File No. 365.117/335
The Secretary of State to Senator Hitchcock
Washington, September 8, 1916.
My dear Senator Hitchcock: I have received your letter of July 19, 1916,6 in reply to this Department’s letter of July 12, concerning the case of Angelo Mazzei. You say that you have noted that the Italian authorities decline, in the absence of a treaty arrangement, to recognize Mazzei’s rights of American citizenship, and you add that the Department seems “to acquiesce in this decision of the Italian authorities.” After making certain observations concerning the provisions of Sections 1999, 2000 and 2001, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, concerning the protection in foreign countries of naturalized American citizens, you express your opinion that “it is the duty of this Government to demand the release of Angelo Mazzei to make an issue of the right of this Government to protect him as an American citizen.”
Before replying to your letter, I have had the correspondence between the Department and the Embassy at Rome, relating not only to the present case but also to the whole subject involved, carefully reviewed.
[References to pertinent items of the correspondence here printed.]
The Department has not acquiesced in the position taken by the Italian Government in the case of Angelo Mazzei, but, on the contrary, has interposed in his behalf in an endeavor to obtain his release from the Italian Army. The position taken by the Department in this case, as indicated by the representations made to the Italian Government by the Ambassador at Rome, is the same as the position which has uniformly been taken by this Government in recent years with relation to cases of the same kind. However, the Italian Government has declined to concede the demands of this Government in the case of Angelo Mazzei, as it has always done in cases of the same kind which have arisen in the past. The situation involves a conflict between the laws of the United States and the laws of Italy, and since Angelo Mazzei has voluntarily placed himself within the jurisdiction of Italy, the Italian Government has [Page 426] applied to him the requirements of the Italian law. While the Italian Government apparently does not deny the right of Italian subjects to obtain naturalization as citizens or subjects of other countries, it seems to regard as accrued the obligation of an Italian-born subject to military service at the time of his naturalization in a foreign country without the consent of the Italian Government. In view of this fact, and inasmuch as the United States has thus far been unable to conclude a naturalization treaty with Italy, the Department has been unable, in spite of earnest representations in behalf of Angelo Mazzei, to obtain his release from the Italian Army.
Since the outbreak of the present war, the Department has been informed of several cases in which naturalized American citizens have been impressed into the armies of belligerent countries. In all cases which have been brought to the Department’s attention, it has instructed its diplomatic officers to call the attention of the Governments of the countries concerned to the naturalization in this country of the persons in question, and to ask for their release as American citizens. The representations of this Government in behalf of naturalized citizens of the United States, born in countries with which the United States had concluded naturalization treaties, have been successful; but otherwise its representations have not been successful. The whole subject involved has long been a subject of controversy between this country, on the one side, and France, Russia, Turkey and other European countries, as well as Italy, on the other, and it does not appear that a satisfactory arrangement of the matter can be reached except through the conclusion of adequate treaties of naturalization, similar to those which have been concluded with Austria-Hungary, the German States and Great Britain.
The subject of the conclusion of a naturalization treaty between the United States and Italy has several times in recent years been presented to the Italian Government through the Embassy at Rome. An effort was made to obtain a naturalization treaty with Italy in 1907, and again in 1911, and the present Ambassador at Rome has repeatedly and most earnestly brought the matter to the attention of the Italian Government in an endeavor to enter into definite negotiations for a naturalization treaty under which cases similar to that which you have brought especially to the Department’s attention could be settled to this Government’s satisfaction. The Ambassador has informed the Italian Government particularly of the feeling which arises in this country over cases such as that of Angelo Mazzei, but, as yet, his representations have not prevailed upon the Italian Government to enter into definite negotiations for a naturalization treaty.
In an instruction, No. 333, of May 1, 1916, to the Ambassador at Rome, the Department said:
I desire that you continue to avail yourself [etc., to the end of the instruction, except the last paragraph].
I am sending the Ambassador at Rome instructions to take the matter up again with the Italian Foreign Minister and to make an endeavor to enter into definite negotiations for a treaty of naturalization, modeled upon existing treaties of naturalization.
I am [etc.]
- Not printed.↩