Mr. Newd to Mr. Hay.
The Hague , January 9, 1902 .
Sir: I have the honor to inclose herewith an applicationa by Juliaan Johan Becker for a passport, and to ask for a ruling on it by the Department. I also inclose a passport issued at this legation to the said Becker in 1888. I have consented to forward this application only after having been importuned to do so by the applicant.
Both J. J. Becker and his brother, Henry Lewis Becker, were granted passports at this legation (Nos. 3 and 4), on the 19th of February, 1888. On the 21st of May, 1891, Henry Lewis Becker applied for a renewal of his passport, and after correspondence between the Department and this legation the Department ruled that the applicant was not entitled to a passport, and therefore none was issued.
The case of the present applicant, J. J. Becker, a brother to the Henry Lewis Becker above mentioned, seems to be similar in all its essentials to the former case. He was born at Arnhem in the Netherlands in 1849, and went with his father and brother to America in 1854, when he was under 5 years of age. He states that his father was naturalized in 1868. The original naturalization papers are not forthcoming, but a “duplicate,” dated the 28th of November, 1891, witnesses that “at a term of the county court of Kings County, held in the city of Brooklyn on the 3d day of July, 1868, Christopher Becker [the father] was admitted to be a citizen of the United States of America.” The present applicant resided in Brooklyn from 1854 to 1870, in which year he returned to the Netherlands. He has not been in the United States for over thirty-one years. He is engaged in business in Rotterdam. He avers that it is his intention to return to America, where his brother is now living at New Rochelle, in the State of New York, so soon as he may be able to turn over his business to his son, which will surely be within two years and a half. His son is about 19 years of age and has never been “as far away as America.” He desires the passport for the purpose of identification, and that his son may not have to “waste several years in the Dutch army.”
I have, etc.,
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