Mr. Hay to Mr. Hardy.
Washington, May 19, 1902.
Sir: The Department has received your No. 55 of May 2, 1902, submitting for instruction the case of Mrs. Bertha Knopf, who applied for a passport. It appears she was formerly issued a passport, No. 156, June 9, 1898, because her husband, who deserted her, was a citizen of the United States. She has applied for another passport, but you have [Page 972] refused to issue it because she has not been to the United States and gives no proof of an intention to reside in this country.
A careful examination of the files of the passport division has been made, from which it appears that on November 1, 1892, her husband, Leo Knopf, secured a passport, No. 1812, from the (then) legation at Berlin, upon an application setting forth that he was born in Berlin on December 2, 1870, his father being a citizen of the United States at the time of his birth. He presented his father’s naturalization certificate and declared that he had himself lived in the United States for two years, from 1890 to 1892. He was then nearly 22 years of age, and swore that he intended to return to the United States within a year. The record shows that when the passport was issued to him, he was warned “that a new passport would not be issued to him if he continued to reside abroad after the expiration of the validity of the present one.” Perhaps this warning was in his mind when he applied for his next passport, for on August 22, 1895, the legation at Berne issued him a passport, No. 251, on his affidavit that he was born in New York on December 2, 1870, and intended to return to the United States in three or four years. This passport included his wife. Presumably he was not married when he received his first passport.
When his wife applied for a passport from your legation, receiving passport No. 156, June 9, 1898, she stated tliat her husband was a native citizen and that she intended to return (come) to the United States in two years. She presented a supplementary statement setting forth that her husband abandoned her and their two children on July 22, 1896, and had been condemned to a year’s imprisonment for crime, but had fled, and was a fugitive from justice. She herself was born in Germany. As there were two children in 1896, it is fair to presume that she and her husband were married in 1894 or before, and while he was still under the protection of the passport granted him by the legation at Berlin.
The record is clear in showing that the man who thus abandoned his wife and children and was condemned on a criminal charge besides, is, prima facie, a perjurer also, but we can not avoid the conclusion that he was a citizen of the United States when he married. The second passport, obtained on the strength of the first, was probably issued upon a false application, for the legation at Berlin saw his father’s naturalization certificate, and it would be more to his advantage to fabricate a story of native than of foreign birth. It is possible, of course, that both stories are false and that he never was entitled to a passport, but giving him the benefit of the doubt we may assume that the second passport only was obtained by fraud and that he was not entitled to it. Except for two 3 ears, he lived all his life abroad where he was born. Although he was in this country when he became of age, he went back to Europe soon thereafter and never returned. Had the truth about his birth and actual residence been known when he applied for his second passport, his application would have been rejected and the protection of this Government would have been withdrawn from him. In this deprivation his wife would have shared. The question then becomes a simple one: Can the wife claim a continuance of the protection which her husband secured through fraud and which would not now be extended to him % Her citizenship and consequent protection follow his, and what he forfeited she also lost. Moreover, she [Page 973] herself states that she only wants to come to this country to secure a certificate of her husband’s death.
Upon the facts before it, therefore, the Department sustains your refusal to issue a passport in this case.
I am, etc.,