Mr. Tower to Mr. Sherman.

No. 33.]

Sir: I have the honor to report to you for your information the case of Paul Schwabek, a naturalized citizen of the United States, recently arrested in Hungary for nonperformance of military duty and released from the army by the intervention of this legation.

The said Paul Schwabek was born in Roone, near Bittsén, in Hungary, on the 7th of December, 1875, and is the son of John Schwabek, who emigrated to America also, and was naturalized at Baltimore in the year 1884. Paul Schwabek emigrated to America in the year 1889, when he was 13 years of age, and went to live with his father in Baltimore. He continued to reside in America until the present year, when he decided to return to Hungary to visit his mother, who now lives there, his father being dead. He landed in Bremen from New York, and proceeded at once to his native village, Roone, where he arrived on the evening of the 4th of September, 1897. Upon the following morning he was summoned before the local magistrate (Oberstuhlrichter), in Bittsén, charged with having evaded the military service of Hungary, and was forced to serve in the Seventy-first Infantry Regiment of Hungarian Troops of the Line.

At the time of his arrest Schwabek declared his American citizenship and showed his passport, issued by the Department of State on the 20th of August, 1897; but as the Hungarian magistrate could not read the passport, he took no official notice of its validity. Thereupon Schwabek appealed to this legation for help.

My first step was to inquire, by telegram addressed to the Oberstuhlrichter at Trencsén, on the 21st of September, upon what ground Schwabek had been arrested and enrolled in the army. After waiting a week, during which the magistrate made no reply, I addressed the inquiry to him again, by telegram, on the 28th of September. He answered, by letter dated the 24th of September, that Schwabek had been arrested because he had failed to perform his military duty and was not able to prove his American citizenship. I replied by letter on the 30th of September to this communication, which had erroneously been sent to the United States consulate-general and was forwarded by him, that Schwabek had a passport, which was proof of his American citizenship; and I asked that, as this American citizen had been arrested without cause, he should be set at liberty. I offered at the same time to authenticate the passport if the magistrate would send it here for that purpose. In reply to this the magistrate wrote me on the 3d of October that, as he had not considered Schwabek’s passport a sufficient proof of his American citizenship, he had found it necessary [Page 22] to proceed according to the laws of Hungary; that, consequently, Schwabek’s case had been referred to the superior authorities, and would ultimately be decided by the Hungarian ministry of public defense, bat that he could not comply with my request to set Schwabek at liberty. He assured me, however, that the case would be settled “according to law and right,” as soon as possible.

After waiting for two weeks, during which I hoped to hear that justice had been done to Schwabek by the authorities of Hungary, and that I should not be forced to address the Imperial Government upon the subject, not having received any further communication, I forwarded a dispatch on the 19th of October to Count Goluchowski, minister of foreign affairs, in which I stated the case, reminding him that under the laws of the United States Mr. Schwabek had become an American citizen through the naturalization of his father, he having dwelt in the United States with his father while yet a minor, and that he had a passport to prove his citizenship. I asked the Count Goluchowski to take proper steps to have Schwabek released at once, and also to instruct the authorities of Trencsén to give in all cases due credence and respect to a passport of the United States of America.

On the 5th of November Mr. Schwabek wrote me to say that he had been set at liberty on the preceding day; and the minister of foreign affairs informed me in a preliminary dispatch, dated the 19th of November, and a supplementary note of the 20th of December, that Paul Schwabek’s American citizenship had been fully established and his name stricken from the lists of the Austro-Hungarian army.

I have, etc.,

Charlemagne Tower
.