Mr. Hay to Mr. Conger.
Washington , January 18, 1900 .
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch, No. 283, of the 28th of November, inclosing passport application of Logan Herbert Roots and Oliver Tracey Logan, medical missionaries, which you have declined to grant on the ground that they do not state intention to return to the United States, but, on the contrary, expressly state their expectation to remain permanently in China, and also inclosing correspondence with the United States consul at Hankau on the subject, showing a difference of views between your legation and the consulate as to the propriety of issuing the passports in question under the Department rules.
A late instruction which is applicable to the case under discussion may be found in that paragraph of the Department’s circular instruction of March 27, 1899, reading:
The status of American citizens resident in a semibarbarous country or in a country in which the United States exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction is singular. * * * Their residence may be indefinitely prolonged, since obviously they can not become subjects of the native Government without grave peril to their safety. The Department’s position with respect to these citizens has uniformly been to afford them the protection of a passport as long as their pursuits are legitimate and not prejudicial to the friendly relations of this Government with the Government within whose limits they are residing.
The pursuits of a missionary, properly conducted, are legitimate, and American missionaries of good standing have always enjoyed continuous protection from this Government in China. In 1894 Mr. Gresham said:
Our legations have been authorized to issue passports to missionaries in foreign lands whose residence there was continuous and practically permanent, and who could not allege any definite intention of returning to, and residing in, the United States. (The American Passport, p. 209.)
These are merely instances of instructions of the same character which have been often repeated, and which may be found upon consulting the volumes of Foreign Relations. Their substance is adequately compressed in the instruction of Mr. Cridler, the Third Assistant Secretary of State, to the consul at Hankow, dated September 4, 1899, and quoted by the consul in the correspondence you submit. Mr. Cridler said:
Recognizing that such of our citizens who have gone to China to pursue their religious calling may not return, but continue their work indefinitely abroad, the Department is disposed to sanction their receiving passports on taking the oath of allegiance.
It is true that in the Department’s circular instruction of September 26, 1899, on the subject of passports and intent to return to the United States, the words quoted in the legation’s letter of November 27, 1899, to the consul at Hankow occur: “A passport should not issue to any person who does not intend to return to the United States.” This language, however, should be taken in connection with the rest of the same sentence: “As explained in the Department’s circular instruction of March 27, 1899, a passport should not issue to any person who does not intend to return to the United States,” etc. That circular (March 27, 1899) fully explained the exceptional position of American citizens resident in a country like China.
It is not intended by this instruction that the legation should issue a passport to anyone who declares that he neither intends nor desires to return to this country, or even to anyone who defiantly announces that he has no intention of returning, for such a statement would be tantamount to the expression of a desire to expatriate himself and absolve himself from allegiance to the United States; but as long as the loyal attachment to this Government continues and the legitimate and proper occupation of the applicant in China precludes his entertaining a definite purpose of return, the protection of a passport should continue. Taking the applications of Messrs. Roots and Logan as they appear in the legation’s dispatch, the Department is of opinion that they should receive renewed passports.
I am, etc.,