Mr. Adee to Mr. Tripp.

No. 164.]

Sir: I have received your dispatch No. 147, of the 20th ultimo, in regard to the case of Hugo Kovacsy and his son Edward, a young man of 21 years of age, born in the United States, who has been summoned to appear for examination as a soldier in the Hungarian army.

In view of the refusal of Edward Kovacsy to elect American citizenship by coming to the United States, in good faith to reside and perform the duties of citizenship, your course in refusing to intervene to secure for him exemption from military service in Austria is approved.

Your general discussion of the question of citizenship and the fourteenth amendment and section 1992 of the Revised Statutes has been read with interest. The argument advanced by you has much force. It seems, however, not to be in harmony with the decisions of the circuit court of the United States, which hold that birth in the United States creates citizenship, irrespective of the nationality of the parents. The correctness of this view is enforced, it seems to me, by the fact that thousands of persons born here of alien parents who were never naturalized and who have returned to their native countries, are exercising all the rights of American citizenship by virtue of their birth here.

I am, etc.,

Alvey A. Adee,
Acting Secretary
.