renounce his allegiance to the country which he said he would stand by-the United States.

Mr. ROGERS. I do not believe that the average young man of 20 would reason it in that way. I do not believe that if you lined up the entire House of Representatives of this Congress and put that oath to them that they would think-the majority of them-that they were thereby forfeiting their American citizenship.

Mr. SIEGEL. But that is the law.

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; but I am dealing with the intent of these young men; they were not giving up this precious thing as far as their intent went; I do not believe that one of them intended to forfeit his American citizenship.

Mr. SIEGEL. What do you think of the Austrian boys who were citizens of the United States and went back to Austria?

Mr. ROGERS. If the committee wants to make

Mr. SIEGEL (interposing). I am asking you about that?

Mr. ROGERS. I will answer it. If the committee wants to have this applied to all belligerents that is a matter for the committee to decide. I, personally, because of my very pronounced proally views, which are not recently formed, am, perhaps, not competent to give you a fair answer to that question.

Mr. RAKER. I appreciate that you have been very candid and fair with the committee, but still you have not gone into the matter as a policy that this Government should stand for. This is only one war; this is just now, but should we not look into the future, should we not look to what might occur in the future and provide what our citizens ought to do as citizens? No matter how anxious they might be to get into a fight, no matter how determined they are and how ambitious they are to do something in order to make a showing, do you not think there ought to be a staying hand and to think first of the United States, and that as long as we are neutral, let us stay there?

Mr. ROGERS. Of course, this law can be repealed at any moment, so that it can not apply unless the judgment of the Congress thinks it should apply to a future war. But bear in mind, too, that these circumstances would not be likely to arise again; and we hope they will never arise again; they certainly would not be likely to arise again. But before this law, if passed, would apply to a future war we have got to find a situation where there is a great war that engages the sympathy of our young men, but in which we are not a factor; and then we have got to find a large number of our men enlisting on one side or the other; and we have got to find the further circumstance that the United States thereafter enters the war. If at that time it is not deemed wise to have the law made applicable, all you have to do is to pass two lines repealing it.

The CHAIRMAN. The suggestion made by Judge Raker is not in the interest of amending the bill so that it will apply to those who may have joined the German Army, but whether we ought to change our policy at all and apply it to anybody.

Mr. ROGERS. I understand.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a serious question.

Mr. ROGERS. But I think Judge Raker would say that if any discrimination were removed it would be very much improved.

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Mr. RAKER. I do not care very much about the discrimination at all; that does not affect me in any shape or form. What I am asking about is the general broad policy.

Mr. ROGERS. As far as discrimination goes, possibly there is a point; but as far as the general policy goes, I want to emphasize again that we are simply shortening the process; we are not giving these men any different right than the right they could gain pro-, vided they waited five years, but in the meantime there are all sorts of vexations and perplexities which to me appear to be needless vexations and perplexities.

Mr. SIEGEL. There is another matter involved here. If these men are not citizens when they arrive here, they are subject to the immigration laws.

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. SIEGEL. And if they are physically unfit as a result of injuries received they can not enter here?

Mr. ROGERS. No.

Mr. SIEGEL. And unless you do restore citizenship to them they can never come into the United States?

Mr. ROGERS. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. Except as ordinary immigrants.

Mr. SIEGEL. But they could not enter if they were physically disabled.

Mr. ROGERS. The question about the devolution of property, the question of marriage and divorce, as I said at the outset, and the question of whether those men shall have the right to vote are questions that should be determined at once. I think they should be treated as real American citizens, and that they should not be subjected to a delay of five years before those rights can be acquired. Congress has already provided short cuts to naturalization. This same act of 1907, to which I have referred, permits a short cut to naturalization. Take the case of an American woman who marries a foreigner. Upon the death of the foreigner the law says that the American woman may, by appearing before a consular officer, immediately reacquire her American citizenship. Most of the arguments that have been urged against this bill would have applied with additional force to such a case, because in that case, while the American woman was the wife of the foreigner, she was a full citizen of the foreign country, yet Congress in 1907, in its wisdom, said that that was not a case where five years should be required before that woman should be permitted to regain her American citizenship.

