MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

Evening Star, Issue 23159, 7 January 1939, Page 2

MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

ALSO WITHOUT A SHIP John Dolanchuk, “the man without a country,” is also a man without a ship (says the ‘ Christian Science Monitor ’). . For the United States Line s President Roosevelt sailed for Europe without him on November 9, refusing to recognise a deportation order issued by the Department of Labour. Mr Dolanchuk rode 17,500 miles on the ship’s lines last year as an uninvited guest. Its officials refused to accept him for deportation, on the grounds that it was physically impossible to land him in another country. Mr Dolanchuk was born in Austrian territory later ceded to Rumania. Immigration officials said he had entered both Canada and the United States illegally, gone to Spain as a volunteer with the Government forces, and later stowed away again for the United States. Courts have tried vainly to straighten out the tangle of his national status. England, France, Germany, Rumania —among other countries—have refused him entry. As immigration authorities puzzled over his case Mr Dolanchuk relaxed philnsopliically at his latest “ home ” —Ellis Island. The refusal to carry him left the ship line subject to a possible l.OOOdol fine, but officials apparently preferred to risk that rather than shuttle Mr Dolanchuk across the ocean.