During the war it was even the subject of resentment, on the part of the wives of alien enemies, that they were thus forced into American citizenship regardless of their wishes or sympathies. In many instances of the so-called “military naturalization,” elsewhere described,[152] in which the husband had been taken regardless of his personal sympathies, and had become, while in uniform, a citizen under the provisions of the law which waived all questions of length of residence, and to a great extent the other qualifications which would have been insisted upon in ordinary times, the wife was a rampant enemy, aggravated by the conscription of her man--and often also of her grown sons--yet she became automatically a citizen of the United States, regardless of length of residence, without being required even to go through the empty form of an oath of allegiance. Forthwith she was absolved from the necessity of registering as an alien enemy; forthwith she became for all purposes as much an American citizen and as much a voter potentially as any Daughter of the American Revolution! SOME COURTS NOTICE THE WIVES Some of the courts--the number of such is steadily increasing--have taken judicial notice of this extraordinary situation, and scrutinize with substantial care the qualifications of the wife. Many of them refuse to naturalize a man whose wife still resides in the old country. In his report to the Commissioner of Naturalization for the fiscal year 1918-19 Mr. Crist, as Director of Citizenship, dwells upon this matter, quoting especially an order issued May 27, 1919, by Judge Gustav Anderson in the Circuit Court for Baker County, Oregon, which goes about as far as the court can go under existing law. The text of the order, so far as this aspect of the question goes, is as follows: It appearing to the court that ... when married men become citizens their wives become so also by virtue of the marriage relation, and that it is therefore important that when a married man becomes a citizen his wife should also be qualified for the like duties of citizenship: it is therefore _Ordered_ that ... such applicant who is a married man is hereby directed to inform his wife of the foregoing provisions and to qualify with him for such citizenship, and that, unless for sufficient cause shown to the court it is otherwise ordered, the wife of each married man shall attend court with her husband at the time of the final hearing upon his petition for admission to citizenship of the United States. Judge George G. Bingham, in the Circuit Court for Marion County, Oregon, previously, in September, 1918, had issued a similar order, in which he directed that if the petitioner be married he should be accompanied by his wife not only in applying to the school authorities for assistance in preparation, but also in his attendance upon the court. Similar action in other courts is referred to by Mr. Crist in the same report: