No. 436.
Mr. Pendleton to Mr. Bayard.

No. 555.]

Sir: I have the honor to inclose for your information copies of a correspondence relating to Mr. Manny Ehrenbacher’s application for a passport, which recently took place between this legation and our consul at Nuremberg.

You will perceive that I offered to issue the desired passport upon [Page 590] the condition that Ehrenbacher should at once return to the United States to perform the duties of citizenship there, and that he withdrew his application, expressing the intention of going shortly to America and applying for a passport there.

You will observe from the inclosures that Mr. Bancroft Davis declined to issue a passport to the father, and that the son has been ever since that time in Germany under his control.

Hoping you will approve my course in this case,

I have, etc.,

Geo. H. Pendleton.
[Inclosure 1 in No. 555.]

Mr. Black to Mr. Pendleton.

Sir: Inclosed please find passport application of Manny Ehrenbacher, together with his birth certificate and the citizen paper of his father. You will notice that the name in the birth certificate is spelled “Mannie,” but he spells it in the application “Manny;” he explains that difference by saying that the former was the way it was spelled by his family at the time of his birth, but he has himself changed it to the present spelling. Jacob Ehrenbacher, the father of Manny Ehrenbacher, applied through this office in March, 1875, to the legation at Berlin, for a passport, but the then minister, the Hon. J. C. Bancroft Davis, in a letter dated April 2, 1875, refused it upon the grounds that Ehrenbacher had lived here since July, 1869, with his family, and he was engaged in business, and there was no apparent intention of his returning to the United States. The matter was then submitted to the Department of State at Washington, and the course pursued by the minister was sustained in a communication dated June 2, 1875, addressed to Mr. Ehrenbacher, a copy of which is on file in this office.

I am, etc.,

Wm. J. Black.
[Inclosure 2 in No. 555.]

Mr. Coleman to Mr. Black.

No. 2620.]

Sir: Your letter of the 10th instant, transmitting the passport application of Mr. Manny Ehrenhacher, is received.

Mr. Jacob Ehrenbacher, the father of the applicant, returned after naturalization in the United States to his native country, Germany, in 1869, with the latter and with his entire family.

In 1875 Mr. Bancroft Davis, at that time the American minister at this post, declined to issue a passport to the father for the reason that he could not be regarded as having an intent to return to the United States within the meaning of the treaty, which decision was subsequently approved by the Department of State.

Since then a further period of twelve years has elapsed, making in all one of about eighteen years, during which the father has resided in Germany with his family, his son, the present applicant for a passport, included, without either lather or son having at any time been in the United States since the return of the father and his family in 1869.

In view of these facts and of the circumstances that Mr. Manny Ehrenbacher, who has spent about eighteen of the twenty-one years of his life in Germany, manifests no intent to return to the United States and to elect to become a citizen of the United States by taking up his residence there, and performing the duties of citizenship, the legation feels constrained to decline to issue the passport for which he has applied, except on the condition that he at once return to the United States for the purpose aforesaid, and to enable him to do so.

Mr. Ehrenbacher’s birth certificate, his father’s certificate of naturalization, and the passport application forms are herewith returned, the latter to be transmitted here [Page 591] again, properly amended, in ease a passport is desired upon the above stated condition.

Be so good as to acquaint Mr. Ehrenbacher with the contents of this communication.

By direction of the minister.

I remain, etc.,

Chapman Coleman.
[Inclosure 3 in No. 555.]

Mr. Black to Mr. Pendleton.

Sir: In reply to your communication of the 13th instant, I have the honor to inform you that I notified Manny Ehrenbacher that the legation declines to issue the passport to him, except on the condition that he at once returns to the United States and performs there the duties of citizenship. His father has notified me to-day that his son withdraws his application for passport, and as he intends going to the United States shortly he will make application for one there.

Manny Ehrenbacher told me, when he first made his application, that he was going to travel for a wine house in Frankfort-on-the-Main, and that he expects to travel for that house in the United States for four months. If he does, therefore, apply for a passport in the United States, it will be merely to overcome the objections made to issuing him one here, and I am fully satisfied that he has no bona fide intention of ever permanently residing in the United States and performing the duties of citizenship there.

I am, etc.,

Wm. J. Black.