File No. 4199/9.
The Acting Secretary of State to Chargé Buckler.
Washington , December 17, 1907 .
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 415, of October 18 last, in which you ask whether you may wear in Madrid on full-dress occasions the plaque of the Order of Carlos III, which decoration was conferred upon you by the Spanish Government when you served as secretary of the American special embassy.
In reply I have to say that the question presented has been referred to the law officer of the department and very carefully considered. The department is of the opinion, in view of all the facts and circumstances, that you are not prohibited by law from receiving the insignia of the Order of Carlos III and that, therefore, inasmuch as the consent of Congress was not necessary in order that you might legally receive the decoration, you would not be prohibited by the strict terms of section 2 of the act of 1881 from wearing the decoration in question.
The department, however, believes that diplomatic officers of the United States should seek to observe the intendment and spirit of the prohibition rather than merely to be governed by its literal scope. This intendment seems broadly to be that no officer of the United States shall make public display of a favor bestowed upon him by a foreign government. The words “by consent of Congress” in section 2 of the act of January 31, 1881, may be considered as merely recitative of the general condition under which an officer of the United States may be in possession of a foreign decoration, but could hardly have been intended to limit the prohibition and discriminate [Page 1018] against an officer possessing it by consent of the Congress and in favor of one possessing such decoration without consent.
Accordingly, it appears to the department that you would exhibit questionable taste in claiming the privilege, under a limiting interpretation of the statute, to wear a decoration which you would not be at liberty to wear if possessed by virtue of the consent of Congress.
I am, etc.,