320 U.S. 118 | SCOTUS | 1943
Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We brought this case here on certiorari, 314 U. S. 597, because of its importance and its possible relation to freedom of thought. The question is whether the naturalization of petitioner, an admitted member of the Communist Party of the United States, was properly set aside by the courts below some twelve years after it was granted. We agree with our brethren of the minority that our relations with Russia, as well as our views regarding its government and the merits of Communism are immaterial to a decision of this case. Our concern is with what Congress
While it is our high duty to carry out the will of Congress, in the performance of this duty we should have a jealous regard for the rights of petitioner. We should let our judgment be guided so far as the law permits by the spirit of freedom and tolerance in which our nation was founded, and by a desire to secure the blessings of liberty in thought and action to all those upon whom the right of American citizenship has been conferred by statute, as well as to the native born. And we certainly should presume that Congress was motivated by these lofty principles.
We are directly concerned only with the rights of this petitioner and the circumstances surrounding his naturalization, but we should not overlook the fact that we are a heterogeneous people. In some of our larger cities a majority of the school children are the offspring of parents only one generation, if that far, removed from the steerage of the immigrant ship, children of those who sought refuge in the new world from the cruelty and oppression of the old, where men have been burned at the stake, imprisoned, and driven into exile in countless numbers for their political and religious beliefs. Here they have hoped to achieve a political status as citizens in a free world in which men are privileged to think and act and speak according to their convictions, without fear of punishment or further exile so long as they keep the peace and obey the law.
This proceeding was begun on June 30, 1939, under the provisions of § 15 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 596, to cancel petitioner’s certificate of citizenship granted in 1927. This section gives the United States the right and the duty to set aside and cancel certificates of citizenship on the ground of “fraud” or on the ground that
This is not a naturalization proceeding in which the Government is being asked to confer the privilege of citizenship upon an applicant. Instead the Government seeks to turn the clock back twelve years after full citizenship was conferred upon petitioner by a judicial decree, and to deprive him of the priceless benefits that derive from that status. In its consequences it is more serious than a taking of one’s property, or the imposition of a fine or other penalty. For it is safe to assert that nowhere in the world today is the right of citizenship of greater worth to an individual than it is in this country. It would be difficult to exaggerate its value and importance. By many it is regarded as the highest hope of civilized men. This does not mean that once granted to an alien, citizenship cannot be revoked or cancelled on legal grounds under appropriate proof. But such a right once conferred should not be taken away without the clearest sort of justification and proof. So, whatever may be the rule in a naturalization proceeding (see United States v. Manzi, 276 U. S. 463, 467), in an action instituted under § 15 for the purpose of depriving one of the precious right of citizenship previously conferred we believe the facts and the law should be construed as far as is reasonably possible in favor of the citizen. Especially is this so when the attack is made long after the time when the certificate of
We are dealing here with a court decree entered after an opportunity to be heard. At the time petitioner secured his certificate of citizenship from the federal district court for the Southern District of California notice of the filing of the naturalization petition was required to be given ninety days before the petition was acted on (§ 6 of the Act of 1906), the hearing on the petition was to take place in open court (§9), and the United States had the right to appear, to cross-examine petitioner and his witnesses, to introduce evidence, and to oppose the petition (§ 11). In acting upon the petition the district court exercised the judicial power conferred by Article III of the Constitution, and the Government had the right to appeal from the decision granting naturalization. Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568. The record before us does not reveal the circumstances under which petitioner was naturalized except that it took place in open court. We do not know whether or not the Government exercised its right to appear and to appeal. Whether it did or not, the hard fact remains that we are here re-examining a judgment, and the rights solemnly conferred under it.
This is the first case to come before us in which the Government has sought to set aside a decree of naturalization years after it was granted on a charge that the finding of attachment was erroneous. Accordingly for the first time we have had to consider the nature and scope of the Government’s right in a denaturalization proceeding to re-examine a finding and judgment of attachment
The first question is whether, aside from grounds such as lack of jurisdiction or the kind of fraud which traditionally vitiates judgments, cf. United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S. 61; Kibbe v. Benson, 17 Wall. 624, Congress can constitutionally attach to the exercise of the judicial power under Article III of the Constitution, authority to re-examine a judgment granting a certificate of citizenship after that judgment has become final by exhaustion of the appellate process or by a failure to invoke it.
The second question is whether under the Act of 1906 as it was in 1927 the Government, in the absence of a claim of fraud and relying wholly upon a charge of illegal procurement, can secure a de novo re-examination of a naturalization court’s finding and judgment that an applicant for citizenship was attached to the principles of the Constitution.
We do not consider these questions. For though we assume, without deciding, that in the absence of fraud a certificate of naturalization can be set aside under § 15 as “illegally procured” because the finding as to attachment would later seem to be erroneous, we are of the
Certain facts are undisputed. Petitioner came to this country from Russia in 1907 or 1908 when he was approximately three. In 1922, at the age of sixteen, he became a charter member of the Young Workers (now Communist) League in Los Angeles and remained a member until 1929 or 1930. In 1924, at the age of eighteen, he filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen. Later in the same year or early in 1925 he became a member of the
Eor its case the United States called petitioner, one Humphreys, a former member of the Communist Party, and one Hynes, a Los Angeles police officer formerly in charge of the radical squad, as witnesses, and introduced in evidence a number of documents. Petitioner testified on his own behalf, introduced some documentary evidence, and read into the record transcripts of the testimony of two university professors given in another proceeding.
Petitioner testified to the following: As a boy he lived in Los Angeles in poverty-stricken circumstances and joined the Young Workers League to study what the principles of Communism had to say about the conditions of society. He considered his membership and activities in the League and the Party during the five-year period between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one before he was naturalized, as an attempt to investigate and study the causes and reasons behind social and economic conditions. Meanwhile he was working his way through night high school and college. From 1922 to about 1925 he was “educational director” of the League. The duties of this nonsalaried position were to organize classes, open to the public, for the study of Marxist theory, to register students and to send out notices for meetings; petitioner did no
Petitioner testified further that during all the time he has belonged to the League and the Party he has subscribed to the principles of those organizations. He stated that he “believed in the essential correctness of the Marx theory as applied by the Communist Party of the United States,” that he subscribed “to the philosophy and principles of Socialism as manifested in the writings of Lenin,” and that his understanding and interpretation of the program, principles and practice of the Party since he joined “were and are essentially the same as those enunciated” in the Party’s 1938 Constitution. He denied the charges of the complaint and specifically denied that he or the Party advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence, and that he was not attached to the principles of the Constitution. He considered membership in the Party compatible with the obligations of American citizenship. He stated that he believed in retention of personal property for personal use but advocated social ownership of the means of production and exchange, with compensation to the owners. He believed and hoped that socialization could be achieved here by democratic processes but history showed that the ruling minority has always used force against the majority before surrendering power. By dictatorship of the proletariat petitioner meant that the “majority of the people
Humphreys testified that he had been a member of the Communist Party and understood he was expelled because he refused to take orders from petitioner. He had been taught that present forms of government would have to be abolished “through the dictatorship of the proletariat” which would be established by a “revolutionary process.” He asserted that the program of the Party was the socialization of all property without compensation. With regard to advocacy of force and violence he said: “the Communist Party took the defensive, and put the first users of force upon the capitalistic government; they claimed that the capitalistic government would resist the establishment of the Soviet system, through force and violence, and that the working class would be justified in using force and violence to establish the Soviet system of society.”
Hynes testified that he had been a member of the Party for eight months in 1922. He stated that the Communist method of bringing about a change in the form of government is one of force and violence; he based this statement upon: “knowledge I have gained as a member in 1922 and from what further knowledge I have gained from reading various official publications, published and circulated by the Communist Party and from observation and actual contact with the activities of the Communist Party . . .”
The testimony of the two professors discussed Marxian theory as evidenced by the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and concluded that it did not advocate the use of force and violence as a method of attaining its objective.
In its written opinion the district court held that petitioner’s certificate of naturalization was illegally procured because the organizations to which petitioner belonged were opposed to the principles of the Constitution and advised, taught and advocated the overthrow of the Government by force and violence, and therefore petitioner, “by reason of his membership in such organizations and participation in their activities, was not ‘attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.’ ” 33 F. Supp. 510, 513.
The district court also made purported findings of facts to the effect that petitioner was not attached to the principles of the Constitution and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same, and was a disbeliever in organized government, that he fraudulently concealed his membership in the League and the Party from the naturalization court, and that his oath of allegiance was false. The conclusion of law was that the certificate was illegally and fraudulently procured. The pertinent findings of fact on these points, set forth in the margin,
The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that the certificate was illegally procured, holding that the finding that petitioner's oath was false was not “clearly erroneous.” 119 E. 2d 500.
I
The Constitution authorizes Congress “to establish an uniform rule of naturalization” (Art. I, § 8, cl. 4), and we may assume that naturalization is a privilege, to be given or withheld on such conditions as Congress sees fit. Cf.
When petitioner was naturalized in 1927, the applicable statutes did not proscribe communist beliefs or affiliation as such.
To apply the statutory requirement of attachment correctly to the proof adduced, it is necessary to ascertain its meaning. On its face the statutory criterion is not attachment to the Constitution, but behavior for a period of five years as a man attached to its principles and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States. Since the normal connotation of behavior is conduct, there is something to be said for the proposition that the 1906 Act created a purely objective qualification, limiting inquiry to an applicant’s previous conduct.
.The claim that petitioner was not in fact-attached to the Constitution and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States at the-time of his naturalization and for the previous five year period is twofold: First, that, he believed in such sweeping changes in the Constitution that he simply could not be attached to it; Second, that he believed in and advocated the overthrow by force and violence of the Government, Constitution and laws of the United States. ' ■
In support of its position that petitioner was not in fact attached to the principles of the Constitution because of
Those principles and views are not generally accepted— in fact they are distasteful to most of us — and they call for considerable change in our present form of government and society. But we do not think the Government has carried its burden of proving by evidence which does not leave the issue in doubt that petitioner was not in fact attached to the principles of the Constitution and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States when he was naturalized in 1927.
Our concern is with what Congress meant to be the extent of the area of allowable thought under the statute. By the very generality of the terms employed it is evident that Congress intended an elastic test, one which should not be circumscribed by attempts at precise definition. In view of our tradition of freedom of thought, it is not to be presumed that Congress in the Act of 1906, or its predecessors of 1795 and 1802,
The district court did not state in its findings what principles held by petitioner or by the Communist Party were opposed to the Constitution and indicated lack of attachment. See Note 6, ante. In its opinion that court merely relied upon In re Saralieff, 59 F. 2d 436, and United States v. Tapolcsanyi, 40 F. 2d 255, without fresh examination of the question in the light of the present record.
With regard to the Constitutional changes he desired petitioner testified that he believed in the nationalization of the means of production and exchange with compensation, and the preservation and utilization of our “democratic structure ... as far as possible for the advantage of the working classes.” He stated that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to him meant “not a government, but a state of things” in which “the majority of the people shall really direct their own destinies and use the instrument of the state for these truly democratic ends.” None of this is necessarily incompatible with the “general political philosophy” of the Constitution as outlined above by the Government. It is true that the Fifth Amendment protects private property, even against taking for public use without compensation. But throughout our history many sincere people whose attachment to the general constitutional scheme cannot be doubted have, for various and even divergent reasons, urged differing degrees of governmental ownership and control of natural resources, basic means of production, and banks and the media of exchange, either with or without compensation. And something once regarded as a species of private property was abolished without compensating the owners when the institution of slavery was forbidden.
