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THE SCHWIMMER CASE: CITIZENSHIP AND THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

A Pacifist Professor

In August 1921 Prof. Rosika Schwimmer, a native of Hungary, entered the United States to take a faculty position at the University of Chicago. She remained there for five years under resident alien status and applied for American citizenship in September 1926. A committed pacifist who had opposed World War I, the fifty-one-year-old Schwimmer gave a negative answer to question twenty-two on her preliminary application form, declaring herself unwilling to bear arms during any future national emergency. Schwimmer's application was denied by the U.S. Department of State. With Morris L. Ernst as her attorney, Schwimmer filed suit against the federal government, and her case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on 12 April 1929.

The Supreme Court Ruling

One month later the court ruled against Schwimmer. Justice Pierce Butler spoke for the majority, declaring: "The influence of conscientious objectors against the use of military force in defense … of our Government is apt to be more detrimental than the mere refusal to bear arms." Although "sex, age, or other causes" would ensure that Schwimmer would never be called on to serve in the military, her situation did not minimize her "purpose or power to influence others," Butler argued, describing Schwimmer as an "uncompromising pacifist with no sense of national loyalty." In vain Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. reminded his colleagues that she was of "superior character and intelligence." Schwimmer was denied U.S. citizenship.