No. 153.
Mr. Pendleton to Mr. Bayard.
Legation of
the United States,
Berlin
,
February 1, 1886.
(Received February 15.)
No. 188.]
Sir: Referring to your instruction No. 19, of July
7, 1885, in relation to the case of Charles L. George, I have the honor to
inclose herewith the correspondence with the imperial foreign office which
ensued upon its receipt.
My note, dated August 13, 1885, followed closely the statement of facts and
the line of arguments recommended by the Department. * * *
My reply to the foreign-office note (foreign office, 166, of this date)
maintains the citizenship of Charles L. George in an argument which I hope
will meet your approval. If you will suggest any considerations, in support
of my position they will form the subject of another note to the foreign
office.
It will be observed, as was anticipated by you, that the German Government
adheres to the position that the treaty regulating nationality, of February
22, 1868, has no application to Alsace-Lorraine.
* * * * * * *
Whatever doubt might possibly arise as to the nationality of Charles acquired
as a minor through the naturalization of the father—and I do not see
any—there can be none, it seems to me, as to the validity in the United
States of his own naturalization in 1874, for he complied strictly with the
laws of the United States.
What effect, if any, the French law of 1851, as quoted in the note of the
foreign office, or the Bundes-gesetz of June 1, 1870, also alluded to, may
have, I submit to your better judgment. You will notice how I have answered
the suggestion of their effect on this specific case.
Article I of the Bancroft treaty of 1868 provides that—
Citizens of the North German Confederation who have become, or shall
become, naturalized citizens of the United States of America, and shall have resided uninterruptedly within the
United States five years [the italics are mine], shall be
held by the North German Confederation to be American citizens, and
shall be treated as such.
Mr. Bancroft, in a dispatch commenting on and explaining at length the
provisions of the treaty, says that naturalization and residence for five
years in the United States are both essential to the recognition by the
North German Confederation of these naturalized persons as American
citizens; that if the Government of the United States shall choose to confer
citizenship after a shorter residence, for any reason whatever—service in
the Army, or any other—such citizenship will not be recognized [Page 318] by the North German Confederation
until or unless the residence of five years shall be completed. He says also
that he had very great difficulty in inducing the North German Confederation
to consent that the term should be five years instead of ten years, as
prescribed by the law of June 1, 1870, above cited.
In default of a treaty, would the absence of ten years, prescribed by the law
of 1870, be essential to the loss of German nationality and the recognition
of American citizenship? Or would the latter be held subordinate to the
claims of allegiance on the part of Germany? Or would a claim of double
allegiance exist, to be exerted as opportunity to enforce it might happen to
be at hand, as is very strongly hinted in the note of the foreign office of
January 15, 1886, in the case of Henry Rabién, inclosed with my dispatch No.
182, of January 28, 1886?
The law of June 1, 1870, is in these words:
[Translation.]
Law of June 1, 1870, concerning the loss and acquisition of nationality in the North
German Confederation and in the various states thereof.
* * * * * * *
-
Section 13. State nationality can be
lost henceforth in the following ways only:
- (1)
- By discharge upon application therefor (sections 14
and following).
- (2)
- By decree of the public authority (sections 20 and
22).
- (3)
- By a residence of ten years abroad (section
21).
- (4)
- In the case of illegitimate children, the father
having another allegiance than that of the mother, by
legitimation effected pursuant to the provisions of
law.
- (5)
- In the case of a North German by marriage with a
person having allegiance in another state of the
Confederation, or with a foreigner.
-
Sec. 21. North Germans who leave the
territory of the Confederation and sojourn during a period of
ten years uninterruptedly abroad lose thereby their state
nationality. The above-designated period is reckoned from the
time of the departure from the territory of the Confederation;
or, if the person leaving is in possession of a passport or home
certificate, from the time of the expiration or this paper. It
is interrupted by an entry on the files of a consulate of the
Confederation. Its course recommences with the day following the
cancellation of the entry on those files.
- * * * * * * *
- For North Germans who sojourn in a foreign state for at least
five years uninterruptedly and at the same time acquire
nationality there, the period of ten years may by treaty be
reduced to one of five, whether or not the persons concerned are
in possession of a passport or home certificate.
This law, originally applicable to the North German Confederation only, was,
by law January 8, 1873, made applicable to Alsace-Lorraine.
I have purposely refrained from any discussion of the question of the
applicability of the treaty of 1868 to Alsace-Lorraine and of any other
question suggested by the foreign-office note, except so far as was
necessary to my reply. I preferred to be advised by the Department before
entering upon those questions.