Turning now to a seriatim consideration of what the Government asserts are principles of the Communist Party, which petitioner believed and which are opposed to our Constitution, our conclusion remains the same — ; the Government has not proved by “clear, unequivocal and convincing” evidence that the naturalization court could not have been satisfied that petitioner was attached to' the principles of the Constitution when he was naturalized.
We have already disposed of the principle of nationalization of the agents of-production and exchange with or without compensation. The erection of a new proletariat state upon the ruins of the old bourgeois state, and the creation of a dictatorship of the proletariat may be considered together. The concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is one loosely used, upon which more words than light have been shed. Much argument has been directed as to how it is to be achieved, but we have been offered no precise definition here. In the general sense the term may be taken to describe a state in which the workers or the masses, rather than the bourgeoisie or capitalists are the dominant class. Theoretically it is control by a class, not a dictatorship in the sense of absolute and total rule by one individual. So far as the record before us indicates, the concept is a fluid one, capable of adjustment to different conditions in different countries. There are only meager indications of the form the “dictatorship” would take in this- country. It does not appear that it would necessarily mean the end of representative government or the federal system. The Program and Constitution of the Workers Party (1921-24) criticized the constitutional system of checks and balances, the Senate’s power to pass on legislation, and the involved procedure
If any provisions of the Constitution can be singled out as requiring unqualified attachment, they are the guaranties of the Bill of Rights and especially that of freedom of thought contained in the First Amendment. Cf. Justice Holmes’ dissent in United States v. Schwimmer, supra. We do not reach, however, the question whether petitioner was attached to the principles of the Constitution if he believed in denying political and civil rights to persons not members of the Party or of the so-called proletariat, for on the basis of the record before us it has not been clearly shown that such denial was a principle of the organizations to which petitioner belonged.
We should not hold that petitioner is not attached to the Constitution by reason of his possible belief in the creation of some form of world union of soviet republics unless we are willing so to hold with regard to those who believe in Pan-Americanism, the League of Nations, Union Now, or some other form of international collaboration
If room is allowed, as we think Congress intended, for the free play of ideas, none of the foregoing principles, which might be held to stand forth with sufficient clarity to be imputed to petitioner on the basis of his membership and activity in the League and the Party and his testimony that he subscribed to the principles of those organizations, is enough, whatever our opinion as to their merits, to prove that he was necessarily not attached to the Constitution when he was naturalized. The cumulative effect is no greater.
Apart from the question whether the alleged principles of the Party which petitioner assertedly believed were so fundamentally opposed to the Constitution that he was not attached to its principles in 1927, the Government contends that petitioner was not attached because he believed in the use of force and violence instead of peaceful democratic methods to achieve his desires. In support of this phase of its argument the Government asserts that the organizations with which petitioner was actively affiliated advised, advocated and taught the overthrow of the Government, Constitution and laws of the United States by force and violence, and that petitioner therefore believed in that method of governmental change.
Apart from his membership in the League and the Party, the record is barren of any conduct or statement on petitioner’s part which indicates in the slightest that he believed in and advocated the employment of force and violence, instead of peaceful persuasion, as a means of attaining political ends. To find that he so believed, and advocated it is necessary, therefore, to find that such was a principle of the organizations to which he belonged and then impute that principle to him on the basis of his
For some time the question whether advocacy of governmental overthrow by force and violence is a principle of the Communist Party of the United States has perplexed courts, administrators, legislators, and students. On varying records in deportation proceedings some courts have held that administrative findings that the Party did so advocate were not so wanting in evidential support as to amount to a denial of due process,
With commendable candor the Government admits the presence of sharply conflicting views on the issue of force and violence as a Party principle,
In the first place this phase of the Government’s case is subject to the admitted infirmities of proof by imputation.
The reality of the conflict in the record before us can be pointed out quickly. Of the relevant prior to 1927 documents relied upon by the Government three are writings of outstanding Marxist philosophers, and leaders, the fourth is a world program.
A tenable conclusion from the foregoing is that the Party in 1927 desired to achieve its purpose by peaceful and democratic means, and as a theoretical matter justified the use of force and violence only as a method of preventing an attempted forcible counter-overthrow once the Party had obtained control in a peaceful manner, or as a method of last resort to enforce the majority will if at some indefinite future time because of peculiar circumstances constitutional or peaceful channels were no longer open.
There is a material difference between agitation and exhortation calling for present violent action which creates a clear and present danger of public disorder or other substantive evil, and mere doctrinal justification or prediction of the use of force under hypothetical conditions at some indefinite future time — prediction that is not calculated or intended to be presently acted upon, thus
II
This disposes of the issues framed by the Government’s complaint which are here pressed. As additional reasons for its conclusion that petitioner’s naturalization was fraudulently and illegally procured, the district court found, however, that petitioner was a disbeliever in, and a member of an organization teaching disbelief in, organized government,
One other ground advanced in support of the judgment below was not considered by the lower courts and does not merit detailed treatment. It is that petitioner was not entitled to naturalization because he was deportable in 1927 under the Immigration Act of 1918 (40 Stat. 1012, as amended by 41 Stat. 1008 ; 8 U. S. C. § 137) as an alien member of an organization advocating overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence. This issue is answered by our prior discussion of the evidence in this record relating to force and violence. Assuming that deportability at the time of naturalization satisfies the requirement of illegality under § 15 which governs this proceeding, the same failure to establish adequately the attitude toward force and violence of the
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the Circuit Court of Appeals for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Reversed.
At the time this proceeding was started this section read in part as follows:
“It shall be the duty of the United States district attorneys for the respective districts, or the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization or Deputy Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, upon affidavit showing good cause therefor, to institute proceedings in any court having jurisdiction to naturalize aliens in the judicial district in which the naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing the suit, for the purpose of setting aside and canceling the certificate of citizenship on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such certificate of citizenship was illegally procured ...” 8 U. S. C. § 405.
This provision is continued in substance by § 338 of the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1137, 1158, 8 U. S. C. § 738.
Section 4 of the Act of 1906 provided:
“Fourth. It shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court admitting any alien to citizenship that immediately preceding the date of his application he has resided continuously within the United States five years at least, and within the State or Territory where such court is at the time held one year at least, and that during that time he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same. In addition to the oath of the applicant, the testimony of at least two witnesses, citizens of the United States, as to the facts of residence, moral character, and attachment to the principles of the Constitution shall be required, and the name, place of residence, and occupation of each witness shall be set forth in the record.” 34 Stat. 598; 8 U. S. C. § 382.
Since 1790 Congress has conferred the function of admitting aliens to citizenship exclusively upon the courts. In exercising their authority under this mandate the federal courts are exercising the judicial power of the United States, conferred upon them by Article III of the Constitution. Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568. For this reason it has been suggested that a decree of naturalization, even though the United States does not appear, cannot be compared (as was done in Johannessen v. United States, 225 U. S. 227, 238) to an administrative grant of land or of letters patent for invention, and that the permissible area of re-examination is different in the two situations.
The record contains nothing to indicate that the same is not true for the period after 1927.
For a discussion of the adequacy of somewhat similar testimony by Hynes see Ex parte Fierstein, 41 F. 2d 53.
IV. “The Court finds that it is true that said decree and certificate of naturalization were illegally procured and obtained in this: That respondent [petitioner] was not, at the time of his naturalization by said Court, and during the period of five years immediately preceding
“The Court finds that it is not true that at the time of the filing of his petition for naturalization respondent was not a disbeliever in or opposed to organized government or a member of or affiliated with any organization or body of persons teaching disbelief in or opposed to organized government.
“The Court finds that in truth and in fact during all of said times respondent had not behaved as a man attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same, but was a member of and affiliated with and believed in and supported the principles of certain organizations known as the Workers Party of America, the Workers (Communist) Party of America, the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Young Workers League of America, the Young Workers (Communist) League of America and the Young Communist League of America, which organizations were, and each of them was, at all times herein mentioned, a section of the Third International, the principles of all of which said organizations were opposed to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and advised, advocated, and taught the overthrow of the Government, Constitution and laws of the United States by force and violence and taught disbelief in and opposition to organized government.
V. “The Court further finds that during all of said times the respondent has been and now is a member of said organizations and has continued to believe in, advocate and support the said principles of said organizations.”
VI. (The substance of this finding is that petitioner fraudulently concealed his Communist affiliation from the naturalization court. It is not set forth because it is not an issue here. See Note 7, infra.)
VII. “The court further finds that it is true that said decree and certificate of naturalization were illegally and fraudulently procured and obtained in this: That before respondent [petitioner] was admitted to citizenship as aforesaid, he declared on oath in open court
That court said it was unnecessary to consider the charge of fraudulent procurement by concealment of petitioner’s Communist affiliation. The Government has not pressed this charge here, and we do not consider it.
The Nationality Act of 1940, while enlarging the category of beliefs disqualifying persons thereafter applying for citizenship, does not in terms make communist beliefs or affiliation grounds for refusal of naturalization. § 305, 54 Stat. 1137, fill; 8 U. S. C. § 705.
Bills to write a definition of “communist” into the Immigration and Deportation Act of 1918 as amended (40 Stat. 1012,41 Stat. 1008) and to provide for the deportation of “communists” failed to pass Congress in 1932 and again in 1935. See H. R. 12044, H. Rep. No. 1353, S. Rep. No. 808, 75 Cong. Rec. 12097-108, 72d Cong., 1st Sess. See also H. R. 7120, H. Rep. No. 1023, pts. 1 and 2, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.
§ 7 of Act of June 29, 1906, 8 U. S. C. § 364.
§ 4 of Act of June 29, 1906, 8 U. S. C. § 381.
§ 4 of Act of June 29, 1906, 8 TJ. S. C. § 382.
The legislative history of the phrase gives some support to this view. The behavior requirement first appeared in the Naturalization Act of 1795, 1 Stat. 414, which was designed to tighten the Act of 1790, 1 Stat. 103. The discursive debates on the 1795 Act cast little light upon the meaning of “behaved,” but indicate that the purpose of the requirement was to provide a probationary period during which aliens could learn of our Constitutional plan. Some members were disturbed by the political ferment of the age and spoke accordingly, while others regarded the United States as an asylum for the oppressed and mistrusted efforts to probe minds for beliefs. It is perhaps significant that the oath, which was adopted over the protest of Madison, the sponsor of the bill, did not require the applicant to swear that he was attached! to the Constitution, but only that he would support it. See 4 Annals of Congress, pp. 1004-09, 1021-23, 1026-27, 1030-58, 1062, 1064r-66. See also Franklin, Legislative History of Naturalization in the United States (1906), Chapter IV.
The behavior requirement was reenacted in 1802 (2 Stat. 153) at the recommendation of Jefferson for the repeal of the stringent Act
Program and Constitution of the Workers Party (1921-24).
Acceptance speech of William Z. Foster, the Party’s nominee for the Presidency in 1928.
Writing in 1816 Jefferson said: “Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of bookreading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” Ford, Jefferson’s Writings, vol. X, p. 42.
Compare his First Inaugural Address: “And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we
See also 18 Cornell Law Quarterly 251; Freund, United States v. Macintosh, A Symposium, 26 Illinois Law Review 375, 385; 46 Harvard Law Review 325.
