Mr. McCormick to Mr. Hay.

No. 5.]

Sir: With reference to the Department’s No. 25 of January 3, 1902, and to my No. 81 of May 7, 1902, regarding the case of a man named Kristof, who was being compelled to perform military service in the army of Austria-Hungary, I now have the honor to inform you that on the presentation of a duplicate certificate of naturalization, in which the spelling of the name was corrected to Josef Kristof instead of Joseph Kistof, I succeeded in obtaining the release of the party in question.

I have caused Mr. Klein, who first brought the case to attention of the Department, to be informed of Kristof’s release.

As said in my No. 81, above referred to, the department of military defense seizes upon every technicality to evade that full and hearty recognition of the naturalization treaty of September 20, 1870, which the relations between the two countries would seem to demand, and the foreign office is apparently unable to take the decision in cases of this kind into its own hands, where it seems to me to belong. I represented to His Excellency Count Lützow personally, as well as to His Excellency Count Goluchowski through an official note, that everything pointed to the truth of Mr. Klein’s statement that Kristof’s name had been misspelled in his original certificate of naturalization; that whereas Kristof was a common name, and this fact gave color and substance to the claim that Kristof’s name, as above indicated, was misspelled, the name of Kistof was absolutely unknown and appeared in no directory or other publication where it would have been found had it existed at all. I cite this fact simply to show the attitude of the department of military defense as practically sustained by the foreign office in treating the cases of naturalized American citizens who have returned here.

I will have occasion to again refer to this attitude in another case upon which I will shortly report to the Department, as bearing upon the desirability of a revision of the treaty above referred to, which is now a source of constant irritation to this Government through its flagrant abuse by young men who emigrate with the sole purpose of evading military service and of returning here to reside as soon as they have acquired American citizenship.

I have, etc.,

Robert S. McCormick.