Mr. Gresham to Mr. Grant.
Washington, May 8, 1893.
Sir: Your dispatch, No. 353, of the the 19th ultimo, in regard to the arrest of Charles Mercy (or Saul Moerser), said to be a naturalized citizen of the United States, has been received.
It appears from the statements made to you that Charles Mercy, born at Krakau, Galicia, in 1858, was taken to the United States by his parents when about 2 years old, returned with them to Krakau in 1867, again came to the United States when 16 years old (1874); enlisted in the United States Army in 1881; was discharged, but at what date is not stated; was naturalized in November, 1884 (when 25 years old), at Newark, N. J.; engaged there in successful business, and returned to Krakau on a visit to his parents, sailing in the Aller January 31, 1893, and reaching Krakau February 16. No record of the issuance of a passport to Charles Mercy or Saul Moerser is found in this Department, and the only citizen paper he carried on his return to Galicia is supposed to have been his certificate of naturalization, which you have never been permitted to see.
On the 24th of February Mercy was arrested at Krakau on two charges—evasion of military duty and fraudulent appropriation of a sum of 500 marks belonging to his employer, one Eisenberg, before his departure in 1874. The latter charge he admits; alleging, however, that the money has been repaid, as would seem to be the case.
It appears from the report of the court at Krakau, dated March 24, 1893, which accompanied Count Welsersheimb’s undated note to you, that the court, on March 4 (not April 4, as stated on the sixth page of your dispatch) decided that the fact of Mercy’s naturalization was proved, and thereupon dismissed the military charge against him; but at the same time held him for trial on the criminal charge and admitted him to bail in the sum of 1,000 gulden.
Mr. Mercy is presumed to have subsequently forfeited his bail and quitted the country. There appears, therefore, to be no ground for any further intervention by the legation in his behalf.
It is proper, however, to advert to a circumstance which in this case, as in others heretofore, especially attracts the Department’s attention. Upon arrest, the citizen papers of the accused are taken away, and he is thus deprived of the means of proving his citizenship before the legation of his country, to which he has an indisputable right to appeal for protection. You have very properly invited Count Kalnoky’s consideration of the anomaly of seizing the identification papers of a citizen of a friendly power, and holding him to prove his foreign citizenship, which it has been made impossible for him to prove. Besides this, great delays have often occurred in past instances through this needless obstruction of the legation’s right to promptly intervene to establish the rights of the citizen. Frequent cases of such hardship are of recent record in your legation. You should intimate to the minister of foreign affairs the confident expectation here entertained, that it is only necessary to point out this abuse to ensure its correction, and to secure to any American citizen accused of violation of the military laws of Austria-Hungary the right of free and instant appeal to the legation for protection, and the opportunity to establish, to its satisfaction, by documentary proof, his claim for its intervention to secure his rights as a citizen under the naturalization [Page 14] treaty of 1870 between the two countries. In this way, moreover, the intervention of the legation in any case of unfounded or fraudulent claim to protection would be averted.
I am, sir, etc.,