Alien

al'yen, one living in a country without becoming a citizen. A German, residing in New York without becoming a citizen, is an alien. An American, similarly residing in Berlin, is an alien. American tourists are aliens while abroad. The Prince of Wales, now King Edward, visited the Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876. While in this country, he was, in a way, an alien.

The term is of Latin origin. Far from meriting the reproach suggested to many minds by the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, alien means simply of or belonging to another country,--a foreigner, as distinguished from a citizen. Parentage, not place of birth, decides citizenship. The children of parents residing or traveling abroad are citizens of the same country as their parents.

Custom and treaties between civilized countries accord the privilege of residence, and of transacting business. The right of holding land is sometimes denied to aliens. Aliens of the white race have been encouraged not only to live in the United States, but to become citizens. Naturalized citizens are accorded the same degree of protection as natives. Were a German who had become naturalized, that is to say, who had "taken out his papers," to visit his fatherland, he would be entitled to the protection of the United States flag, quite as though he were the son of our president. Were he forced into the German army, for instance, he could call for the last dollar and the last man of the United States government to get him out. The same would be true of Germany, if the United States were to attempt to reassert authority over a former American citizen naturalized in Germany. The refusal of England to grant to British subjects the right to become citizens of the United States, and the frequency with which former citizens of Great Britain were forced from American ships to serve in the British navy, was one of the causes of the War of 1812.

In the United States naturalized citizens have all the duties of native citizens and all the privileges as well, save that one, not a native citizen, may not be president, or hold an office by virtue of which he would succeed to the office of chief executive on the death or disability of the president.

In modern nations a citizen is a citizen wherever the flag of his country is the flag of the land. A citizen of Canada, for instance, is not an alien, but a citizen in any part of the British Empire or aboard a British ship anywhere on the high seas. He is an alien in Vermont, but not in London; an alien in Paris, but not in Australia. In modern states an alien is permitted freely to become a citizen. He is required usually to go before a court to declare his intention of becoming a citizen. After a required term of residence, which in the United States is five years, he is then permitted to forswear all allegiance to foreign potentates and powers, particularly the sovereign of his native country, and to take oath that he will support and obey the government of his chosen country. The wife and minor children of one thus naturalized also became citizens. An unmarried woman also may become a citizen on her own account. A woman marrying an alien becomes an alien, even though she continue to reside in her own country. An alien woman marrying a citizen becomes a citizen. Children follow the state of the father. Children of an alien father and a native mother are aliens, even in the land of her birth. Nellie Grant, the daughter of U. S. Grant, who married an Englishman of title, became thereby an alien to her native country, and a citizen of the British Empire. Her children are aliens at the tomb of their distinguished grandfather.

The number of aliens residing in the United States is very great, New York City alone has 150,000. Now that nearly all our public lands are taken up, many think that the United States should begin to be more careful in the matter of admitting aliens to residence and citizenship.

Among the ancients citizenship was not lightly conferred. The cities of Greece were slow to admit aliens to citizenship. In her colonies and subject provinces, Rome bestowed citizenship as a reward for loyalty, and marked service in the interests of the empire. The inequality of the alien and the citizen in the eye of the law are thus expressed by Portia in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice:

See Immigration; Naturalization