No. 121.
Mr. Sargent to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Berlin , March 13, 1884. (Received March 31.)
Sir: I have thought it best to call your attention to the following case where I have felt compelled to refuse to intervene with the German Government for a person who apparently considers himself entitled to my good offices, as an American citizen, though he does not bring proper proof that he is a citizen of the United States.
Mr. Friedrich Breidenstein, a native of Germany, emigrated to the United States, with his family, on the 12th August, 1854, took out his first, or intention, paper, on the 22d August, 1855, and died there the same year, before he had time to become an American citizen. His son, Henry, returned with his mother to Germany in August, 1857, remained there till the 30th of March, 1860, and then again went to America with his mother, and has apparently remained there ever since as a resident of Rockton, Wis. When he, the said Henry Breidenstein, came of age, he applied to his guardian in Germany, Johannes Wollenhaupt, for his share of his father’s estate in Germany, and was informed in reply that the German Government had retained 50 thalers of the same as a fine for his not having performed military duty.
So matters appear to have been left for ten years, until last November, when Henry Breidenstein, through his uncle, Heinrich Heinrich, asked me to do what I could for him; to which I replied, on the 3d of December, suggesting to him to obtain certificates of his own or his father’s citizenship at the time the fine was paid. In reply I received a letter from C. D. Heinrich, a cousin, the uncle having in the meantime died, inclosing a copy of the father’s intention paper, and suggesting that as the son came to the United States as a minor, he became on that [Page 193] account an American citizen at twenty-one years of age, which appears to be a not unusual impression among citizens of foreign birth. According to previous decisions in similar cases, the German Government declines to refund fines which were actually paid before the person fined became an American citizen, though judgments of fine and attachments on inheritances of absentees often expire by limitation where the persons do not return for some years nor the children ask to have their estates divided. It is not stated when the injunction was first laid on the Breidenstein estate, but if the young man had waited a few years longer than he did to claim his share of the estate, it is probable, from the analogy of other cases, that he would not have had to pay this fine at all. As it is, I am satisfied that, as his father died without becoming an American citizen, and the son does not appear to have availed himself of the benefit of section 2168 of the naturalization law previous to his coming of age and to the division of the estate, if he ever has done so, any intervention in his behalf would be quite fruitless, and have so written him.
The case is important as involving a principle adopted by the German Government and heretofore tacitly admitted by our own, and in this light I should be glad to know that my course is approved.
I have, &c.,