As a matter of fact one very material change in the Constitution as it stood in 1927 when petitioner was naturalized has since been effected by the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.
See Note 12, ante.
In 1938 Congress failed to pass a bill denying naturalization to any person “who believes in any form of government for the United States contrary to that now existing'in the United States, or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization which advocates any form of government 'for the United States contrary to that now existing in the United States.” H. R. 9690, 75th Cong., 3d Sess.
Brief, pp. 103-04. Supporting this view are In re Saralieff, 59 F. 2d 436; In re Van Laeken, 22 F. Supp. 145; In re Shanin, 278 F. 739. See also United States v. Tapolcsanyi, 40 F. 2d 255; Ex parte Sauer, 81 F. 355; United States v. Olsson, 196 F. 562, reversed on stipulation, 201 F. 1022.
“The test is . . . whether he substitutes revolution for evolution, destruction for construction, whether he believes in an ordered society, a government of laws, under which the powers of government are granted by the people but under a grant which itself preserves to the individual and to minorities certain rights or freedoms which even the majority may not take away; whether, in sum, the events which began at least no further back than the Declaration of Independence, followed by the Revolutionary War and the adoption of the Constitution, establish principles with respect to government, the individual, the minority and the majority, by which ordered liberty is replaced by disorganized liberty.” Brief, p. 105.
See generally Thorpe, Constitutional History of the United States (1901), vol. Ill, book V.
Compare the effect of the Eighteenth Amendment.
Petitioner testified that this was never adopted, but was merely a draft for study.
See Haynes, The Senate of the United States (1938), pp. 11, 96-98. 106-115, 1068-74.
Compare Nebraska’s experiment with such a body. Nebraska Constitution, Article III, § 1. See 13 Nebraska Law Bulletin 341.
E. g., the recall of judicial decisions. See Theodore Roosevelt, A Charter of Democracy, S. Doc. No. 348, 62d Cong., 2d Sess. For proposed constitutional amendments relating to the judiciary and this Court see H. Doc. No. 353, pt. 2, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 144-64; S. Doc. No. 93, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 83,86, 93,101, 111, 123, 133.
For an account of the attacks on the veto power see H. Doc. No. 353, pt. 2, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 129-34.
ABC of Communism; Lenin, State and Revolution; Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International; Stalin, Theory and Practice of Leninism; 1928 Program of the Communist International.
“It should be observed that the question of depriving the exploiters of the franchise is purely a Russian question, and not a question of the dictatorship of the proletariat in general. ... It would be a mistake, however, to guarantee in advance that the impending proletarian revolutions in Europe will all, or for the most part, be necessarily accompanied by the restriction of the franchise for the bourgeoisie. Perhaps they will. After our experience of the war and of the Russian revolution we can say that it will probably be so; but it is not absolutely necessary for the purpose of realizing the dictatorship, it is not an essential symptom of the logical concept ‘dictatorship,’ it does not enter as an essential condition in the historical and class concept ‘dictatorship.’ ” Selected Works, vol. VII, pp. 142-3. (Placed in evidence by petitioner.)
Brief, pp. 23-24.
Brief, pp. 25-26.
In re Saderquist, 11 F. Supp. 525; Skeffington v. Katzeff, 277 F. 129; United States v. Curran, 11 F. 2d 683; Kenmotsu v. Nagle, 44 F. 2d 953; Sormunen v. Nagle, 59 F. 2d 398; Branch v. Cahill, 88 F. 2d 545; Ex parte Vilarino, 50 F. 2d 582; Kjar v. Doak, 61 F. 2d 566;
Strecker v. Kessler, 95 F. 2d 976, 96 F. 2d 1020, affirmed on other grounds, 307 U. S. 22; Ex parte Fierstein, 41 F. 2d 53; Colyer v. Skeffington, 265 F. 17, reversed sub nom. Skeffington v. Katzeff, 277 F. 129.
United States ex rel. Yokinen v. Commissioner, 57 F. 2d 707; United States v. Perkins, 79 F. 2d 533; United States ex rel. Fernandas v. Commissioner, 65 F. 2d 593; Ungar v. Seaman, 4 F. 2d 80; Ex parte Jurgans, 17 F. 2d 507; United States ex rel. Fortmueller v. Commissioner, 14 F. Supp. 484; Murdoch v. Clark, 53 F. 2d 155; Wolck v. Weedin, 58 F. 2d 928.
Brief, p. 60.
Brief, p. 77. See also Colyer v. Skeffington, 265 F. 17, 59, reversed sub nom. Skeffington v. Katzeff, 277 F. 129. And see Evatt, J., in King v. Hush (Ex parte Devanny), 48 C. L. R. 487, 516-18.
Rule 52 (a) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U. S. C. A., following 8 723 (c).
The Manifesto was proclaimed in 1848. The edition in evidence was published by the International Publishers in 1932. Petitioner testified that he believed it to be an authorized publication, that he was familiar with the work, that it was used in classes, and that he thought its principles were correct “particularly as they applied to the period in which they were written and the country about which they were written.”
The excerpts stressed are: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
“Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
“In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.”
This work was written in 1917 between the February and October Revolutions in Russia. The copy in evidence was published in 1924 by the Daily Worker Publishing Company. Petitioner testified that it was circulated by the Party and that it was probably used in the classes of which he was “educational director.”
The excerpts are:
“Fifth, in the same work of Engels, . . . there is also a disquisition on the nature of a violent revolution; and the historical appreciation of its role becomes, with Engels, a veritable panegyric of a revolution by force. This, of course, no one remembers. To talk or even to think of the importance of this idea, is not considered respectable by our modern Socialist parties, and in the daily propaganda and agitation among the masses it plays no part whatever. Yet it is indissolubly bound up with the 'withering away’ of the state in one harmonious whole. Here is Engels’ argument:
“ 'That force also plays another part in history (other than that of a perpetuation of evil), namely a revolutionary part; that as Marx*150 says, it is the midwife of every old society when it is pregnant with a new one; that force is the instrument and the means by which social movements hack their way through and break up the dead and fossilized political forms — of all this not a word by Herr Duehring. . Duly, with sighs and groans, does he admit the possibility that for the overthrow of the system of exploitation force may, perhaps, be necessary, but most unfortunate if you please, because all use of force, forsooth, demoralizes its user! And this is said in face of the great moral and intellectual advance which has been the result of every victorious revolution! . . . And this turbid, flabby, impotent, parson’s modé of thinldng dares offer itself for acceptance to the most revolutionary party history has ever known.’ ”
“The necessity of systematically, fostering among the masses this and only this point of view about violent revolution lies at the root of the whole of Marx’s and Engels’ teaching, and it is just the neglect of such propaganda and agitation both by the present predominant Social-Chauvinists and the Kautskian schools that brings their betrayal of it into prominent relief.”
(Quoting Engels) “ ‘Revolution is an act in which part of the population forces its will on the other parts by means of rifles, bayonets, cannon, i. e., by most authoritative means. And the conquering party is inevitably forced to maintain its supremacy by means of that fear which its arms inspire in the reactionaries.’ ”
Petitioner contends that this document was never introduced in evidence, and the record shows only that it was marked for identification. The view we take of the case makes it immaterial whether this document is in evidence or not. The copy furnished us was printed in 1923 under the auspices of the Workers Party. Hynes testified that it was an official publication, but not widely circulated. Petitioner had no recollection of the particular pamphlet and testified that the American party was not bound by it.
Thé excerpts are:
“That which before the victory of the proletariat seems but a theoretical difference of opinion on the question of ‘democracy,’ be*151 comes inevitably on the morrow of the victory, a question which can only be decided by force of arms.”
“The working class cannot achieve the victory over the bourgeoisie by means of the general strike alone, and by the policy of folded arms The proletariat must resort to an armed uprising.”
“The elementary means of the struggle of the proletariat against the rule of the bourgeoisie is, first of all, the method of mass demonstrations. Such mass demonstrations are prepared and carried out by the organized masses of the proletariat, under the direction of a united, disciplined, centralized Communist Party. Civil war is war. In this war the proletariat must have its efficient political officers, its good political general- staff, to conduct operations during all the stages of that fight.
“The mass struggle means a whole system of developing demonstrations growing ever more acute in form, and logically leading to an uprising against the capitalist order of the government. In this warfare of the masses developing into a civil war, the guiding party of the proletariat must, as a general rule, secure every and all lawful positions, making them its auxiliaries in the revolutionary work, and subordinating such positions to the plans of the general campaign, that of the mass struggle.”
The copy in evidence was printed by the Daily Worker Publishing Company either in 1924 or 1925. Petitioner was familiar with the work, but not the particular edition, and testified that it was probably circulated by the Party. He had read it, but probably after his naturalization. Hynes and Humphreys testified that it was used in communist classes.
The excerpts are:
“Marx’s limitation with regard to the ‘continent’ has furnished the opportunists and mensheviks of every country with a pretext for asserting that Marx admitted the possibility of a peaceful transformation of bourgeois democracy into proletarian democracy, at least [in] some countries (England and America). Marx did in fact recognize the possibility of this in the England and America of 1860, where*152 monopolist capitalism and Imperialism did not exist and where militarism and bureaucracy were as yet little developed. But now the situation in these countries is radically different; Imperialism has reached its apogee there, and there militarism and bureaucracy are sovereign. In consequence, Marx’s restriction no longer applies.”
“With the Reformist, reform is everything, whilst in revolutionary work it only appears as a form. This is why with the reformist tactic under a bourgeois government, all reform tends inevitably to consolidate the powers that be, and to weaken the revolution.
“With the revolutionary, on the contrary, the main thing is the revolutionary work and not the reform. For him, reform is only an accessory of revolution.”
(a) Program of the Communist International, adopted in 1928 and published by the Workers Library Publishers, Inc., in 1929:
“Hence, revolution is not only necessary because there is no other way of overthrowing the ruling class, but also because, only in the process of revolution is the overthrowing class able to purge itself of the dross of the old society and become capable of creating a new society.”
Petitioner “agreed with the general theoretical conclusions stated in” this Program, but he regarded “the application of that theory” as “something else.”
(b) Programme of the Young Communist International, published in 1929: “An oppressed class which does not endeavor to possess and learn to handle arms would deserve to be treated as slaves. We would become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists if we forget that we are living in a class society, and that the only way out is through class struggle and the overthrow of the power of the ruling class. Our slogan must be: 'Arming of the proletariat, to conquer, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie.’ Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its historic task, to throw all arms on the scrap heap. This the proletariat will undoubtedly do. But only then, and on no account sooner.”
(c) Why Communism, written by Olgin, and published first in 1933, by the Workers Library Publishers:
“We Communists say that there is one way to abolish the capitalist State, and that is to smash it by force. To make Communism possible*153 the workers must take hold of the State machinery of capitalism and destroy it.”
Petitioner testified that he had not read this book, but that it had been widely circulated by the Party.
