Mr. Sherman to Mr. Stuart.
Washington, May 25, 1897.
Sir: Your No. 119, of April 9, has been received, and your statement of passports issued by your legation during the quarter ending March [Page 594] 31, 1897, has been examined. The Department is disposed to overlook the irregularity to which you call attention, as it is inclined to be lenient in the case of native-born American citizens whose occupation in a foreign country may represent native American interests, as is presumed to be the case in the present instances.
This tendency to leniency is especially admissible in times of disturbance like the present, when such citizens are threatened with impressment into the army.
It is noted that you have also issued what you call “protection papers in another form” to eight native-born and six naturalized citizens of the United States, whose names you mention. You give the text of this certificate, from which it appears that the document certifies that the bearer “is a citizen of the United States and is entitled to protection as such.”
It is supposed that these certificates of protection are required by the local authorities in pursuance of some rule of registration or matriculation such as prevails in the various Spanish-American countries.
The question of the issuance of such certificates came up for consideration in 1894, when Minister Buchanan reported the custom of the foreign consuls at Buenos Ayres to issue forms of certificates of nationality known as “papeletas” in consequence of the regulations governing the mobilization of the national guard, under which the police had authority to arrest persons not reporting for duty unless they presented a “papeleta” evidencing the fact of foreign birth or citizenship, which, being the only form of certificate known to or accepted by the Argentine police, was considered preferable to a regular visaed passport. Those papeletas were required to be in the Spanish tongue, and Mr. Buchanan submitted a proposed form for the stated purpose. The Department ruled that any form which originally certified the fact of citizenship was quite inadmissible, being simply a passport in the Spanish language. The only certificate of citizenship issued by the United States is a passport, and the giving of any document of the nature or in lieu of a passort is not authorized. Mr. Buchanan was instructed that only two ways of certification or matriculation of American citizens were available—either (1) deposit of the regular passport in the legation or consulate and of his registration in the legation or consulate, or (2) indorsement on the passport itself of a certificate in Spanish to the effect that the within passport attests that A. B. is a citizen of the United States of America, and as such is entitled to the rights and privileges of such a citizen in a foreign country.
In view of this rule, the Department can not approve the “protection papers” which you report having given to the fourteen persons named. They should have applied for and received regular passports. If a further protection paper in Spanish is needed, the form prescribed for use in the Argentine Republic might conveniently be followed by you upon the deposit of the regular passport in the legation or a consulate of the United States, such certificate being given free of charge. The form so authorized is as follows:
El infrascrito ____ _____ consul de los Estados Unidos de America, en ____ certifica que _____ esta matriculado en este consulado como ciudadano de los Estados Unidos de America, y que es portador del pasaporte No. ___ firmado por ____ _____
Filiacion: Edad _____ ; estatura _____ ; frente ____ ; ojos _____ ; nariz, ____ ; boca ____ ; barba ____ ; pelo ____ ; tez ____ ; cara ____.
Firma del portador:
____ _____
No. ____.
Respectfully, yours,