The CHAIRMAN. In the legion referred to in the discussion before the committee they do not take any oath.

Mr. MEEKER. The ambassador says:

An alien who desires to enter the military or naval service of France is not asked to take any oath. He has only, under the present circumstances, to sign a paper pledging himself to serve while the present war lasts.

Here is a letter from the Bulgarian ambassador.

Mr. SIEGEL. We are not interested in Bulgaria now.

Mr. MEEKER. I just wanted to show you how the laws are working [reading]:

Should an alien, who has taken the oath of allegiance and served in the military or naval forces and for that service been granted a pension under the Bulgarian Government, become a citizen of another nation, he thereby forfeits his pension, and should he return to Bulgaria he would be liable in case of a general mobilization, to be drafted into service.

That point has got to be guarded against carefully. There is going to be a tremendous burden of pensions which should justly rest on the proper governments.

Mr. SLAYDEN. Just one observation right there. It seems to me that is a proposition simple and easy to care for. If they are injured prior to their admission into the army of the United States in France or Bulgaria or elsewhere, then the pension is the obligation of the country with which they were serving when they received the injury. Mr. ROGERS. That is what your amendment provides.

Mr. SLAYDEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SIEGEL. When these people return the chances are nine out of ten that they will come through the port of New York and land in New York City. We will then have a great number of sick, disabled, and crippled men landed in New York City, and the chances are nine out of ten that they will become public charges and it will be necessary for the city of New York to take care of them. If this bill goes through, there should be some provision made so that the burden will be borne by the United States. We are now taking care, in the State institutions, of thousands of people who have come in under the immigration laws and it is now causing an expenditure of $15,000,000 a year.

Mr. SLAYDEN. That is largely for the insane and the criminal insane?

Mr. SIEGEL. No. After three years they become sick and disabled and public charges.

Mr. SLAYDEN. That is a fine argument for the immigration law. The CHAIRMAN. I understood you to say a while ago that they could not join our Army. As I understand, an alien if he comes over here can join our Army, but can not become an officer.

Mr. ROGERS. That is the distinction I intended to make. They can join, provided they take out their first papers.

The CHAIRMAN. Without taking out any papers, only applying

for his first papers, he can join our Army?

Mr. SIEGEL. Not without taking out the first papers.

The CHAIRMAN. Can he join our Army without taking out the first papers, Mr. Campbell?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I understand that he is required to file his decla

ration.

Mr. ROGERS. I called up the Judge Advocate General's office and that is the information I received. It had not occurred to me when I was before the committee last month how great the number of these highly trained men would be. There are estimated to be between 45,000 and 50,000 of these men who have left the United States and enlisted in the forces of Canada, Great Britain, and France.

Various officers of the War Department have spoken to me about my bill of their own volition and not at my suggestion at all. They have sugested to me the importance that it would be to the Army to get the benefit of the training which these men have received. This could readily be done by assigning them as instructors to the training camps of the United States Army. I know of several cases, and I have no doubt that members of this committee know of others, where men have come back here and have been given commissions in the United States Army. For example, there is a man named Boal, a young lad of 19, who, when the war broke out, was at the St. Paul School in Concord; he went across the water and enlisted as a trooper in France, and for gallantry he was promoted to the aviation service. By the time he was 21 he was a lieutenant in the French Army and was in charge of all the American boys who were flying in France. He came back to this country at the request of the War Department and was given a captaincy in the Officers' Reserve Corps, and is now in charge of the aviation work, I am told, at Fort Sam Houston, in Texas.

Mr. SLAYDEN. But his case is not complicated by wounds?

Mr. ROGERS. His case is not complicated by wounds and his case is not complicated by the loss of citizenship, because he was in the foreign legion.

The CHAIRMAN. And did not take any oath?

