It was a citizenship case. The man’s only citizenship record from the US was a delayed birth certificate. He asked the court to examine his records and legally determine his birth facts and declare him to be a US citizen.
Very applicable, and it’s interesting that Maskill chose this case. He misrepresented what the judge actually said though. The judge made it clear that in the early 1900’s there were legitimate reasons for him not to have a US BC and that the claims on the BC were supported by the absence of a Greek BC as well as from Greek documents actually saying that the man was born in the US.
Does make me wonder how this man’s case would be different if the judge had found that the man had forged records to cloud his citizenship.