Citizenship, Gender, and Conscience: United States v. Schwimmer MEGAN THRELKELD In the spring of 1929, fifty-one-year-old Rosika Schwimmer had every reason to feel confident that she would soon be a United States citizen. She had filed a petition for naturalization four-and-a-halfyears earlier in Chicago, Illinois. A District Court judge denied that petition in late 1927, but the following spring his decision was reversed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. When the United States appealed to the Supreme Court, Schwimmer’s supporters—among whom she counted Jane Addams, Roger Baldwin, Carrie Chapman Catt, and other prominent Americans—mobilized on her behalf, raising money, writing letters, and making public statements. By April 1929, when the Court heard arguments in the case, Schwimmer and her lawyers believed she would win. Even the U.S. Solicitor General thought his own chances of victory slim. But on May 27, in a 6-3 decision, the Court denied Schwimmer’s petition on the grounds that she was not sufficiently “attached to the principles of the Constitution,” as required by naturalization law. Their evidence? When asked if she would be willing to bear arms in defense of the nation, Schwimmer said “no.” Bom in Hungary in 1877, Schwimmer had spent considerable time in the United States, giving lectures and attending confer ences on pacifism and women’s rights. She settled permanently in Chicago in 1921 after being exiled from Hungary for her political beliefs. Her pacifism was evident on her original petition: 22. If necessary, are you willing to take up arms in defense of this country? A. I would not take up arms personally.1 No women were allowed to serve in the U.S. military in the 1920s, let alone those over fifty. Schwimmer argued her pacifism UNITED STATES 1/. SCHWIMMER 155 did not preclude her ability to take the oath of allegiance because no woman was asked to bear arms in defense of the nation. Why then was this woman rejected for her unwilling ness to perform an action she would not have been allowed to perform even if she were willing? The explanation lies in the shifting terrain ofcitizenship, gender, and nationalism in the 1920s. The Petition The 1920s was a profoundly contentious decade. Religious and political conservatives felt threatened by the emergence of modem, secular, commercial culture. Women voted, attended college, worked outside the home, and occasionally pushed the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior, but gender norms and expectations were still fully entrenched. After decades of watching mil lions of immigrants land on its shores, the United States closed the door on immigration between 1921 and 1924, following a groundswell of nativism and calls for “100% Americanism.” Even as new ideas and new forms of cultural expression circulated widely in magazines, movie theaters, and advertisements, the government frequently clamped down on radicalism and dissent. The decade ofthe Jazz Age, the New Woman, and the Harlem Renaissance was also the decade ofthe first Red Scare, the Scopes trial, and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Schwimmer was already a rather notori ous figure by the mid-1920s. After several decades of activism in her own country, she came to the United States for the first time in August 1914, where alongside U.S. col leagues she attempted to persuade Woodrow Wilson to intervene and mediate the Europe an conflict. That attempt was unsuccessful, but over the next several months she toured the country, speaking to large crowds about the horrors of war and helping to organize peace associations. In late 1915, she persuaded Henry Ford to send an envoy of pacifists and social reformers to Europe to convene a conference on mediation. The “Peace Ship” was ridiculed in the press and failed to have any measurable impact on European leaders, and it was at that point that Schwimmer began to develop a reputation in the United States as a troublesome meddler, a swindler, and even a German spy. Her continued efforts on behalf of peace over the next few years only furthered suspicions of her, especially after the United States joined the war in 1917 and the country entered a frightening period of hyper-patriotism , condemning...