child shall be indentured, adopted, or otherwise placed in charge of any person by any state institution . . unless the applicant for any child shall be first approved in writing by said agent for the county."

991

298. We are now able to see that the state makes magnificent provision for all classes of its unfortunate citizens. Scarcely a country in the world can make such a showing. Money for all these is generously appropriated. The legislature of 1903 has voted nearly three and a half million dollars for their support, about two-thirds of which is for current expenses. In addition cities and counties expend many thousands for the support of the ordinary poor.

2

1 Comp. Laws., § 2263.

2 $3,440,616.37.

CHAPTER XVIII

CITIZENSHIP

299. REFERENCES

Howard, Local Constitutional History of the United States, chapter I-Fustel de Coulange, The Ancient City.-Willoughby, The American Constitutional System, chapter XV.— Morey, Outlines of Greek History, chapter VIII.

300. We have had frequent occasion to see that government arises from the fact that men live in communities. Two other facts ought by this time to be clear. The community has complete authority over its individual members, that is, each member is a subject; and community action, all that is involved in controlling and directing, is primarily undertaken for the common good, that is, for the benefit of the members. These members, who on the one hand are subjects, and for whom on the other all governmental action is undertaken, are called citizens, and in this their double relation, we get the first general meaning of citizenship.

301. But who is the community member? Is a citizen simply a resident or an inhabitant? Evidently not. There have always been certain conditions of membership and these we need now to understand.

On its face the word citizen seems to mean "member of a city," but its real significance goes back of the origin of cities and is best seen in a more primitive community. The original organization of society was not political but gentile. Men were united in clans,

and clans were bands of near relatives, descendants of a common ancestor. Tribes were made up of clans, so that clan membership, to which a man must be born, lay at the base of tribe membership. That is, the condition of such membership was what we may call the "accident of birth."

When the nomadic tribes settled into cities, or city states, the ties of blood gave way to those of locality. Men came to feel that their common life and their common interests depended, not upon their descent from the same remote father, but upon the fact that they lived together, and were mutually dependent and helpful. Citizenship still depended on life-long association, but the "accident of birth" was now birth in a certain place, instead of from certain parents.

Cities, the first fixed, stable communities, and at first independent, have now been replaced by states, larger communities, occupying much larger extent of territory, as, for example, the whole United States, and the primary idea of citizenship is being born into this great community. The "accident of birth" is with us being born within our territorial limits.

But birth, though the fundamental requirement, has not always been absolutely essential. Even the clan would sometimes admit those not of the common stock. Cities always found ways of admitting strangers, and all states now do. This process, always essentially the same in character, is called naturalization. The person admitted to a clan had to renounce the clan of his birth and declare his allegiance to his adopted one, always with appropriate and solemn ceremonies. 302. With us the process of naturalization is regulated by laws of the United States.1 The "alien" who

1Const. U. S. I, viii, clause 4.

wishes to become naturalized must have been a resident of the United States continuously for five years next preceding his application.' At least two years before admission, he must declare on oath before a court of record, state or national, or the clerk thereof, his intention to become a citizen. On his final application he must declare on oath "that he will support the Constitution of the United States, and that he absolutely and entirely renounces and abjures all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty and particularly, by name, to the prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of which he was before a citizen or subject." If he had a title of nobility he must also renounce that,' and he must swear that he is not an anarchist.

303. As citizenship then is this peculiar membership of a community, what are its advantages? In primitive life men were forced to unite by adverse conditions, in the struggle against all the world for existence. Two classes of advantages came to them: first security, protection, both internal and external, against their Own clan members, and against "strangers," and savage beasts; and second the means of a livelihood which could better be obtained by a small community than by men working singly. Thus the earliest clan life was communistic. The work done, the provision made against cold and hunger, was not by the individual for himself, but by all for the whole clan. Each wrought for the community, and on the community each in turn depended for his sustenance. Existence itself was wrapped up in clan membership, and in such immediate and direct ways 1I Comp, Laws U. S. Ed. 1901, Sec. 2170. 2 Same, Section 2165, and Amendment of 1876.

as to be easily understood. But in this clan-life it was the common interests that were mainly emphasized. The individual was sunk in the community. Mere personal interests were scarcely considered.

304. The first class of these advantages it is the business still of the community to secure. Protection, internal and external, it owes to each of its members. Security at home, in person and property, it is the function of our state to guarantee. Protection abroad is given by the United States, since the central government alone deals with foreign relations, and since state and national citizenship are the same.

305. As to the second class of advantages modern conditions would at first seem to be just the reverse of the ancient. Life with us is emphatically individualistic. The individual's interests are no longer bound up in the common life of a small group of his fellows; his sustenance is no longer a mere incident in their common product; he now has distinct rights and interests of all kinds, which are recognized and maintained. He no longer exists merely for the sake of the community, according to our modern theory, but the community exists for him. What we now need to see is that our modern theory is only half right. The communistic element is not gone from our modern life but has changed its form, and is now entirely consistent with, and even necessary to, that individualism which is our boast.

In the first place let us note that the individual's life is much fuller and richer now than ever before. The difference between us and our savage ancestors is a difference that has come about by a long process of race development. It is, so to speak, wholly a communistic product, solely the result of community life.