STATEMENT OF COL. J. F. REYNOLDS LANDIS, UNITED STATES ARMY, RETIRED, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Colonel LANDIS. I am vice president of the Aztec Club of 1847, military society of the Mexican War. I will address you very briefly and confine myself mostly to the matter of the national defense. I desire to present the protest of the Aztec Club of 1847, the military society of the Mexican War, against the enactment into law of H. R. 297. If this bill should be enacted it would practically grant to any alien applying for citizenship the right to determine for himself whether a declaration of war of the Congress of the United States was based upon just grounds, and certain conditions, to decide whether or not he answered the call to arms.

Would the applicant for a commission as an officer in the armed forces of the United States be considered a desirable officer if he demanded the right to question the propriety and desirability of an order before carrying it out? Would any corporation or company accept as an official anyone who made a similar demand? The alien who becomes a citizen enjoys the right to vote for representatives in the executive and legislative departments of the Government and must be bound by their action whether or not it accords with his personal views. The citizen who fails to understand this fails to understand representative government and is not the type of a good citizen. The alien applying for citizenship who fails to understand this, who is not willing to obey the laws enacted by the executive and legislative departments of the Government, is an undesirable to whom citizenship should be most uncompromisingly denied.

We have in this country individuals known as conscientious objectors. In time of war the Government has respected their views and has not required them to bear arms. However, the respect which the Government has shown for their views, has caused more or less dissatisfaction and discontent among the citizens usually at the time when it was most desirable that such feelings should not exist. The Nation at war has need of all its energies to carry it on and no part of those energies should be expended on conscientious objectors. This class was large enough in 1917. It will be larger in the next war and it will show great wisdom in Congress not to increase this class by adding to it those who would seek to be admitted to citizenship under the provisions of this bill.

The Aztec Club of 1847 hopes, therefore, that this committee will send this bill to the House of Representatives with the recommendation that it be not put into effect as law.

STATEMENT OF REV. WILLIAM MATTHEW HOLDERBY, CHICAGO,

ILL.

Mr. HOLDERBY. I represent a movement known as the National Christian Family Defense League. This movement has secured the enactments from the State Legislatures of South Dakota, Texas, and Illinois, of resolutions germane to the discussion of this bill which is being considered at this hearing before your committee. I come with the authority of these three State legislatures, and besides that an enrollment of something like 350,000 families whose spirit and attitude. is that of patriotic religionists. In meeting the contention of the

proponents of this bill as presented yesterday, I am assured of this fact, that not one of them who rests in the security of the protection of conscience that they plead but depends upon the Constitution of the United States of American for this protection. I submit to you, gentlemen that it is an honorable purpose, a fair purpose, and consonant with Christian integrity that they should support the Constitution of the Government that gives them provisions and such protection.

As I contemplate the seriousness of the situation presented and precipitated in the presentation of this bill with this peculiarly intended evasion of citizenship responsibilities, I can not but point you to this fact, that out of these developing conditions within our Nation's life serious things are imminent. There are three steps that lead to that supreme tragedy of earth, which is the death of a nation. The first step is religious apostasy, second political deterioration, and third, social chaos.

I am convinced that out of the evidence presented before your committee, that the forces that are presenting this bill are indicative of those subversive influences that mean to destroy our nation's life, and the movement that I represent has in mind but one thing and that is by the integration anew of the conscience, of the family life of this Nation, to pour an antidote into the poison of communistic individualism present at this hour, and if I can trust myself for a judicial judgment in the matter, why do they lug in here the personalities of a few individuals under the pretense and pretex of asking us to dissolve for them the responsibilities that they as a type, and as a class, ought to owe this Government were they to become naturalized as citizens? Why do they bring in as a buffer to a request for such a privilege, when they must know what will be the rejoinder of every true American citizen, the religious aspect of the Quakers' peculiar belief and tenet? I want to say to you in the baldness and the boldness of my personal conviction, the type of man or woman, proponents for this sort of action on the part of the Congress of the United States of America, is of the type that has no place in court. There would be but three types of minds presenting themselves to your august group, that would pose as religionists, who would ask for this because of conscientious scruples concerning war. One would be the type of mind that puts his authority within an infallible church; the second would be the type of mind that puts his word, his trust in an infallible authority known as the Word of God; the third is that type of mind that arrogates to himself an infallibility of judgment, whose egocentric conscience makes him a law unto himself that he shall decide his measure of obligation toward men and even toward God.

