and those who make it are a multitude. This much is certain, however, that if in their handling of fires the herders were no more careless or indifferent than are the many campers, hunters, and tourists who traverse the reserves, they still would be a far greater source of danger, because the campers, hunters, and tourists can be easily warned and watched by the forest patrol, while the sheepmen cannot be so watched and warned. The former for the most part follow a few readily guarded routes. The latter wander anywhere, everywhere, at will.

Just here, while referring to fires, I shall call attention to one plausible defense of the sheepmen. They say: "Our sheep, by their trampling and eating, and we, by our occasional burning, pre vent an over-rank growth of brush and young trees which otherwise would spring up so thickly as to furnish such an abundance of fuel that when the fires came nothing could live before their fury." The answer to this has two sides. While the sheep do, in herds, keep down the young growth which by its thickness might furnish fuel for possible future fires, they also keep down the young growth upon which, as the old trees die off, the continuance of the forest depends, and through which alone the reforestration of the great stretches of the now denuded land can be effected. Furthermore, supposing the danger, as claimed, from over-dense growth did exist, it would be unscientific and impractical in the extreme to try to guard against it by the help of ignorant herders rather than by the systematic employment of a sufficient force of trained forest rangers. In substance, the present policy of the Government, as regards fires, is to run trails, to cut and burn fire-breaks, to fire and back-fire at the proper season and in needed localities, and then, in the fall, after the first rain and before the snow, gradually burn away the accumulation of logs, dead trees, and smaller rubbish, i. e., the entire mass of forest debris. Something of this kind has been already accomplished. With increased appropriations much more could be hoped for in the near future.

(4) But again, and for a still different reason, the wrath of the people waxes warm against the sheep. This time it is not the welfare of the forests or the orchards, but the welfare of themselves, of which they are thinking. Many of the towns which border on the forest reserves are directly dependent upon the streams of those reserves for their household water supply. The water is sometimes received in reservoirs, and thence distributed through open canals,

ditches, and pipes; sometimes it is diverted immediately from the stream itself. Where sheep exist, this water cannot fail to be contaminated. Before the rule against the sheep was enforced, the health officer, in one town that I have in mind, reported, morning after morning, dead sheep found in the ditches. On one morning that I recall the number was eight. In another town the flow of water, when the faucets were turned, would be accompanied by the droppings of sheep. I have sometimes asked a settler or a camper by a stream far up in the mountains, "Do you drink this water?" And the answer would be, "No; the sheep are above."

And so it is that on every count the verdict is against the sheep. Is it any wonder that nearly all who know the facts are against them? Is it any wonder that the United States Government has finally taken vigorous action, or that its policy in excluding sheep absolutely from the reserves in the dry and middle belts, and either absolutely or partially in all the other reserves, is deemed a wise policy? Naturally, herders who have used the pasturage unhindered for years are disturbed. It matters nothing to them what the outcome in the future would be, whether the result, here as in other lands, would be desolation and death. Merchants dependent on the trade of the sheepmen also complain. One of them said to me: "Excluding the sheep means to me a loss in trade of two thousand dollars a year. 99 Another said: "I should never have bought this place if I had known that the sheep were to be stopped from passing. In one case a small community was so seriously threatened financially that the State legislature was petitioned to intervene. The complaint was that without the tax per head levied on alien sheep the poor and tiny county-perhaps the poorest and smallest in all the States-would not have a sufficient income for its official life, and would immediately become bankrupt.

But the majority, in the sheep districts even, are with the Government. I asked a congressman for his opinion, and I was surprised at the promptness with which he replied: "Without doubt, the majority are with the Government for the exclusion of the sheep." And, what is more, it is encouraging to know that the people are with the Government not only in this one detail of its dealing with the sheep, but that they are with it heartily in its whole broad policy of advance in the forestry work of its great reserves. CHARLES STEDMAN NEWHALL.

THE STATUS OF PORTO RICANS IN OUR POLITY.

THE unsettled condition of judicial and public opinion in this country regarding the status in our national polity of the inhabitants of Porto Rico and other annexed islands makes an apology for a new presentation of the case quite unnecessary. The subject may be most conveniently discussed under two separate, but correlated, heads: (1) Are the Porto Ricans American citizens? and (2) Are the Porto Ricans qualified to vote?

1. The basis of all arguments as to whether or not the Porto Ricans are American citizens must be, of course, the treaty of peace with Spain. Article IX thereof provides as follows:

"Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or may remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property. In case they remain in the territory they may preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making, before a court of record, within a year from the date of exchange of ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance; in default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced it [their Spanish allegiance] and to have adopted the nationality of the territory in which they may reside.

