Ambassador Hengelmüller von Hengervár to the Secretary of State.

[Translation.]
No. 1002.]

Excellency: In a note, F. O., No. 124, dated in Vienna, December 30, 1904,a the then ambassador of the United States, by direction of the State Department, lodged in the imperial and royal foreign office a complaint against the alleged confiscation by the Hungarian authorities of a “prepaid ticket” belonging to the American citizen Marie Hornyak and preferred an indemnity claims.a

The imperial and royal foreign office did not fail to ask the Hungarian ministry of the interior to cause the matter to be investigated.

The investigation, as I am informed by my Government, has shown, contrary to some of Marie Hornyak’s statements, the facts in the case to be as follows.

On the 13th of September, 1904, the said Hornyak, with her three children, called on the agent of the Cunard Steamship Company at [Page 51] Kassa, Hungary, and, after producing her certificate of American citizenship, asked for four steamship tickets for New York via Fiume, which were assigned to her upon payment of 160 kronen. She left the same day from Kassa. On her arrival at Fiume she called, on the 19th of September, 1904, at the office of the Steam Navigation Company, the Adria, agent for the Cunard Line, and asserted that her husband had sent her a prepaid ticket by the way of Bremen, which had been since confiscated. Her request to the Adria that her husband be cabled to send by telegram the amount wanted to make up the full cost of the tickets from Fiume to Eckley, Pa., was not complied with in view of her having but 80 kronen ready money at her disposal, but she was promised at the same time that her matter would be satisfactorily arranged.

Thereupon Mrs. Hornyak sought the intervention of the American consular agent at Fiume, Mr. Dela Guardia, who found among her papers the prepaid ticket via Bremen that she said had been confiscated.

As the woman objected to undertaking at that time the trip from Fiume to Bremen, Mr. Dela Guardia, to whom she had turned over the prepaid ticket via Bremen, succeeded in his effort to induce the regular agent of the Cunard Line at Fiume, upon security for the full payment of the ticket from Fiume to Eckley, Pa., to accommodate Mrs. Hornyak and her children on board the steamship Ultonia, sailing on September 22, 1904, for New York, and she did make the trip on that ship.

It appears from the foregoing:

  • First. That Mrs. Hornyak was not compelled to sail via Fiume;
  • Second. That her prepaid ticket by the way of Bremen was not confiscated;
  • Third. That the unpleasantness she underwent can only be ascribed to her ignorance or inexperience.

Under the circumstances the Royal Hungarian Government—and your excellency’s true sense of justice will readily concur therein—does not hold itself liable to Mrs. Hornyak for an indemnity.

While venturing to beg that your excellency will kindly acknowledge the receipt of this note, I avail, etc.,

Hengelmüller.
  1. Not printed. See Foreign Relations, 1904, pp. 8991.
  2. Not printed.