note 6: Sic. as per Reports.
RECIPROCAL CONSCRIPTION AMONG COBELLIGERENTS
A large factor in the diplomatic interchanges arising out of induction or attempted induction of aliens into the military service was the situation regarding cobelligerents. It does not call for extended description here; suffice it to say that the policy of reciprocal conscription and of crediting registrants, whether citizens or aliens, with the fact of their enlistment under the flag of any of the Allied nations, largely relieved this situation, so far as the nondeclarant alien was concerned. A collateral development was the upgrowth of desire on the part of representatives of the oppressed races of Central Europe to organize armed forces under their own commanders, and to proceed more or less independently to the battle line. Of this the Provost Marshal General says:[138]
The situation thus presented ... was finally relieved in part by two measures. In the first place, the War Department conceded that aliens of the oppressed races, who had already enlisted in the Polish foreign legion, should not be required to be discharged and returned to the American draft; but that in future no such enlistment should be sanctioned. In the second place, the Army Appropriation Act authorized the organization of the Slavic Legion ... into which could be enlisted aliens of the oppressed races—Czecho-Slovak, Jugo-Slav, and Ruthenian (omitting Polish), who were otherwise exempted under the draft.... Computations ... give estimates for the number of males of military age who would have been eligible for enlistment under this act ranging between 188,000 and 330,000.
OF GERMAN DESCENT, BUT LOYAL AMERICANS
The Provost Marshal General takes occasion to pay high tribute to the thousands of registrants of German stock who “loyally stood by the American flag,” notwithstanding the “natural distrust” at first attending them in public opinion, “and the notorious intrigues of the German government to secure their support.” The opportunity afforded to such of them as could satisfy the courts and the Naturalization Service of their loyalty, to become American citizens, was availed of by them in large numbers. It is regrettable that, as the Provost Marshal General says:[139]
Unfortunately, time has not sufficed to analyze the naturalization papers and thus discover the variances between the different nationalities in this demonstration of loyalty to their adoptive country.
DESERTION, AMONG ALIENS AND CITIZENS
It has been asserted by ill-informed persons representing on the one hand those who attribute inherent deficiencies and evil tendencies to the immigrant as such, and on the other those who seem to think that the immigrant as such is somehow superior to the native-born American, either that the desertions from the army or evasions of military service were inordinately numerous on the part of foreign born as compared with the native born; or, per contra, that “the proportion of desertions among the native born is about twice as great as among the foreign born.”[140] In point of exact fact and essential justice, neither of these views is justified. The Provost Marshal General deals directly, and with broad justice, with this situation:[141]