Mr. Pearson to Mr. Hay.

No. 31.]

Sir: I have the honor to inclose herein the application for a passport of Ablahat Odishu Samuel. I have declined to issue the passport until instructed by the Department.

The claim is weakened and clouded by the following circumstances, which appear upon the face of the application:

1.
The man resided three years in the United States, and then three years abroad, presumably in Persia, as two of his children whom he asks to be included in the passport were born in Persia during the period in which he claims a domicile in the United States.
2.
He then returned to the United States and pieced out broken intervals of time necessary to make five years in order to secure the certificate of naturalization, and almost immediately thereafter he returned to Persia, where he has since resided continuously. He thus leaves the unavoidable inference that the sole purpose of his second journey to the United States was to secure the certificate of naturalization.
3.
He expresses an intention to return to the United States within three years, this making the residence of this alleged citizen nine years in Persia and five years in the United States.

“To allow such pretensions would be to tolerate a fraud upon both governments, enabling a man to enjoy the advantages of two nationalities and to escape the duties and burdens of each.” (Secretary Fish to Mr. Motley October 14, 1869.)

The case in question resembles that of Demetrias Chrysanthides, described by Mr. Leishman in Foreign Relations, 1901, page 519 et seq., but in all essential features it is weaker. In that case the residence prior to naturalization was unbroken except by an absence of five months. Chrysanthides remained in the United States more than three years after his naturalization; he was naturalized in the State in which he had resided for five years, and he expressed the intention to return within one year.

* * * * * * *

I am, etc.,

Richmond Pearson.