There came to the shores of this land a group of men and women who out of the Plymouth Colony gave us the concept of Government that we have as a state and they established for the Nation's life the same definite conception of authority in the Constitution that rests in the Holy Word of God, which they believed and which they accepted. I want to say to you this afternoon that the type of man or woman who inveighs against the Constitution of the United States of America is the type of man who inveighs against the Word of God. I will say to you furthermore that the man whose conception of religion is the evacuation of that glorious contribution which is

revealed in the shed blood of Jesus Christ is the same kind of man who discredits your forbears and mine, who gave their blood that you might have the joy and privilege of citizenship that is ours. That is the type who present themselves in this livery of heaven as conscientious objectors to military duty to our Government.

I say this afternoon in these words to you: We are at a serious moment a serious moment. Remember the opponents of this bill did not precipitate this issue I now bring to your attention. The onus of this issue that we now present rests upon those who lugged into this situation a religious aspect, and when one of the proponents of this proposed law said yesterday that he desired his fellow-religionists such as Friends, the Quakers, to come to our shores and be accepted as citizens of this country when they did not believe in war, I want to ask a very pointed question. If the Congress of these United States of America were to declare war, would the President of the United States declare himself as a man who had taken the oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, or would he rest in his attitude on the doctrine opposed to war as a member of the Society of Friends.

If the President of the United States of America is compelled to abide by the oath he has taken as President to defend the Constitution, then no one is exempted from the obligation because it might stultify their conscience. That is my proposition to you in your consideration of the serious aspects of this bill. May I say to you that it takes but one hole below the water line to sink any ship, just the one, and let me say that the rothole that they are putting into the plank of the ship of state by this sort of practice will send you to the bottom, and let me say to you further, it is my conviction that you might as well spell the word "rathole."

I heard the proponent of the bill yesterday morning Prof. Jerome Davis make the contrasting statement as to the position of Professor McIntosh and said that they were desired as a class to become citizens of this great Republic, and then with sarcasm he spoke of the Al Capones who were given citizenship. There is one thing to be said about that crowd of gangsters: They have a code and if you do not live up to it they put you on the spot. I want to say to you as an American citizen, there are types of proponents of this bill that ought to be put on the spot by every American citizen breathing the breath of life. I am convinced this afternoon in serious contemplation of this bill that you need to reckon with this bad effect. If the prevailing conditions as they obtain to-day in our national life are but pus pockets, they may be lanced and drained and they will heal, but if they are carbuncles, and the information has come to me recently that a carbuncle is an infection from the outside in, not the inside out, I am thinking that the great metropolitan areas of our Nation's life to-day have become infected as carbuncles, and they may be fatal. They, however, can be cured, but, gentlemen, if what we see represented in the men of this group who want the enactment of this kind of legislation, represents a cancer that has fastened upon the body politic, let me warn you there is a serious consequence. If you would not suffer a cancerous death as a nation, you must use the knife on that tissue, so you will have to use the knife to get this killing cause out of the Nation's life. It was a knife of war that gave us our Nation under Washington; it was a knife

of war that saved our Nation under Lincoln. It may take a knife of war to purify us for the very great purposes that God has for us.

