Mr. Moore to Messrs. McKinley & Gottlieb.
Washington, May 26, 1898.
Gentleman: Referring to previous correspondence concerning the alleged impressment of Mr. Ignatz Gutman, a naturalized American citizen, into the Hungarian army, I have to inform you that the Department has received a dispatch from our minister at Vienna in regard to the case.
Mr. Tower reports that he has duly investigated this case in accordance with the instructions of the Department, and has ascertained that the said Ignatz Gutman is serving in the Hungarian army, in the Twenty-fifth Regiment of Infantry, called “Freiherr von Purcker,” at Losoncz, as was alleged; not, however, under constraint, as his friends in America believe, but that he is a volunteer, having enlisted of his own accord in January, 1898, for three years’ service.
Immediately upon receipt of the Department’s instruction No. 75, of the 4th of March, Mr. Tower wrote to Ignatz Gutman, at Losoncz, conveying to him the report made through the Department of State that he had been arrested while making a visit in Hungary and obliged to perform military duty. Mr. Tower asked him to inform him at once as to the truth of this report, in order that he might take steps to secure for him the rights to which he might be entitled. Mr. Tower wrote, also, upon the same day to the United States consul at Budapest, asking him whether he knew anything of Ignatz Gutman, and if not, to take such steps as he might be able to discover the facts of his arrest as reported.
On the 8th of March Mr. Tower received a reply from Gutman written in language which left his meaning so obscure that the minister could not understand Gutman’s position beyond the fact that he had evidently not been arrested for nonperformance of military duty; that he had reported himself to the Hungarian authorities for service, according to the obligation imposed by law upon Austrian and Hungarian subjects so to report themselves, called the “Assentierung,” precisely as if he had not been an American citizen, but that upon examination he had not been registered by the military authorities as a conscript on account of his American citizenship. In order, however, to bring out from Mr. Gutman as plain a statement of his case as possible Mr. Tower wrote him again, on the 8th of March, stating that he understood that upon his return to Hungary he had offered himself as a soldier, but had not been accepted. In his communication to Mr. Gutman Mr. Tower added—
If I am not mistaken in this, you are free now. But in order to make sure, I wish you would answer the following questions: When did you come to Hungary? Were you ever in the army there? If so, when and for how long a time? How did you happen to go into the army? When do you expect to return to America?
Mr. Gutman replied to this letter on the 13th of March, as follows:
I give you the right answers of your questions. When did I come to Hungary? I came to Hungary in 1897, October 19th. Were I ever in the Army hier? I never was, only since 1898, January the 12th I am hier. How did I come into the Army? I went voluntarily to the military authorities. What am I doing now? I am hier in the Army and doing what a soldier has to do. When do I expect to return to America? Soon as I get free from hier and I am waiting very hard for that time.
In the meanwhile Mr. Tower received from the consul of the United States at Budapest a reply, dated the 9th of March, to his letter of inquiry, in which the consul inclosed to him a copy of a letter from [Page 46] Colonel Basler, commanding the Twenty-fifth Regiment, to whom he had written, who informed him that “Ignatz Gutman is in actual service since the 7th of January of this year in the Second Company (of the Twenty-fifth Regiment), at Losoncz station, as a volunteer for three years’ service.”
Thereupon Mr. Tower wrote to Colonel Basler directly on the 11th of March, requesting him to inform him “of the conditions under which the said Gutman enlisted and under which he was sworn into the service of Hungary.”
Colonel Basler replied to Mr. Tower, after having made an official inquiry, on the 18th of April, that Gutman was not arrested for non-performance of military duty, but that he enlisted as a volunteer in Rosenau, and that he had also presented himself as a conscript in Losoncz.
The facts of the case appear, therefore, to be that Ignatz Gutman not only was not seized and forced into the military service in Hungary, but that when he presented himself as a conscript he was rejected by the conscription officers on the ground that he was an American citizen. Mr. Tower states that Gutman appears to have willingly placed himself in a position into which his rights as an American citizen would have prevented him from being forced. He waived his American citizenship when he voluntarily presented himself as a Hungarian conscript. Having then been rejected, he still continued to seek admission to the army, and was finally accepted as an enlisted man for three years.
Mr. Tower says, in conclusion, that he “finds no trace of coercion on the part of the Austro-Hungarian authorities in this connection. Ignatz Gutman had an unquestionable right to return to the country of his birth and become either a conscript or a volunteer if it suited him to do so. He entered into an agreement with knowledge of the facts and of his own free will, and he invokes the authority of the Government of the United States now that he has grown tired of his bargain.”
Respectfully, yours,
Assistant Secretary.