is over eighteen years old when he arrives in the United States he cannot be naturalized under this section, which applies only to aliens who have resided here at least three years next preceding their arriving at majority. If an alien comes to the United States at the age of nineteen, as he is not required by the general naturalization laws to make his preliminary declaration of intention until two years before his application for admission, his minority will not interfere. He may make such declaration when he is twenty-two years old and be finally admitted when he is twenty-four.

The declaration which an applicant for naturalization makes, under Rev. Stat. § 2167 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1332), at the time of his admission, must be supported by proof satisfactory to the court that it has been his bona fide intention for two years next preceding to become a citizen; and the vague oral statement of a single witness is not sufficient. Re Fronascone, 99 Fed. 48.

41. Admission of widow and minor children of deceased declarant to citizenship.-Section 2168, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1332), reads as follows: "When any alien, who has complied with the first condition specified in § 2165, dies before he is actually naturalized, the widow and the children of such alien shall be considered as citizens of the United States, and shall be entitled to all rights and privileges as such, upon taking the oaths prescribed by law."

It is to be observed that the declaration of intention and death of the declarant do not, of themselves, confer citizenship upon the widow and minor children. There is a further requisite. Before they are entitled to the rights of citizenship they must go before a competent court and take the oaths prescribed by law to be taken by an alien upon his admission to citizenship. Mr. Olney to Chaney & Garrison, February 6, 1897, MSS. Dom. Let.

42. Admission of merchant seamen to citizenship. As has been stated heretofore (supra, § 25), under § 2174, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1334), a seaman being a foreigner, after declaring his intention of becoming a citizen, and serving three years on board of a merchant vessel of the United States, may be admitted to citizenship. He is required to make application to a competent court, and to produce a certificate of his declaration of intention, and his certificate of discharge and good conduct during his service on such vessel.

For the purpose of manning and serving on board any merchant vessel of the United States, he is to be deemed a citizen of the United States after making his declaration of intention, and after he shall have served such three years; and for all purposes of protection as an American citizen, he shall be deemed such after filing his declaration of intention.

While serving on board a merchant vessel of the United States, the seaman is deemed to be constructively within the United States.

43. Status of minor children of declarant who fails to perfect his naturalization.- What is the status of minor children of aliens who declare their intention to become citizens, but do not perfect their naturalization? Suppose an alien emigrates to the United States, bringing minor children with him, and in due time declares his intention to become a citizen, but fails to take out his final papers, what is the status of the children when they reach majority?

President Arthur in his annual message in 1884, referred to this question, and recommended that Congress should "clearly define the status of minor children of fathers who have declared their intention to become citizens, but have failed to perfect their naturalization."

The question was presented to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Boyd v. Nebraska, 143 U. S. 178, 36 L. ed. 115, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 375. Boyd was born in Ireland in 1834, of Irish parents, and brought to this country in 1844 by his father, who settled in Ohio, and, in 1849, declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States. There is no record or other written evidence that he ever completed his naturalization by taking out his naturalization certificate after the expiration of five years. For many years after the expiration of that period, however, he exercised rights and claimed privileges in Ohio, which could only be claimed and exercised by citizens of the United States and of the state. In 1855 the son voted in Ohio as a citizen, under the belief that his father had taken out his final naturalization papers. In 1856 he removed to Nebraska. In 1857 he was elected and served as county clerk of Douglass county; in 1864 he was sworn into the military service, and served as a soldier of the Federal government to defend the frontier from an attack of Indians; in 1866 he was elected a member of the Nebraska legislature and served one session; in 1871 he was elected a member of the convention to frame a state constitution, and served as such; in 1875 he was again elected and served as a member of the convention which framed the present state Constitution; in 1880 he was elected and acted as president of the city council of Omaha; and in 1881 and 1885, respectively, was elected mayor of that city, serving in all four years. From 1856 until Nebraska was admitted as a state, he voted at all elections, territorial, state, municipal, and national. He took the oath required by law in entering upon the duties of the offices he filled, and swore that he would support the Constitution of the United States. In 1888, after thirty years of unquestioned exercise of the rights, privileges, and immunities of

a citizen of the United States and of the territory and state, he was elected governor of the state. He took the oath of office and entered upon the discharge of its duties. His predecessor, Thayer, as relator, filed an information in the supreme court of Nebraska, setting forth the facts as to the declaration of intention by Boyd's father, averring that the father did not become a citizen during the son's minority, and claiming that Boyd, the son, never having himself been naturalized, was not, at the time of his election, a citizen of the United States, and was not, under the Constitution and laws of Nebraska, eligible to the office of governor of the state. The relator prayed judgment that Boyd be ousted from that office, and that the relator be declared entitled to it until a successor could be elected. The state court having decided in favor of Thayer, a writ of error was sued out to the Supreme Court of the United States. The court, in discussing the question of the status of minor children of persons who have declared their intention to become citizens, said: "Clearly, minors acquire an inchoate status by the declaration of intention on the part of their parents. If they attain their majority before the parent. completes his naturalization, then they have an election to repudiate the status which they find impressed upon them, and determine that they will accept allegiance to some foreign potentate or power rather than hold fast to the citizenship which the act of the parent has initiated for them. Ordinarily this election is determined by application on their own behalf, but it does not follow that an actual equivalent may not be accepted in lieu of a technical compliance."

Under the law of the territory of Nebraska, citizens of the United States, and those who had filed their declaration of intention to become such, were citizens of the territory. The court said that Congress so regarded them, and, in § 3 of the enabling

act (13 Stat. at L. 47), referred to them as citizens. The court declared that all those who were citizens of the original states heerme, upon the formation of the Union, citizens of the United States, and that upon the admission of Nebraska into the Union "upon an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatsoever," the citizens of what had been the territory became citizens of the United States and of the state. The court concluded: "We are of opinion that James E. Boyd is entitled to claim that, if his father did not complete his naturalization before his son had attained majority, the son cannot be held to have lost the inchoate status he had acquired by the declaration of intention, and to have elected to become the subject of a foreign power, but, on the contrary, that the oaths he took and his action as a citizen entitled him to insist upon the benefit of his father's act, and placed him in the same category as his father would have occupied if he had emigrated to the territory of Nebraska; that, in short, he was within the intent and meaning, effect and operation of the acts of Congress in relation to citizens of the ter ritory, and was made a citizen of the United States and of the state of Nebraska under the organic and enabling acts and the act of admission." Ibid.

In the somewhat similar case of Trabing v. United States, 32 Ct. Cl. 440, the court said that the status which a minor acquires by the declaration of intention of his parents is only an inchoate status. "If he attains his majority," said the court, "before his father completes his naturalization, he has an election to repudiate the status and determine whether he will render allegiance to the United States or to the foreign potentate or power of the country where he was born." In that case there was nothing to evidence the election of American citizenship by the claimant upon attaining his majority. He did not vote, but remained in his status until the year 1892 (when he was fifty