The proceeding might be held in the most convenient court. Persons, other than enemy aliens, who had erroneously believed themselves to be citizens, who had lived in the United States for at least five years preceding July 1, 1914, could be naturalized without declaration of intention. And the payment of any fees was excused in applicants in the military service, except in those states where the clerk of court is required to turn into the state treasury his half of the receipts; in those states only that half needed to be paid. ALL RACE RESTRICTIONS REMOVED Furthermore, the effect of the law was such as to remove the racial restrictions, so far as soldiers were concerned. A number of Japanese and Chinese aliens were admitted to citizenship under the military naturalization law. A dispatch to the Associated Press from Honolulu, dated February 14, 1919, cited Judge Horace Vaughan, of the United States District Court for Hawaii, as having “already granted naturalization to 184 Japanese who entered the service,” and as holding that they were entitled to citizenship under the law. Indeed, the law does say, repeatedly, “_any_ alien.” It was provided, too, that any American citizen, native or foreign-born, who, as would have been the case under previously existing law, had lost or might be deemed to have lost his citizenship by enlistment and oath of allegiance to another sovereignty in the military service of “any country at war with a country with which the United States is now at war” might fully and forthwith restore his American citizenship simply by taking before any United States consul, or any court having authority to confer citizenship, the oath of allegiance to the United States. In a word, the Act of May 9, 1918, overturned everything the Bureau of Naturalization and the courts had been contending for and making into law at great expense of time, money, and devoted labor. The bars were not simply let down; they were obliterated. ORDINARY NATURALIZATION DISRUPTED “The soldier naturalization work completely disrupted,” says Commissioner Campbell, “the other naturalization work that arose in the courts under the general provisions of the naturalization law, almost the entire force of naturalization examiners being necessary for the task,” ... “even though their removal from their stations resulted in embarrassment to courts, court officials, and thousands of candidates for naturalization under the general provisions of the law.”