In re Cook

• Decision Date: 14 February 1917
• Citation: 239 F. 782
• Parties: In re COOK.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

239 F. 782

In re COOK.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

February 14, 1917

John M Russell, of New York City, for petitioner.

Thomas B. Shoemaker, Chief Naturalization Examiner, of Washington D.C., opposed.

HAIGHT District Judge.

The petitioner, who is a sailor and a native of Scotland, filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States on February 13, 1906. He was then, and for some time prior thereto had been, employed, as he has been since on a yacht belonging to a citizen of the United States. On March 16, 1916, he filed his petition for naturalization.

He first came to the United States in the year 1902 as an officer on the yacht before mentioned. When the latter was in New York Harbor, as it has been for a comparatively short part of nearly every year since then, except as hereinafter set forth, it was tied up to a dock in Hoboken, in this state. The petitioner has never lived ashore in this country. His family, consisting of a wife and five children, all of whom were born in Scotland, have never been in the United States. While, as before mentioned, he has been in American waters aboard the yacht for parts of each year from 1907 to 1913, inclusive, he was not here during the years 1914, 1915 and 1916, except when he came here expressly for the purpose of filing his petition for naturalization, after which he returned immediately to Scotland, and again when he came to attend the hearing upon his petition. At the outbreak of the present European war the yacht was taken possession of by the British government, and since that time the petitioner has been in Scotland, with the exception of the two trips to the United States before mentioned, taking care of certain fittings of the yacht, which were removed when she was chartered by the British government. As the vessel upon which the petitioner has served was in no sense a merchant vessel of the United States, but merely a private yacht, the petitioner does not come within the provisions of section 2174 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. 1913, Sec. 4357). I am called upon to decide, therefore, whether, under the circumstances before detailed, the petitioner has, within the meaning of Act June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. 596), immediately preceding the date of his application, resided continuously within the United States for five years and within the state of New Jersey one year. I entertained no doubt at the hearing that the petitioner's alleged 'residence' in either was not sufficient to entitle him to be admitted to citizenship, but at the urgent request of his attorney took the matter under advisement, for the purpose of examining certain cases which he desired to submit. I have since examined all of them, and my original opinion is in no respect shaken.

It is unquestionably true, as I have never doubted, that a mere temporary absence...