File No. 17367/2.
The Secretary of State to Ambassador Hill.
Washington, March 2, 1909.
Sir: Referring to the department’s No. 101 of January 28 last, I inclose a copy of a letter from Senator Murphy J. Foster, of Louisiana, stating that Mrs. I. Mathias, now confined in an insane asylum in Bavaria, was granted an absolute divorce from her husband by the courts of Pittsburgh, Pa.
This being true, it could not be contended that the nationality of the husband was any longer controling as to her nationality, and she would stand, therefore, in the position occupied by any naturalized citizen who had been naturalized under our regular naturalization laws.
From the papers already transmitted to you it will be seen that Mrs. Mathias took up her renewed residence in Europe in 1895, and [Page 274] under the act of March 2, 1907, entitled “An act with reference to the expatriation of citizens and their protection abroad,” and the departmental rules and orders issued thereunder, it would seem that Mrs. Mathias must now be presumed to have lost her American citizenship. Unless this presumption can be overcome by some such evidence as that called for in the rules and regulations already referred to, it must be definitely held that Mrs. Mathias is no longer an American citizen.
It would appear that this might remove the objection which the Bavarian authorities are said to have with reference to her removal from one sanitarium to another,
I am, etc.,