Mr. KNUTSON. Do you not think that these American men abroad are just as good Americans now as they were when they went abroad? Mr. ROGERS. I think they are better Americans, and that is precisely the reason I am here, because my hat is off to these men, and I want to do all I can to help them.

Mr. RAKER. Then, your theory is that when we are not at war, when we are neutral, and when one of the greatest acts that any human being can perform is to stand by the country that he has sworn allegiance to, no matter where he has been born or whether the interests of his Fatherland, England or France, are at stake, that a man is as good an American citizen if he leaves his country, when it is neutral, and goes to another.

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Mr. ROGERS. I think that the greatest

Mr. RAKER (interposing). Therefore, you think he is a better American because he left his own country and went to another?

Mr. ROGERS. I think one of the noblest figures in the history of the world, outside of American history, is Lafayette.

Mr. KNUTSON. Do you think we were strictly neutral before the outbreak of the war?

Mr. RAKER. To be honest and fair, we tried to be.

Mr. KNUTSON. But were we neutral?

Mr. RAKER. And I think one of the greatest things an American citizen could do was to restrain himself and be neutral and try to do all we could as a Nation to keep out of war and not fight on either side.

Mr. WELTY. Right there Judge Raker says that we are by this bill placing a premium upon those fellows who would not restrain themselves, but who would rather be either Germans

Mr. ROGERS (interposing). I do not think we are giving these men a premium when we say that by again taking the oath of allegiance to the United States they can reacquire American citizenship a little more promptly than they could under existing law.

Mr. WELTY. Were they not weakening our Nation as a Nation when they ceased to be neutral?

Mr. ROGERS. I think this again gets back to one's original preferences. I think that they were fighting for the cause of the world's democracy, freedom, and liberty in doing what they did.

Mr. JOHNSON. Did not the President warn them to be neutral by issuing a proclamation?

Mr. ROGERS. That is true.

Mr. SMITH. Was Russia a democracy at the time these men went in?

Mr. ROGERS. But they were not fighting in the Russian Army.. Now, may I say this in conclusion? Please let us not attempt, if we can avoid it, to have our sympathies in the European war during cur period of neutrality enter into our opinions about the measure on which I am speaking.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you not doing just that when you give that preference to those who joined the allies?

Mr. ROGERS. I say it is for the committee to decide whether it should give the same treatment to a boy who went over to Germany and enlisted in the German Army at the time this country was neutral. That is a perfectly simple change to make in the bill if the committee thinks that is a proper change.

Mr. JOHNSON. How would it sound to give these boys who have gone to the German Army the rights of American citizens while at the same time they continue in that army?

Mr. SABATH. This provision would have to be so drafted as to provide for these things if they went into the army before the time of the declaration of war.

Mr. WELTY. Do not lose sight of the policy of the American Nation. We can not say to those whose sympathies were with the Gerinans before war was declared, or to those whose sympathies were with the British or with the French, that we are going to forgive you because you were not neutral when we asked you to be neutral in order to avoid bringing us into this war.

The CHAIRMAN. There is this to be taken into consideration in connection with this bill: If we allow these people to come in and not obey the immigration laws, may we not get thousands and thousands of cripples who will become public charges on this country? They will not be given pensions by these other countries, because they come back and become American citizens, and would not that open the doors of our poorhouses and our asylums in this country to those who acquired those disabilities over there and whom we have let come in?

Mr. ROGERS. I think one answer to that is that most of these men who have gone over there are not of the poorhouse class.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, they may not have been when they went there, but if they come back maimed, halt and lame, they might become such, and we would then have to keep them here, because we could not deport them.

