It means, applied locally, simply this: A woman born in California, herself a citizen of the United States with the right to vote, automatically relinquishes her citizenship and that right the moment she becomes the wife of a foreigner, whether the foreigner is a resident or not.
Mrs. Mackenzie, who brought the test case, is the wife of Gordon Mackenzie, known on the concert platform as Mackenzie Gordon, the Scotch tenor. Her husband, who is a nephew of the late Sir Morell Mackenzie, a famous English surgeon, has been a resident of San Francisco for the last twelve years. He has lived in this country for more than twenty years. She was herself born in California, the daughter of J. F. Coope of Santa Cruz, a well known California pioneer. But the fact that her husband, born a British subject, has never taken out citizenship papers in this country, makes Mrs. Mackenzie, by the ruling of the supreme court, an alien in the eyes of the law of the United States.
A curious feature of the unusual case is that Mrs. Mackenzie was one of the most ardent of the workers for suffrage during the campaign which resulted in the women being given the vote in California.
The ruling affects also, in sweeping fashion, a large number of other women socially prominent in San Francisco. It includes Baroness Van Eck, who was Miss Agnes Tillman and who is still a resident of this state; Baroness Von Brincken, formerly Miss Milo Abercombie, also living here; Countess Von Falkenstein, who was Miss Azalea P. Keyes; Mrs. John Hubert Ward, who was Miss Jean Reid, and a great number of others.
Mrs. Mackenzie, who, since her marriage to the famous tenor in August, 1909, has been living at 2832 Jackson Street, was among the first to appear at the polls after the state had enfranchised its feminine population. She was refused the privilege of voting. The California courts, in which the case was instituted, decided against her. Now the ruling of the highest tribunal in the country upholds the lower courts.
“It was something of a shock,” she said, “to learn that after two years of hard work to bring suffrage to California I could not enjoy the right I had helped to give other women. Investigation showed, of course, that I could gain my citizenship and my right to vote, and also retain my husband, by his application for naturalization papers, but I did not wish to accept citizenship on those terms, and so I brought a test case.