Since the district court did not specify upon what evidence its conclusory findings rested, it is well to mention the remaining documents published before 1927 which were introduced into evidence and excerpts from which were read into the record, but upon which the Government does not specifically rely with respect to the issue of force and violence. Those documents are: Lenin, Left Wing Communism, first published in English about 1920; Bucharin and Pre-obraschensky, ABC of Communism, written in 1919 and published around 1921 in this country (petitioner testified that this was never an accepted work and that its authors were later expelled from the International); International of Youth, a periodical published in 1925; The 4th National Convention of the Workers Party of America, pub-fished in 1925; The Second Year of the Workers Party in America (1924); and, The Program and Constitution of the Workers Party of America, circulated around 1924. With the exception of these last two documents, the excerpts read into the record from these publications contain nothing exceptional on the issue of force and violence. The excerpts from the last two documents stress the necessity for Party participation in elections, but declare that the Party fosters no illusions that the workers can vote their way to power, the expulsion of the Socialist members of the New York Assembly (see Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (1941), pp. 269-82) being cited as an example in point. These statements are open to an interpretation of prediction, not advocacy of force and violence. Cf. Note 48,infra.
As Chief Justice (then Mr.) Hughes said in opposing the expulsion of the Socialist members of the New York Assembly: “. . . it is of the essence of the institutions of liberty that it be recognized that guilt is personal and cannot be attributed to the holding of opinion or to mere intent in the absence of overt acts; . . .” Memorial of the Special Committee Appointed by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, New York Legislative Documents, vol. 5.143d Session (1920), No. 30, p. 4.
See Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (1941), pp. 219-24.
See Note 33, ante.
See Bryce, the American Commonwealth (1915) vol. II, p. 334; III Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, p. 164.
See Notes 35 to 38 inclusive, ante.
Petitioner testified that he believed its principles, particularly as they applied to the period and country in which written. See Note 35, ante.
Marx, Amsterdam Speech of 1872; see also Engels’ preface to the First English Translation of Capital (1886).
Lenin’s remarks on England have been interpreted as simply predicting, not advocating, the use of violence there. See the introduction to Strachey, The Coming Struggle for Power (1935).
See Note 38, ante.
Stalin, Leninism, vol. I, pp. 282-83. Put in evidence by petitioner.
Lenin, Selected Works, vol. VI. Put in evidence by petitioner. In the same work is the following:
“Marxism is an extremely profound and many sided doctrine. It is, therefore, not surprising that scraps of quotations from Marx— especially when the quotations are not to the point — can always be found among the 'arguments’ of those who are breaking with Marxism. A military conspiracy is Blanquism if it is not organized by the party of a definite class; if its organizers have not reckoned with the political situation in general and the international situation in particular; if the party in question does not enjoy the sympathy of the majority of the people, as proved by definite facts; if the development of events in the revolution has not led to the virtual dissipation of the illusions of compromise entertained by the petty bourgeoisie; if the-majority of the organs of the revolutionary struggle which are recognized to be ‘authoritative’ or have otherwise established themselves, such as the Soviets, have not been won over; if in the army (in time of war) sentiments hostile to a government which drags out an unjust war*157 against the will of the people have not become fully matured; if the slogans of the insurrection (such as ‘All power to the Soviets,’ ‘Land to the peasants,’ ‘Immediate proposal of a democratic peace to all the belligerent peoples, coupled with the immediate abrogation of all secret treaties and secret diplomacy,’ etc.) have not acquired the widest renown and popularity; if the advanced workers are not convinced of the desperate situation of the masses and of the support of the countryside, as demonstrated by an energetic peasant movement, or by a revolt against the landlords and against the government that defends the landlords; if the economic situation in the country offers any real hope of a favorable solution of the crisis by peaceful and parliamentary means.”
Article X, §5. Party members found to be strike-breakers, degenerates, habitual drunkards, betrayers of Party confidence, provocateurs, advocates of terrorism and violence as a method of Party procedure, or members whose actions are detrimental to the Party and the working class, shall be summarily dismissed from positions of responsibility, expelled from the Party and exposed before the general public.
In 1927 naturalization was forbidden to such persons by § 7 of the Act of 1906, 34 Stat. 598, 8 U. S. C. § 364. Compare § 305 of the Nationality Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1141, 8 U. S. C. § 705.
The complaint did incorporate by reference an affidavit of cause, required by 8 U. S. C. § 405, in which the affiant averred that petitioner’s naturalization was illegally and fraudulently obtained, in that he did not behave as a man and was not a man attached to the Constitution but was a member of the Communist Party which was opposed to the Government and advocated its overthrow by force and violence, and in that: “At the time he took said oath of allegiance, he did not in fact intend to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”
While this affidavit is part of the complaint, we think it was not intended to be an additional charge, but was included only to show
This contention is that petitioner was not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States because he believed in and advocated general resort to illegal action, other than force and violence, as a means of achieving political ends.
Cf. United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40; Gordon v. United States, 2 Wall. 561; Id., 117 U. S. 697; United States v. Jones, 119 U. S. 477; Pocono Pines Assembly Hotels Co. v. United States, 73 Ct. Cls. 447; 76 Ct. Cls. 334; Ex parte Pocono Pines Assembly Hotels Co., 285 U. S. 526.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring:
I join in the Court’s opinion and agree that petitioner’s want of attachment in 1927 to the principles of the Constitution has not been shown by “clear, unequivocal and convincing” evidence. The United States, when it seeks to deprive a person of his American citizenship, carries a heavy burden of showing that he procured it unlawfully. That burden has not been sustained on the present record, as the opinion of the Court makes plain, unless the most extreme views within petitioner’s party are to be imputed or attributed to him and unless all doubts which may exist concerning his beliefs in 1927 are to be resolved against him rather than in his favor. But there is another view of the problem raised by this type of case which is so basic as to merit separate statement.
Sec. 15 of the Naturalization Act gives the United States the power and duty to institute actions to set aside and cancel certificates of citizenship on the ground of “fraud” or on the ground that they were “illegally procured.” Sec. 15 “makes nothing fraudulent or unlawful that was honest and lawful when it was done. It imposes no new penalty upon the wrongdoer. But if, after fair hearing, ic is judicially determined that by wrongful conduct he has obtained a title to citizenship, the act provides that he shall be deprived of a privilege that was never rightfully his.” Johannessen v. United States, 225 U. S. 227, 242-243. And see Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9, 24. “Wrongful conduct” — like the statutory words “fraud” or “illegally procured” — are strong words. Fraud con
Under the Act in question, as under earlier and later Acts,
If an anarchist is naturalized, the United States may bring an action under § 15 to set aside the certificate on the grounds of illegality. Since Congress by § 7 of the Act forbids the naturalization of anarchists, the alien anarchist who obtains the certificate has procured it illegally whatever the naturalization court might find. The same would be true of communists if Congress declared they should be ineligible for citizenship. Then proof that one was not a communist and did not adhere to that party or its belief would become like the other express conditions in the Act a so-called “jurisdictional” fact “upon which the grant is predicated.” Johannessen v. United States, supra, p. 240. But under this Act Congress did not treat communists like anarchists. Neither the statute nor the official forms used by applicants called for an expression by petitioner of his attitude on, or his relationship to, communism, or any other foreign political creed except anarchy and the like.
If the applicant answers all questions required of him, if there is no concealment or misrepresentation, the findings of attachment cannot be set aside on the grounds of illegality in proceedings under § 15. It does not comport with any accepted notion of illegality to say that in spite of the utmost good faith on the part of applicant and judge and in spite of full compliance with the express statutory conditions a certificate was illegally procured because another judge would appraise the evidence differently. That would mean that the United States at any time could obtain a trial de novo on the political faith of the applicant.
It is hardly conceivable that Congress intended that result under this earlier Act except for the narrow group of political creeds such as anarchy for which it specially provided. Chief Justice Hughes stated in his dissent in United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 635, that the
Citizenship can be granted only on the basis of the statutory right which Congress has created. Tutun v. United States, supra. But where it is granted and where all the express statutory conditions precedent are satisfied we should adhere to the view that the judgment of naturalization is final and conclusive except for fraud. Since the United States does not now contend that fraud vitiates this certificate the judgment below must be reversed.
Dor the Act in its present form see 8 U. S. C. § 501 et seq.
This provision was recast by the Act of March 2, 1929, 45 Stat. 1513-1514, 8 U. S. C. § 707 (a) (3), into substantially its present form. For the legislative history see 69 Cong. Rec. 841; S. Rep. No. 1504, 70th Cong., 2d Sess. The provision now reads: “No person, except as hereinafter provided in this chapter, shall be naturalized unless such petitioner ... (3) during all the periods referred to in this subsection has been and still is a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.”
Concurrence Opinion
concurring:
I join in the Court’s opinion. I add what follows only to emphasize what I think is at the bottom of this case.
Immediately we are concerned with only one man, William Schneiderman. Actually, though indirectly, the
For all that would be needed would be to produce some evidence from which any one of the federal district judges could draw a conclusion, concerning one of the ultimate facts in issue, opposite from that drawn by the judge decreeing admission. The statute does not in terms prescribe ‘'jurisdictional” facts.
If this is the law and the right the naturalized citizen acquires, his admission creates nothing more than citizenship in attenuated, if not suspended, animation. He acquires but prima facie status, if that. Until the Gov
No citizen with such a threat hanging over his head could be free. If he belonged to “off-color” organizations or held too radical or, perhaps, too reactionary views, for some segment of the judicial palate, when his admission took place, he could not open his mouth without fear his words would be held against him. For whatever he might say or whatever any such organization might advocate could be hauled forth at any time to show “continuity” of belief from the day of his admission, or “concealment” at that time. Such a citizen would not be admitted to liberty. His best course would be silence or hypocrisy. This is not citizenship. Nor is it adjudication.
It may be doubted that the framers of the Constitution intended to create two classes of citizens, one free and independent, one haltered with a lifetime string tied to its status. However that may be, and conceding that the power to revoke exists and rightly should exist to some extent, the question remains whether the power to admit can be delegated to the courts in such a way that their determination, once made, determines and concludes nothing with finality.
If every fact in issue, going to the right to be a citizen, can be reexamined, upon the same or different proof, years or decades later; and if this can be done de novo, as if no judgment had been entered, whether with respect to the burden of proof required to reach a different decision or otherwise, what does the judgment determine? What does it settle with finality? If review is had and the admission is affirmed, what fact is adjudicated, if next day any or all involved can be redecided to the contrary? Can
I do not undertake now to decide these questions. Nor does the Court. But they have a bearing on the one which is decided. It is a judgment which is being attacked. Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568. Accordingly, it will not do to say the issue is identical with what is presented in a naturalization proceeding, is merely one of fact, upon which therefore the finding of the trial court concludes, and consequently we have no business to speak or our speaking is appellate intermeddling. That ignores the vital fact that it is a judgment, rendered in the exercise of the judical power created by Article III, which it is sought to overthrow,
It is no answer to say that Congress provided for the redetermination as a part of the statute conferring the right to admission and therefore as a condition of it. For that too ignores the question whether Congress can so condition the judgment and is but another way of saying that a determination, made by an exercise of judicial power under Article III, can be conditioned by legislative mandate so as not to determine finally any ultimate fact in issue.
The effect of cancellation is to nullify the judgment of admission. If it is a judgment, and no one disputes that it is, that quality in itself requires the burden of proof the court has held that Congress intended in order to overturn it. That it is a judgment, and one of at least a coordinate court, which the cancellation proceeding attacks and seeks to overthrow, requires this much at least, that solemn decrees may not be lightly overturned and that citizens may not be deprived of their status merely because one judge views their political and other beliefs with a more critical eye or a different slant, however honestly and sincerely, than another. Beyond this we need not go now in decision. But we do not go beyond our function or usurp another tribunal’s when we go this far.
