Woman Without a Country

A Woman Without a Country

A U. S. war in which women of 52 are conscripted, given arms, drilled, regimented and sent to the front to fight, is hard to imagine. Yet a majority of the Supreme Court of the U. S. last week did imagine such a situation vividly enough to deny citizenship to an alien woman of 52 who declined to promise to bear arms in defense of the U. S.

Rosika Schwimmer was born in Hungary in 1877. She became famed as a pacifist. Her eloquence induced Henry Ford to undertake his Peace-Ship trip in 1915. Once, under Count Karolyi's regime (1919) she was Hungary's minister to Switzerland. Eight years ago she settled permanently in the U. S., set up residence in Illinois. Two years ago she applied for U. S. citizenship, Question 22 of the application asks if the applicant, as a citizen, would bear arms in defense of the U. S.

Replied Applicant Schwimmer: "Not personally. I understood women are not required to bear arms in the United States."

The U. S. District Court in Illinois refused to grant her citizenship. In the U. S. Supreme Court, whither the case was carried, Mme. Schwimmer writhed with resentment as Acting U. S. Solicitor-General Alfred A. Wheat told the court that, if "an ordinary American housewife" held her beliefs it wouldn't matter, but that in the "brilliant Schwimmer mind'' those same beliefs were dangerous.

The Supreme Court divided 6-to-3 against Mme. Schwimmer's application. Said Mr. Justice Butler in the majority opinion: ''It is the duty of citizens by force of arms to defend our Government. . . . Whatever tends to lessen the willingness of citizens to discharge their duty to bear arms . . . detracts from the strength and safety of the government. The influence of conscientious objectors ... is apt to be more detrimental than their mere refusal to bear arms. The fact that, by reason of sex, age or other cause they may be unfit to serve, does not lessen their purpose or power to influence others."

The court majority flayed Mme. Schwimmer as "an uncompromising pacifist with no sense of nationalism but only a cosmic sense of belonging to the human family."

Mr. Justice Holmes, a most liberal and learned member of the high court, dissented with brilliant vigor, drawing Justices Brandeis and Sanford to his reasoning. Because Mme. Schwimmer believed ardently in peace at any price, Mr. Justice Holmes could see no reason to deny her citizenship on that account. Declared he:

"Surely it cannot show lack of attachment to the principles of the Constitution that she thinks it can be improved. I suppose most intelligent people think it might. Her particular improvement, looking to the abolition of war, seems to me not materially different . . . from a wish to establish Cabinet government or a single House or a term of seven years for the President. ... To touch a more burning question, only a judge mad with partisanship would exclude [from citizenship] because the applicant thought the 18th Amendment should be repealed. . . .

"She is an optimist and states in strong and, I do not doubt, sincere words her belief that war will disappear. ... I do not share that optimism nor do I think that a philosophic view of the world would regard war as absurd, but most people who have known it regard it with horror.*

"If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."

The decision left Mme. Schwimmer a woman without a country, for she had renounced her allegiance to Hungary. New York's Congressman Anthony J. Griffin introduced in the House an amendment to the Naturalization Laws to meet Mme. Schwimmer's case, to prevent "philosophic opinions with respect to the lawfulness of war" from barring an alien from citizenship. Said Mr. Griffin: "I do not see why aliens holding the views of Senator Borah ... on the unlawfulness of war should be debarred from citizenship."

Mme. Schwimmer, rendered cynical by her defeat, remarked: "If I had invented a new gun or poison gas I would have been so welcome!"

*Mr. Justice Holmes fought in the Civil War, was thrice wounded.