Furthermore, there was the fact that only American citizens are eligible for commissions as officers in the military service of the United States; but in the new army, and the augmented navy and marine corps--to say nothing of the merchant marine--a very large number of officers would be needed. This last consideration seems to have been the one which chiefly impressed the Commissioner of Naturalization; for, in his explanation of the necessity for the legislation of May 9, 1918, which let down the bars to citizenship for the benefit of aliens and declarants taken into the military service of the nation, he twice refers to it:[122] No man engaged in the actual military and naval operations of our country can attain to the rank of commissioned officer unless he be an American, either by birth in the United States or by naturalization therein, irrespective of his training or qualifications. As this restriction, made for peace times, was no less a detriment to the country in limiting its range of selection for commissions to citizens than to those who demonstrated their efficiency, legislative action was taken to remove this restriction.... ... The foreign-born residents of the United States, nondeclarants and declarants, had not claimed exemption from military service because of their alienage; but, unless he could claim full American citizenship, none of them, however valiantly he might fight, could receive a commission as an officer, which is the laudable ambition of every soldier. REVOLUTIONARY LEGISLATIVE ACTION The revolutionary character of the legislative action with which Congress undertook to meet the situation in its various aspects is apparent in the description of it given by the Commissioner of Naturalization in this same report:[123] Another authority which Congress conferred upon the Bureau in aid of the national undertaking in Europe was a new code of procedure by which recognition should be given to certain foreign residents of the country ... that eliminated the delays so necessary in the general provisions of the naturalization law. The requirement for posting petitions for naturalization for at least 90 days before the court could acquire jurisdiction of them for the purposes of admitting the applicant to citizenship was so changed as to admit of the hearing of the petition for naturalization, filed by members of certain enumerated exempted classes, without any delay, the time for hearing being dependent only upon the convenience of the court.