A STRANGE DECISION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Jun 21, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 25.

A STRANGE DECISION.

THE Supreme Court of the United States has decided that if the Secretary of Commerce and Labor decides that an American citizen is not an American citizen, no matter if he is born, reared, and educated in America, then he, by the arbitrary action of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, is not a citizen, and may be deported to any country to which he may be assigned by said Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The case is that of Ju Toy, a Chinaman, born in America. The czar can do many wonderful things in banishing his subjects to the Siberian mines, but the Secretary of Commerce and Labor can banish a citizen to any foreign country toward which his fancy may turn. It was certainly no fault of Ju Toy that he was born an American. That any man under the American Constitution can exercise such powers as is ascribed in this decision by the Supreme Court to a member of the Cabinet is passing strange. We do not like to criticize our Supreme Court, but this is a case which seems to us so strikingly anomalous and far-reaching in its character as to discredit the citizenship of every native-born citizen. If the Supreme Court has rightly interpreted the powers of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, then Congress should amend the law.

—California Christian Advocate.

“A strange decision,” indeed! But it must be remembered that this is not the first “strange decision” handed down by our Supreme Court. The decision that “this is a Christian nation,” handed down by the same tribunal on Feb. 29, 1892, was just as strange and just as far from the fundamental principles of our government, and just as far-reaching in its results.