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Show COURTS' PROTECT! I DUE Eli ILffi : Are Entitled to Rights of Our Laws if They Behave, Be-have, Judge Says, NEW YORK, Jan.. 21. "Subjects of an enemy nation residing here arc. entitled to invoke the process of our courts as long as they remain law abiding," State Supreme Court Justice Gavcgan hold today to-day in a decision denying a motion to exempt the Metropolitan Opera company from answering for the period of the war a breach of contract suit for $30,000 brought by Madame Ober, German prima donna. The opera company, admitting that it had "released" Madame Ober fi-om the last year of a five-year contract, on the ground that she was an "enemy alien" in the category defined by the president in his proclamation of April (J, 1917, maintained that the prima donna bad no right to appeal to the courts for the duration of the war. "Even if it should be assumed that the plaintiff is both an enemy and a trader as defined in the president's proclamation." Justice Gavegan held, "1 cannot find that it was the intention of either congress or the president lo deny her the same civil rights enjoyed by neutral neu-tral aliens. "If there is any such provision It contradicts con-tradicts the assurance thai she shall be accorded the consideration due to all peaceful and law-abiding persons.' per-sons.' "I prefer to deny the motion," the justice jus-tice said, "on the broad ground that the resident subjects of an enemy nation arc entitled to invoke the process of our courts ns long as they are guilty of no act inconsistent with the temporary allegiance al-legiance which they hold for this government." govern-ment." Madame Ober, lie hMd further, being a woman, cannot , be deiined an "enemy alien" under the president's proclamation. The decision is regarded as a test case for a number of suits involving the same contentions. |