Mr. ARMSTRONG. The registration in Utah was done very largely through the employers themselves; that is, the State American'zation director got in touch with all the employers, railroad companies, mining companies, smelter companies, and all other employers, and also with the leaders of the different nationalities where they were working 'n cities and were not employed very generally in any one particular place; and it was felt there that they had quite a complete list of all those who should be registered. My latest information is that about one-fourth of those eligible for registration are really registered, and they are not trying very hard to enforce the law with regard to the rest of them. The CHAIRMAN. Then, it does not amount to anything? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, it does amount to a good deal, Mr. Chairman, because of the effect it is having in supplying funds for the conduct of the schools and in the general impression or feeling that the employers are taking regarding those who have registered. The CHAIRMAN. It has got one-fourth of them registered, and suppose there is no way of reaching the other three-fourths if they do not wish to register. Mr. ARMSTRONG. There is a provision in the law providing a penalty of a fine or imprisonment and making it a misdemeanor for those who do not register, but one of the chief defects in the law is that it puts it up to the intelligence of the man himself as to whether he comes within the law. In the law itself there is a provision that the man shall have an education equivalent to a fifth-grade education in the United States, and it is surprising the number of people who were never in school in their lives who think they have a fifth-grade education, and those are the people they can not touch. The CHAIRMAN. They have a fifth-grade knowledge but not a fifth-grade education. Mr. ARMSTRONG. No; they merely assert that they have, and the only requirement in the law is that where a superintendent of schools believes a person does not come up to the educational requirements, he can require that person to come in and submit to an examination, but it is a very difficult thing to touch these people under the law. They simply say, "Well, I have an education that is equivalent to a fifth-grade education in my own mind, and therefore I won't register and I won't submit myself to the superintendent of schools," and the matter is just hanging in that way. But it has done a tremendous lot of good in furnishing funds for the public schools of the State, and the funds there have been furnished both by those who are applicants for naturalization and those who are not. What the effect of that law may be next year I could not say. In the State of Colorado the greatest amount of Americanization work that has been done, and the chief encouragement from any one particular industry has come from the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. in encouraging the establishment of citizenship classes in mining camps and in Pueblo. This has been done largely through the suggestion of our office and through conferences which I have had with Mr. Welborn and others in having classes organized in the different mining camps and getting the school authorities to designate teachers or others in the different mining camps to undertake that work. We have established in the State of Colorado in these smaller outlying places about 47 of these schools during the last year; that is, 47 schools in individual communities. The work has been taken up in a good many places without any appropriation whatever, and the work is being carried on at the present time with a very limited appropriation on the part of any of the corporations. I have spoken of the Opportunity School in Denver which has been doing such splendid work for many years. There are still other classes to be organized or opened this year in the city of Denver. In Pueblo there are also two classes which have been functioning during the last three or four years in a very cred table manner. I feel that the requirement in the proposed bill as to the substitution of witnesses is a valuable thing and a change in the law which has been necessary for a long time, but I also feel that the names of witnesses to be substituted should be publicly posted, and that no petition for naturalization should be heard without the regular 90 days' notice and without notice to the Government specifically, not only the 90 days' notice in the clerk's office but notice to the Government. Mr. VAILE. You agree with Mr. Coleman on that point? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Absolutely. There have been some statements here-I think Judge Raker raised the question-in regard to the naturalization of an insane person. We had a rather peculiar situation in Denver some time ago. A petitioner for naturalization came up who was an Englishman and one of the most attractive fellows I ever met. He had been an actor and had been on the Orpheum circuit for many years. I presume if you are a devotee of the Orpheum circuit, most of you would know his name if I should mention it. He had come out there, and I found through investigation that he had been in three or four different hospitals, State institutions in two or three instances and private institutions in one or two instances, for insanity. He came up for naturalization. He was as bright and quick as any person I have ever met, I believe. I took the case to Judge Lewis and I told him I was in rather a peculiar situation and did not know what recommendation to make in regard to this fellow. Judge Lewis was rather in the same position. He said, "I do not see how I am going to keep from naturalizing him." Several of these confinements in mental hospitals had occurred during the five years immediately preceding the date of the petition. It so happened that the man later went