The Sovereign Citizen. Patrick Weil

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СКАЧАТЬ Campbell,²¹ based on the investigation he had performed that day in Rochester, New York, with naturalization examiner Abraham L. Zamosh: “Goldman was born in Popolan, County of Shavel State of Kovno, Russia, on June 16th, 1870, Russian date (American date June 29, 1870). . . . In December 1885 she left there with her half sister Helena Zodokoff for the United States.” Goldman arrived in Rochester, New York, on January 1, 1886. The report notes that Emma Goldman’s father Abraham Goldman was naturalized on October 13, 1894, when Emma Goldman was over twenty-four years of age, and she could not, therefore, claim naturalization through him. “Emma Goldman was married to Jacob Kersner in the spring of 1887. . . . In the latter part of 1888 or early in 1889, Emma Goldman and her purported husband were divorced according to the Jewish law by Rabbi Abe Chajin Levinson. [A few months after this], Goldman fell in love with Abraham [sic] Berkman, the man who shot Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead riot.”

      The report then moves to Jacob Kersner.

      The son of Abraham Kersner, born in Niemiroff, State of Kaminits Podolsk, Russia in approximately April, 1868, he arrived in June 1883 or 1884. From there, he went to Rochester, back to New York City, and finally back to Rochester to live with his parents. The following entry appears on the naturalization records of Monroe County: Jacob A. Kersner, born at Belgrade Serbia, Germany, April 1st, 1868, landed in the United States June 18, 1879, date of naturalization October 18, 1884. Witnesses Simon Goldstein and Samuel Cohen. Charge to the Democratic County Committee.” The father believes that the above record is that of the naturalization of his son Jacob.

      This report’s findings demonstrate that Kersner was naturalized before the age of eighteen and the investigation is therefore pursued in two directions: proof of the identity of Kersner and of his marriage with Emma Goldman.

      On May 27, 1908, inspector John Gruenberg, from the Bureau of Immigration of New York City, reported to Sargent that he now had enough evidence to denaturalize Kersner: “I have obtained their [Kersner’s parents and brother] affidavits, whereby it is shown beyond a doubt that Jacob A. Kersner, under whom Emma Goldman claims citizenship, is the identical person who migrated to the United States from Russia, in the year 1882, at the age of about 16 years, and that he was not of age, nor had he been 5 years continuously in the United States on the 18th day of October, 1884, and therefore his naturalization was obtained fraudulently.”²² Inspector Gruenberg concluded his memo with a call for action: “I most respectfully suggest that, should proceedings be instituted eventually resulting in the annulment of the order of Naturalization, that it would have a very salutary moral effect, in so far as it would deprive Emma Goldman of that feeling of security which she now manifests, believing herself to be a citizen of the United States.”²³

      Two days later, on May 29, Straus updated the status of the case. He was ready to act but remained prudent: “For many reasons it is not desirable to institute such a suit unless there are reasonable grounds for concluding that such a suit would be successful. The failure of the suit would tend to martyrise Emma Goldman in the estimation of her ill guided followers. You will observe that the whereabouts of Jacob Kersner or Jacob A. Kersner is not known. He seems to be a fugitive from justice.”²⁴

      On June 11, 1908, Campbell officially responded to Straus that enough evidence had been gathered to initiate an action for the cancellation of Kersner’s naturalization certificate. Straus approved the order by his personal signature and a handwritten notation: “Approved. Have action taken accordingly. Signed: OSS.”²⁵ On September 24, 1908, the Department of Justice filed a bill of complaint against Kersner.²⁶

      The hearing, postponed two or three times on account of other business was finally set for some time in the week of January 25, 1909 at the U.S. district court at Buffalo.²⁷ Then, suddenly, Chambers had second thoughts and sent a letter to Charles J. Bonaparte, the attorney general. Chambers agreed, with all the assistant U.S. attorneys involved in the case, that “the denaturalization of the husband ipso facto denaturalizes the wife.” But as “in this particular case the wife’s interests are the only ones in which the government is particularly interested,” he wondered if Goldman should not be “made a party to the suit.” “Should we obtain judgment against Kersner and discover later that Emma Goldman . . . is not affected thereby, the whole object to be obtained by the suit would be lost.”²⁸

      But on February 2, 1909, William R. Harr, an assistant attorney general, recommended that the government not join her in a suit to cancel her husband’s certificate: “the wife acquired, not by any act of her own, but simply by grant from the Government. This grant was based however, upon a condition that she married a citizen. In the eye of the law, it may be said, that if her husband’s certificate of naturalization was obtained by fraud, he was never a citizen and therefore his wife acquired no rights of citizenship.”²⁹ Bonaparte thought it advisable to request the opinion of the secretary of commerce and labor on the matter³⁰ and on February 11, Straus answered that he seriously doubted the wisdom of making Emma Goldman a party in the case. Straus explained, “It would too obviously indicate that the ultimate design of the proceedings is not to vindicate the naturalization law, but to reach an individual, and deprive her of an asylum she now enjoys as a wife of an American citizen.”³¹

      On February 16, Chambers was ordered by the attorney general to proceed without involving Goldman in the case.³² And on April 8, 1909, the U.S. District Court of the Western District of New York invalidated Kersner’s citizenship.³³ The defendant did not appear at the hearing. However, Kersner’s father testified to his date of birth as 1865 or 1866 and to their date of arrival in the United States as 1882. Simon Goldstein, his former employer and his witness at the time of his naturalization, confirmed that Kersner and Goldman were husband and wife and were living together as a real couple.³⁴

      Goldman’s eventual deportation would not occur until a decade later. In a memorandum dated March 21, 1908, to Straus, Charles Earl, solicitor of the Department of Commerce and Labor, wrote that he had examined the legal prospects of deporting Goldman, and had concluded that if the government took away Kersner’s citizenship, Goldman’s long residence in the United States would protect her.³⁵

      “Before a person can be legally deported under the immigration act,” he explained, “it must first appear that such a person is ‘an alien’ within the meaning of that act. . . . It yet remains exceedingly doubtful whether she is ‘an alien’ within the meaning of the immigration act and as such liable to deportation. Goldman has permanently domiciled in the U.S. for over 32 years since she was 15.” In the most recent federal court decision on the issue, Rodgers v. United States ex rel. Buchsbaum, the court held that “we are clearly of the opinion that an alien who has acquired a domicile in the United States cannot thereafter while still retaining such domicile legally be treated as an immigrant on his return to this country after a temporary absence for a specific purpose not involving a change of domicile.”³⁶ But in 1914, the Supreme Court would reverse this holding in Lapina v. Williams.³⁷

      After deciding not to pursue Goldman, the Department of Justice nevertheless hoped she would leave the country unaware that, in its view, she had lost her citizenship. Then the government could bar her from reentering the United States.³⁸ Goldman in fact had heard about the denaturalization of her former husband. The secret service of the Anarchist Bureau of the Chicago Police Department had, at the beginning of 1909, intercepted a letter from Goldman to a fellow anarchist. In it Goldman wrote: “At first I took this case of the U.S. Authorities of taking my papers away as a joke but now it turns out serious; altogether too serious. The U.S. Authorities are planning to take us by surprise. We, a few of us, had a meeting and decided to be prepared. Now what I ask of you is very important and you should attend to it at once. Go to his brother and find out how long since Jac. K. left Rochester, how long since he last heard from him and if he is alive. If he is dead that alters my case. I am worried to death over it and hope that you will do your share [to] relieve me from it.”³⁹

      Later, СКАЧАТЬ