the United States Army needs the services of these men for training the troops. I am told that down at the border operations last summer in Texas not a single unit was trained in trench warfare. I do not know that to be true, but I believe it to be true; I know it was true of many units, that they did not know what trench warfare meant. Apparently trench warfare is going to be a pretty considerable factor in the operations of the future.

I spent Sunday, two or three weeks ago, at the home of a young man in Pennsylvania who had just returned from the trench warfare, where he had won a captaincy in the French Army. He had collected for miles around perhaps for 50 miles around-all the militiamen of the State of Pennsylvania. He had kept those men there for a week. He had mapped out trenches-the base trench, the communication trench, the outpost trench, and the barbed-wire-defense outpost trench. He had planned for the afternoon of the Saturday when I was there an attack upon those trenches by day. He had trained those men in machine-gun fire from the trenches; and then at night he had a night attack upon those trench with simulated hand grenades and other devices which were familiar to him because of his experience in France, but which were entirely unfamiliar to those troops. That man was able, from the fact of his experience, to teach those fellows the sort of thing that they must know when they get to France; and while they are in France, although it is too bad that any must go there, it is important that they should know the things which such men are best able to teach them.

Mr. RAKER. Must we take it as a fact that our officers do not know anything about this at all and are pretending to train our men without any knowledge, and that they will not be in a position to do this work at all.

Mr. KNUTSON. I recently heard an English captain at the Press Club make the statement that the method of warfare changes every three weeks over there.

Mr. WELTY. I do not think our officers know anything about the modern warfare over there.

Mr. MEEKER. I ask that this be kept out of the hearings, as to whether or not we know anything about it.

Mr. ROGERS. Of course, a man who last week was a civil engineer in New Haven or Sacramento or wherever he was and who comes out here to the training camp at the American University for a commission does not ipso facto become a soldier and does not ipso facto acquire very much information. There are scores and hundreds of those camps throughout the country where they are training such men; and it is of the utmost importance that the men who train those men shall be able to train them in the right way and in the light of modern warfare. Changes in warfare come fast enough to make it important not to be obsolete in the modern methods. The CHAIRMAN. Is not that one reason for having the Pershing force over there now-to learn those things?

Mr. ROGERS. I think that may be true.

The CHAIRMAN. And then have men from that expeditionary force, after being sufficiently trained, return here and teach those methods?

Mr. ROGERS. That may be the purpose, but I take it you can not have too many thoroughly equipped instructors.

Mr. MEEKER. If I may be permitted, I would like to make one suggestion that is pressing itself upon me more and more, especially since this communication has come from Mr. Spring-Rice. Here is a situation which really is a crisis. These men who are in the Canadian and English armies have at least a cloud over their citizenship here. Many think they have lost it, and I think they have, because I do not think a man can take the oath of allegiance to a potentate or king and still remain a citizen of the United States. They have not gained citizenship there; they are men without a country. Every casualty to each one of these men is going to affect his property rights here, and he can not have a day in court there, because he is not a citizen, and it leaves him without a court anywhere. Now, then, one of two things should be done. We should either ask-and that we can not do except by a courteous suggestion-that they should be made citizens of the British Government complete or they should be brought back into our Government complete; they should go one way or the other, for as they stand now between the two lines they are fighting for us and for our allies; but at the same time, when it comes to their rights as citizens they are between the two lines and have not a court anywhere.

The CHAIRMAN. This bill would not help unless they of their own option applied to our consular officers and asked to be recitizenized. Mr. MEEKER. That is all the relief we can offer, and yet I think that if it were known those applications would be sent in as fast as those men could fill them out.

The CHAIRMAN. And that would only apply in the cases of discharged soldiers and not to those who continued fighting in the other armies.

Mr. WILSON. How would it affect those who are seeking a discharge in order to secure their American citizenship?

The CHAIRMAN. If they should get their discharges by this application, then by an application for recitizenship under this bill it would be granted?

Mr. ROGERS. Gentlemen, I have completed my statement, and I thank you for this opportunity.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further that we want to ask of Mr. Campbell and Mr. Parker in regard to Mr. Rogers's bill? You know we have some questions to ask them in regard to the Taylor bill, but we want to complete the hearing on the Rogers bill before we go to the other hearing. If there are no other questions the hearings are concluded, and if we have time we will vote on this bill to-day; but if not, we will vote on it at the next meeting, and I will call a meeting before the next regular day.

Mr. ROGERS. May I thank the committee for its consideration? The CHAIRMAN. We are very glad to have heard you, Mr. Rogers. Mr. RAKER. May I ask Mr. Campbell to make a statement in regard to Mr. Rogers's bill?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. Campbell, will you make a statement to the committee in regard to your views of it?

STATEMENT OF MR. RICHARD K. CAMPBELL, COMMISSIONER OF NATURALIZATION.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Of course, you will understand, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that the views I express are my own individual and personal views, and that I am not attempting to commit the department in any respect. I must confess to some little surprise at some of the remarks made here this morning in regard to the number of men who have gone abroad into the armies of other countries. Mr. Rogers stated that there was a total of from 40,000 to 45,000. Quite a number of those will never come back and I can not help but think that those who do come back-among them the most generous and among them the most self-sacrificing advocates of democracy, acting well within their rights-that of the few that will come back, crippled, maimed, and disabled, very few, if they come to the port of New York, will stay there for the city or for the State of New York to care for. All of those men have homes here; they have gone from all portions of this country and they have enlisted in that service and have done the identical work that we are now trying to make those do who heretofore have done nothing. Now, the question arises: What are we going to do about these people when their military term of service is ended? Here is an elaborate arrangement requiring them to go and register before a consul and get some kind of a certificate, and right away, the more certificates you issue the more opportunities there are for fraud and imposition; it is provided that they must come here and go to a court and have a lot of proceedings gone through, and papers have got to be filed in the Department of Labor.

