Many alien soldiers who were entitled to naturalization went overseas without having been naturalized; a large number before the permission had been made available. Many others, still in the cantonments, had not yet been reached by the process. The situation with regard to such of these as, on their discharge, took steps to get the citizenship to which they were entitled is suggested, even if not completely set forth, by the former chief examiner of one of the large districts, quoted by the Commissioner of Naturalization in his report for 1919:[147] After the armistice a different situation arose. Many thousands of soldiers have been, are being, and for some time will be discharged who did not have the opportunity to be naturalized while in the service. The work in connection with their naturalization ... devolves solely upon the force of this service; ... the army is no longer in a position to render aid.... The demands upon the field-naturalization offices are so great that both civilian and soldier naturalization have had to suffer. Because of inability to furnish a sufficient allotment for additional clerical assistants in the office of the clerk of one of the largest naturalization courts in the United States, the clerk is able to care for but a small proportion of the soldier applicants as promptly as should be, and, under his present allowance, will be able to naturalize only approximately a half dozen daily. In another office of the clerk of a large naturalization court, civilians and honorably discharged soldiers are being turned away without receiving attention; and this is equally true in the field naturalization offices. So large a number of soldier applicants are coming into the field offices that in some it has become necessary to take the names and addresses of the applicants as they call and send notices to them at a future date when they can hope to have their applications attended to. Notices have also been inserted in the newspapers notifying them of the time they may appear, in order to save the time and expense of useless trips to the offices of examiners. It has also been necessary to close the doors of naturalization offices when the number of applicants admitted to offices constituted as many as could be accommodated. This has resulted in turning away from 100 to 150 soldiers and civilians daily in several cities. Because of insufficiency of appropriation, it has become necessary in one field office to limit the taking of civilian petitions for naturalization to only two days of the week in order to take care of the applications of honorably discharged soldiers.