in order to tighten controls designed to stem the inflationary trend. Purchasing power was very great and consumer goods had become extremely scarce. Had Congress really intended to protect the public against inflation, as its legislation shows it did, it would not have chosen this time for relaxing government controls. The giving of free reign. to inflationary pressure was likely to endanger seriously our economy and to bring great hardship to many individuals. I cannot, without a clear declaration to that effect with respect to any part of our economy, impute to Congress an intent to let inflation run riot during such critical times. I cannot conclude, therefore, as the opinion of the Court necessarily does, that Congress intended to suspend all Maximum Price Regulations containing standardization provisions until the Price Administrator reviewed them.

What then was the purpose of Congress in enacting the Taft Amendment? The Managers on the part of the House thus stated the Section's purpose in the Conference Report on the Amendment: It "is to meet the objection that the Price Administrator has exceeded the limitations expressed in section 2 (h) of . . . [the 1942 Price Control Act] in issuing certain regulations already promulgated." (Italics supplied.) Section 2 (h) provides: "The powers granted . . . shall not be used or made to operate to compel changes in the business practices, cost practices or methods, or means or aids to distribution, established in any industry, except to prevent circumvention or evasion of any regulation, order, price schedule, or requirement under this Act." (Italics supplied.) As the Conference Report indicates, the Taft Amendment actually added little new, if anything at all, to the requirements already contained in § 2 (h). It was merely an explanation and elaboration of one phase of the requirements of § 2 (h).

Any regulation, including the one here held invalid, that was promulgated when § 2 (h) was in effect had to meet its requirements. As later explained by the Taft Amendment, the requirements of § 2 (h) which permitted the Administrator to require changed business practices to prevent "circumvention or evasion" included, in the case of regulations containing new standardization provisions, a determination that there was no practical alternative to effective price control. All standardization provisions, including the one here held invalid, in order to be valid under the old § 2 (h) had to be based on such a determination. The Taft Amendment was not, as the Court now holds, a declaration by Congress that all past standardization provisions had not been based on such a determination and that they were therefore invalid. Here the Regulation in question was promulgated while § 2 (h) was in full force and effect. Not only did petitioners fail to show that the Regulation was not based on the determination required by § 2 (h) as explained by the Taft Amendment, but the Administrator, after the Amendment was enacted, and before any proceedings were brought against petitioners, double checked the Regulation to make sure that it was based on the determination required. It is not denied, and apparently cannot be denied, that it was absolutely necessary for the Administrator to order these changed standardization practices in order to prevent circumvention or evasion. In my opinion, therefore, the wastepaper provisions of Maximum Price Regulation No. 30 were valid at all times, since they met the requirements of § 2 (h) as explained by § 2 (j). I would affirm the judgment below, which dismissed the complaint.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and MR. JUSTICE MURPHY join in this dissent.

Opinion of the Court.

GIROUARD v. UNITED STATES.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT.

No. 572. Argued March 4, 1946.-Decided April 22, 1946.

An alien who is willing to take the oath of allegiance and to serve in the army as a non-combatant but who, because of religious scruples, is unwilling to bear arms in defense of this country may be admitted to citizenship under the Nationality Act of 1940, as amended by the Act of March 27, 1942. United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644; United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605; and United States v. Bland, 283 U. S. 636, overruled. Pp. 64-70. 149 F.2d 760, reversed.

A District Court admitted petitioner to citizenship. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. 149 F. 2d 760. This Court granted certiorari. 326 U. S. 714. Reversed, p. 70.

Homer Cummings and William D. Donnelly argued the cause for petitioner. With them on the brief was David J. Coddaire.

Frederick Bernays Wiener argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General McGrath, Robert S. Erdahl and Leon Ulman.

Ernest Angell, Julien Cornell, John W. Davis and Osmond K. Fraenkel filed a brief for the American Civil Liberties Union, as amicus curiae, in support of petitioner.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In 1943 petitioner, a native of Canada, filed his petition for naturalization in the District Court of Massachusetts. He stated in his application that he understood the prin

ciples of the government of the United States, believed in its form of government, and was willing to take the oath of allegiance (54 Stat. 1157, 8 U. S. C. § 735 (b)) which reads as follows:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion: So help me God."

To the question in the application "If necessary, are you willing to take up arms in defense of this country?" he replied, "No (Non-combatant) Seventh Day Adventist." He explained that answer before the examiner by saying "it is a purely religious matter with me, I have no political or personal reasons other than that." He did not claim before his Selective Service board exemption from all military service, but only from combatant military duty. At the hearing in the District Court petitioner testified that he was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination, of whom approximately 10,000 were then serving in the armed forces of the United States as non-combatants, especially in the medical corps; and that he was willing to serve in the army but would not bear arms. The District Court admitted him to citizenship. The Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, one judge dissenting. 149 F. 2d 760. It took that action on the authority of United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644; United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, and United States v. Bland, 283 U. S. 636, saying that the facts of the present case brought it squarely within the principle of those cases. The case is here on

a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted so that those authorities might be re-examined.

1

The Schwimmer, Macintosh and Bland cases involved, as does the present one, a question of statutory construction. At the time of those cases, Congress required an alien, before admission to citizenship, to declare on oath in open court that "he will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same." It also required the court to be satisfied that the alien had during the five-year period immediately preceding the date of his application "behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.' "2 Those provisions were reenacted into the present law in substantially the same form.3

While there are some factual distinctions between this case and the Schwimmer and Macintosh cases, the Bland case on its facts is indistinguishable. But the principle emerging from the three cases obliterates any factual distinction among them. As we recognized in In re Summers, 325 U. S. 561, 572, 577, they stand for the same general rule that an alien who refuses to bear arms will not be admitted to citizenship. As an original proposition, we could not agree with that rule. The fallacies underlying

1 Naturalization Act of 1906, § 4, 34 Stat. 596.

2 Id.

We have already set forth in the opinion the present form of the oath which is required. It is to be found in the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1137, 1157, 8 U. S. C. § 735 (b). Sec. 307 (a) of that Act, 8 U. S. C. § 707 (a), provides that no person shall be naturalized unless he has been for stated periods and still is "a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States."