"The civil and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded shall be determined by the Congress."

The most common view of the subject of the citizenship of the Porto Ricans is that which relegates their status to Congress. The treaty expressly provides for the determination of the question by that body, while the Constitution makes treaties "the highest law of the land," and gives Congress power to make all needful regulations applicable to the "territory or other property of the United States." Such is the ratiocination by which this conclusion is reached.

This, however, is a superficial method of reasoning, leaving out of account many things which must be considered the law of nations, for instance. According to this law, a transfer of the allegiance of the inhabitants of ceded territory is implied by a change of sovereignty. If war should break out between the United States and another country, the Government of the latter would be justified in the treatment of Porto Ricans as enemies, and of the ports of the islanders as hostile

ports; the ships and other property of Porto Ricans on the high seas would be enemy's property and subject to belligerent seizure; the islanders could look to no authority other than the Government of the United States for protection from injuries threatened or for the redress of grievances endured in foreign lands; and the United States alone could supply them with passports. From the viewpoint of international law, the inhabitants of Porto Rico became Americans the moment the treaty with Spain was ratified.

This effect of the ratification was foreseen by the high contracting parties; and provision was made in the treaty to enable Spanish born residents of the ceded territories to escape the legal consequences of the cessions thereof and to preserve to them their previous status of Spanish subjects. Conversely, the provision of the treaty that those Spaniards who should fail to avail themselves of the means of preserving their allegiance to Spain would be held to have renounced it and to have adopted the nationality of their new sovereign is merely declaratory of the law of nations.

The effect of the change of sovereignty would have been the same if nothing had been said on this point. The last clause of Article IX of the treaty, which assumes to give Congress power to fix the status of the native inhabitants of the ceded territories, is mere verbiage. Congress can neither denationalize these people, nor make them into anything but Americans, except by the abandonment of the islands or their cession to some other Power. So long as this Government shall maintain its sovereignty over the islands, the inhabitants thereof will remain Americans; and, since the United States can have no subjects, they must be citizens. Granting that Congress may make "all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States," the inhabitants of Porto Rico are not "property," although the island on which they dwell may be so. The clause of the Constitution just quoted conveys no authority to differentiate between Americans living on one of the Antilles and Americans living on the continent. Supposing that Congress should do nothing either to denationalize the Porto Ricans or to confirm them in the status of American citizens a very likely contingency would anybody maintain that their nationality would remain in the air? Spain having renounced them, of what country can they be deemed to be nationals if not of the United States? To say that they are citizens of Porto Rico is a subterfuge. Porto Rico is not a nation. It has no flag, or any of

the attributes of sovereignty. If the Porto Ricans should resist the authority, or declare themselves independent, of the United States, they would become rebels. The law of nations does not recognize men without a country. Indeed, pirates and others of that ilk are regarded as common enemies of mankind, subject to pursuit and judgment by the agents, military and judicial, of all organized polities. The Porto Ricans certainly do not belong to this category. As has been said above, they would share all the international vicissitudes of Americans in times of war, and they are entitled to all the international rights of American citizens in times of peace. From the viewpoint of international law they are Americans, and in equity they are citizens of the United States; and Congress cannot deprive them of their status or abridge their legal and natural rights. 2. The question as to whether or not the Porto Ricans are qualified to vote is one of administrative rather than of substantive law. In some of the States admission to citizenship is not a prerequisite to the exercise of the elective franchise. Where domiciliation is the only qualification of voters, persons born in Porto Rico would, of course, have the same right to vote as other native or foreign-born residents. In by far the greater number of the States, however, the privilege of voting is reserved to the citizens. But citizenship alone does not qualify one for the electorate in all cases; many citizens being disfranchised because of their sex or the lack of the educational or property qualifications required by the laws of the locality in which they live. Furthermore, a distinction must be made between the status of a person from the viewpoint of international law and that of the same individual under the municipal law of his country. Article XIV of the Constitution states the law of the land on the subject of citizenship as follows:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

are citizens of

In Article I, section 2, clause 4, Congress is empowered to "establish an uniform rule of naturalization."

The Porto Ricans who were born prior to the annexation cannot, of course, make claim to citizenship on account of their nativity. But neither are they in a position to comply with the requirements of the naturalization laws. They cannot fors wear their allegiance to the Spanish Crown, for they owe none: they were forcibly torn from their fealty to the boy King, who was their sovereign. An oath of