The Sovereign Citizen. Patrick Weil

or to subscribe to the Young Men’s Christian Association fund. At these occasions, he made statements that he would do nothing to defeat his country of origin, and that he did not wish the United States to win the war. The question for Judge Thomas G. Haight, Sr. was “whether it may be legitimately inferred as a fact, from his present state of mind, that he was of the same mind at the time he took the oath of allegiance and renunciation.” And the judge provided an answer that would become a point of reference for the attorney general:

      As the years succeeding his naturalization passed, coupled with the fact that he continued to dwell within our midst, associate with our citizens, receive the benefits . . .it is natural to presume that his affection and feeling of loyalty and allegiance to this country would increase, and that any ties which bound him to the country from which he came would correspondingly decrease. If therefore, under such circumstances, after 35 years, he now recognizes an allegiance to the sovereignty of his origin, superior to his allegiance to this country, it seems to me that it is not only permissible to infer from that fact, but that the conclusion is irresistible, that at the time he took the oath of renunciation, he did so with a mental reservation as to the country of his birth, and retained toward that country an allegiance which the laws of this country required him to renounce before he could become one of its citizens. Indeed, for the reasons just stated, his allegiance to the former must at that time has been stronger than it is at present.³⁸

      Immediately, Gregory sent a circular, with the court decision, to all U.S. attorneys, emphasizing “the doctrine enunciated by the court in the Wursterbarth case”: “This decision is of great and immediate importance because of the far reaching effect which it should have in discouraging disloyalty in the part of naturalized citizens.” Gregory added, “It is the desire of the Department that similar proceedings be commenced at once wherever the facts appear to warrant such action.”³⁹

      A year and a half later, on December 23, 1919, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the Wursterbarth doctrine. Herman Kramer, a German naturalized in 1912, was denounced by A. H. Rebentish, a Secret Service agent, for telling him that he would do all he could against the United States. A keeper of a saloon near an aviation field in San Antonio, he told Rebentish that any information he could get from soldiers at the aviation field, he would send to Germany. The court asserted that “American citizenship is a priceless possession, and one who seeks it by naturalization must do so in entire good faith, without any mental reservation whatever, and with the complete intention of yielding his absolute loyalty and allegiance to the country of his adoption. If he does not, he is guilty of fraud in obtaining his certificate of citizenship.”⁴⁰

      The Ninth Circuit Court, on May 3, 1920, refused the appeal from F. H. Schurmann to have his certificate of naturalization, which had been issued to him in Los Angeles on December 17, 1904, restored.⁴¹ Schurmann published a book in August 1916, The War as Seen in German Eyes, to convince Americans not to go to war against Germany, his country of origin. When the United States entered the war, Schurmann wanted to continue to sell his book but, cautiously, asked his U.S. attorney and the attorney general about its legality. He was denaturalized for having responded to an American who asked him whether it was possible that he would not defend the shores of the United States: “Well Allen I will tell you. I have sworn allegiance to your flag or country, but I am going to tell you this much: That I didn’t swear away my birthright. And this is the crisis where every German, whether he is a socialist or not, this is the time that it is up to him to defend the fatherland.”⁴²

      On April 2, 1921, a federal court in Washington State stripped Paul Herberger of his citizenship, which was acquired in 1912, on the grounds that he had not been loyal to his country.⁴³ He wrote numerous letters to his sister in Germany, excerpts of which served as evidence of “a legal fraud.” He wrote in one, for example, “I cannot write you anything of the war and the feeling here, because, if I did, the censor would keep the letter as a souvenir. This much I can tell you, that this famous liberty stuff here does not amount to much. Over there in Germany we had much more liberty than we have here; militarism is absolute trump here.”⁴⁴ In another letter, he wrote, “If you did not have to reckon with America’s friendship, the submarines would have long since brought England to her knees through hunger. It is hoped that someday Germany may repay America like with like.”⁴⁵ The court reasoned that “it is not necessary that a man be shown to be guilty of treason in order to conclude from his actions and speech that he is not loyal and has not been loyal.”⁴⁶ And the court concluded with a sort of sociological and psychological tone:

      Loyalty or allegiance, is necessarily, of slow growth; therefore somewhat involuntary, not fully subject to the will. Those who lightly, for temporary advantages, undertake to change their allegiance, are liable to overlook the deep seated nature of this feeling; but the fact that not until afterwards, in times of stress, is it made manifest that the desires, suffered to lie dormant, are stronger for their native than for their adopted country, although this fact may not be fully realized at the time of their realization, renders it none the less a legal fraud for the applicant to fail to disclose his true, although latent, feeling in such matter.⁴⁷