Mr. ROGERS. He did not take any oath. So the War Department was enabled to utilize his services as an officer without the necessity of putting him through a naturalization process which would have taken five years. There is another case that may be familiar to some of you, that of Capt. Sweeney, now training at Fort Myer. He was promoted for gallantry in the French Army to the rank of captain; he was wounded six times and he was gased six times. He came back here and was commissioned an officer in the Reserve Corps and was asked to go through the training period at Fort Myer, although he had three years' military service. He is now working shoulder to shoulder with boys who are seeking commissions and who never had a day's service prior to their arrival at Fort Myer.

Mr. SLAYDEN. He is an American citizen?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; he also, of course, did not lose his citizenship because he was in the foreign legion. I have cited those two cases to show you how useful men of that sort are from the fact of their experience in modern warfare and how, in the case of men who have been fighting in the French forces, the War Department is able to utilize their services.

There are thousands of men in the Canadian forces and in the British forces, American citizens originally and Americans at heart in every way to-day, who, because of the difference in the regulations for admission into the British Army as compared with the French

Army, are aliens to-day. Their services can not now be utilized as officers in training our young men in the art of modern warfare. The War Department has unofficially stated to me, through several of its officers who are interested in this sort of thing, that it would be of very great service to them in their work in the near future in training the draft units if it could have the benefit of the services of many of these men who have been connected with the British or Canadian forces.

Now, gentlemen, that is the last point I want to make. I do not care to go over the ground again that we covered rather fully at earlier hearings.

The CHAIRMAN. We seem to have settled the question that they can join the Army on first papers, but can they become officers without full naturalization?

Mr. ROGERS. No, sir; they can not.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that your understanding, Mr. Campbell?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I believe so, and I am so informed at the War Department.

The CHAIRMAN. Those are two questions that I wanted to get settled in my own mind.

Mr. SLAYDEN. Sweeney and Boal did not have to take out first papers?

Mr. ROGERS. No; their citizenship was not in any way affected by joining the foreign legion.

The CHAIRMAN. And they can be officers?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. Hoop. This has probably been covered, but in what way is citizenship affected in regard to those joining the regular French Army, irrespective of the foreign legion?

Mr. SIEGEL. The French ambassador says they do not lose their citizenship.

Mr. ROGERS. I think that is true. I think the French practice has changed during the war, but I think earlier in the war citizenship was lost.

The CHAIRMAN. But at this time they all go into the foreign legion and do not have to take the oath?

Mr. ROGERS. That is exactly my understanding.

Mr. SLAYDEN. That they go into the foreign legion?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, they have no option of joining the regular French Army, but must go into the foreign legion? Mr. MEEKER. Here is what the letter from the French ambassador says:

Answering your letter of the 8th, I beg to inform you that an alien who desires to enter the military or naval service of France is not asked to take any oath.

Mr. SLAYDEN. I do not think that is confined to the foreign legion. My impression about the foreign legion is that it is a special body like the Chasseure d'Aforqul, the Zouaves, or any special body, you know; that what Ambassador Jusserand says here applies to the service in general, and that they are not now required to take any oath. Now, Mr. Rogers, I am in sympathy with your purpose, but it appears by the letters from these diplomats that there is no as

sumption of citizenship in those countries that are now our allies if an American goes into the service?

Mr. ROGERS. Except Servia.

Mr. SLAYDEN. And that only on his written request?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; that is true.

Mr. SLAYDEN. And, as a matter of fact, very few, if any, of our American citizens have gone and joined the Servian Army? Mr. ROGERS. That must be so, of course.

Mr. SLAYDEN. So it is really not an acute and practical question. The CHAIRMAN. Not so far as acquisition of citizenship in those countries is concerned, but is it not a rather acute situation as to their being decitizenized and not being able to get back into our Army without filing a first application, and the further fact that they can not become officers without citizenship.

Mr. SLAYDEN. That leads me to another question. If that be the case, why not simply amend our laws of neutrality, or whatever statute it may be that applies, purging these people of the offense that they have committed by going abroad and engaging in the military service of another country?

Mr. ŠIEGEL. Is not the real remedy to simply amend your military law by providing that men who are American citizens and have gone abroad and served and who have returned and desire to become officers may do so regardless of whether they are citizens or not?