Cf., however, the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, ante, p. 161.
There is no requirement that the evidence be different from what was presented on admission or “newly discovered.”
Cf. United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S. 61; Kibbe v. Benson, 17 Wall. 624. No such cause for cancellation is involved here.
Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568.
Cf. Johannessen v. United States, 225 U. S. 227.
Cf. Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting:
The two courts below have found that petitioner, at the time he was naturalized, belonged to Communist Party organizations which were opposed to the principles of the Constitution, and which advised, advocated and taught the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. They have found that petitioner believed in and supported the principles of those organizations. They have found also that petitioner “was not, at the time of his naturalization . . ., and during the period of five years immediately preceding the filing of his petition for naturalization had not behaved as, a person attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.”
I think these findings are abundantly supported by the evidence, and hence that it is not within our judicial competence to set them aside — even though, sitting as trial judges, we might have made some other finding. The judgment below, cancelling petitioner’s citizenship on the ground that it was illegally obtained, should therefore be affirmed. The finality which attaches to the trial court’s determinations of fact from evidence heard in open court, and which ordinarily saves them from an appellate court’s intermeddling, should not be remembered in every case save this one alone.
It is important to emphasize that the question for decision is much simpler than it has been made to appear. It is whether petitioner, in securing his citizenship by naturalization, has fulfilled a condition which Congress
The question then is not of petitioner’s opinions or beliefs — save as they may have influenced or may explain his conduct showing attachment, or want of it, to the principles of the Constitution. It is not a question of freedom of thought, of speech or of opinion, or of present imminent danger to the United States from our acceptance as citizens of those who are not attached to the principles of our form of government. The case obviously has nothing to do with our relations with Russia, where petitioner
The Constitution has conferred on Congress the exclusive authority to prescribe uniform rules governing naturalization. Article I, § 8, cl. 4. Congress has exercised that power by prescribing the conditions, in conformity to which aliens may obtain the privilege of citizenship. Under the laws and Constitution of the United States, no person is given any right to demand citizenship, save upon compliance with those conditions. “An alien who seeks political rights as a member of this Nation can rightfully obtain them only upon terms and conditions specified by Congress. Courts are without authority to sanction changes or modifications; their duty is rigidly to enforce the legislative will in respect of a matter so vital to the public welfare.” United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472, 474. And whenever a person’s right to citizenship is drawn in question, it is the judge’s duty loyally to see to it that those conditions have not been disregarded.
The present suit by the United States, to cancel petitioner’s previously granted certificate of citizenship, was brought pursuant to an Act of Congress (§ 15 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 601), enacted long prior to petitioner’s naturalization. Section 15 authorizes any court by a suit instituted by the United States Attorney to set aside a certificate of naturalization “on the ground of fraud or on the ground that such certificate of citizenship was illegally procured.” Until now this Court, with
Provision for such a review of the judgment awarding citizenship is within the legislative power of Congress and plainly is subject to no constitutional infirmity, Johannessen v. United States, supra, 236-40, especially where, as here, the statute antedated petitioner’s citizenship and the review was thus a condition of its award. Luria v. United States, supra, 24. Our decisions have uniformly recognized that Congress, which has power to deny citizenship to aliens altogether, may safeguard the grant of this privilege, precious to the individual and vital to the country’s welfare, by such procedure for determining the existence of indispensable requisites to citizenship as has been established in § 15. “No alien has the slightest right to naturalization unless all statutory requirements are complied with; and every certificate of citizenship must be treated as granted upon condition that the Government may challenge it as provided in § 15 and demand its cancellation unless issued in accordance with such requirements. If procured when prescribed qualifications have no existence in fact it is illegally procured; a manifest mistake by the judge cannot supply these nor render their existence non-essential.” United States v. Ginsberg, supra, 475. Speaking for a unanimous Court, Mr. Justice Brandéis thus stated what was, until today, the settled law: “If a certificate is procured when the pre
We need not stop to consider whether petitioner’s failure, in his naturalization proceeding, to disclose facts which could have resulted in a denial of his application, constituted fraud within the meaning of the statute. For present purposes it is enough that the evidence supports the conclusion of the courts below as to petitioner’s want of attachment to the principles of the Constitution, and, that § 15 has, ever since its enactment in 1906, been construed by this Court as requiring certificates of citizenship to be cancelled as illegally procured whenever the court finds on evidence that at the time of naturalization the applicant did not in fact satisfy the statutory prerequisites.
To meet the exigencies of this case, it is now for the first time proposed by the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas that a new construction be given to the statute which would preclude any inquiry concerning the fact of petitioner’s attachment to the Constitution. It is said that in a § 15 proceeding the only inquiry permitted, apart from fraud, is as to the regularity of the naturalization proceedings on their face: that — however
To this easy proposal for the emasculation of the statute there are several plain and obvious answers.
Section 15 authorizes and directs the Government to institute the suit to cancel the certificate of naturalization on the ground of fraud or on the ground that the certificate was illegally procured. Until now it has never been thought that a certificate of citizenship procured by one who has not satisfied the statutory conditions for citizenship, is nevertheless lawfully procured. But the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas suggests that, for purposes of § 15, “attachment to the principles' of the Constitution” is not a condition of becoming a citizen. It suggests that the statute is satisfied, even though the applicant was never in fact attached to the principles of the Constitution, so long as such attachment was made to appear, from pro forma affidavits, to the satisfaction of the naturalization court. This is said to be the case regardless of whether in fact the affidavits, and the certificate of citizenship based on them, are wholly mistaken-/ and despite the fact that the naturalization proceeding, as apparently it was here, is an ex parte proceeding in which the Government is not represented.
It would seem passing strange that Congress — which authorized cancellation of citizenship under § 15 for failure to hold the naturalization hearing in open court instead of in the judge’s chambers (United States v. Ginsberg, supra), or for failure to present the requisite certificate of arrival in this country (Maney v. United States,
Moreover, if in the absence of fraud the finding of the naturalization court in this case is final and hence beyond the reach of a § 15 proceeding, it would be equally final in the case of a finding, contrary to the actual fact, that the applicant had been for five years a continuous resident in the United States, since that requirement too is set forth in the sentence of § 4 which provides that “it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court.” Yet it is settled that a certificate of citizenship based on a mistaken finding of five years residence is subject to revocation. United States v. Ginsberg, supra. And in Schwinn v. United States, supra, it appeared, from extrinsic evidence first offered in a § 15 proceeding, that the witnesses at the naturalization hearing had been mistaken as to the length of time they had known the applicant, and that for a part of the five-year period no witness had been produced with actual knowledge of the applicant’s residence or qualifications. We held, without dissent, 311 U. S. 616, “that the certificate of citizenship was illegally procured,” and for that reason we affirmed a judgment cancelling it.
The purpose of § 15 — like that of § 11, which authorizes the Government to appear in a naturalization proceeding to contest the application — is not merely to insure the formal regularity of the proceeding, but to protect the United States from the injury which would result from the acceptance as citizens of any who are not lawfully entitled to become citizens. Congress left the naturalization proceeding simple and inexpensive, by permitting it ordinarily to be conducted ex parte. Thus approximately 200,000 certificates of naturalization were issued during the year in which petitioner became a citizen. Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, 1940, p. 115. But by § 15 Congress afforded the Government an independent opportunity to inquire into any naturalization if upon later scrutiny it appeared that the certificate of citizenship had not been lawfully procured. As the Court declared in United States v. Ness, supra, 327, “§ 11 and § 15 were designed to afford cumulative protection against fraudulent or illegal naturalization.” All this was made abundantly clear by decisions of this Court more than twenty-five years ago. See Johannessen v. United States, supra; Luria v. United States, supra; United States v. Ginsberg, supra; United States v. Ness, supra, 325-27. In the intervening years Congress has often revised the naturalization laws, but it has not thought it appropriate to modify this Court’s interpretation of the function of § 15 in the naturalization procedure.
This is persuasive that the interpretation of § 15 now proposed defies the purpose and will of Congress. It is inconceivable that Congress should have intended that a naturalized citizen’s attachment to the principles of the Constitution — the most fundamental requirement for citizenship — should be the one issue which, in the absence
As we are not here considering whether petitioner’s certificate of naturalization was procured by fraud, there is no occasion, and indeed no justification, for importing into this case the rule, derived from land fraud cases, that 'fraud, which involves personal moral obliquity, must be proved by clear and convincing evidence. The issue is not whether petitioner committed a crime but whether he should be permitted to enjoy citizenship when he has never satisfied the basic conditions which Congress required for the grant of that privilege. We are concerned only with the question whether petitioner’s qualifications were so lacking that he was not lawfully entitled to the privilege of citizenship which he has procured. There is nothing in § 15, nor in any of our numerous decisions under it, to suggest that such an issue is to be tried as fraud is tried, or that it is not. to be resolved, as are other cases, by the weight of evidence. No plausible reason has been advanced why it should not be. But the point need not be labored, for no matter how it is determined it can give no aid or comfort to petitioner. The evidence in this case to which I shall refer and on which the courts below were entitled to rely is clear, not speculative; and since petitioner himself has not challenged it, the trial court was
The statute does not, as seems to be suggested, require as a condition of citizenship that a man merely be capable of attachment to the principles of the Constitution — a requirement which presumably all mankind could satisfy. It requires instead that the applicant be in fact attached to those principles when he seeks naturalization, and § 15 makes provision for the Government to institute an independent suit, subsequent to naturalization, to inquire whether that condition was then in fact fulfilled. Congress has exhibited no interest in petitioner’s capabilities. Nor did Congress require only that it be not impossible for petitioner to have an attachment to the principles of the Constitution. The Act specifies the fact of attachment as the test, requiring this to be affirmatively shown by the applicant; and by § 15 Congress provided a means for the United States to ascertain that fact by a judicial determination.