It will also be observed that there is an absolute denial of any ill-usage of
George, by way of bad or insufficient food, hard work, or imperiled health
during the time of his confinement. On this point I have no other evidence
than the affidavit of George, against which is put the statement of the
foreign office, backed by the prison officials. Before entering on this
branch of the case again I preferred to have any additional evidence and
such instructions as the Department may send to me.
I have, &c.,
[Page 319]
[Inclosure 1 in No. 188.]
Mr. Pendleton to
Count Hatzfeldt.
Legation of the United States,
Berlin
,
August 13,
1885.
The undersigned envoy, &c, of the United States of America has the
honor to invite the attention of his excellency, Count Hatzfeldt,
imperial secretary of state for foreign affairs, to the case of Charles
L. George, a citizen of the United States, lately imprisoned by the
Imperial Government.
Peter George, the father of Charles L. George, above named, was a native
of Germany, emigrated to the United States, was naturalized in the month
of October, 1848, returned to Germany in the year 1851, and afterwards
married there. The son Charles was born in Lambertsloch on the 9th of
January, 1859. In May, 1875, when Charles was somewhat more than sixteen
years of age, the father and son both went to the United States and have
resided in Philadelphia ever since. By virtue of his father’s
citizenship, Charles, as a minor, enjoyed all the rights of a citizen,
and when he became of suitable age exercised the right of voting.
In anticipation of a visit to Germany, however, and perhaps by way of
greater precaution, he obtained his own citizen’s paper on the 10th of
May, 1884, and returned to his birthplace, arriving there on the 2d of
June following.
On the 12th of July of the same year he was arrested by a gendarme named
Kick at the town of Sulz, on the Wald. Inquiring the cause of his arrest
he was informed that it was on a judicial prosecution for avoidance of
military duty to the German Government. George explained that he was a
citizen of the United States, that his citizen’s paper was at
Lambertsloch, and requested the gendarme to take him to that place to
get his paper or to send there for it. The gendarme refused to do so,
saying he did not wish to see his paper, and took him to Strasbourg, 30
miles distant, where he was thrown into prison among criminals, fed on
very poor unwholesome food, and put to hard work.
At his first interview the prison inspector informed George that his
paper had been sent for, and on its arrival he would be released. The
same inspector afterwards told him that the paper had arrived the third
day after the arrest and had been sent to the stadtholder General
Manteuffel.
When he had been imprisoned twenty days, his friends petitioned for his
release, but were told he must remain in prison forty days, which he
did, and was then released. In the meantime he was fed on very poor,
unhealthy, insufficient diet, and was compelled to work at very severe
labor for many hours each day, the work hours being from 5 a.m. to 7
p.m. He was ill from this hard usage when released, and continued to
suffer from ill health for some time.
When arrested he had 63 marks on his person, which were taken from him,
and when released 40 marks and 71 pfennige were retained, as the
authorities said, to pay for his board whilst in prison and his railroad
transportation, although he had been forced to hard labor to pay for his
meager food during all that time.
Charles L. George left Germany in 1875 in company with his father, who
was a citizen of the United States and domiciled therein, although
temporarily sojourning in Germany at the time of the son’s birth. The
rights of citizenship descended on his minor son. Neither was subject to
military duty in Germany.
The fact that George left Germany when he was scarcely more than sixteen
years old, four years before the military age, taken in the foregoing
connection, leaves not the faintest ground for suspicion that avoidance
of military obligation was in any degree a motive for his emigration.
There is no reason to believe, nor was it charged, that he entertained
any purpose or desire to remain in Alsace-Lorraine.
The undersigned begs to bring the foregoing case to the attention of his
excellency Count Hatzfeldt, and to request a careful examination into
these alleged facts, in the full conviction that if they shall be found
to be substantially as the undersigned has presented them, such
explanations will be made as will indemnify the injured party, and will
promote still further the cordial relations which now so happily exist
between the Government of Germany and the United States.
The undersigned has the honor to inclose herewith the citizens papers of
Peter George and of Charles L. George, with the respectful request for
their eventual return, and avails himself of the occasion to renew,
&c.,
[Page 320]
[Inclosure 2 in No.
188.—Translation.]
Count Bismarck to
Mr. Pendleton.
Foreign
Office, Berlin
,
January 22,
1886.
The undersigned has the honor to communicate the following to the envoy
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of
America, Mr. George H. Pendleton, in reference to his note of the 13th.
August of the last year, (foreign office No. 92), concerning the
American citizen Charles L. George, with a return of the inclosures.
