Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Foster.
London, July 27, 1892. (Received August 8.)
Sir: I have the honor to acquaint you that to-day Mr. Theodore Rosenburg, president of the Standard Varnish Works of New York, applied at this legation for a passport, bearing one issued by the Department of State in January, 1890. He was properly introduced, and, upon his statement that he was a native-born citizen of the United States, the taking down of his application was begun upon the appropriate form, and it was at once disclosed that he was born out of the United States, and was the son of a father who was a citizen by naturalization prior to the birth of the son. It therefore became necessary to use the form for a “person claiming citizenship through naturalization of husband or parent,” upon which he stated that it was impossible to produce the certificate of naturalization, and from further remarks it was quite clear that he knew nothing of his father’s naturalization, except by hearsay; and I did not therefore think it a proper case for even the application, much less the slightest straining of the provision, in the last clause of section 120 of the “personal instructions,” which authorizes the taking of a Department passport, within two years from its date as prima facie evidence of citizenship. Whatever may be the contents of the application upon which his Department passport was granted, he, according to his own express statement, was not called upon to prove the naturalization of his father by the production of the usual certificate, and this leads me to think it probable that his application to the Department was in some respect inaccurate in his statement of his personal history.
He stated that it was his intention to apply at once to the Department to over-rule my declination to issue a passport to him without proof of the naturalization of his father, and if he does so, it may perhaps be well that it should be known that a person calling himself his clerk said yesterday that Mr. Rosenberg intended to reside permanently abroad. That question was not reached in conferring with him to-day.
I have, etc.