away from Denver and did not appear in court at the time of the final hearing. The matter was continued several times, and his petition was finally dismissed for want of prosecution. So that that point never was brought out. But I do not know what you would do in a case of that kind so far as the law now stands. In one particular place in this proposed new law, H. R. 8727, there is a provision regarding an alien enemy being naturalized if he had claimed exemption "solely on the ground of such alienage at the time he filled out his questionnaire. Mr. VAILE. That is on page 22. Mr. ARMSTRONG. Pages 22 and 23. I refer to this part beginning in line 25 on page 22 which is inclosed in parentheses: "If he did not at any time claim exemption or discharge solely on the ground of alienage or refuse for any reason to perform military or naval service or wear the uniform of the United States." I believe that is rather a vicious thing. Most of them who did claim exemption on the ground of alienage claimed exemption on that ground and several others. They claimed it on the ground of being a necessary employee or a necessary farm employee or had dependents abroad or almost every possible excuse they could find. If he was trying to avoid service, he claimed exemption or deferred classification on several grounds in addition to claiming it on the ground of alienage, and you pin this down to the question of whether "he did not at any time claim exemption or discharge solely on the ground of alienage." Mr. VAILE. That same suggestion occurred to me in reading that language. Your idea is that if he claimed exemption on the ground of alienage he should be barred whether it was solely on that ground or not? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. Mr. VAILE. That was my idea also. The CHAIRMAN. Now, let us see about this question of claiming exemption on the ground of alienage. I think you have a ticklish matter there. If you remember, the draft laws made no exemption of aliens with first papers. It registered them between certain ages. I presume that a study convinced those who were handling the draft that aliens with first papers could not be forced to put on the uniform of the United States. A large number did so voluntarily, or did so because they were drafted, and as I remember it now, rather indirectly, the War Department got all tangled up over the claims for exemption on account of alienage, and after studying the matter awhile they devised a plan for putting them in the fifth classification and alienage was given as one of the reasons. Mr. VAILE. Right there, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Farrell suggests that alienage was the only ground of exemption and that the other grounds were simply grounds for deferred classification. That is not the way I remember it, but we can easily confirm that. If the only ground of exemption allowed by the draft law was alienage, then the whole question is disposed of because it was not a question of claiming deferred classification. The CHAIRMAN. The War Department devised a roundabout way to avoid all sorts of complications. We have been beset here and will be again as soon as they find out we are discussing the matter, by a number of Members who have introduced special bills, and this proposed paragraph is really a digest of those bills by which they are trying to square these men, particularly in the New England States. I remember that in Massachusetts, particularly, in many districts, they were very anxious to naturalize them, and they claimed they should not be discriminated against. Of course, we want to run this bill along as far as we can on the idea of uniformity. Mr. RAKER. I do not quite get that, Mr. Chairman. Anyone who declined or refused to go on and wanted his first papers canceled ought not now to be naturalized. The CHAIRMAN. I agree to that fully, but here comes up a discussion of the point as to whether he should be denied naturalization because he claimed exemption from service solely on account of alienage or whether that was one of several reasons that he gave for exemption. Mr. VAILE. The point that Mr. Farrell has suggested is that that was the only ground on which he could claim exemption under the selective-service act; that he could claim deferred classification on the other grounds but that the only ground on which he could claim exemption was the ground of alienage. The CHAIRMAN. Is this paragraph written to fit that? Mr. VAILE. Yes. Mr. CRIST. Mr. Beman and I thrashed that out and put it in this way in order to take it out of the class of deferred classification. This is for claiming exemption and for refusing to put on the uniform. The CHAIRMAN. We will mark that for a little further study and hear you further, Mr. Armstrong. Mr. ARMSTRONG. At the top of page 20, or beginning at the bottom of page 19, at line 24, there is this language: “A petition for naturalization filed under the provisions of this section may be heard immediately." I recall now that this question was dwelt upon by Mr. Bevington, and I wish to indorse what he said with regard to the necessity for a time for the Government to investigate these cases of discharged soldiers. I think there should be at this time a period of at least 90 days granted to the Government to investigate all of these cases of honorably discharged soldiers who appear for naturalization now, three years after the signing of the armistice. Mr. WILSON. May I go back to the question you were discussing some time ago and ask the witness a question relative to those who have claimed exemption from military service solely on account of alienage? What, if you know, is the practice of the courts in dealing with those applicants when they come up now and as the law now stands? Mr. ARMSTRONG. I can only speak for my own district. The practice, of the courts in my district, the Denver district, is to dismiss a petition for naturalization which is filed by an alien who claimed exemption during the war on the ground of alienage. Mr. WILSON. Solely on that ground they dismissed it and refused to give him naturalization papers? