The Married Women’s Independent Citizenship Act (also known as the Cable Act) granted female residents (either native-born or immigrant) who married men of a different nationality the right to U. S. citizenship either by retaining their premarital citizenship or, in the case of foreign-born women, of applying for naturalization separately. Such repatriation restored to women resident in the United States their rights as citizens; female citizens who married foreign nationals and lived abroad continued to be subject to expatriation, or loss of their American citizenship and its rights.
A natural extension of the concerns of the women’s rights’ movement, the Cable Act was the first step toward establishing equal nationality rights for women. Proponents of the measure included members of the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee, the League of Women Voters, and the National Woman’s Party. They argued that the Expatriation Act of 1907, which, for the first time, expatriated women who married immigrant aliens, threatened women’s independent citizenship. It denied native-born women the same rights as men to marry whom they chose; it reinforced men’s rights to grant citizenship to their spouses and children, while denying American women the same rights; and it allowed for the deportation of women who married non-citizens and, during World War I, even subjected them to the loss of property, if their husbands were enemy aliens. Challenging the idea of women’s dependent nationality, women’s advocates endorsed the legislation authored by Representative John Cable of Ohio that gave back to women the rights of equal citizenship, even as it denied other women the same consideration. As the editors of the Christian Science Monitor proclaimed, the Cable Act had “freed a legion of women from an archaic law which took no cognizance of political and moral progress.” At the same time, the Cable Act also retracted the right of automatic naturalization to immigrant women who married American men. Racial bars instituted under other immigration legislation had double force in excluding foreign-born women from naturalized citizenship.
While women’s organizations championed the law, the Cable Act was shaped as well by campaigns to restrict immigration, which culminated in such laws as the Immigration Act of 1917 (or Alien Exclusion Act) and the National Origins Act of 1924. Anti-immigration sentiment expressed in the Dillingham Commission’s reports (1911) and in an executive branch committee on naturalization (1906) sought to restrict access to the rights of citizenship. While foreign-born women who married American men previously were eligible for the benefits and rights of citizenship by the act of marriage, native-born women who gave up their rights to marry the citizen of another country were thought devoid of moral standing. In an era of strident patriotism and Americanization efforts, many thought that women who married foreign nationals should be penalized by losing their citizenship rights. These attitudes, however, were to change. Proponents of women’s independent citizenship argued that women deserved the same citizenship rights and privileges as men. Fears of the new immigration also contributed to the change in law. The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote transformed the pro-forma naturalization of foreign-born wives into political privilege. Agitation for married women’s independent citizenship, which culminated in the Cable Act, took from immigrant wives these protections. Advocates of immigration restriction argued further that foreign-born women married to American citizens should no longer be eligible for special rights or considerations and had to meet the same requirements for immigration and naturalization as men, a process made more severe by the new immigration quotas.
See also immigration; women’s rights and status.
Further reading: Candice Lewis Bredbenner, A Nationality of Her Own: Wo-men, Marriage and the Law of Citizenship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
Cannon, Joseph Gurney (1836-1926) Speaker of the House
At the turn of the century, Joseph “Uncle Joe” Cannon was one of the most powerful and influential politicians in the country. He served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1903 until 1911 and exerted almost total control over the chamber. Born in 1836 in New Garden, North Carolina, Cannon attended the Cincinnati Law School and became a member of the Indiana bar in 1858 at the age of 22. A year later, Cannon moved to Illinois and became actively involved in politics. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1872.
A conservative Republican, Cannon established a reputation as a fiercely partisan politician. As one of the leaders of the “Old Guard” Republicans, he staunchly opposed attempts by Populists and Progressives to enact legislation aimed at limiting the power of corporations or expanding the oversight role of the federal government. Cannon became Speaker of the House in 1903 and utilized arcane congressional rules to control House committees with an iron fist. He steadfastly opposed progressive reformers in both the Democratic and Republican parties, including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and frequently used his power over House committees to block new legislation. Exercising the Speaker’s control over the Rules Committee, Cannon controlled the House in this manner between 1903 and 1910.
Cannon’s authoritarian leadership led to an important split in the Republican Party that contributed to its loss of the presidency in 1912. Party progressives were frustrated by Cannon’s ability to delay or block reform legislation. Under Roosevelt’s leadership, important reforms such as the Hepburn Act (1906), the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), and the Meat Inspection Act (1906) were enacted, but many other reforms were defeated. Shortly after his election in 1909, progressives in the party approached President William Howard Taet about weakening Cannon’s power. Taft rebuffed these overtures and began developing close ties with Cannon and the Old Guard. Frustrated by Taft’s refusal to oppose Cannon, a group of moderate and progressive Republicans led by New York reformer George W. Norris joined ranks with Democrats to limit the power of the Speaker. They shifted the power to appoint members to the Rules Committee from the Speaker of the House to the House as a whole. Cannon’s defeat was followed by another stinging rebuke when in 1912, after serving nearly 30 years in Congress, he failed to win reelection to his congressional seat. The split in the Republican vote in 1912
Joseph Cannon (Library of Congress)
Brought Democrat Woodrow Wilson to the White House. Republican progressives eventually returned to the party, and Cannon was reelected in 1914. Cannon served another six terms until his retirement in 1923, but he never again wielded the same political clout.
Further reading: Blair Bolles, Tyrant from Illinois: Uncle Joe Cannon's Experiment with Personal Power (New York: Norton, 1951); William Rea Gwinn, Uncle Joe Cannon, Archfoe of Insurgency: A History of the Rise and Fall of Cannonism (New York: Bookman Associates, 1957).
—Robert Gordon
World History
