File No. 22563/2.
The French Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, December 14, 1909.
Mr. Secretary of State: Your Excellency was so good as to advise me, in your letter of the 7th instant,1 that you had forwarded to the Department of Commerce and Labor my request on behalf of a young Frenchman, Charles Roussel, whom the authorities of the Immigration Service will not allow to land in New York.
I have just been informed that the said authorities have sent the young man back to France without waiting for the outcome of my request. My Government will surely be extremely sorry to hear of this decision.
As I wrote to Your Excellency on November 27 last, this specific case was that, not of a young man coming to the United States for the first time, but of an alien who had his residence and family in this country which he had left temporarily to perform his duty under the French military law and who is now sent back to France where his family no longer is and he will find himself destitute of resources, as he was ordered back because he was deemed to be of weak constitution.
Your Excellency will surely consider these provisions which may work so much hardship, and to which I took the liberty of drawing your attention in a second letter, dated November 29, to be inconsistent with the true intent of the legislator. I should be very thankful to you if you would acquaint me with your views in this respect and let me know whether the law really is that an alien once admitted in the United States may thereafter be excluded if he leaves the country, even for the performance of a duty held to be sacred the world over and if his health becomes impaired.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,
- Not printed. Acknowledges note of Nov. 29.↩