Mr. Gresham to Mr. Smythe.
Washington, January 24, 1895.
Sir: I received in due course your No. 104, of the 12th ultimo, reporting that you had transmitted a note to the Haitian foreign office embodying the Department’s views expressed in its No. 66, of November 5 last, in the matter of the expulsion of Eugene Wiener. It is desired that a copy of your note be at once forwarded to the Department.
Your No. 106, of the 17th ultimo, inclosing a copy of the reply of the Haitian foreign office to your note, and of your response to Mr. Marcelin’s note, and your No. 108, of the 28th ultimo, inclosing copy of Mr. Marcelin’s last note (dated December, 1894), have also been received.
In this note the minister maintains that a Government can not, before expelling from its territory a person whose presence is deemed dangerous, be required to furnish to the Government of such person evidence in justification of its action.
This Department had not asserted that it should$ but held that Haiti, having assumed the responsibility of expelling the citizen of a friendly power, without giving him any hearing, producing evidence against him, or allowing him opportunity for defense, was thereupon bound either to establish by proofs that there was good ground for the expulsion, or else to indemnify the expelled person for the damage he has sustained.
The first of these alternatives has been voluntarily adopted by the Haitian Government, which, on the 10th instant, through its minister here, submitted to my examination evidence establishing prima facie ground for the exercise of the sovereign prerogative of expulsion in the case of this apparently undesirable alien. Under the circumstances so set forth this Government deems it proper to refrain from remonstrance against the expulsion of Mr. Wiener.
The Haitian minister, at my request, has given me a written statement of the evidence in question, under date of 12th instant, and I inclose it, in translation, for your perusal.
I am, etc.,