File No. 704.6712/6a.
[Inclosure.]
memorandum.
In a note dated December 7, 1914, the Turkish Chargé d’Affaires
at Washington stated that his Government, pending the
appointment of an Ottoman consular agent, was desirous of
placing the interests of Ottoman subjects residing in Mexico in
the hands of the United States diplomatic and consular
representatives in that country, and inquired whether the United
States would extend this courtesy to the Turkish Government.
On January 11, 1915, the Department telegraphed the Embassy at
Constantinople that officers of the United States in Mexico had
been authorized to use unofficial good offices in behalf of
Ottoman subjects in Mexico.
On January 13, 1915, the Turkish Chargé d’Affaires in Washington
was informed that this Government had instructed its officers in
Mexico to use unofficial good offices in
behalf of Ottoman subjects who might require them, in accordance
with paragraph 174 of the Consular Regulations.
On March 10, 1915, the American Ambassador at Constantinople
transmitted to the Department of State a note verbale from the
Turkish Foreign Office dated March 9, stating that the use of
unofficial good offices in favor of Ottoman subjects who found
need to have recourse to them, in accordance with paragraph 174
of the Consular Regulations, did not express effective
protection and that the Turkish Chargé d’Affaires at Washington
had been directed to take the matter up further with the
Department of State in order that the officers of the United
States might be charged with the official protection of Ottoman
subjects in Mexico.
Oral request has been made by the Turkish Chargé d’Affaires for
an interpretation of paragraph 174 of the Consular Regulations.
The paragraph mentioned reads as follows:
[Page 1078]
174. Requests hare occasionally been made upon the
Government of the United States to permit its diplomatic
and consular officers to extend their protection to
citizens or subjects of a foreign government who may
desire it and who may be sojourning at places where
there are no diplomatic or consular representatives of
that government This Government has from time to time,
upon the request of friendly powers, given to its
diplomatic and consular officers authority to take upon
themselves, with the consent of the government within
whose jurisdiction they reside, the function of
representing those powers at places where the latter had
no such officers. It has understood this authority to be
restricted simply to the granting of the services and
good offices of our representatives, with their own
consent, to meet what has ordinarily been a fortuitous
and temporary exigency of the friendly government. When
this function is accepted—which must be done only with
the approval of the Department of State—the diplomatic
or consular officer becomes the agent of the foreign
government as to the duties he may perform for its
citizens or subjects. He becomes responsible to it for
his discharge of those duties, and that government alone
is responsible for his acts in relation thereto. He does
not, however, for this purpose, become a diplomatic or
consular officer of the foreign government.
The Constitution of the United States prohibits any one who holds
an office of profit or trust under the United States to accept,
without the authority of the Congress of the United States, any
office of any kind whatever from any foreign State. Hence for
the purpose of the protection of citizens or subjects of a
foreign State diplomatic and consular officers of the United
States cannot become officers of the foreign State, the
intention of the Department of State in authorizing the exercise
of such protection being merely the use, with the consent of the
authorities of the countries where such officers reside, of
their good offices in behalf of the citizens or subjects of such
foreign country in their vicinity who might request them in the
absence of diplomatic or consular representatives of their own
country. As before stated such officers cannot become officers
of the foreign government, and consequently they could not
officially represent that government. They are agents of that
government not in the sense of “officials,” but only as persons
who at the request of that government, and with the consent of
their own government and the authorities of the country in which
they reside, are permitted to speak unofficially and by way of
good offices in favor of any interests of such third government
or its citizens or subjects. And while such officers, when so
acting, are responsible to the foreign government for the acts
they perform in its behalf, and that government is alone
responsible for their acts in relation thereto, they do not
report to that government, nor do they take its orders, their
communication with it being indirectly effected through the
Government of the United States.
With respect to the particular case of the protection of the
interests of Ottoman subjects in Mexico, the foregoing applies
only to the consular officers of the United States, the United
States having no diplomatic representative of its own in
Mexico.
Department of State,
Washington,
May 7,
1915.
