“One said, ‘fourteen years.’

“‘How long have you been here?’ to another.

“‘I have been here so and so,’ he answered.

“‘All right, now,’ we said, ’this has been your country.  If we hadn’t gone to war, you would have expected to be here.’

“‘But we want to go home now.’

“‘If you go home will you fight for your country?’

“‘We don’t know.’

“And they absolutely refused to take out citizenship papers.  How do we know them?  As Naturalization Officer I marked on every one of those papers.  ’This man, though he has been here for four years or ten years refused naturalization in the hope that he might avoid overseas service.’  Now, then, I move that we include in that motion that the files be gone through and every man who refused citizenship, who was a native of any other country, but adopted this country and refused to take out the citizenship papers we offered him, after he had been brought into the army by the draft, also be deported.”

Before the applause began Colonel Luke Lea had the floor.  He is tall and imposing and a powerful speaker.

“I want to see this made a complete and thorough job, and to that end I desire to offer a further amendment,” he said.  “We further demand the immediate deportation of every alien enemy who, during the war, was interned, whether such alien enemy be now interned or has been paroled.  I merely want to say this:  That any alien enemy who is too dangerous to be at large and bear the burdens of war, is too dangerous to be at large and participate in the blessings of peace.”

This brought down the house.  It was what everybody thought and wanted.  It was what everybody had hoped for since the very first day during the war that the Department of Justice had made its first internments.  There have been all sorts of stories telling about these interned aliens getting rooms with baths, tennis courts, swimming pools, and playgrounds, and everyone had consistently hoped that they would all be sent back to Germany or Austria at the earliest possible moment after the war.  The same hope was expressed in regard to certain Scandinavians and Hollanders here who were active in behalf of Germany.  One thing is certain and that is that none of the delegates present were opposed to this enemy alien deportation, or if they were they didn’t or couldn’t make themselves heard above the thunderous approbation.

Chaplain Inzer at this juncture jumped to his feet and heightened the applause by shouting, “There are four million men back of this organization.  If I were a Bolshevik, I’d pack my grip and beat it.”

The culmination of this particular phase of the caucus was most dramatic.  A wounded soldier on crutches, and bearing two wound stripes on his arm, was helped to the stage beside the chairman.  “I am Private Sossin of Kentucky,” he shouted.  “I was born and reared in Poland, and came to this country and began to enjoy all the freedom of the American Constitution when I was thirty-seven years old.  I left my business and my family to fight for this country.  And if any of my native countrymen are so despicable as not to want to fight for the grandest flag the world has ever seen, the flag which gives freedom to all who are oppressed, I say, damn him and kick him out of here so that we can show that we despise such slackers.”