this country finds that it is right to let a father bring back a child born abroad-a father who is a citizen of the United States-it is certainly right that a mother who is a citizen of the United States shall bring back her child that is born abroad. It is a question of being humane. Your law does not ask that a father, a citizen of the United States, leave his child abroad, if it be born there. But you do ask that a mother, or the law requires that a mother, under

normal circumstances, leave here child abroad. She cannot bring the child in except under the laws as they apply to aliens.

In other words, we are asking you to please realize that a mother is a parent in the sense that this law speaks of parents, and it is right, fundamentally right, that a mother should not have to leave her child just as it is not right that a father should leave his child. That is the general reason.

Our second reason is a specific reason. We who live in California, and especially in southern California, have ever with us the reminder of the law as regards Japanese and Chinese. Here is the law as it now stands and which this bill would correct. If a male Chinese child is born in this country, and leaves the country when it is 1 month old, goes back to China and never again returns to this country until he has grown up and married and has children, that Chinese boy is a citizen of this country. Now, consider this: One of our own white citizens of the State of California, or any other State of the Union, a woman, may go to the Orient to teach. We often do out there. While she is over there, let us suppose, she marries a British subject and they have a child and at the end of the year she wishes to come home where her people are, where she may be paying taxes on property, where her people have been active in building up the State of California, or whatever State it may be. Her husband is dead. When she reaches the United States port, on the same boat with this Chinaman, he has by his hand a half a dozen little Chinese children, none of whom have ever seen this country and none of whom speak the English language. This white woman who has been out of the country only a year, and who has returned to make her permanent home here, cannot bring in her little white child.

We feel that this law discriminates against white American citizens in favor of yellow United States citizens in that a Chinese man can bring back his children, while a white woman, a citizen of this country, cannot bring back hers. You are turning away a white child and letting in a yellow child.

This bill that we present would remedy that situation. We ask only that the law be equalized, as it now stands, to remedy these things that to us are obnoxious and intolerable.

And it would be a very simple thing, too. Any revision that you wish to make in the general nationality laws is something that is not concerned with this bill.

Thank you.

Mrs. HOOKER. The next speaker is a member of my own free State of Maryland. She is speaking in place of Mrs. Philipps, who is ill, and is representing the Baltimore City-wide Democratic Club. Í am sure that Mr. Palmisano, who is our own Representative from Maryland, will be very interested to hear what she says.

The Democratic women of Maryland, the National Committeewoman of Maryland, and everybody all the way through are for equal nationality rights. That is because they are right-thinking American women, I will have you understand.

It gives me much pleasure to present Miss Henrietta Briscoe, representing the Baltimore City-wide Women's Democratic Club.

STATEMENT OF MISS HENRIETTA BRISCOE, REPRESENTING THE WOMEN'S CITY-WIDE DEMOCRATIC CLUB OF BALTIMORE, MD.

Miss BRISCOE. Gentlemen, the Women's City-wide Democratic Club of Baltimore wishes to go on record as favoring the Equal Naturalization Act for men and women, and hopes that this Com'mittee will report the Dickstein bill favorably.

Mr. DIES. Let me ask you a question, if you please. Your purpose is merely to have the law equalized. You are not primarily interested in bringing in children or anything of that sort. Whatever the law

is, you want its provisions equalized as between men and women; is that right?

Miss BRISCOE. Yes, sir.

Mrs. HOOKER. The question that the honorable member of the committee asked makes me think of a question that was one time asked in school when I was a little child. The teacher asked the class at large this question. She said, "If you have 12 potatoes and 6 oranges, how much fruit have you?"

Well, my 7-year old mind was hopelessly confused. Finally I ventured-and got a good mark for it-that you cannot add potatoes and oranges, that you would have six pieces of fruit. That is just the way we feel about this bill. We do not want to mix potatoes and oranges. What we want is to equalize the law as it stands.

Mr. DIES. In other words, you want the law equalized, no matter how it is written?

Mrs. HOOKER. That is it.

Mr. DIES. So that it will be equal as between men and women? Mrs. HOOKER. That is the point. We do not want to be, so to speak, as we too often have been in the past, a stepping stone for potatoes, when we are out for oranges.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to present Dr. Taylor Jones, of the District of Columbia, representing the National Women's Medical Association.

Mr. JEFFERS. We shall be glad to hear from Doctor Jones.

STATEMENT OF DR. TAYLOR JONES, REPRESENTING NATIONAL WOMEN'S MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

Doctor JONES. Gentlemen of the subcommittee, I represent the medical women's national organization, which is a part of the Medical Women's International Association. We are in favor, not only of the equal privilege for women who are married and living abroad, but we wish that they would have-when it comes to the question of whether they would have the same thing that they would have nothing taken away from the privileges of women now; that they should have the same privilege as women that the men have.

I might say that the medical women are not very busy in political questions, but in their own groups they have quite a bit of influence; also, that there was practically a unanimous vote on this matter. There was no minority opinion. I suppose that is probably due to training, but that is the feeling of the Medical Women's National Association.

Mrs. HOOKER. I think it probably is also, Doctor Jones, the feeling of every other national woman's organization, with perhaps the exception of one or two of super patriots, who feel that they alone should have citizenship in America, anyhow.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to present as our last speaker Mrs. Matthews, who will give you, so to speak, the fine points of the bill from our point of view. Mrs. Matthews has made a very deep study of nationality laws and will answer any questions; and I hope there will be plenty of them.

Mr. JEFFERS. We shall be glad to hear Mrs. Matthews.

Mr. DIES. I know Mrs. Matthews knows all about this legislation, because she and I finished school together.

Mrs. HOOKER. Then you doubtless know that she is always right,

too.

Mr. DIES. We learned the same things, and I know I am deeply learned on this subject, so I am sure she must be.

STATEMENT OF MRS. BURNITA S. MATTHEWS, REPRESENTING NATIONAL WOMAN'S PARTY

Mrs. MATTHEWS. Thank you. Gentlemen, I appeared before the full committee and went into an explanation of the bill at that time, so I do not feel that I should take the time of the subcommittee to go over the bill again. I am sure that it is clear in your mind. But there are some objections that have been made, or rather some proposals that have been made by the State Department, and the woman's party has asked me to discuss those proposals.

First, I would like to say that we understood, when the new administration came in, that there was going to be a new deal. But I might say that so far as the State Department's attitude toward this nationality bill is concerned, it is not a new deal that the women are getting, but the same old raw deal.

The new Secretary of State sends in the same suggestions and criticisms and objections madé by his predecessor.

In the first place, the State Department says that what they wish is to make a study and to have a complete new code of laws on nationality. Now, if they wish to make a study, we have no objection. And if they wish a complete new code on nationality, we have no objection. But we do object to undertaking this study and this formation of a complete new code at this time when we, the women, are asking that we be accorded an equal standing under the laws with

men.

We feel that if this law has been good enough for you all these years, has been good enough for the gentlemen of the country all these years, it should be made to apply to us. Then, if they wish to take 10 years for this new code on nationality, to perfect it, we shall have no objection.

Before this bill was ever introduced, it was taken to the State Department, to Mr. Hackworth, the solicitor. A request was made for any suggestions that they might have, and I may say that we received no suggestions or objections or anything else from them. The bill was ignored two years. Suddenly, when it was up for passage, they descend with these objections.