In re Centi

• Citation: 211 F. 559
• Decision Date: 20 January 1914
• Docket Number: 101.
• Parties: In re CENTI.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

211 F. 559

In re CENTI.

No. 101.

United States District Court, W.D. Tennessee, Western Division.

January 20, 1914

Yandell Haun, Asst. U.S. Atty., for the United States.

McCALL District Judge.

On May 12, 1910, Bartolomeo Centi, an alien, filed in this court his declaration of intention to be naturalized. The case came on to be and was heard January 10, 1914. The applicant met all the necessary requirements to be naturalized, except by his own testimony he showed that he had been exercising the right of franchise for some 12 or 15 years. That he had voted regularly in national, state, and county elections held in Haywood county, Tenn., with the knowledge, for several years that he was not a qualified voter, and had no right to vote. Finally, his vote was challenged, and thereupon he made this application for naturalization.

Section 4, subsec. 4, of an act to provide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens, etc., approved June 29, 1906 provides that:

'It shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court admitting any alien to citizenship that immediately preceding the date of his application he has resided continuously within the United States five years at least and within the state or territory where such court is at the time held one year at least, and that during that time he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.' Thus it is that an alien applying for citizenship in the United States must, among other things, make it appear to the satisfaction of the court before which his application is pending that, during the time he is required to reside in the United States before being naturalized, 'he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.'

The question is: Does the evidence, in substance stated above meet the requirement of the law? I am unable to bring my mind to the conclusion that an alien, who is shown by his own testimony to have been an habitual violator of the election law, is attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and is well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same. Without naturalization an alien can exercise and enjoy all the privileges and blessings of a...