PRESIDENT VETOES ANTI-COMMUNIST CITIZENSHIP BILL

Wanganui Chronicle, 11 September 1950, Page 5

PRESIDENT VETOES ANTI-COMMUNIST CITIZENSHIP BILL

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (Reed. 7 pm).—President Truman today vetoed a Bill which would have imposed drastic anti-Communist requirements for obtaining and keeping American citizenship. The vetoed measure would have revoked the citizenship ot any persons who, within five years after becoming a naturalised citizen, joined any organisation listed by the Attor-r.ev-General as subversive. The President declared the Bill's language on this point was vague, illdefined and the result might be to jeopardise the basic rights of naturalised citizens. He said. ‘lt would be impossible to administer this Act without creating a twilight species of sec-ond-class citizens —persons who could be deprived of citizenship on technical grounds through their ignorance or lack of judgment.”

The Bill also would have barred citizenship to any alien who was a member of a subversive organisation within a period of 10 years before applying for citizenship. The vetoed measure also contained provision that citizenshin should not be denied or abridged because of race. Its immediate effect would be to authorise citizenship for 88.000 Japanese and Koreans who have been living in the United States and Hawaii since 1924 The President said he annroved this provision and would ask Congress to re-enact it in a Bill free of the other provisions at which his veto was aimed.