NEGRO CASE IS GHOST OF DEAD AND BURIED ISSUE

"The objection has come too late" was the reply Professor Eugene Wambaugh '76, Langdell Professor of Law in the University, made when interviewed last night by a CRIMSON reporter on the possibility of the 14th amendment being declared null and void, thus prohibiting negroes from voting.

Attack 14th Amendment

The reporter's inquiry was inspired by the recent attack made on the validity of the 14th amendment and the attempt to prohibit negroes from voting. The suit is about to be brought in the name of H. E. Bolte, an attorney of Washington, D. C. Mr. Bolte claims that Walter L. Cohen, negro controller of customs of the the port of New Orleans, "falsely alleged himself to be a citizen of the United States" when he took the oath of office. It goes on to say that he is a "person of African blood and descent", and that when he took the oath of office in Washington on April 16, 1924, he swore falsely that he was a citizen under 'the alleged 14th amendment of the constitution of the United States."

Ratification Was Forced

In the petition Mr. Bolte claims that 11 states of the union at the time of these adoption of the 14th amendment were unconstitutionally deprived of their equal suffrage in the Senate, and that six states were forced to ratify the amendment by coercion.

In commenting upon this Professor Wambaugh said that whatever the history of the case might be on July 21, 1868, Congress adopted a resolution declaring that the 14th amendment had been ratified by the necessary number of states, and seven days later the Secretary of State issued a proclamation decreeing that the amendment had been ratified, and since then the fact of ratification has been assumed and acted upon by Congress, the President, and all the courts. Consequently, even if it be admitted that there was some irregularity in the declaration, the objection comes too late.

Idea Crops Out Every Ten Years

Professor Wambaugh stated further that about once every ten years some person writes a magazine article, taking the attitude that the amendment was not properly ratified.

In concluding he said. "Although the first section of the 14th amendment does not expressly say that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens, and although that provision unquestionably was meant to overthrow the view expressed by these judges in the Dred Scoff case, nevertheless today the express provision would be deemed unnecessary. No modern court could dream, even in the absence of the 14th amendment, that a free negro is not a citizen.