Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1901

memorandum.

Department of State,
Washington, February 28, 1901.

With reference to the question asked in two memoranda from the British embassy, dated May 26 and August 13, 1900, whether Filipinos regularly shipped on British merchant vessels are regarded by the Government of the United States as citizens of the United States, so that when the British vessels upon which they have shipped touch at ports of the United States the Filipino seamen have the right to demand to be discharged although the voyage for which they have shipped may not be ended, the Attorney-General, to whom the question was referred, holds, in his opinion dated February 19, 1901, that seamen born in the Philippine Islands “are not citizens of the United States within the meaning of any statutes concerning seamen or any other statute or law of the United States.”