Minister Jackson to the Secretary of State.

[Extract]
No. 360.—Greek Series.]

Sir: Referring to Mr. Wilson’s dispatch No. 331, this series, of October 20, 1905, and to your instruction No. 95, of November 8, I [Page 813] have the honor to inclose herewith a translation of a copy of the decision of the legal authorities—which I have just received from the Greek minister of foreign affairs—upon the strength of which Panos Indares was exempted from military service. This copy was sent me without comment.

I have, etc.,

John B. Jackson.
[Inclosure.]

Decision of the Legal Adviser to the Ministry of War.

According to civil law, a person who becomes naturalized as a citizen in a foreign country gives up his character (idiornta) as a Greek. His wife and children born before the change retain their Greek nationality, but those born afterwards, coming from abroad, are foreigners, because the child of a foreigner is necessarily a foreigner himself.

In the case in point the father of the man who was drawn by lot (to serve as a soldier) became an American citizen in 1870, as shown by the certificate from the American consul, thereby ceasing to be a Greek subject. Consequently the son who was born in 1884 is a foreigner, as his father was already a foreigner at that time.

There is, therefore, no reason for his enrollment in the lists of citizens and of males, in the absence of proof that the father recovered his Greek nationality or that petition to become Greek was made by the son himself.

Under these conditions the man in question has no obligation to perform military service in Greece.

A. Glarakis,
The Legal Adviser.