Rutledge states his case; expects eventual citizenship

Arthur A. Rutledge has stated that "I am confident there is no serious thought of deporting me, and I am further confident that I shall eventually be granted citizenship."

In a statement prepared for the first issue of the Hawaii Labor News, official publication of the three unions he represents, Rutledge tells "his side" of the controversy over his application for United States citizenship.

The Honolulu labor leader will appear Tuesday before U.S. Immigration Department hearing to show cause why he should not be deported.

… Rutledge, who came to the United States when he was six years old, says he considered himself a citizen for many years.

"I was long ago led to believe my father had become naturalized, thus making me a citizen," he says. "I realize now that I should have cleared up this matter long ago. But I was on my own from a very early age. The going was rough. I guess I was sort of a dead-end kid."

Commenting on an immigration examiner’s report that he entered the United States illegally in 1934, Rutledge says:

"All I did then was to come to Hawaii from Seattle by way of Vancouver in order to get a ship which came that way. … To all practical and reasonable intents and purposes, I have always lived in the United States since the age of six."

Regarding the possibility that he could be deported to his native Poland, Rutledge says "as a good American I would find life behind the Iron Curtain intolerable, even if I could get there."

… Besides the question of his illegal entry, the examiner’s report said Rutledge should not be granted citizenship because he is of poor moral character.

In answer to this, the union leader says, "I am sorry for my mistakes, but I indignantly deny and reject the examiner’s insinuations that I am a criminal. I do not deny that I have had brushes with the police, but I have never been convicted of anything more serious than two liquor offenses back in Prohibition days when I was in my early twenties."

He charges that the examiner "went pretty far" in listing arrests where there were no convictions. "He should know that in this country a man is innocent until he is proven guilty." …