The prescribed conditions for the award of citizenship by naturalization are few and readily understood, and we must accept them as the expression of the Congressional judgment that aliens not satisfying those requirements are not worthy to be admitted to the privilege of citizenship. Congress has declared that before one is entitled to that privilege he must take the oath of allegiance “that he will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Act of June 29, 1906, § 4 (Third), 34 Stat. 597. And as I have said, the applicant must make it appear to the court admitting him to citizenship that for the five years preceding the date of his application he has resided continuously within the United States and “that during that time he has behaved as a man of good
Moreover, at the time of petitioner’s naturalization, the statutes of the United States excluded from admission into this country “aliens who believe in, advise, advocate, or teach, or who are members of or affiliated with any organization, association, society, or group, that believes in, advises, advocates, or teaches: (1) the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States . . .” Act of October 16, 1918, § 1, 40 Stat. 1012, as amended by subsection (c) of the Act of June 5, 1920, 41 Stat. 1008, 1009. The statutes also barred admission to the United States of “aliens who . . . knowingly circulate, distribute, print, or display, or knowingly cause to be circulated, distributed, printed, published, or displayed . . . any written or printed matter . . . advising, advocating, or teaching: (1) the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States . . .” Ibid., subsection (d). And by § 2 of the Act of October 16, 1918, it was provided that any alien who, after entering the United States, “is found ... to have become thereafter, a member of any one of the classes of aliens” just enumerated, shall be taken into custody and deported. See Kessler v. Strecker, 307 U. S. 22. Quite apart from the want of attachment to the Constitution and the consequent disqualification of such aliens for citizenship, their belonging to any of these classes would disqualify them for citizenship since their presence in the United States, without which they cannot apply for citizenship, would be unlawful. And in the light of the evidence — presently to be discussed— even the Court’s opinion concedes (p. 153) “We do not say that a reasonable man could not possibly have found, as the district court did, that the Communist Party in 1927 actively urged the overthrow of the Government by
Wholly apart from the deportation statute, the judgment should be affirmed because the trial court was justified in finding that petitioner, in 1927, was not and had not been attached to the principles of the Constitution. My brethren of the majority do not deny that there are principles of the Constitution. The Congress of 1795, which passed the statute requiring an applicant for naturalization to establish that he has “behaved as a man . . . attached to the principles of the Constitution” (1 Stat. 414), evidently did not doubt that there were. For some of its members had sat in the Constitutional Convention. In the absence of any disclaimer I shall assume that there are such principles and that among them are at least the principle of constitutional protection of civil rights and of life, liberty and property, the principle of representative government, and the principle that constitutional laws are not to be broken down by planned disobedience. I assume also that all the principles of the Constitution are hostile to dictatorship and minority rule; and that it is a principle of our Constitution that change in the organization of our government is to be effected by the orderly procedures ordained by the Constitution and not by force or fraud. With these in mind, we may examine petitioner’s behavior as disclosed by the record, during the five years which preceded his naturalization, in order to ascertain whether there was basis in the evidence for the trial judge’s findings. In determining whether there was evidence supporting the finding of petitioner’s want of attachment to constitutional principles, courts must look, as the statute admonishes, to see whether in the five-
. Petitioner, who is an educated and intelligent man, took out his first papers in 1924, when he was eighteen years of age, and was admitted to citizenship on June 10, 1927, when nearly twenty-two. Since his sixteenth year he has been continuously and actively engaged in promoting in one way or another the interests of various Communist Party organizations affiliated with and controlled as to their policy and action by the Third International, the parent Communist organization, which had its headquarters and its Executive Committee in Moscow.
Petitioner was born in Russia on August 1, 1905, and came to the United States in 1907 or 1908. In 1922, when a 16-year old student at a night high school in Los Angeles, he became one of the organizers and charter members of the Young Workers League of California. Por two or three years — and during the five-year period which we are examining — he was educational director of the League; it was his duty “to organize forums and studies for classes.” “My job was to register students in the classes and send out notices for meetings; in other words, to organize the educational activities of the League for which instructors were supplied.” The outlines of the curriculum of this educational program were established by the League’s national committee. The League (whose name was later changed to the Young Communist League) was affiliated with the Communist International.
At the end of 1924, petitioner joined the Workers Party (which later changed its name to the Workers Communist Party and still later to the Communist Party of the United States of America). The Party was a section of the Third International. The Party constitution, at the time petitioner became a member, provided (Article III, § 1) that “every person who accepts the principles and tactics of the Workers Party of America and agrees to submit to its discipline and engage actively in its work shall be eligible to membership.” Applicants for membership were required (Article III, § 2) to sign an application card reading as follows: “The undersigned declares his adherence to the principles and tactics of the Workers Party of America as expressed in its program and constitution and agrees to submit to the discipline of the party and to engage actively in its work.” It was likewise provided (Article X, §§ 1, 2) that “all decisions of the governing bodies of the Party shall be binding upon the membership and subordinate units of the organization,” and that “any member or organization violating the decisions of the Party shall be subject to suspension or expulsion.”
After his naturalization, petitioner attended the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International, at Moscow, in 1928; and from 1929 to 1930 he was district organizational secretary of the Party for a district which included Arizona, Nevada and California. At various subsequent times he was district organizer in Connecticut, in Minnesota, and in California. He ran twice as the Party’s candidate for governor of Minnesota. He held other official positions in the Party, and at the time of the hearing in the district court was California State Secretary of the Party and a member of the State Central Committee. These facts, while not directly probative of his behavior during the five-year period 1922-1927, at least establish that his early devotion to the Party organizations was not transitory, nor inconsistent with his genuine and settled convictions.
The evidence shows and it is not denied that the Communist Party organization at the time in question was a revolutionary party having as its ultimate aim generally, and particularly in England and the United States, the overthrow of capitalistic government, and the substitution for it of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It sought to accomplish this through persistent indoctrination of the people in capitalistic countries with Party principles, by the organization in those countries of sections of the
In accordance with the policy established at its Second World Congress in 1920, the Party press was brought under Party control through ownership of the various publication agencies. Strict adherence to Party principles was demanded of all publications, which were required to be edited by Party members of proved loyalty to the proletarian revolution. Propaganda was required to conform to the program and decisions of the Third International. Editors were removed and Party members expelled for noncompliance. Publications not conforming to Party principles were barred from Party classes.
Many such Communist Party publications were introduced at the trial and constitute a large part of the evidence in this case. Perusal of the record can leave no doubt of petitioner’s unqualified loyalty to the Communist Party. His continuous services to the Party for twenty years in a great variety of capacities, and his familiarity with Party programs and literature, are convincing proof of his complete devotion to Communist Party principles, and his desire to advance them. Throughout he has been a diligent student of Party publications. Many of them were used in the Communist classes of which he was educational director in the years immediately preceding his naturalization. All were particularly brought to his attention as they were introduced in evidence and excerpts relative to the issues were discussed in open court. Except as may be later noted, he did not deny familiarity with them or disavow their teachings. They were the official exposition of the doctrines of the Party to which he had formally pledged his alie-
Unless otherwise noted, I shall refer only to those with which petitioner was familiar and which were published under the auspices of the Party and by its official publication agencies.
As I have said, it is not questioned that the ultimate aim of the Communist Party in 1927 and the years preceding was the triumph of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the consequent overthrow of capitalistic or bourgeois government and society. Attachment to such dictatorship can hardly be thought to indicate attachment to the principles of an instrument of government which forbids dictatorship and precludes the rule of the minority or the suppression of minority rights by dictatorial government. But the Government points especially to the methods by which that end was to be achieved to show that those who pursue or advocate such methods exhibit their want of attachment to the principles of the Constitution. Methods repeatedly and systematically advocated, in the Communist Party literature to which I have referred, include first a softening up process by which the breakdown and disintegration of capitalistic governments was to be achieved by systematic
It was proclaimed that “For all countries, even for most free ‘legal’ and ‘peaceful’ ones in the sense of a lesser acuteness in the class struggle, the period has arrived, when it has become absolutely necessary for every Communist party to join systematically lawful and unlawful work, lawful and unlawful organization. . . . The class struggle in almost every country of Europe and America is entering the phase of civil war. Under such conditions the Communists can have no confidence in bourgeois laws. They should create everywhere a parallel illegal apparatus, which at the decisive moment should do its duty by the party, and in every way possible assist the revolution. In every country where, in consequence of martial law or of other exceptional laws, the Communists are unable to carry on their work lawfully, a combination of lawful and unlawful work is absolutely necessary.”
There is abundant documentary evidence of the character already described to support the court’s finding that the Communist Party organizations, of which petitioner was a member, diligently circulated printed matter which advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence, and that petitioner aided in that circulation and advocacy. From the beginning, and during all times relevant to this inquiry, there is evidence that the Communist Party organizations advocated the overthrow of capitalistic governments by revolution to be accomplished, if need be, by force of arms. We need not stop to consider the much discussed question whether this meant more than that force was to be used if established governments should be so misguided as to refuse to make themselves over into proletarian dictatorships by amendment of their governmental structures, or should have the effrontery to defend themselves from lawless or subversive attacks. For in any case the end contemplated was the overthrow of government, and the measures advocated were force and violence.
Petitioner testified that at the time of his naturalization he subscribed to the philosophy and principles of socialism as manifested in the writings of Lenin. The State
The Party teachings in this and other publications were that revolution by force of arms was a universal principle and consequently one which embraced the United States, and obviously was intended to do so when taught in Communist classes in the United States. Communist publications in evidence were at pains to point out that “Marx’s limitation with regard to the ‘continent’ has furnished the opportunists and mensheviks of every country with a pretext for asserting that Marx admitted the possibility of a peaceful transformation of bourgeois democracy into proletariat democracy, at least [in] some countries (England and America). . . . But now the situation in these countries is radically different. Imperialism has reached its apogee there, and there militarism and bureaucracy are sovereign. In consequence Marx’s restriction no longer applies.”
In order to determine whether petitioner’s behavior established his attachment to the principles of the Constitution, we are entitled to consider the political system which his Party proposed to establish and toward which his own efforts in promoting the Communist cause were directed. About this there is and can be no serious dispute. Under the new system existing constitutional principles were to be abandoned. In the new government to be established by the Communists, the freedoms guaran
The aims of the Communists could be achieved only by “the annihilation of the entire bourgeois governmental apparatus, parliamentary, judicial, military, bureaucratic, administrative, municipal,” and it was necessary for the Communists “to break and destroy” the “apparatus.”
It is unnecessary to give further examples of the teachings of Communist Party organizations with which the documentary evidence is shot through and through. Appended to this opinion are excerpts from two exhibits. These have been chosen, not because they prove more than others but only because they express in short form ideas which permeate all. The evidence, as a whole, and the exhibits which we have especially mentioned, show a basis for finding in the Party teachings, during the period in question, an unqualified hostility to the most fundamental and universally recognized principles of the Constitution. On the argument we were admonished that petitioner favored change in our form of government, which is itself a principle of the Constitution, since the Constitution provides for its own amendment, and that in any case the Communist Party had greatly modified its aims in more recent years. It is true that the Constitution provides for its own amendment by an orderly procedure but not through the breakdown of our governmental system by lawless conduct and by force. It can / hardly satisfy the requirement of “attachment to the 1 principles of the Constitution” that one is attached to the_/ means for its destruction. And whether at some tune after 1927 the Party may have abandoned these doctrines is immaterial. —
It would be little short of preposterous to assert thaT) vigorous aid knowingly given by a pledged Party member/
Petitioner’s pledge of adherence to Communist Party principles and tactics, and his membership in the Communist organizations, were neither passive nor indolent. His testimony shows clearly that during the crucial years he was a young man of vigorous intellect and strong convictions. He spent his time actively arranging for the dissemination of a gospel of which he never has asserted either ignorance or disbelief. His wide acquaintance with Party literature, and his zealous promotion of Party interests for many years, preclude the supposition that he did not know the character of its teachings and did not aid in their advocacy. They are persuasive that he was without attachment to the constitutional principles which those teachings aimed to destroy. Yet the Court’s opinion seems to tell us that the trier of fact must not examine petitioner’s gospel to find out what kind of man he was, or even what his gospel was; that the trier of fact could not “impute” to petitioner any genuine attachment to the doctrines of these organizations whose teachings he so assiduously spread. It might as well be said that it is impossible to infer that a man is attached to the principles of a religious movement from the fact that he conducts
In neither case of course is the inference inevitable. It is possible, though not probable or normal, for one to be attached to principles diametrically opposed to those, to the dissemination of which he has given his life’s best effort. But it is a normal and sensible inference which the trier of fact is free to make that his attachment is to those principles rather than to- constitutional principles with which they are at war. A man can be known by the ideas he spreads as well as by the company he keeps. And when one does not challenge the proof that he has given his life to spreading a particular class of well-defined ideas, it is convincing evidence that his attachment is to them rather than their opposites. In this case it is convincing evidence that petitioner, at the time of his naturalization, was not entitled to the citizenship he procured because he was not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States and because he was not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.
