File No. 10054/32.

The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Egan.

No. 23.]

Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your unnumbered dispatch of the 18th ultimo, in which, referring to the department’s circular instruction of April 19, 1907, you inquire whether you are authorized to issue emergency passports to Americans desiring to enter Germany, in cases in which the lack of a passport would be inconvenient.

In reply I have to say that you may issue an emergency passport if the inconvenience of not having it would be serious; but the department desires to restrict their issuance, so far as it can be done without hardship, to citizens traveling abroad.

I am, etc.,

Robert Bacon.