No. 285.
Mr. White
to Mr. Evarts.
Berlin, October 15, 1880. (Received Nov. 3.)
Sir: About an hour ago I received a telegram from one Aaron Weill, a naturalized citizen of the United States, whose case is referred to in the inclosure to my dispatch No. 146, of 1st September last, stating that he is in prison at Reichshofen, Alsace-Lorraine.
Weill was born at Reichshofen June 2, 1855, emigrated to the United States August 22, 1872, and was naturalized there in December, 1879. He returned to his native place on the 1st of January of the present year, and shortly after was officially notified that in 1877 a fine of 600 marks had been imposed upon him because he did not present himself for military service, a fine which he refused to pay. On the 15th of June he was further informed by the local authorities that he must either perform military service or leave the country within four weeks. As a United States citizen, he protested against this decision and appealed to this legation. On June 28 I applied to the foreign office, asking that he be unmolested, and that the order for the fine be withdrawn. I referred to the case again, together with a number of other Alsace-Lorraine cases, in my note to the foreign office of 28th of August last, but heard nothing in regard to it until this morning, when I received a note from the foreign office bringing Weill under its decision as regards persons returning to Alsace-Lorraine within ten years, and, as above stated, a telegram from Weill informing me that he was in prison.
Immediately upon receiving this telegram, I called upon Count Lim-burg-Stirum, acting minister of foreign affairs, and represented the case [Page 450] to him as earnestly as possible. I dwelt upon the fact that Weill had every reason to suppose his right to return to Alsace-Lorraine undoubted, and upon the feeling such an imprisonment is likely to produce in the United States, urging strongly that while the questions lying below this and the other Alsace-Lorraine cases are in abeyance, Weill be released from prison. At first the minister seemed decidedly adverse to interfering with the case, saying that a release depended upon the concurrent assent of various authorities, and that he had little power in the premises. But as I presented the above considerations more fully, he seemed to take a different view, asked me for a memorandum of the case which I had prepared, and said that he would do everything in his power to secure Weill’s release. I have just telegraphed Weill that I have made application in his behalf, and shall do everything for him in my power.
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I shall continue to give the case my closest attention.
I have, &c.,