Gentlemen, it is imminent, this need of the operation, except that there is a modern therapy that has proven that if you will throw light rays into the foul mass you will atrophy it and cause it to slough out. By the important hearing that your committee has given to this bill the light has been thrown in. Would to God that the exposure of the revelations that have been made here before this committee could be carried broadcast to the Nation's life. They need it-they need it. I beg of you in your consideration of this bill that you do what might be expected of you and which I am confident you will do in this great city of Washington, in which the Nation has paid its devotion to the two great characters of its history; there stands the Washington Monument-that man who in the snows of Valley Forge prayed his blessings upon this Nation in the incipiency of its birth that God would save it, that it might live. I stood the other night in the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and looked at the pew where Abraham Lincoln used to sit and listen to the beneficient ministry of the word of God and from which he got his deep convictions concerning his obligations and responsibilities for his love for both South and North in the prosecution of that war. That man used to go out of the White House and go across there and sit behind a partly opened door Wednesday nights in that church, hidden from view that others might not see him and know of his presence. These great, God-fearing ministers of God to a nation's life did not fail to meet their responsibilities. If you gentlemen feel this obligation of meteing justice to all citizens in consideration of the obligations concerning this bill, will you hear me read this word in closing? It is a question of God's authority and deals specifically with the obligations to a Christian people's government. Now, remember this is not the appeal to the Jew concerning his kingdom. This is the appeal to the Christians concerning the church. The Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans, chapter 13, beginning with the first verse said:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing.

This is the tribute out of God's word paid to you as a representative group of lawmakers of this nation's life, and if that which vests in you has the authority and the force of God's own declaration, I beg of you as a committee to report to the House your nonconcurrence concerning this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. May I say that the committee has been very patient and has given this bill a fair and impartial hearing on both sides, and I am sure that the committee will be very mindful of all the statements you have made when it goes into executive session.

Mr. CABLE. Can you furnish the committee with copy of the resolution referred to the various States?

Mr. HOLDERBY. I will furnish these citations as follows: South Dakota, 1923 session, senate journal, page 533; Illinois, 1927 session, senate journal, page 943; Texas, 1931 session, senate journal, page

712.

Mr. GREEN. Do you know of any of the old patriotic organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution and others that have introduced this bill and favor it?

Mr. HOLDERBY. No, sir.

Mr. GREEN. You do not know of any of them?

Mr. HOLDERBY. None at all.

Mr. LLOYD. Miss Mary G. Kilbreth asks to be permitted to file a statement on this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be glad to receive her statement. It may be filed with the clerk.

(CLERK'S NOTE.-Statement not submitted.)

Mr. JENKINS. I have a number of telegrams and letters. I wonder if there will be any objection if I just make a list of them, for the record.

Mr. JOHNSON. These are extensive hearings for the past few days. Every one of us has sheaves of letters and telegrams and there will be duplications galore. It is an unnecessary expense in my opinion. I doubt very much the advisability unless the chairman himself assembled these telegrams and letters and compiled the names and societies for and against.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jenkins suggested that he just give the names of these persons and whether for or against.

Mr. JOHNSON. Not the telegrams themselves?

The CHAIRMAN. I do not suppose it will take up more than four or five pages.

Mr. GREEN. For that matter I am ready to vote against this bill

now.

Mr. FREE. Why put in the record a lot of names. It is all right for the names of organizations. I take it from what Mr. Jenkins says that these are personal letters and telegrams. If we start on that sort of thing we will have them by the millions. If we put in the name of the society or organization or group that is sufficient. Mr. JOHNSON. This is not a voting contest.

Mr. JENKINS. Suppose I make this general statement for the record, that it appears that all the members of the committee have received communications, letters and telegrams, that it is agreed among the members, that none of them will be made part of the record, but they are acknowledged as received in this informal manner. My reason for that is that these people have sent in their telegrams, a great number of people have sent telegrams here, and we ought to take cognizance of them. When a person hands us a petition with ten names on it, for instance, it is one of the fundamental priciples of our Government, the right of petition. We do not dare to turn down people's petitions, and that is the reason I make the suggestion to acknowledge them in the hearing, these that I have as well as everybdy else's.

Mr. COOKE. Are you going to close?

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