On the 12th of July, 1884, Charles Ludwig Georg (George), horn on the 7th
of January, 1859, in Lambertsloch (Lower Alsace), who had been condemned
for avoidance of military duty by the judgment of the landgerieht at
Strasbourg in Alsace, on the 18th April, 1883, to a fine of 600 marks,
and in case of nonpayment to imprisonment for forty days, was arrested
by the gendarmerie by virtue of a warrant issued against him in his
home, and brought to the jail in Strasbourg for the purpose of
undergoing his sentence of contingent imprisonment.
From an examination of the case, which was primarily instituted by reason
of the petition for mercy by the condemned man, it appeared that George,
in the year 1875, emigrated with his parents to America without having
sought his discharge from his allegiance to the province of
Alsace-Lorraine. A citizen paper, it is true, shows that in May, 1884,
he had acquired citizenship in the United Stales of America. This fact,
however, seems to be without importance in reference to his condition as
Alsace-Lorrainer and in reference to the question of granting him mercy,
inasmuch as the provisions of the treaties regulating nationality of the
year 1868, between the North German Confederation or the South German
states and the United States of America, have no application in
Alsace-Lorraine.
A proof that George, the father, had already acquired American
citizenship, was not then presented. As, consequently George, the son,
appeared to be undoubtedly an Alsace-Lorrainer, the adjudged contingent
imprisonment sentence was executed on him. In the prison he received as
other prisoners did, the victuals prescribed in the food regulations for
healthy prisoners. He was not under medical treatment. He was employed
in handiwork on brush fiber. For these helpers to the workmen no fixed
daily task is prescribed. The working hours are fixed by the rules of
the house. Beyond these George was not worked. At the time of his
reception in prison he gave up 63.79 marks. From this amount, according
to existing regulations, were deducted the cost of the execution of the
sentence for forty days, at 0.80 marks each = 32 marks; and the expense
of transportation 12.94 marks; the remainder, 18.85 marks, with 3.44
wages, together 22.29 marks, were paid to him on his discharge. The
charge that he was badly treated in prison, poorly, unhealthily, and
insufficiently fed, pressed beyond his strength, and became ill, has
proved to be unfounded.
From the investigations, made by reason of the note of the minister
concerning the question of citizenship, it appears that George, the
father, who was born on the 21st of September, 1821, at Reichshofen, in
Alsace, had been in fact once at an earlier date in America. When he
betook himself there could no longer be ascertained; nevertheless it is
certain that he, in the beginning of the sixth decade, returned to
Alsace and settled in Lambertsloch without then or afterwards letting it
leak out that he had become an American citizen. In consequence thereof,
always and on all sides, after his return he was considered as a French
subject, and after the Frankfort treaty of peace as a German subject,
and without question admitted to the enjoyment of the rights of a
subject, in particular from 1857 to 1874, his name stood on all the
lists of electors, and he took part in the communal benefits, for
example in the drawings of free fire-wood. Besides, when in the year
1875 he went to America for the second time, he gave himself out as an
American so little that he procured a pass effective for two years, from
a German authority, the direction of the circuit of Weissenburg. If, as
according to the paper of the 16th October, 1848, now presented,
certainly appears to be the case, he had then acquired American
citizenship, and consequently, pursuant to article 17 of the French
civil code, had lost his French allegiance, it is to be attributed only
to his own behavior that this fact remained unknown in his home, and
that he and his son were treated in consequence as Alsace-Lorrainers;
that is to say, as Germans, no blame could be attached to the German
authorities on this account, even if their conduct should appear to be
“objectively” wrong. But this is not the case.
Article 1 of the French law of February 7, 1851, provides as follows:
“Every person born in France of a foreigner who was himself born there,
is a Frenchman, unless within the year which follows the time of his
majority, as fixed by the law of France, he claims the quality of
foreigner by a declaration made either before the municipal authority of
the place of his residence, or before the agents, diplomatic or
consular, accredited to France by the foreign Government.”
[Page 321]
If it should now he admitted, as proven, that George, the father, was an
American citizen at the time of the birth of his son, the general
conditions set forth in the beginning of this provision for the
acquisition of French citizenship by the son are given, a “declaration”
of the character described in the further course of the article, George,
the son, has never made; but even if it had been made, no rightful
importance could attach to it, in view of the North German Confederation
law of June 1, 1870, introduced since then into Alsace-Lorraine
concerning the acquisition and loss of North German Confederation
allegiance (Bundesgesetz Blatt, 1870, sec. 355). George, the son, has
therefore validly acquired German allegiance.
The asserted complaint cannot be recognized as well founded.
The undersigned avails, &c.,
[Inclosure 3 in No. 188.]
Mr. Pendleton to
Count Bismarck.
Legation of the United States,
Berlin
,
February 1,
1886.