Mr. ROGERS. In other words, your suggestion would mean this: That the boys who went over to fight in the Canadian forces_can never get back to the country of their origin and the country where their families are.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not the duty of the countries for which they have been fighting and in which they acquired those disabilities to take care of them rather than this country, which they have abandoned, and let their families go to them to be taken care of there?

Mr. MEEKER. I want to follow the judge's question with this practical proposition: Suppose that these men who have gone over there and taken this oath are in a crippled or maimed condition; according to the advertisement read by Mr. Johnson, they would be entitled to pensions, etc. Now, those men come back here and we let them in and make them citizens. Who is going to pension those men in the future?

Mr. KNUTSON. The Governments for which they fought.
Mr. MEEKER. But they are American citizens?

Mr. KNUTSON. I have constituents who fought on the German side in the Franco-Prussian War; they are American citizens and draw pensions from Germany.

The CHAIRMAN. The same thing happened in the Civil War. We have men in Canada who fought in the Union Army, and our pension laws, as I recollect them, now extend to them, although they have become nonresidents. I think that is true.

Mr. MEEKER. But have they become Canadian citizens?
The CHAIRMAN. I do not know.

Mr. MEEKER. That is the point.

The CHAIRMAN. But there is great force in your suggestion. Of course, we do not know whether these other countries have those same laws and whether they will pension them or not.

Mr. ROGERS. To me it is one of the most shocking things conceivable that these young men who have gone over there to do their duty for the United States should be forever barred from landing at any port in the United States.

Mr. RAKER. But did you ever stop to think that at the time they went they did so against their own country, went against the declaration of the President of the United States, and were willing to bring this country into war by their going?

Mr. KNUTSON. Is it not a fact that a great many neutrals fought on both sides in the Civil War?

Mr. MEEKER. I have not yet had an answer to the question which I put, and which is a practical question.

Mr. ROGERS. The answer is that those men remain on the pension rolls of the foreign countries in which they fought.

Mr. MEEKER. Even though they become American citizens?
Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. SLAYDEN. May I now submit a thought? A while ago I raised the question of pensions, and I asked you a question about them. Now, I have made a rough draft of an amendment which it occurs to me might be added to this bill, after the words "United States" in line 21 on page 2. I think I have covered the objection raised by Mr. Raker:

Provided, That all former citizens who left the United States to join the military or naval forces of any country engaged in war with Germany, AustriaHungary, Turkey, or Bulgaria prior to the passage of this act and who shall continue in the service of such country until the close of the war with the German Empire, shall be entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities granted herein: And provided further, That no obligation in the way of pensions or other grants because of services in the Army or Navy of any other country, or disabilities incident thereto shall accrue to the United States.

Mr. ROGERS. I should cordially accept the second part of that. The first part, of course, is a question of policy for the committee to decide.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, in regard to their continuing in the service of the foreign country until the end of the war; you would not be willing to accept that?

Mr. ROGERS. I think it is unnecessary.

Mr. SLAYDEN. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of Italians who have gone back; some of them had declared their intention to become citizens and some of them had become citizens, no doubt, and that is perhaps true of France and of England as well, maybe of Belgium. Now, then, those people are serving in armies where every soldier speaks their language; they are probably with kinsmen and they would rather continue to serve, perhaps, until the close of their military career with those kinsmen and with those people of the nation of their birth, although they are American citizens. They are rendering us valuable service as long as they continue in the armies of our allies, and this merely pretends to cover that class of people.

Mr. ROGERS. Does not this law speak from the time that it is read? You understand what I mean by "speak." It is to be construed as of the present tense whenever it is read after its enactment, and it would seem to me that the terms of the bill, as it stands, would cover the classes of cases with which you deal.

Mr. SLAYDEN. It does not cover the obligation as to pensions, though?

Mr. ROGERS. NO; I cordially acquiesce in the propriety of that.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not believe it would do that, but we want to be sure about it beyond peradventure. I will state now that the questions I have asked are not to be understood as indicating that I am against the bill, because my sympathies are rather with it, with some important amendments. But these are practical questions, gen