You will investigate this matter and report thereon, and you will ask
that the documents of Mr. Janco, referred to above, be returned so that
they may be transmitted to him.
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Janco to
Mr. Hay.
Pittsburg, Pa., November 13, 1901.
Dear Sir: I write to lay before you a
complaint which I have to make against the Government of Hungary for
indignities which I, as an American citizen, received at the hands
of that Government during a visit made by me last summer. The facts
are as follows:
I am 32 years of age, and was born January 2, 1869, in Styavink,
county of Trencsén, Hungary, where my father, John Janco, still
lives. I came to this country in August, 1888, and was naturalized
about six years ago by the courts of Armstrong County, Pa. I am, and
have been for several years, engaged in the grocery business at
Natrona, Allegheny County, Pa.; am married, and have a family. I
sailed for Hungary on the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm
der Grosse on the 23d day of June, 1901, and arrived at
Styavink aforesaid on or about July 7, and went to the office
of——Hahn, a notary at that place, and exhibited my passport, dated
and issued some time in June, 1901, and stated to the said authority
that I was an American citizen and came as a stranger to visit my
father. The said Hahn demanded from me the sum of 50 florins, which
he stated was for the use of the military fund. I refused to pay
this sum, and three days after was arrested by a gendarme at 4
o’clock in the morning and was taken from my father’s house, put
under arrest, and compelled to accompany the officer to Velka Bytca.
The gendarme insisted at first on my accompanying him over a
circuitous route, but on my insisting upon the privilege I was
allowed to make the trip direct to the last-named town in a
conveyance which I
[Page 50]
engaged
and paid for. My treatment by the gendarme was violent, and his
language, when I showed him my passport and citizen’s papers was to
the effect and in substance as follows: The passport is not even
good enough to use for a toilet paper. (This was expressed in
stronger terms unfit to write on paper.)
At Velka Bytca, I was placed in prison and kept there two hours, then
brought before a judge named Domanicky and delivered up my passport
and citizen’s papers. After some consideration the court discharged
me, but my passport and citizen’s papers were not returned, although
I made frequent demands for them, and as a consequence, when I
returned to this country, I was compelled to remain for two days at
Ellis Island and put to other expense and inconvenience.
I make this complaint for the purpose of drawing the attention of
your Department to the treatment I received, which is but a fair
example of that to which many, if not all, of the citizens of this
country who return to Hungary under like circumstances are subjected
to. I would like of course to have my papers returned, if possible,
and to have any other action taken by your Department which under
the circumstances may seem meet and proper to you. If this conduct
of the petty officers of Hungary were properly presented to the
Hungarian Government, I believe much, if not all, of the
inconvenience and humiliation now endured by citizens of the United
States in their travels in Hungary would be done away with.
Yours, most respectfully,
