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of this title may be tried and punished either in the district in which the unlawful matter or publication was mailed, or to which it was carried by mail for delivery according to the direction thereon, or in which it was caused to be delivered by mail to the person to whom it was addressed.

TITLE XIII.-General Provisions.

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SEC. 1. The term United States " as used in this Act includes the Canal Zone and all territory and waters. continental or insular, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

2. The several Courts of First Instance in the Philippine Islands, and the District Court of the Canal Zone shall have jurisdiction of offences under this Act committed within their respective districts, and concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts of the United States of offences under this Act committed upon the high seas, and of conspiracies to commit such offences, as defined by section 37 of the Act entitled An Act to codify, revise, and amend the penal laws of the United States," approved the 4th March, 1909, and the provisions of said section, for the purpose of this Act, are hereby extended to the Philippine Islands, and to the Canal Zone. In such cases the district attorneys of the Philippine Islands and of the Canal Zone shall have the powers and perform the duties provided in this Act for United States attorneys.

3. Offences committed and penalties, forfeitures, or liabilities incurred prior to the taking effect hereof under any law embraced in or changed, modified, or repealed by any chapter of this Act may be prosecuted and punished, and suits and proceedings for causes arising or acts done or committed prior to the taking effect hereof may be commenced and prosecuted, in the same manner and with the same effect as if this Act had not been passed.

4. If any clause, sentence, paragraph, or part of this Act shall for any reason be adjudged by any Court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such judgment shall not affect, impair, or invalidate the remainder thereof, but shall be confined in its operation to the clause, sentence, paragraph, or part thereof directly involved in the controversy in which such judgment shall have been rendered.

Approved June 15, 1917.

ACT OF CONGRESS of the United States of America defining the Status of Citizens of the United States who have entered the Military or Naval Services of certain Countries during the existing War in Europe. -Approved October 5, 1917.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that any person formerly an American citizen, who may be deemed to have expatriated himself under the provisions of the first paragraph of section 2 of the Act approved the 2nd March, 1907,* entitled An Act in reference to the expatriation of citizens and their protection abroad," by taking, since the 1st August, 1914, an oath of allegiance to any foreign State engaged in war with a country with which the United States is at war, and who took such oath in order to be enabled to enlist in the armed forces of such foreign State, and who actually enlisted in such armed forces, and who has been or may be duly and honourably discharged from such armed forces, may, upon complying with the provisions of this Act, re-assume and acquire the character and privileges of a citizen of the United States: Provided, however, that no obligation in the way of pensions or other grants because of service in the army or navy of any other country, or disabilities incident thereto, shall accrue to the United States.

Any such person who desires so to re-acquire and re-assume the character and privileges of a citizen of the United States shall, if abroad, present himself before a Consular officer of the United States, or, if in the United States, before any Court authorised by law to confer American citizenship upon aliens, shall offer satisfactory evidence that he comes within the terms of this Act, and shall take an oath declaring his allegiance to the United States and agreeing to support the Constitution thereof and abjuring and disclaiming allegiance to such foreign State and to every foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty. The Consular officer or Court officer having jurisdiction shall thereupon issue in triplicate a certificate of American citizen. ship, giving one copy to the applicant, retaining one copy for his files, and forwarding one copy to the Secretary of Labour. Thereafter such person shall in all respects be deemed to have acquired the character and privileges of a citizen of the United States. The Secretary of State and the

* Vol. CII, page 974.

Secretary of Labour shall jointly issue regulations for the proper administration of this Act.

Approved October 5, 1917.

ADDRESS of the President of the United States, delivered
to both Houses of Congress, formulating Fourteen
Terms of a Programme of Peace.-Washington,
January 8, 1918.

Gentlemen of the Congress,

ONCE more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the objects of the war and the possible bases of a general peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between Russian representatives and representatives of the Central Powers to which the attention of all the belligerents has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with regard to terms of peace and settlement. The Russiar representatives presented not only a perfectly definite statement of the principles upon which they would be willing to conciude peace, but also an equally definite programme of the concrete application of those principles. The representatives of the Central Powers, on their part, presented an outline of settlement which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpretation until their specific programme of practical terms was added. That programme proposed no concessions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the preferences of the populations with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires were to keep every foot of territory their armed forces had occupied-every province, every city, every point of vantage-as a permanent addition to their territories and their power. It is a reasonable conjecture that the general principles of settlement which they at first suggested originated with the more liberal statesmen of Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of their own peoples' thought and purpose, while the concrete terms of actual settlement came from the military leaders who have no thought but to keep what they have got. The negotiations have been broken off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest. They cannot entertain such proposals of conquest and domination.

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dealing? For whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the majorities of their respective Parliaments or for the minority parties, that military and imperialistic minority which has dominated their whole policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and of the Balkan States which have felt obliged to become their associates in this war? The Russian representatives have insisted, very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modern democracy, that the conferences they have been holding with the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held within open, not closed, doors, and all the world has been audience, as was desired. To whom have we been listening, then? To those who speak the spirit and intention of the Resolutions of the German Reichstag of the 9th July last,* the spirit and intention of the liberal leaders and parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit and intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or are we listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled and in open and hopeless contradiction? These are very serious and pregnant questions. Upon the answer to them depends the peace of the world.

But, whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk, whatever the confusions of counsel and of purpose in the utterances of the spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have again attempted to acquaint the world with their objects in the war and have again challenged their adversaries to say what their objects are and what sort of settlement they would deem just and satisfactory. There is no good reason why that challenge should not be responded to, and responded to with the utmost candour. We did not wait for it. Not once, but again and again, we have laid our whole thought and purpose before the world, not in general terms only, but each time with sufficient definition to make it clear what sort of definitive terms of settlement must necessarily spring out of them. Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken with admirable candour and in admirable spirit for the people and Government of Great Britain. There is no confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the Central Powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of detail. The only secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only failure to make definite statement of the objects of the war, lies with Germany and her allies. The issues of life and death hang upon these definitions. No statesman who has the least conception of his responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure beyond a

* Page 744.

peradventure that the objects of the vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of Society and that the people for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does.

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of principle and of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrilling and more compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their power, apparently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what it is humane and honourable for them to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound their ideals or desert others that they themselves may be safe. They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in anything, our purpose and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that the people of the United States would wish me to respond, with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace.

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandisement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interests of particular Governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow now or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every

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