Mr. Sherman to Mr. Storer.
Washington , September 1, 1897 .
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch No. 16, of the 18th ultimo, submitting to the Department the application of Mr. M. D. Hennessy for a passport.
You state that your predecessor issued a passport on January 11, 1875, to Mr. Hennessy, wife, and son, and that he now applies to you for a new passport, but that he is unable to present his certificate of naturalization, being of alien birth, alleging that it has been destroyed by fire. You ask for instructions as to your duty in this case and in similar applications which may come before you. In reply you are informed that the requirement that a person of alien birth should produce his certificate of naturalization when making application for a passport is of long standing and should be carefully enforced; but sometimes, through the loss or destruction of the document, it is necessary to make an exception to the rule when the issuing official is satisfied of the good faith of the application and when its rejection might result in serious inconvenience or hardship. The nature of the secondary evidence which may be required is governed by the circumstances surrounding each case, but the general rule laid down in Mr. Bayard’s instruction to Mr. Vignaud, June 13, 1888 (Foreign Relations, 1888, p. 542), appears to be applicable to the case under consideration:
(a) The prior existence of the certificate must be shown.
(b) If burned or otherwise destroyed, such destruction of the certificate must be proved. * * *
A party who can not produce his naturalization certificate can not supply it by parole proof unless he also proves that the original record of the naturalization is unattainable and can not be reproduced by a certified copy.
[Page 27]In issuing Mr. Hennessy a passport under the conditions set forth above it would be well to advise him that for his future protection and convenience he should make an effort to have the record of his naturalization restored. As it was, according to his statement, recorded in a Chicago court, it is thought he may be able to accomplish its restoration under the “burnt record act” passed by the Illinois legislature some years since for the relief of persons in Mr. Hennessy’s situation.
Respectfully, yours,