The Belgian Minister to the Secretary of State.
Hamilton, August 6, 1906.
Mr. Secretary of State: By order of my Government I have the honor to have recourse to your obliging intercession on behalf of one of my fellow-countrymen under the following circumstances:
One Louis Wythouck, of Belgian nationality, came to the United States to live in 1888. In the same year he married Leonie Diensaert of the Boesinghe (East Flanders, Belgium) at New York.
About 1897 he settled in Philadelphia and had been residing there for eight years, at No. 712 Bodine street, when, on May 15, 1905, he temporarily left that place for the purpose of settling family affairs in Belgium.
A few months later he embarked to return to the United States, to his wife and two children, but on his arrival at New York he was denied permission to land because the authorities, considering him as a mere immigrant, found that, on account of his age (67 years) he did not seem to have sufficient means of support.
In vain did he protest to the authorities that he was not an immigrant and had been but temporarily absent in Belgium. He was compelled to return to Belgium.
On May 7, 1906, he heard that his wife was dead, leaving his two children alone and without protection in this country. The two children are only 16 and 7 years old.
He then tried again to come back to them, but the Navigation Company at Antwerp refused to take him, fearing, no doubt, that the authorities at Ellis Island would again deny him admission.
I am therefore instructed, Mr. Secretary of State, to call on your customary obligingness in order to obtain for the hapless Wythouck permission to join his children in the United States.
This is not, indeed, the case of an ordinary immigrant. Wythouck came to this country to live in 1888; he married here and has always lived here. He only made a temporary absence of a few months merely in Belgium in 1905, and there would seem to be excessive harshness in forbidding him, after such a short absence, to return to the United States, where he has his home and family.
The situation of the Wythouck family is worthy of interest, and further raises, as observed by the minister of foreign affairs, a question of principle.
The question, indeed, is whether a Belgian, established in the United States and temporarily returning to Belgium, is to be subjected when he again comes to the United States to the provision of the immigration laws of the United States like an ordinary immigrant.
In submitting these remarks to your favorable consideration, I gladly embrace this opportunity, etc.