Mr. Hay to Mr.
Storer.
Department of State,
Washington, March 6,
1899.
No. 232.]
Sir: Your dispatch, No. 175, of the 21st
ultimo, in further relation to Mr. Henry Louis Becker’s application for
a United States passport, has been received and your comments in regard
thereto noted.
The conflicting statements as to Mr. Becker’s domicile in the United
States which you report, the lack of evidence of his purpose to return
here to dwell, and the apparent inconsistency of the conditions of his
indefinite residence abroad and of his founding a manufacturing
establishment under foreign laws with the holding of a bona fide and
realizable purpose on his part so to return and discharge the duties of
citizenship, seem to warrant your withholding the renewal to him of a
passport.
The press publication under date of November 4, 1898, to which you refer
as laying down the rule in regard to the biennial renewal of passports,
was not, as you surmise, an instruction to the embassy at Paris, but was
a letter addressed to a Mr. F. Clark in answer to inquiries made by him
from Paris under date of October 25, 1898. It is understood that Mr.
Clark communicated that letter to the Paris edition of the New York
Herald, but the publication therein has not come to the Department. A
copy of the letter in question is herewith senior your more convenient
perusal.
With regard to your inquiry as to whether a person residing abroad could
be considered as “dwelling in the United States,” so as to come within
the meaning of section 2172, Revised Statutes, I would say that this
passage has reference merely to the residence of the minor, who, to be
naturalized under the statute, must be “dwelling in the United States”
either at the time of the parent’s naturalization or afterwards during
his minority. The phrase clearly could not be construed to mean that the
person must always be “dwelling in the United States “in order to be
entitled to citizenship. By such interpretation a person claiming
citizenship through the parent’s naturalization would be precluded from
asserting citizenship when not actually within the jurisdiction of the
United States. A person properly claiming naturalization under this
statute (2172, R. S.) is as completely naturalized as if he had complied
with the conditions of the general naturalization laws of the United
States, and would not, if he left the jurisdiction of the United States,
have to comply with the requirements of Revised Statute 2167,
[Page 88]
by taking out naturalization
papers for himself, as you seem to think possible.
I am, etc.,
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Mill to Mr.
Clarke.
Department of State, November 4, 1898.
Sir: The Department has received your
letter of October 25, in which you ask by what authority the
validity of a passport is limited to a period of two years from its
date, whether it is competent for an American representative abroad
to refuse one to a native-born citizen who declines to state an
intention of returning to the United States, and whether you can
obtain one direct from this Department while you are in Paris.
In reply, you are informed that the granting of passports by this
Government is, under section 4075 of the Revised Statutes of the
United States, permissive, and not mandatory, and they may be
refused when circumstances warrant such action. By a circular issued
September 1, 1873, the Department ordered that the duration of
passports should be limited to two years from the date of their
issuance, and this ruling has been in force ever since. One of the
objects of prescribing it was to secure at reasonable intervals
evidence of the conservation of American citizenship by persons
residing indefinitely abroad. Under the law (section 2000, Revised
Statutes of the United States) naturalized and native-born citizens
are required to receive from this Government the same protection of
persons and property while they are abroad. It would, therefore, be
obviously improper for this Government to make a distinction in
favor of native-born citizens in the duration of its passports.
Between the legal status of citizenship and the right of continued
protection during indefinitely prolonged sojourn abroad the
executive authority of the United States draws a clear distinction
in exercising its statutory discretion to issue passports as
evidence of the right to protection. The relation of the citizen to
the state is reciprocal, embracing the duties of the individual no
less than his rights, and the best evidence of the intention of an
applicant for a passport to discharge the duties of a good citizen
is to make the United States his home; the next best is to shape his
plans so as to indicate a tolerable certainty of his returning to
the United States within a reasonable time. If the declared
intention to return be conspicuously negatived by the circumstances
of sojourn abroad a passport may be withheld. There is no fixed term
of foreign residence by which the right to receive a passport may be
decided. Each case must be decided by the circumstances surrounding
it.
By a rule of long standing, freshly affirmed by the President of the
United States, in the “Rules governing the granting and issuing of
passports in the United States,” prescribed May 21, 1898, “a citizen
of the United States desiring to secure a passport while he is
temporarily abroad should apply to the diplomatic representative of
the United States in the country where he happens to be.”
I am, sir, etc.,
David J. Hill,
Assistant Secretary.