Mr. KNUTSON. Would not the Rogers bill take care of the situation in a more satisfactory way?

Mr. RAKER. With regard to the emergency feature of the matter, it appears now that all concerned, except those who joined the English Army and took the oath of allegiance, are not affected, irrespective of what might be the international complications. The emergency point has been entirely overlooked, and I hope it will not be further overlooked by the committee. There has not been shown-and I am asking Mr. Rogers to show it-any emergency for those who joined the English Army, and I want to further ask whether it is to be conceded by the War Department that they have not men capable and competent to train our American soldiers as they should be trained, and whether we must go to the boys and men who left their own country and have them tell us how to fight?

Mr. ROGERS. In the first place, I think your statement at the beginning put the emphasis the wrong way. It seems to me that except in the case of France the problem presents itself of what we shall do, if anything, for these men who have expatriated themselves. It is true that by far the greater number of our American citizens have enlisted either in the French Army or in the British or Canadian forces; but exactly the same question aries in the case of enlistments in the German Army, the Austrian Army, the Russian Army, the Italian Army, and three or four more of the belligerents.

Mr. RAKER. What would be our duty and relation to American citizens who joined the French Army? Shall we treat them just the same and give them all the rights of American citizens and protect them in every way after having joined another country's army? If that is the law, I want to know it.

Mr. ROGERS. That is undoubtedly the law to-day.

Mr. RAKER. And they are protected the same as citizens who have not been in the army of another country?

Mr. ROGERS. Their citizenship is retained, you might say, by accident, while the citizenship of a boy who had exactly the same purpose in mind, and who enlisted in either the British or the Canadian forces, is lost. There is no reason in logic for that distinction, but it is simply a distinction that is made in the laws of those countries. Mr. WELTY. Is his citizenship lost if he joined the Canadian or British forces-is that conclusive?

Mr. ROGERS. I think that is perfectly clear.

Mr. WELTY. The immigration officer that we had here the other day did not so consider it.

Mr. ROGERS. I think the Commissioner General of Naturalization will tell you that their citizenship has been lost.

The CHAIRMAN. At the same time, the immigration officials thought that this law ought to be passed, or some law of the kind, in order to make that absolutely clear, so as not to have confused and complicated decisions and opinions in the various departments and by the various officials of the country-the judges, for example. For instance, Judge Ray held in the case that Mr. Siegel referred to the other day

Mr. SIEGEL (interposing). The Griffin case.

The CHAIRMAN (continuing). That they did forfeit their citizenship.

Mr. WELTY. Is that an emergency proposition? Is that a matter that we ought to take up now, or can we not let it go until next fall? The CHAIRMAN. But suppose they do not expect to go into the Army at all over there or, as was suggested by Mr. Siegel-and which is worthy of consideration-suppose they want to come back to this country and not join any army, many of them being men who are over the army age. Now, they have forfeited their citizenship, and would it not be right to allow them, by pursuing the methods laid down in this bill, to come back and recitizenize themselves, even if they never expected to serve in our Army at all?

Mr. SIEGEL. I go a step further. I go to this point: Many of them may return crippled, maimed, and injured in other respects, and would you want to throw the burden upon us to maintain them? Mr. ROGERS. How is that?

Mr. SIEGEL. Men will come back desirous of taking advantage of their American citizenship, and they will land at New York; they will be crippled and wounded, and a lot of them will be unable to earn their livelihood and, therefore, they will become public charges. By being American citizens they are allowed to land

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Not unless we recitizenize them; they would come in just as aliens, and if they are lame, maimed, or halt, or liable to become public charges, etc., they would be debarred, just like any other aliens would be. That is the point Mr. Siegel makes, and he suggests that the larger portion of them would land at New York City and become public charges either of the city or of the State of New York.

Mr. ROGERS. I would just like to answer the second half of your inquiry, Mr. Raker, that referring to whether it can be possible that

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