The undersigned, envoy, &c., of the United States of America, has the
honor to acknowledge the receipt of the esteemed note of Count
Bismarck-Schönhausen, under secretary of state in charge of the imperial
foreign office, of the 22d of January of this year, in relation to case
of Charles Ludwig George.
The undersigned allows himself to remark that it appears to him that some
misapprehension in regard to the status of George, the son, may have
been caused by an inadvertent statement in regard to the nativity of
George, the father, in his communication. (Foreign office, 92, of the
13th August, 1885.)
In order to remove any such possible misapprehension, the undersigned
begs permission to restate the facts as they appear, uncontroverted in
the two notes above referred to. The facts, as they appear to be
abundantly proven, are, that George, the father, was born on the 21st
day of September, 1821, at Reichshofen-Alsace then and until the
conclusion of the peace between France and the German Empire at
Frankfort in May, 1871, a province of France, and entirely under the
French jurisdiction and Government; that in the year 1840 he emigrated
to the United States, and on the 16th of October, 1848, acquired
citizenship there, and after a residence there of eleven years, returned
in the year 1851 to Alsace, still a province and part of France, where
he remained until the month of May in the year 1876.
George, the eon, was born on the 9th January, 1859, in Alsace, still a
province of France, and remained there until May, 1875; when, in company
with his parents, he left Alsace, then lately, in May, 1871, became a
German possession, and took up, under the charge of his father, his
residence in the United States, and has remained and had his domicile
there ever since. In the year 1884, from abundant caution, as he
contemplated a journey to Europe, he took out from the proper authority
his naturalization papers, although he had previously exercised all the
rights and performed all the duties of an American citizen, in virtue of
the naturalization of his father, and his own arrival and residence in
the United States during his minority; and then on the 2d day of June,
1884, after nine years’ residence in the United States, returned to his
birth-place on a temporary visit.
George, the father, never was a German subject. At the time of his
emigration, and until the time of his naturalization he was a subject of
France. His naturalization in the United States was valid according to
the law of the United States, and was recognized as valid by the laws
and practice of France, and thereby, that is, by the laws and practice
by both France and the United States, he at the same time and by the
same act became an American citizen and was absolved entirely from his
allegiance to France.
George, the son, never was a German subject. He was born in Alsace, a
province of France. He was the son of a native Frenchman, but a
naturalized American citizen temporarily in France. By the laws of the
United States this son was an American citizen, and by the law of France
he had in any event the inchoate right to become such on the performance
of acts within a year of his majority, which acts on his part the change
of jurisdiction over Alsace alone made impossible.
Residing on territory, French at the commencement of their residence, but
during their residence acquired by conquest and treaty by the German
Empire, neither he nor his father took any steps to become German
subjects, but went to the father’s home in the United States in May,
1875. The French law of February 7, 1851, quoted in the esteemed note,
cannot apply to the son because it had been superseded by the newly
established authority and laws of the German Empire over Alsace, the
country of his birth and temporary sojourn.
The law of the North German Confederation afterwards extended to the
Empire, also therein mentioned, cannot apply, because that law relates
only to the acquisition [Page 322] and
loss of German nationality, and, as above stated, neither George, the
father, nor George, the son, ever had that German allegiance to lose. It
may be that George, the father, demeaned himself in Alsace, either
during its continuance as part of France, or after it became a
possession of the German Empire, in a manner not to be commended, by
keeping silent as to his American citizenship, or by taking free
fire-wood, or even by not having his name stricken from the electoral
lists, but such ill behavior, if it really occurred, did not reinstate
him as a French subject by French law, nor acquire for him German
nationality by German law. He continued, none the less on this account,
to be an American citizen, and transmitted citizenship to his son.
The son could not comply with the French law of 1851, because of the
above-named change of jurisdiction in Alsace, and because of the change
of his residence from Alsace to the United States, so that it became
impossible to make the declaration either before the French authorities
or the United States officers, diplomatic or consular accredited to
France, although he did in fact make the declaration in the most
effective, practical manner by leaving the country and actually
performing the duties of a citizen of the United States, and obtaining a
decree of naturalization.
He could not comply with the law of Germany of 1870, because he had no
German allegiance to lose, though he did, in fact, absent himself from
Germany for nine years.
It is therefore respectfully submitted that George, the son, was not a
German subject, obliged to perform military duty, and therefore was
improperly fined for avoidance of military duty to the Empire; and that
he was an American citizen, and therefore entitled to the intervention
of the United States.
The undersigned has intentionally waived, for the purpose of the present
note, all discussion as to the applicability of the treaty regulating
nationality of 1868 between the North German Confederation and the
United States, reserving to another occasion that discussion, if it
shall seem desirable.
I am, &c.,