Mr. JOHNSON. That is all under this proposed bill?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. Now, why not treat these men as they ought to be treated? There is not one of them that had the faintest idea that he was sacrificing his American citizenship. I do not believe that this committee, when it passed that law early in 1907, had the faintest idea that a military oath would result in expatriation. The bill was hastily drawn in the Department of State with reference more particularly to our international relations and civil difficulties that had arisen, and it had no relation to this question whatever. These young men have gone abroad, and it matters not whether they took an oath of allegiance or whether they did not take an oath of allegiance. However, in the one case it brings them within the letter of the law, but in the essence of it is there any distinction, because do they not have to be absolutely loyal, during the time of their military service, to the country they are serving? It seems so to me. Mr. RAKER. What would you do with the fellow that joined the German Army?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Wait a moment. We are talking about the men who went abroad to engage with our allies, and I am not treating the subject outside of the bill. But it seems to me that these young men ought to be allowed, upon the expiration of their military service, automatically to resume their citizenship. Now, we have an analogy. If any American woman marries an alien she becomes an alien, and if any alien woman marries an American citizen she becomes a citizen by the very fact of the marriage. Now, an American

woman who has lost her citizenship is really in the position of one whose citizenship is suspended or merged in that of her husband, but when he dies, if she stays here, or if they are divorced, and if she remains here, or, if abroad, if she registers within a reasonable time or takes a boat to come back here, our laws construe her to have resumed her American citizenship. Now, it seems to me that this oath of allegiance for temporary military service is in the nature of suspension of a man's obligations to his country during the time that he is fulfilling those obligations to some other country.

Mr. WELTY. Mr. Campbell, our neutrality laws were passed with the view of keeping us neutral until the Government, through its duly authorized agent, speaks?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.

Mr. WELTY. As to whether or not we want to go into war or recognize a state of war.

Mr. CAMPBELL. As a country.

Mr. WELTY. Now, then, what business has a citizen of any country to attempt to swing that Government away from its neutral course? Mr. CAMPBELL. He has not any.

Mr. WELTY. Now, then, under our law everyone who does that by any act of his violates a criminal section of our statutes.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Do you mean to say to me that an American citizen violates any criminal statute-I do not know of such a statutewho goes abroad and engages

Mr. JOHNSON (interposing). He violates the President's proclamation.

Mr. CAMPBELL. No, sir; I beg your pardon. The President's declaration referred distinctly to the conduct of American citizens in this country.

Mr. SIEGEL. I do not think Mr. Campbell would care to have in the record any discussion as to what he thinks the President's proclamation provided one way or the other, and I would suggest that it be stricken out.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I am making this statement simply as my individual view at the request of Mr. Raker.

Mr. WELTY. Here is what I want to get at: We have a neutrality law, and that neutrality law, for some reason or other, was copied from the old English law, the penalty of which was death; we modified that penalty and made it only a felony. The reason for that is that they may swing, or, at least, that several persons might swing, a person out of that neutral course and involve all of us in war.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Personally, I do not see how that is possible. That would involve a different question.

The CHAIRMAN. The statute you refer to is against enlistments here or persons organizing here.

Mr. WELTY. That is true, but it is the intent; it is a question of where the man forms the intent, and here is the only difference: If I form the intent to murder in one county and carry out that murder in another county, because I find my victim there, I formed the intent in the first county, and I really violated the law there, but I can only be prosecuted in the county where the act was committed.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Do you think there is an analogy between the two cases?

Mr. WELTY. It is simply a matter of criminal law.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Do you think that any man that went abroadMr. WELTY (interposing). Wait a minute. So that I think intent must govern. I think that most of the men who enlisted in the English Army formed that intent upon American soil, and if they formed that intent here they in spirit violated our neutrality law.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Do you think you could get any jury in this country to convict such men?

Mr. WELTY. No; I am merely showing the analogy between the two cases; where a man intended to commit murder and formed the intent in one county and carried it out in another county, and he must be prosecuted in that other county-the county in which the overt act was committed. Now, all of these enlistment papers were signed in Canada-on foreign soil or in England.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Still, I do not see the analogy between the two

cases.

The CHAIRMAN. The purpose of that law was not to punish the intent to violate neutrality, but the consummation of the act, and under that statute there was no criminal act committed unless it was consummated here.

Mr. CAMPBELL. It will not take me long to wind up what I have to say. I suggest that if the committee really contemplates making a bill which will restore citizenship to these people after the expiration of their temporary service in other lands, that they do it automatically and not require all of this elaborate process. You do not need to make them wait five years, because they do not come here and have to learn about our institutions, and it does not seem to me necessary to require that there must be an investigation as to their character, and I do not really think you could make such an investigation, because you would have to send officers abroad.

Mr. JOHNSON. As a matter of fact, the probabilities are that they will not be considered to have lost their citizenship.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I believe that most of them are as good American citizens as you and I, and not any of them had the faintest idea that they would lose their citizenship by the act of enlisting in the armies of the allies nor did they think that they were violating any neutrality law.

The CHAIRMAN. Your suggestion is that there ought not to be this red tape necessary for their restoration?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes; there is enough of that now under our general law.

Mr. CAMPBELL of Pennsylvania. Could we make a declaration in the bill declaring that they have not forfeited their citizenship?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Certainly; and you could modify the original act so that it would not apply to that oath of allegiance because, as I have said, that was a matter which arose out of certain civil difficulties.

Mr. RAKER. Will you formulate your idea of the matter and send it to me so that I can give it to the committee?

Mr. CAMPBELL. If I can get a chance, but it is very hard for me to get an opportunity to do anything of that sort.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think there ought to be some discharge from the military service of the other country?