Mr. Hay to Mr. Porter.
Washington, October 14, 1902.
Sir: Your No. 1095, of the 1st instant, forwarding returns of passports issued by your embassy during the quarter ending on the preceding day, has been received.
Passport No. 1377 was issued by the embassy on August 2, 1902, to Gaston Leon Rosenbaum, upon an application showing that he was born at Wiesbaden, Germany, his father having been naturalized previous to his birth. No proof was exacted of his father’s naturalization.
Cases of the category to which this one belongs are of frequent occurrence and the Department’s rules with reference to them are well settled. The applicant must establish his father’s naturalization by the exhibition of the certificate of naturalization. The proof submitted by the applicant must be “equivalent to that which would be required of him (the father) if he were in the United States applying for a passport for himself.” (See The American Passport, p. 101.) As the Department frequently rejects applications where this proof is not submitted, it is of great importance that our embassies abroad should not act favorably upon such applications. You are instructed, therefore, to communicate with Mr. Rosenbaum, if you can possibly do so, and secure from him the proof which should have been exacted before the passport was issued, and if he can not produce such proof his passport should be withdrawn.
On September 1, 1902, your embassy issued passport No. — to Philip M. Brown, second secretary of the legation of the United States at Constantinople, and charged no fee.
[Page 421]Upon this matter you are instructed that the embassy has no power to issue special passports. They must always emanate from this Department, and under the ruling of Mr. Sherman, Secretary of State (see The American Passport, pp. 31 et seq.), the Department exacts for special, as for ordinary, passports the fee of $1, as the law requires it to do.
The Department’s agents abroad can not exercise a privilege which the Department itself does not exercise.
As the application of Mr. Brown was not included in the statement of passports issued, it is herewith returned, and you are instructed to withdraw the passport now in Mr. Brown’s hands and substitute for it a regular passport bearing a serial number, for which you will exact the fee required by the law and the Department’s instructions. If Mr. Brown desires a special passport describing his official rank he may obtain one by communicating with this Department.
I am, etc.,