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes; but not altogether if it was solely on that ground, but for that and many other things. An applicant may not have claimed exemption solely on that ground. Mr. VAILE. On what other ground could he have claimed exemption? Mr. ARMSTRONG. He may have claimed exemption on the ground of being a necessary farm employee, but that was deferred classification and not exemp tion. The CHAIRMAN. After quite a long wrangle, disturbance, and fuss in the War Department they devised a set of regulations which split the thing as we finally agreed after debate. There were exemptions for awhile on various grounds and then there were classifications. The necessity for that was the mischief we got into with the draft act in trying to make fighters out of aliens in the United States. We had to do that or else the aliens sat on their doorsteps and laughed at their former countrymen who had been good enough to naturalize themselves. Mr. WILSON. As the matter finally turned out the alien could claim exemption solely on the ground of his alienage? The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. Mr. WILSON. And remain home. The CHAIRMAN. He could do that for a long time, but in the course of time it was fixed so that he could not go that far; he could get himself put in a deferred classification. Mr. RAKER. A man may have put in a claim for exemption on the ground of alienage and then later put in a claim on the ground that he was a necessary farmer, had dependents, etc.; he might have a dozen reasons; but Mr. Armstrong's contention is that if he put in a claim for exemption on the ground of alienage, and no matter what the others might be, he should not be naturalized. Mr. ARMSTRONG. I do not know that I would go that far. Mr. RAKER. I thought that is what your courts are holding? Mr. ARMSTRONG. The courts are generally holding that. Mr. RAKER. Because no matter what the others might have been, if he were an alien and claimed exemption on that ground, he would be exempted, would he not? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Yes, sir. Mr. WILSON. I understand from the chairman that in certain sections of the country we are being pressed to take that out of the law or make it so that it will be very clear that that is not a cause for refusing citizenship. The CHAIRMAN. When we discuss th's a little more in detail I will call on some of the Congressmen who have written me or put in bills and who are pressing me s'nce their bills have been made a part of omnibus bill No. 9. Mr. RAKER. So that there can be no misunderstanding I want to insert in the record, on the question of registration, two statements from the Supreme Court of the United States in the cases of Fong Yue Ting v. The United States; Wong Quan v. The United States; and Lee Joe v. The United States. These cases having been decided May 15, 1893. Mr. WILSON. May I ask one more question about the other matter? Mr. RAKER. It has been said that Congress has not the power to compel registration, but here is the Supreme Court of the United States saying that we can pass a registration law as to classes or as to all of them. Mr. WILSON. Before you insert that, let me ask this one other question: Is there a time within which an applicant may have that difficulty cured? Do the courts fix a time lim't? Mr. ARMSTRONG. Generally speaking, the courts hold that they will refuse to naturalize him for a period of five years after he claimed that exemption. Mr. RAKER. Now, let me insert this, as it is short, and will take me but a moment, the cases of Wong Yue Ting and others v. The United States, reported in One hundred and forty-ninth United States, page 698. In those cases the court said: "The right to exclude or to expel aliens, or any class of aliens, absolutely or upon certain conditions, in war or in peace, is an inherent and inalienable right of every sovereign and independent nation." Further: "The power of Congress to expel, like the power to exclude aliens, or any specified class of aliens, from the country may be exercised entirely through executive officers; or Congress may call in the aid of the judiciary to ascertain any contested facts on which an alien's right to remain in the country has been made by Congress to depend." Again: 66 Congress has the right to provide a system of registration and identification of any class of aliens within the country, and to take all proper means to carry out that system." The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Armstrong. Mr. ARMSTRONG. I have a chart here which I do not care to take the time of the committee to read, but which I think would be very interesting to the committee-with reference to what I found in regard to the persons who were naturalized in the various courts in the Denver naturalization district during the last five years. I was rather curious in my own mind as to just how those who were naturalized were working into our general citizenry. I sent out something like 1,300 letters a few months ago to every part of my district, picking names at random, and this chart is based upon the replies which I received, showing the number who are married, the amount of property they own, the number who are single, the taxes they pay, and matters of that kind, all of which I think will be interesting to the committee. The CHAIRMAN. I will be glad to have it, and it had better go into the record as an appendix. Incidentally, if you have any statistics showing the progress of naturalization during the past year in your district which could be used in this record, I would like to have them. Mr. ARMSTRONG. Very well. |