Judge Amidon made reference to the same subject, as follows:

In the year 1906 Congress had before it for months the question of the proper regulation of the admission of foreigners to citizenship. The subject had been brought impressively before the country by the discovery that extensive frauds had been committed under the laws then in force. In cases arising at St. Louis (Levin v. U. S., 128 Fed. 826, 63 C. C. A. 476; Dolan v. U. S., 133 Fed. 440, 69 C. C: A. 274) it appeared that corrupt politicians, in order to forward their corrupt purposes, had gathered together mobs of foreigners and brought them to the courthouse, grouped according to their nationality Huns, Italians, Armenians, and Jews. They were collected in the corridors of the courthouse, and each band placed under the generalship of a policeman, and then marched in blocks before the judges of one of the high courts of that city, and there, under a merely formal ceremony, in which the oath was administered to the entire block, they were admitted as citizens. In some cases the formality of going before the court was omitted, and citizenship papers issued to lists furnished by ward politicians. Upon investigation it was found that many of these people had been in the United States for only a few days. Similar frauds were subsequently discovered in other cities. These prosecutions apparently played a vital and important part in putting an end to the naturalization frauds that had for years disgraced the country.

By Executive Order of March 1, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a Commission on Naturalization, which submitted an elaborate report

on November 8, 1905. This report was communicated to Congress December 5, 1905, and is known as House Doc. No. 46, 59th Cong., 1st. Sess. This resulted, in due course, in the enactment of what is now known as the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, which, with a few amendments since added, represents the existing statute.

This act of June 29, 1906, was the first revision in a century of the laws pertaining to naturalization. It did not depart from the framework of what had theretofore been the law. It did embody, in the main, the amendments urged in Congress, from time to time during the preceding hundred years, but which for one reason or another had not been adopted.

There were two outstanding features of the act of June 29, 1906, the need of which were fully demonstrated by the St. Louis fraud prosecutions. The first of these reserved the right to the United States to appear and to be heard in connection with each and every naturalization application filed. The second provided a method of cancellation of those decrees of citizenship illegally or fraudulently procured or granted.

NORTHERN SECURITIES CASE

Many cases of great importance were heard and decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the 8th circuit during the years that I was United States Attorney, but the one involving a momentous question over which the greatest legal battle was fought before the court at St. Louis was that of the United States against Northern Securities Company and others. The court was composed of Judges Caldwell, Sanborn, Thayer and Van Devanter. My recol

lection is that only Judges Caldwell, Sanborn and Thayer participated in the decision. The suit or proceeding was a bill in equity instituted in the Minnesota District under and by the direction of Honorable P. C. Knox, the then Attorney General of the United States.

The controversy involved the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, declaring illegal "every contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States or with foreign nations." The case is fully reported in Vol. 120 at page 721 of the Federal Reporter. Briefly stated, it was a proceeding against the Northern Securities Company, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company and the Great Northern Railroad Company. The last two named defendants were the owners of two lines of railway, running almost parallel with each other that extended from St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth across the continent to Puget Sound. These roads were in the estimation of the public regarded, and properly so, as competing lines. In the spring of 1901 they united in purchasing about 98 per cent of the entire capital stock of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company and the stock purchased was of the par value of ($107,000,000) one hundred and seven million dollars.

During the year 1901, the two railroad companies, the Northern Pacific and Great Northern, acting in concert, conceived the idea of placing a large majority of the stock of both companies in the hands of a single owner. The stockholders agreed to form a corporation under the laws of New Jersey, which when organized should buy all or the greater part of the

stock of the two defendant railroad companies. Accordingly the Northern Securities Company was organized with a capital stock of four hundred million dollars ($400,000,000), that sum being the exact amount required to purchase the stock of the two defendant railroad companies. Shortly after the corporate organization, it purchased the stock of the two railroad companies and paid for it with its own stock. This placed the control of the two railroad companies in the hands of a single person, The Securities Company. This brought to the front the legal question as to whether such a combination and agreement fell within the inhibition of the AntiTrust Act, or not.

It was alleged in the bill that the defendants entered into a combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade, and prayed for an order of court prohibiting the Securities Company from exercising any control over the corporate acts of either of the two railroad companies or in other words, to practically set aside all that had been done in pursuance of the unlawful conspiracy. The bill (as before said) was filed in Minnesota, but was removed to St. Louis for hearing before "at least three judges" of the Court of Appeals.

At that hearing there was probably the greatest array of counsel that had ever appeared in that court. The Government was represented by D. T. Watson of Pittsburgh, Special Counsel James M. Beck, and W. A. Day, Assistant Attorneys General. The Securities Company by Ex-Attorney General of the United States, John W. Griggs of New Jersey, and George B. Young. For the Great Northern Railroad

Company, M. D. Grover, and for the Northern Pacific, C. W. Bunn. There were several other lawyers of ability representing other individual defendants.

The arguments lasted for, I think, three days, and were listened to by a great number of lawyers and other citizens who were attracted to the court by the importance of the questions involved and by the reputation of counsel engaged. All of the arguments made were able and interesting, but those of Messrs. Watson, Beck and Griggs were considered the ablest and strongest.

The case was submitted to the court and taken under advisement. There was, as I learned, no immediate consulation by the judges for the reason that at the close of the arguments Judge Sanborn was called out of the city. It was several days before he returned and his absence greatly disturbed Judge Caldwell, for he was anxious to dispose of the case and to get away from St. Louis. Any one who knew Judge Caldwell can well understand his impatience. He was honest, fearless and true, but once in a while would "speak out in meeting" about cases under submission. While he never at any time before the decision was reached stated his own opinion about this case, it was easy enough to see the "bent of his mind."

Before the decision was handed down I was called to Washington by a telegram from the Attorney General, P. C. Knox. I arrived there on Sunday evening, the 29th of March, 1903, and that evening at his residence saw the Attorney General who, of course, was anxious to know at what time the case