Show CITIZENSHIP r LAWS Tho Springfield Republican the chief business of which seems to be opposition opposi-tion to everything that the Government may do begins nn editorial III these words It Is curious that during all the controversy contro-versy ovor tho rlsht of tho l Hoers of thu Transvaal to make their own liws regarding re-garding naturalization no ono hUM < recalled re-called tho fact that In 17i3 thu United States ConRress raised the ncilod of residence resi-dence ncccBsary for naturalization In this country from llvo to fourteen years That statement is dishonest Inasmuch Inas-much as while being true It does not state all the facts As stated by the I best authority on the subject Congress opened Its session in December 1797 with a strong Federalist majority In the Senate and n DemocraticRepubli can majority In the House which for several months voted down every attempt at-tempt to resist by force the aggressions aggres-sions of France upon American commerce com-merce But the publication of the disPatches dis-patches from the X V Z mission In April 1708 erased party divisions for the time silenced the Republican leaders lead-ers converted all the lukewarm Republicans Repub-licans to an Intense hostility to France and gave both houses to Federalist control con-trol The leading Republican Journalists Journal-ists I were mostly foreigners Frenchmen French-men and refugee Scotchmen Irishmen and Englishmen who had excited the warmest hatred or the Federalists by their scurrilous and intemperate language r guage and by their open advocacy of the extreme violence of French republicanism repub-licanism Ono of the first objects of the Federalists after providing for an increase tI t I in-crease of the army and navy was to muzzle these aliens nnd to this end I the acts above mentioned were passed The first was un amendment of the naturalization I nat-uralization laws 1 extending the necessary neces-sary previous residence to fourteen I years Instead of five and requiring five t years previous declaration oC Intention I Inten-tion to become a citizen instead ol I three Allen oncmlott could not bc i come citizens at all i That Is after the war of the Kcvolu I 1 lon cloflpd 11 French claimed thai the result was due to their Interference Interfer-ence and help They claimed the right I to Interfere with American commerce They had a Minister In Washington who became Intolerable in his demands above the chief jour and as we quoted fbov nals of tho country were run by aliens who were most offensive In the conduct con-duct of tholr Journals The country was weak and poor I had all the t fears which attach to weak and poor countries I passed the law and permitted per-mitted It to remain on the statute bool sour s-our years and then repealed IL I was rid of the foreign influence dono to get the Inluencc I which threatened the very liberties of the country I was an act purely of selfdefense I wronged no man In the world because It did not close one opportunity op-portunity of the country to any one I did not Increase taxation it simply I permitted Americans to rule America and to quote it now as having been done without provocation Is to misquote I mis-quote history and amounts to nothing except to show the desire of tho new papers quoting it to he mean The same paper says that even In tho 0s when the knownothings who for the time acquired great political power proposed to raise the period of necessary neces-sary residence to twentyone years the I United States was not In the remotest I danger of having Its native population swamped by foreigners And that is true but there was a justification after all Two or three Presidential elections had boon carried against the will of the masses of the people of the United States by the foreign clement In three or four of the large cities more especially espe-cially New York city not through the adherence of those foreigners to their native countries but to the fact that they were voted In herds and had become be-come a menace to the best Interests of the Republic For Instance Clay was defeated in 1810 by New York city For that matter Mr Cleveland was elected in 1SSI partly by that same vote and party by the scoundrels of that city who caused the Long Island vote which was cast for General Butler lob lo-b counted for Mr Cleveland Tho danger has now practically passed away because the nativeborn vote of the United States Is reinforced every year by n million newborn Americans I Just reaching maturity but then that doc not Drove that there was not Infinite I In-finite danger In 1798 and infinite injustice injus-tice In 1S50 |