No. 150.
Mr. Pendleton to Mr. Bayard
Legation of
the United States,
Berlin, November 16, 1885.
(Received November 30.)
No. 114.]
Sir: I inclose herewith an article, with
translation, from the Staatsburger Zeitung, of this city, of the 15th
instant.
It has no special significance except as showing the views taken by very many
Germans of the power of expulsion, and its reasonable exercise in the given
cases.
It is hardly necessary to say that the correspondent speaks for himself
alone, and that I am responsible for nothing except the statement of the
number of cases in the neighborhood of Föhr, in which my intervention was at
that time sought.
Inclosed herewith I also transmit an article, with translation, from the
Berlin Preussische Zeitung of the 13th instant.
I am, &c.,
[Inclosure 1 in No.
114.—Translation.]
Extract from the Staatsburger Zeitung of Sunday,
November 15.
In relation to the expulsion of German-American citizens, the Berlin
correspondent of the Breslau Morning Zeitung, who has spent some years
in the United States, writes the following:
According to information from the island Föhr, fifteen German-Americans
have suddenly received the order to leave. This news was all the more
calculated to excite great uneasiness among the ten thousand
German-Americans who again live in Germany, because they see the
numerous expulsions of the subjects of other nationalities. In order to
come to the truth of the matter I visited the American minister, Mr.
Pendleton, and asked for information. Whilst the minister declared that
he did not know the number of notices of expulsion, he said also that
his intervention had been sought in four cases only; that is, in other
words, that notices have in fact been given in four cases only, for
never has a notice of expulsion been given to an American without his
claiming the intervention of the minister, and that coincides with my
information from other sources. With this statement vanishes also the
exaggeration of the report, for these four cases are announced not from
Föhr alone, but from the neighborhood of Föhr. From the islands and the
coasts young men can easily emigrate to America. It is very possible
that these four men have returned at the same time and attract some
attention. In any case these events in the north of Germany have been
repeated nowhere else. And it can be said in the most certain manner
that here is no question of a new system; but that a fact which has
happened occasionally for years has attracted special attention because
of the time at which it happened, and has been immoderately exaggerated.
The new American minister, even [Page 311] in the short time he has been in Berlin, has experienced, as his
predecessors, Bancroft, Kasson, Taylor, Sargent, &c., were
accustomed to say, that the German Government shows no disposition to he
especially hard on German-Americans. Questions usually arise in relation
to those who have not performed their military duty. Political suspects
must expect to be treated more sharply.
Young German-Americans are usually given the choice, either to return to
America or to perform the duties here of a German subject, if they draw
special attention to themselves. The so-called Bancroft treaty, which
regulates this subject, provides that the German who has become an
American citizen and then returns to Germany, shall be considered an
American citizen for two years, but afterwards shall be held to be a
German subject again. This provision, clear as it seems to be, is
subject to question, and has given rise to differences of opinion as to
its meaning. Whilst Germany claims that the native German who acquires
American naturalization becomes again a German after two years, America
asserts that even after the lapse of two years there is needed some
especial indication of his surrender of his American citizenship, and
out of this spring up many differences. But they have always been in
some way reconciled. That a young German, who shortly before he is
required to enter the army, leaves Germany, and returns immediately
after the lapse of five years, which are necessary for American
naturalization, to snap his fingers in the face of the Government,
should be held either to perform his military duty here or to return to
America, even the American papers find entirely right. They are not mild
in their judgment over those who wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship
in two nations and to perform the duties of citizenship in neither. They
have no sympathy with those of whom they with right declare that they
would be just as ready to claim German protection if it would avail to
screen them from the perfarmance of a duty to the United States. The
four cases on the island Föhr are not distinguishable from those
described above. Up to this time nothing has been determined as to
them.
[Inclosure 2 in No.
114.—Translation.]
Extract from the Berlin Preussische Zeitung of
November 13, 1885.
[November 13,
1885]
the settlement of foreigners.
In North Schleswig, an old ordinance against the settlement of foreigners
has been again enforced. The landrath of the district Hardesleben has
given notice that the decree of the 5th November, 1841, is still in
force, according to which no foreigner can settle in any circuit of the
district without official sanction, or even take up a temporary
residence in any circuit without permission.
