Office of the Historian

No. 288.
Mr. Hay to Mr. White.

Department of State,
Washington, October 26, 1880.
No. 147.]

Sir: Referring to your dispatch No. 94, of the 4th of March last, in relation to spurious American diplomas, and inclosing a diploma of one P. C. E. Volland, in order that its legal value might be ascertained with [Page 459] a view to the indictment of the man in question for wrongfully using the title of “doctor,” I now have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 149 of the 9th ultimo, communicating a copy of a letter of the 27th of August last, from the royal amts-attorney at Prenzlau, to your legation, inquiring whether you had been informed as to the action of this government in reference to the Volland diploma.

In reply I have to inform you that upon the receipt of your dispatch of the 9th ultimo this Department addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Interior for the purpose of ascertaining what progress had been made in the proceedings instituted, at the instance of the Commissioner of Education, for the punishment of the persons concerned in the sale of spurious diplomas at Philadelphia. At the same time the attention of the Secretary of the Interior was recalled to the desire of the German authorities to have the Volland diploma returned to them as soon as practicable.

I inclose herewith a copy of a letter from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 14th instant, from which it appears that the criminal proceedings which have been instituted against certain persons in the State of Pennsylvania, implicated in the sale of diplomas, are still pending, and that the document in question is in the possession of the attorney-general of that State, who desires to retain it for the present, as an important aid in the prosecution of the criminals, provided the German authorities can spare it still longer for that purpose.

I will, therefore, thank you to communicate the foregoing facts to the foreign office, and to ask at the same time that, if practicable, the attorney-general of Pennsylvania may be permitted to retain the Volland diploma until the criminal proceedings now pending shall be concluded.

I am, &c.,

JOHN HAY,
Acting Secretary.