Mr. Grant to Mr. Blaine.

No. 37.]

Sir: Your instruction (No. 21) of the 19th ultimo, inclosing a copy of the complaint of Mr. Frank Xavier Fisher, a naturalized citizen of the United States, on account of his arrest and imprisonment at Wolfurt, Austria, was duly received, and I have now the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a note, which, in compliance with your direction, I addressed to Count Kalnoky, Imperial and Royal minister of foreign affairs, on the 5th instant, requesting that the facts in the case be thoroughly investigated.

Adding that such information as I may receive in the matter will be promptly communicated to the Department,

I am, etc.,

F. D. Grant.
[Inclosure in No. 37.]

Mr. Grant to Count Kalnoky.

Your Excellency: I have been instructed by the Acting Secretary of State to bring to your excellency’s attention the complaint of Mr. Frank Xavier Fisher, a naturalized citizen of the United States, in relation to his arrest and imprisonment at Wolfurt, Austria.

It appears that Mr. Fisher was born at Wolfurt, district of Bregenz, Austria, on the 9th day of August, 1849; that he resided there until he was nineteen years of age; that he emigrated to the United States on the 9th of November, 1868, and that in due course of time, and in accordance with law, he became a naturalized American citizen; that he is now the bearer of passport No. 8339, issued to him on the 26th day of July, 1889, by the Department of State at Washington; that he left the United States on the 3d of August, 1889, for Hamburg, and arrived at Wolfurt, Austria, on the 19th of August, 1889; that on the afternoon of the 21st of August he was arrested by the municipal gens d’arme, and asked why he had not presented himself for military duty at the time fixed for his conscription; that the conscript ion in question took place after his emigration from Austria, and while he was in the United State, and that he had no knowledge of the said conscription until five or [Page 36] six years after it was made; that he informed the officer who arrested him that he was a citizen of the United States, bearing a formal passport which he offered to show; that an examination of the passport was declined, and that he was, without further ceremony, carried off to prison and there kept, under circumstances of great hardship and discomfort, until the following morning, when he was brought before the authorities and his papers examined; that he was then released, with permission either to leave Wolfurt, or to remain on condition of good behavior.

It is submitted to your excellency that, upon this statement (as to the truth of which the complainant has made affidavit) Mr. Fisher was not, under the convention of the 20th September, 1870, between the United States and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, liable to trial and punishment, according to the laws of the Imperial Royal Government of Austro-Hungary for the non-fulfillment of military duty.

The proceedings of the authorities at Wolfurt seem to my Government to have been hasty and unwarrantable, and to have been taken without any examination into the facts of the case. From the well-known sense of justice and friendship for the United States of the Imperial Royal Government of Austria-Hungary, it is believed that your excellency will be ready to admit that care should have been taken to ascertain whether Mr. Fisher had violated the military laws of this country before arresting him upon such an assumption, and that his imprisonment under the circumstances was arbitrary and wholly unjustifiable.

The Acting Secretary of State has accordingly directed me to express the hope that your excellency will cause the facts in this case to be thoroughly investigated.

I avail, etc.,

F. D. Grant.