The order and decree of naturalization of the Superior Court [of Cook County, Illinois] is reversed and the application of appellee for citizenship denied, without prejudice to his right to file another application _when time has removed the disqualification_. THE FINAL CEREMONY--OATH OF ALLEGIANCE The law requires that the Oath of Allegiance shall be taken in open court as the final act of the petitioner before being formally admitted to citizenship; thereupon the decree is entered and certificate issued; but the Naturalization Service is forbidden by its regulations to issue the certificate until the judge’s signature is upon the order. Sometimes the clerk rattles off or mumbles the oath very indistinctly, and the petitioners, often a large number of them, hardly understand a word of the solemn ritual. It is becoming more common for the judge to require everyone in court to stand while he delivers the text of the oath loudly and clearly. In some courts where there are many applicants, and all concerned are pressed for time, the persons to be naturalized are kept in one part of the room until the docket is cleared, whereupon the oath is administered to them in groups of nationality; each nationality group standing with upraised right hands while the clerk or judge reads the words, and names the particular “prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty,” allegiance to whom, or to which, is to be abjured. Sometimes this ceremony is a very hurried, perfunctory, and undignified performance; sometimes a very solemn and impressive one. During the high-pressure process of naturalizing great numbers of soldiers in the army encampments during the war, it was sometimes the custom to have all nationalities stand at once, the clerk naming all the sovereignties concerned in one series, with the presumption that each individual would mentally isolate the one which he was supposed to have in mind. There were occasions when this helter-skelter method was pursued for the benefit of as many as 1,200 petitioners together. CEREMONIES OF INITIATION