APPENDIX.
Excerpts from Exhibit 26 — Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (see note 6, supra):
“The Communist International makes its aim to put up an armed struggle for the overthrow of the International bourgeoisie and to create an International Soviet Republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State. The Communist International considers the dictatorship of the proletariat as the only means for the liberation of humanity from the horrors of capitalism.*198 The Communist International considers the Soviet form of government as the historically evolved form of this dictatorship of the proletariat.” p. 4.
“Under the circumstances which have been created in the whole world, and especially in the most advanced, most powerful, most enlightened and freest capitalist countries by militarist imperialism — oppression of colonies and weaker nations, the universal imperialist slaughter, the ‘peace’ of Versailles — to admit the idea of a voluntary submission of the capitalists to the will of the majority of the exploited, of a peaceful, reformist passage to Socialism, is not only to give proof of an extreme petty bourgeois stupidity, but it is a direct deception of the workmen, a disguisal of capitalist wage-slavery, a concealment of the truth. This truth is that the bourgeoisie, the most enlightened and democratic portion of the bourgeoisie, is even now not stopping at deceit and crime, at the slaughter of millions of workmen and peasants, in order to retain the right of private ownership over the means of production. Only a violent defeat of the bourgeoisie, the confiscation of its property, the annihilation of the entire bourgeois governmental apparatus, parliamentary, judicial, military, bureaucratic, administrative, municipal, etc., even the individual exile or internment of the most stubborn and dangerous exploiters, the establishment of a strict control over them for the repression of all inevitable attempts at resistance and restoration of capitalist slavery — only such measures will be able to guarantee the complete submission of the whole class of exploiters.” p. 11.
“That which before the victory of the proletariat seems but a theoretical difference of opinion on the question of ‘democracy,’ becomes inevitably on the morrow of the victory, a question which can only be decided by force of arms.” p. 15.
“For all countries, even for most free ‘legal’ and ‘peaceful’ ones in the sense of a lesser acuteness in the class struggle, the period has arrived, when it has become absolutely necessary for every Communist party to join systematically lawful and unlawful work, lawful and unlawful organization.” p. 18.
*199 “It is especially necessary to carry on unlawful work in the army, navy, and police, as, after the imperialist slaughter, all the governments in the world are becoming afraid of the national armies, open to all peasants and workingmen, and they are setting up in secret all kinds of select military organizations recruited from the bourgeoisie and especially provided with improved technical equipment.” p. 19.
“The class struggle in almost every country of Europe and America is entering the phase of civil war. Under such conditions the Communists can have no confidence in bourgeois laws. They should create everywhere a parallel illegal apparatus, which at the decisive moment should do its duty by the party, and in every way possible assist the revolution. In every country where, in consequence of martial law or of other exceptional laws, the Communists are unable to carry on their work lawfully, a combination of lawful and unlawful work is absolutely necessary.” p. 28.
“A persistent and systematic propaganda and agitation is necessary in the army, where Communist groups should be formed in every military organization. Wherever, owing to repressive legislation, agitation becomes impossible, it is necessary to carry on such agitation illegally. But refusal to carry on or participate in such work should be considered equal to treason to the revolutionary cause, and incompatible with affiliation with the Third International.” p. 28.
“Each party desirous of affiliating with the Communist International should be obliged to render every possible assistance to the Soviet Republics in their struggle against all counter-revolutionary forces. The Communist parties should carry on a precise and definite propaganda to induce the workers to refuse to transport any kind of military equipment intended for fighting against the Soviet Republics, and should also by legal or illegal means carry on a propaganda amongst the troops sent against the workers’ republics, etc.” p. 30.
“The world proletariat is confronted with decisive battles. We are living in an epoch of civil war. The critical hour has struck. In almost all countries where there*200 is a labor movement of any importance the working class, arms in hand, stands in the midst of fierce and decisive battles. Now more than ever is the working class in need of a strong organization. Without losing an hour of invaluable time, the working class must keep on indefatigably preparing for the impending decisive struggle.” p. 33.
“Until the time when the power of government will have been finally conquered by the proletariat, until the time when the proletarian rule will have been firmly established beyond the possibility of a bourgeois restoration, the Communist Party will have in its organized ranks only a minority of the workers. Up to the time when the power will have been seized by it, and during the transition period, the Communist Party may, under favorable conditions, exercise undisputed moral and political influence on all the proletarian and semi-proletarian classes of the population; but it will not be able to unite them within its ranks. Only when the dictatorship of the workers has deprived the bourgeoisie of such powerful weapons as the press, the school, parliament, the church, the government apparatus, etc.; only when the final overthrow of the capitalist order will have become an evident fact — only then will all or almost all the workers enter the ranks of the Communist Party.” pp. 33-34.
“The working class cannot achieve the victory over the bourgeoisie by means of the general strike alone, and by the policy of folded arms. The proletariat must resort to an armed uprising.” p. 36.
“As soon as Communism comes to light, it must begin to elucidate the character of the present epoch (the culminations of capitalism, imperialistic self-negation and self-destruction, uninterrupted growth of civil war, etc.). Political relationships and political groupings may be different in different countries, but the essence of the matter is everywhere the same: we must start with the direct preparation for a proletarian uprising, politically and technically, for the destruction of the bourgeoisie and for the creation of the new poletarian state.
“Parliament at present can in no way serve as the arena of a struggle for reform, for improving the lot of the work*201 ing people, as it has at certain periods of the preceding epoch. The centre of gravity of political life at present has been completely and finally transferred beyond the limits of parliament. On the other hand, owing not only to its relationship to the working masses, but also to the complicated mutual relations within the various groups of the bourgeois itself, the bourgeoisie is forced to have some of its policies in one way or another passed through parliament, where the various cliques haggle for power, exhibit their strong sides and betray their weak ones, get themselves unmasked, etc., etc. Therefore it is the immediate historical task of the working class to tear this apparatus out of the hands of the ruling classes, to break and destroy it, and to create in its place a new proletarian apparatus. At the same time, however, the revolutionary general staff of the working class is vitally concerned in having its scouting parties in the parliamentary institutions of the bourgeoisie, in order to facilitate this task of destruction.” pp. 44-45.
“Parliamentarism cannot be a form of proletarian government during the transition period between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that of the proletariat. At the moment when the accentuated class struggle turns into civil war, the proletariat must inevitably form its State organization as a fighting organization, which cannot contain any of the representatives of the former ruling classes; all fictions of a ‘national will’ are harmful to the proletariat at that time, and a parliamentary division of authority is needless and injurious to it; the only form of proletarian dictatorship is a Republic of Soviets.
“The bourgeois parliaments, which constitute one of the most important apparatus of the State machinery of the bourgeoisie, cannot be won over by the proletariat any more than can the bourgeois order in general. The task of the proletariat consists in blowing up the whole machinery of the bourgeoisie, in destroying it, and all the parliamentary institutions with it, whether they be republican or constitutional-monarchical.” pp. 45-46.
“Consequently, Communism repudiates parliamentarism as the form of the future; it renounces the same as a form of the class dictatorship of the proletariat; it repudiates the possibility of winning over the parliaments;*202 its aim is to destroy parliamentarism. Therefore it is only possible to speak of utilizing the bourgeois State organizations with the object of destroying them. The question can only and exclusively be discussed on such a plane.
“All class struggle is a political struggle, because it is finally a struggle for power. Any strike, when it spreads through the whole country, is a menace to the bourgeois State, and thus acquires a political character. To strive to overthrow the bourgeoisie, and to destroy its State, means to carry on political warfare. To create one’s own class apparatus — for the bridling and suppression of the resisting bourgeoisie, whatever such an apparatus may be — means to gain political power.” p. 46.
“The mass struggle means a whole system of developing demonstrations growing ever more acute in form, and logically leading to an uprising against the capitalist order of government. In this warfare of the masses developing into a civil war, the guiding party of the proletariat must, as a general rule, secure every and all lawful positions, making them its auxiliaries in the revolutionary work, and subordinating such positions to the plans of the general campaign, that of the mass struggle.” p. 47.
“On the other hand, an acknowledgement of the value of parliamentary work in no wise leads to an absolute, in-all-and-any-case acknowledgement of the necessity of concrete elections and a concrete participation in parliamentary sessions. The matter depends upon a series of specific conditions. Under certain circumstances it may become necessary to leave the parliament. The Bolsheviks did so when they left the pre-parliament in order to break it up, to weaken it, and to set up against it the Petrograd Soviet, which was then prepared to head the uprising; they acted in the same way in the Constituent Assembly on the day of its dissolution, converting the Third Congress of Soviets into the centre of political events. In other circumstances a boycotting of the elections may be necessary, and a direct, violent storming of .both, the great bourgeois State apparatus and the parliamentary bourgeois clique, or a participation in the elections with a boycott of the parliament itself, etc.
*203 “In this way, while recognizing as a general rule the necessity of participating in the election to the central parliament, and the institutions of local self-government, as well as in the work in such institutions, the Communist Party must decide the question concretely, according to the specific conditions of the given moment. Boycotting the elections or the parliament, or leaving the parliament, is permissible, chiefly when there is a possibility of an immediate transition to an armed fight for power.” p. 49.
“A Communist delegate, by decision of the Central Committee, is bound to combine lawful work with unlawful work. In countries where the Communist delegate enjoys a certain inviolability, this must be utilized by way of rendering assistance to illegal organizations and for the propaganda of the party.” p. 51.
“Each Communist member [of the legislature] must remember that he is not a legislator’ who is bound to seek agreements with the other legislators, but an agitator of the Party, detailed into the enemy’s camp in order to carry out the orders of the Party there. The Communist member is answerable not to the wide mass of his constituents, but to his own Communist Party — whether lawful or unlawful.” p. 52.
“The propaganda of the right leaders of the Independents (Hilferding, Kautsky, and others), proving the compatibility of the Soviet 'system’ with the bourgeois Constituent Assembly, is either a complete misunderstanding of the laws of development of a proletarian revolution, or a conscious deceiving of the working class. The Soviets are the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Constituent Assembly is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. To unite and reconcile the dictatorship of the working class with that of the bourgeoisie is impossible.” p. 64.
“After the victory of the proletariat in the towns, this class [the landed peasants or farmers] will inevitably oppose it by all means, from sabotage to open armed counter-revolutionary resistance. The revolutionary proletariat must, therefore, immediately begin to prepare the necessary force for the disarmament of every single man of this class, and together with the overthrow of the capi*204 talists in industry, the proletariat must deal a relentless, crushing blow to this class. To that end it must arm the rural proletariat and organize Soviets in the country, with no room for exploiters, and a preponderant place must be reserved to the proletarians and the semi-proletarians.” p. 80.
“The revolutionary proletariat must proceed to an immediate and unconditional confiscation of the estates of the landowners and big landlords ... No propaganda can be admitted in the ranks of the Communist parties in favor of an indemnity to be paid to the owners of large estates for their expropriation.” p. 82.
