Latest Important Cases owners of desirable dwelling-houses, flats or apartments, would not the man of large family and small means and unable to build his own dwelling-house be seriously hampered in securing a place of abode for his family, and might it not become a menace to society?" Legislative Officers. Payment of Their Salaries by Private Interests Opposed to I‘ublic Policy. England. The House of Lords has lately, on Dec. 21 affirmed the decision of the English Court of Appeal in Osborne v. Amalgamaled Society of Railway Servants (cf. 21 Green Bag 170), wherein it was held that no trade union may make it obligatory upon its members to sub scribe to funds administered for the purpose of securing Parliamentary representation. The basis for the Court of Appeal's decision was that an agreement whereby any person may bind himself to vote in a certain manner "to be decided by considerations other than his own conscientious judgment at the time” is against public policy. The House of Lords sustains this position. Naturalization. "Free Includes Armenians.
While
Persons" U. S.
One of the cases pending in federal courts of first instance, to settle the meaning of "free white persons” in the naturalization laws, has been decided by the United States Circuit Court at Boston favorably to the Armenians. The decision chances to have been rendered by Judge Francis C. Lowell on the day before Christmas and tends to emphasize the great principle of human brotherhood. The United States had contended that "free white persons" in the naturalization statute (United States Revised Laws, see. 2169) meant Europeans and persons of European descent, and that there is an Asiatic or yellow race to which belong sub stantially all Asiatics, including the petitioners who were ineligible for naturalization. The government admitted that Hebrews were not ' in the latter classification. Judge Lowell's conclusions are that there is no European or white race as the United States contends, and no Asiatic or yellow race which includes substantially all the people of Asia; that the mixture of races in western Asia for the last twenty-five centuries raises doubt if its individual inhabitants can be classified by race; that if the ordinary classification is nevertheless followed, Ar
menians
have
135 always
been
reckoned
Caucasians and white persons;
as
that the
outlook of their civilization has been toward Europe; that the word “white" has generally been used in the federal and in the state statutes, in the publications of the United States, and in its classification of its inhabit ants, to include all persons not otherwise classified; that Armenians, as well as Syrians and Turks, have been freely naturalized in this court until now, although the statutes in this respect have stood substantially unchanged since the first Congress; that the word "white" as used in the statutes, publications and classifications above referred to, though its meaning has been narrowed to exclude Chinese and Japanese in some instances, still includes Armenians. The Court said in part :— “To its classification by European and Asiatic race the United States makes an extraordinary exception, viz.: the Hebrews. Their history is known for a long period. While absolute purity of blood is out of the question, they have sought with unusual strictness to maintain that purity for two
thousand years at the least. Notwithstanding the opinion of Prof. Ripley and others, both Hebrew history and an approximation to general type show that the Hebrews are a. true race, if a true race can be found widely
distributed for many centuries. Their origin is Asiatic. Yet the United States admits that they do not belong to the ‘Asiatic or
yellow race,’ and that they should be admitted to citizenship. If the ‘aboriginal peoples of Asia’ are excluded from naturalization as urged by the United States, it is hard to
find a loop-hole for admitting the Hebrew. "Again, if Hindus are to
be
excluded
from naturalization, as contended by the United States, because many Englishmen treat them with contempt and call them ‘niggers,’ a like argument applies to those who have suffered most cruelly among all men on the earth from European hatred and contempt. In the application of its classifi
cation, the United States thus contradicts the principles upon which the classification depends. “It is misleading, therefore, to speak of a European race, of a European or white race,
to which substantially all inhabitants of Europe belong, or of an Asiatic race, of an Asiatic or yellow race which includes sub stantially all Asiatics. Furthermore, the
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