File No. 353.117R33/1.
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Minister.
Washington , March 27, 1913 .
Sir: The Department sends you herewith a copy of a despatch No. 765, of February 27, 1913, from the Consul at St. Michael’s, Azores, concerning the action of the officials in the Azores, especially in the district of Horta, in requiring military service, or imposing fines in lieu thereof, in cases of persons born in the Azores, whose fathers, also natives of the Azores, had previously obtained naturalization as citizens of the United States.
You will please take this matter up with the Portuguese Government and call attention to the bearing of the following provisions of article one of the naturalization treaty of 1908 between the United States and Portugal and section 1993 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.
Article 1. Subjects of Portugal who become naturalized citizens of the United States of America and shall have resided uninterruptedly within the United States five years shall be held by Portugal to be American citizens and shall be treated as such.
Section 1993 R. S. All children heretofore born or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or may be at the time of their birth citizens thereof, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the rights of ciizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States.
Under the provision of law just quoted, which corresponds with article eighteen, section three, of the Portuguese Civil Code, the persons referred to are born citizens of the United States, and come within the purview of section six of the Citizenship Act of March 2, 1907, which provides as follows:
Sec. 6. That all children born outside the limits of the United States who are citizens thereof in accordance with the provisions of section nineteen hundred and ninety-three of the Revised Statutes of the United States and who continue to reside outside the United States shall, in order to receive the protection of this Government, be required upon reaching the age of eighteen years to record at” an American consulate their intention to become residents and remain citizens of the United States and shall be further required to take the oath of allegiance to the United States upon attaining their majority.
You will please ask the Portuguese Government to instruct the officials in the Azores to recognize as American citizens persons born in the Azores of American fathers, native or naturalized, unless, having reached the age of eighteen years, they have failed to make the declaration of intention to retain American citizenship required by section six of the Expatriation Act of March 2, 1907, or, having reached the age of twenty-one years, have failed to take the oath of allegiance to the United States as required by the same law.
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