Under the provisions now in view, aliens generally, who were in the army, navy, marine corps, or United States merchant marine, who had made declarations of intention, could be naturalized without proof of five years’ residence in the United States, if it could be shown that such residence could not be established; aliens in the military service during the war could petition for naturalization without previous declaration or proof of residence, and the machinery of naturalization, hitherto enlisted in the cause of delay, was now devoted to every possible expedition. Hearings were as nearly immediate as possible. Aliens who had been accepted previously into the military or naval service on condition of becoming citizens were required to prove only three years’ residence. Honorable discharges from previous service were accepted as evidence of both residence and satisfactory character when supported by the evidence of two witnesses, and where such persons were actually in the service there was complete waiver of the requirement of certificates of arrival, as well as of the usual ninety days’ posting and the statutory interval of thirty days before an election.
The proceeding might be held in the most convenient court. Persons, other than enemy aliens, who had erroneously believed themselves to be citizens, who had lived in the United States for at least five years preceding July 1, 1914, could be naturalized without declaration of intention. And the payment of any fees was excused in applicants in the military service, except in those states where the clerk of court is required to turn into the state treasury his half of the receipts; in those states only that half needed to be paid.
ALL RACE RESTRICTIONS REMOVED
Furthermore, the effect of the law was such as to remove the racial restrictions, so far as soldiers were concerned. A number of Japanese and Chinese aliens were admitted to citizenship under the military naturalization law. A dispatch to the Associated Press from Honolulu, dated February 14, 1919, cited Judge Horace Vaughan, of the United States District Court for Hawaii, as having “already granted naturalization to 184 Japanese who entered the service,” and as holding that they were entitled to citizenship under the law. Indeed, the law does say, repeatedly, “any alien.”
It was provided, too, that any American citizen, native or foreign-born, who, as would have been the case under previously existing law, had lost or might be deemed to have lost his citizenship by enlistment and oath of allegiance to another sovereignty in the military service of “any country at war with a country with which the United States is now at war” might fully and forthwith restore his American citizenship simply by taking before any United States consul, or any court having authority to confer citizenship, the oath of allegiance to the United States.
In a word, the Act of May 9, 1918, overturned everything the Bureau of Naturalization and the courts had been contending for and making into law at great expense of time, money, and devoted labor. The bars were not simply let down; they were obliterated.
ORDINARY NATURALIZATION DISRUPTED
“The soldier naturalization work completely disrupted,” says Commissioner Campbell, “the other naturalization work that arose in the courts under the general provisions of the naturalization law, almost the entire force of naturalization examiners being necessary for the task,” ... “even though their removal from their stations resulted in embarrassment to courts, court officials, and thousands of candidates for naturalization under the general provisions of the law.”
It is impossible at this time to say, or even to estimate with any degree of confidence, how many of the aliens, thus hurriedly naturalized, actually saw the battle lines in Europe, or even endured the perils by sea involved in transport to the other side. A large number of them never got farther from home than the army camp to which they were first sent. No statistics on this subject have as yet been collated, or perhaps ever will be. It is the impression of the Naturalization Service, doubtless justified by the fact, that the majority of the foreign-born soldiers thus naturalized at the camps actually did get overseas, even though the armistice prevented their ever further imperiling their lives for the country and flag to which they had thus twice sworn allegiance. The main reason for the haste was, as the Commissioner says, to finish the naturalization of the alien members of units in time for embarkation. The courts engaged in this work at the large encampments, and particularly at the points of rendezvous for embarkation, worked overtime. Eight courts were used at Newport News alone. Every effort was bent to catch the men before they went overseas; in many cases aliens thrown into casual units were quickly naturalized for the special purpose of permitting them to catch up with their own organizations.
“Enemy aliens,” as a rule, were handled separately. In one “job,” 855 Serbs and Rumanians from Transylvania, which was then a part of Austria-Hungary, were turned in a trice into full-fledged American citizens.