Kentucky Lawyer

Naturalization hearings

 Mac Swinford of the gentleman who has just preceded me, but a dwarf sitting on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant.” The good-natured Taft smiled, sat back in his chair and told him to proceed with his argument. The results were the same and “giant” and “dwarf” left to courtroom together, equally unsuccessful. Naturalization hearings One of the more pleasant and inspiring duties of my judicial service has been in the conduct of naturalization hearings. It has been my purpose to hold these sessions within reasonable bounds and not yield to a public demand that they be more greatly eploited. I have felt that for a person to forever renounce his fidelity to his native land and swear allegiance to an adopted country calls for something more than the perfunctory taking of an oath. On the other hand, to subject the new-made citizens to pageantry and unwarranted ceremony is to give them a false sense of the true value of American citizenship. Consequently, I have tried to conduct such procedures with scrupulous dignity and impressiveness by having some local patriotic society, where it has volunteered to do so, take part and I conclude with a few remarks from the bench on the obligations as well as the privileges of American citizenship. Immediately before and throughout the Second World War there were hundreds of petitions for American citizenship.This was due in some measure to requirements of defense plants that all employees be citizens 9 Kentucky Lawyer and the natural consequence of calling to the minds of the foreign-born the importance of this step which they had grossly neglected since first being eligible for citizenship . While our naturalization service is efficient, I had some concern that maybe spies or saboteurs might use this method of getting into our defense plants or on the inside of some military secret project. Throughout the war I was always conscious of a feeling of responsibility for admitting nationals of Germany and Italy with whose countries we were engaged in a life and death struggle for our survival. I was afraid I would read in the paper of some factory for manufacture of vital war materials being blown up and that the accused was someone whom I had admitted to citizenship. Fortunately, my concern was unfounded. We Americans, who have been so blessed with our birthright, are inclined, I am afraid, to be suspicious . I am convinced that there were no more patriotic American citizens than thousands of Germans, Italians, Japanese and other foreign-born persons in our country throughout the second great war. In fact, I am inclined to the belief that many of them appreciate our country and the things for which it stands a great deal more than many of us who have generations of native-born Americans behind us. Whose America is this? This fact was brought home to me during the war when I was conducting a naturalization class at a term of court at Pikeville. There were about forty petitioners, the great ...