Excerpts from Exhibit 8 — The State and Revolution, by Lenin (see note 13, supra):
“We have already said above and shall show more fully at a later stage that the teaching of Marx and Engels regarding the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the capitalist State. It cannot be replaced by the proletarian State (the dictatorship of the proletariat) through mere ‘withering away/ but, in accordance with the general rule, can only be brought about by a violent revolution. The hymn sung in its honor by Engels and fully corresponding to the repeated declarations of Marx (see the concluding passages of the Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto, with its proud and open declaration of the inevitability of a violent revolution; also Marx’s Criticism of the Gotha Program of 1875, in which, thirty years after, he mercilessly castigates its opportunist character) — this praise is by no means a mere ‘impulse/ a mere declamation, or a mere polemical sally. The necessity of systematically fostering among the masses this and only this point of view about violent revolution lies at the root of the whole of Marx’s and Engels’ teaching, and it is just the neglect of such propaganda and agitation both by the present predominant Social-Chauvinists and the Kautskian schools that brings their betrayal of it into prominent relief.
“The substitution of a proletarian for the capitalist State is impossible without violent revolution, while the abolition of the proletarian State, that is, of all States, is only possible through ‘withering away.’ ” pp. 15-16.
*205 “The State is a particular form of organization of force; it is the organization of violence for the purpose of holding down some class. What is the class which the proletariat must hold down? It can only; be, naturally, the exploiting class, i. e., the bourgeoisie. The toilers need the State only to overcome the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can guide this suppression and bring it to fulfilment — the proletariat, the only class revolutionary to the finish, the only class which can unite all the toilers and the exploited in the struggle against the capitalist class for its complete displacement from power.” pp. 17-18.
“The doctrine of the class-war, as applied by Marx to the question of the State and of the Socialist revolution, leads inevitably to the recognition of the political supremacy of the proletariat, of its dictatorship, i. e., of an authority shared with none else and relying directly upon the armed force of the masses. The overthrow of the capitalist class is feasible only by the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, able to crush the inevitable and desperate resistance of the bourgeoisie, and to organize, for the new settlement of economic order, all the toiling and exploited masses.
“The proletariat needs the State, the centralized organization of force and violence, both for the purpose of guiding the great mass of the population — the peasantry, the lower middle-class, the semi-proletariat — in the work of economic Socialist reconstruction.” pp. 18-19.
“But, if the proletariat needs the State, as a particular form of organization of force against the capitalist class, the question almost spontaneously forces itself upon us: Is it thinkable that such an organization can be created without a preliminary breaking up and destruction of the machinery of government created for its own use by the capitalist class? The Communist Manifesto leads us straight to this conclusion, and it is of this conclusion that Marx wrote summing up the practical results of the revolutionary experience gained between 1849 and 1851.” p. 19.
“Hence Marx excluded England, where a revolution, even a people’s revolution, could be imagined and was then possible, without the preliminary condition of the*206 destruction 'of the available ready machinery of the State.’
“Today, in 1917, in the epoch of the first great imperialist war, this distinction of Marx’s becomes unreal, and England and America, the greatest and last representatives of Anglo-Saxon 'liberty,’ in the sense of the absence of militarism and bureaucracy, have today completely rolled down into the dirty, bloody morass of military-bureaucratic institutions common to all Europe, subordinating all else to themselves. Today, both in England and in America, the 'preliminary condition of any real people’s revolution’ is the break-up, the shattering of the 'available ready machinery of the State’ (perfected in those countries between 1914 and 1917, up to the ‘European’ general imperialist standard).” p. 26.
“But from this capitalist democracy — inevitably narrow, stealthily thrusting aside the poor, and therefore to its core, hypocritical and treacherous^-progress does not march along a simple, smooth and direct path to 'greater and greater democracy,’ as the Liberal professors and the lower middle class Opportunists would have us believe. No, progressive development — that is, towards Communism — marches through the dictatorship of the proletariat; and cannot do otherwise, for there is no one else who can break the resistance of the exploiting capitalists, and no other way of doing it.
“And the dictatorship of the proletariat — that is, the organization of the advance-guard of the oppressed as the ruling class, for the purpose of crushing the oppressors — cannot produce merely an expansion of democracy. Together with an immense expansion of democracy — for the first time becoming democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich folk — the dictatorship of the proletariat will produce a series of restrictions of liberty in the case of the oppressors, exploiters, and capitalists. We must crush them in order to free humanity from wage-slavery; their resistance must be broken by force. It is clear that where there is suppression there must also be violence, and there cannot be liberty or democracy.
“Engels expressed this splendidly in his letter to Bebel when he said, as the reader will remember, that ‘the pro*207 letariat needs the State, not in the interests of liberty, but for the purpose of crushing its opponents; and, when one will be able to speak of freedom, the State will have ceased to exist.’
“Democracy for the vast majority of the nation, and the suppression by force — that is, the exclusion from democracy — of the exploiters and oppressors of the nation: this is the modification of democracy which we shall see during the transition from Capitalism to Communism.” pp. 63-64.
“Again, during the transition from Capitalism to Communism, suppression is still necessary; but in this case it is the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of exploited. A special instrument, a special machine for suppression — that is, the ‘State’ — is necessary, but this is now a transitional State, no longer a State in the ordinary sense of the term. For the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of those who were but yesterday wage slaves, is a matter comparatively so easy, simple and natural that it will cost far less bloodshed than the suppression of the risings of the slaves, serfs or wage laborers, and will cost the human race far less.” pp. 64-65.
I do not participate in this decision. This case was instituted in June of 1939 and tried in December of that year. In January 1940, I became Attorney General of the United States and succeeded to official responsibility for it. 309 U. S. iii. This I have considered a cause for disqualification, and I desire the reason to be a matter of record.
By § 4 of the Act of June 29,1906, 34 Stat. 598, it is provided:
“Fourth. It shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the court admitting any alien to citizenship that immediately preceding the date of his application he has resided continuously within the United States five years at least, and within the State or Territory where such court is at the time held one year at least, and that during that time he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same. In addition to the oath of the applicant, the testimony of at least two witnesses, citizens of the United States, as to the facts of residence, moral character, and attachment to the principles of the Constitution shall be required, and the name, place of residence, and occupation of each witness shall be set forth in the record.”
The district court’s decision was based on both fraud and illegality. The circuit court of appeals relied upon fraud alone, 112 F. 2d 74, but our affirmance was rested “on the sole ground” of illegality.
During the whole period relevant to this litigation, the Communist Party was a world organization, known as the Third Communist International (or Comintern), created in 1919, of which the Communist Parties in each country were sections. The supreme governing body of the Third Communist International — which exercised control of the Party program, tactics and organization — was the World Congress of the Communist International. Between meetings of the Congress its authority was vested in the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The resolutions of the Congress, and between meetings those of the Executive Committee, were binding on all sections. In the United States the Workers Party of America, a Communist organization, was established in 1921. It was affiliated with the Communist International, and had sent delegates to the Third World Congress of the International earlier in that year. The Workers Party of America has been since continued, and successively known as the Workers (Communist) Party and as the Communist Party of the United States of. America. The Party sent accredited representatives to the Communist International and recognized the leadership of the International. It was affiliated with the Third International, of which it constituted a section. All the events with which this litigation is concerned occurred long prior to the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943.
The Young Workers League was affiliated with the Young Communist International and the Communist International. It sent delegates to the Congress of the Young Communist International. It was also closely related to the Workers Party, and sent delegates to the Party Conventions. At its Third National Convention, the Party adopted the following resolution:
“The task of reaching the youth with the message of Communism, of interesting them in our cause and organizing them for the militant struggle against the existing social order and its oppression and exploitation is of major importance for the whole Communist movement. In carrying on this work the Young Workers League is pre*184 paring the fighters for Communism who will soon stand in the ranks of the Party as part of its best fighters.”
The Second Year of the Workers Party of America. Report of The Central Executive Committee to the Third National Convention. Held in- Chicago, Illinois, Dec. 30, 31, 1923 and Jan. 1, 2, 1924. Theses, Program, Resolutions. Published by the Literature Department, Workers Party of America, 1009 N. State St., Chicago, Ill. (p. 122.)
Program and Constitution, Workers Party of America. Adopted at National Convention, New York City, December 24-25-26-27, 1921. Amended at National Convention, Chicago, Ill., December 30-
See pp. 18, 28, of Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International. Adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist International, July 17 to August 7,1920. The edition of this document in evidence in the present case was published in March, 1923, under the auspices of the Workers Party of America, and contained the following statement on the inside front cover:
“The Workers Party declares its sympathy with the principles of the Communist International and enters the struggle against American capitalism, the most powerful of the capitalist groups, under the inspiration and leadership of the Communist International.
“It rallies to the call ‘Workers of the World Unite/ ”
Petitioner testified that he had no recollection of “this particular edition” but that “I have no doubt that possibly a pamphlet” like it was sold in Party bookstores. This document was marked for identification and the court later denied a motion to exclude it and other exhibits from the evidence. During the trial petitioner’s counsel twice referred to the document as having been put in evidence. Petitioner’s counsel included it, with all other exhibits in evidence or offered for identification, in his designation of the record to be made
See p. 94 of The 4th National Convention of the Workers (Communist) Party of America. Held in Chicago, Ill., August 21-30,1925. Published by the Daily Worker Publishing Co., 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill. The publisher’s notice inside the back cover stated that this pamphlet was “absolutely indispensable to any member of the party.” The pamphlet, which was the official report of the convention, was sold and circulated by the Party in Los Angeles in 1925. Petitioner disclaimed familiarity with the literature of this convention, but testified that he had attended the convention. He also testified he was in agreement with the general program and principles of the Workers (Communist) Party.
Ibid. p. 107. This was part of a resolution, adopted unanimously by the Party Convention, relating to “Party Policies for Trade Union Work.”
Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (see note 6, supra), p. 19.
Ibid. p. 28.
A B C of Communism, p. 69. This was written by N. Bueliarin & E. Preobraschensky, in 1919, translated into English in June, 1921, and published between 1920 and 1924 by the Lyceum-Literature Department, Workers Party of America, 799 Broadway, New York City. There was evidence that this pamphlet was a basic work of Party study classes in 1924 and 1925; that it was expressly designed for such purposes, was officially circulated by the Party, and was still advertised by the Workers Library Publishers in 1928. Petitioner testified that he had read the work and was familiar with it, although he said that the authors had later been expelled from the Russian Communist Party.
The Theory and Practice of Leninism, by Stalin, pp. 33, 32, 30-31. Published for the Workers Party of America by the Daily Worker Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill. This pamphlet was used in Communist Party classes in 1924 and 1925, and was circulated by the Literature Department of the Communist Party and sold in Party bookshops. Five thousand copies were published between January 15 and August 1, 1925.
P. 16, new edition, April, 1924. Published for the Workers Party of America by The Daily Worker Publishing Co., Chicago, III.
Ibid., p. 44.
Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (see note 6, supra), p. 15.
Ibid., p. 36.
A B C of Communism (see note 12, supra), pp. 109-10.
The Theory and Practice of Leninism, by Stalin (see note 12, supra), p. 32. To the same effect see The State and Revolution, by Lenin (note 13, supra), p. 26.
A B C of Communism (see note 11, supra), pp. 65-66.
Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (see note 6, supra), p. 82.
Ibid., p. 46.
The Theory and Practice of Leninism, by Stalin (see note 12, supra), pp. 31-32.
Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (see note 6, supra), pp. 11,44.
See note 18, supra.
Statutes, Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International (see note 6, supra), pp. 44, 45,46.
