702.60 h 11/48
The Yugoslav Chargé (Stanoyevitch) to the Secretary of State
Sir: In reply to your letter of June 10 concerning the activity of the Consul General of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in New York, Mr. V. Savic I have the honor to transmit to [Page 951] your Excellency that according to assurances which I have received from Mr. Savic it is absolutely inexact that the Consulate General in New York refused the visa or the issue of passports to subjects of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes because they addressed themselves for certain services to certain steamship companies, ticket agencies and foreign exchange dealers advertising in the “Narodni List”, a newspaper owned and published by Mr. Frank Zotti.
The royal Legation, up to the present time, has not received any complaint in this sense from its citizens, who would be the first to be injured by such action on the part of the Consulate General. The visa and the issue of passports was suspended for a certain time for all the subjects of the Kingdom by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belgrade.
On the other hand the royal Consul General has no authority over such agencies to forbid them advertising in any newspaper in the United States. As far as the Cunard Line Company is concerned the inexactitude of these allegations is still greater as all the activity of that company is directed from its head office in England and not by its office in New York.
The affirmation of Mr. Zotti that the Consulate General in New York had made him an offer to purchase his journal, the “Narodni List”, either directly or indirectly by an agent named A. Petrovitch is absolutely inexact. M. Petrovitch never was an agent of the Consulate General and has never acted as such.
Nevertheless there exists a fact to which I have the honor to draw the attention of your Excellency and that is that Mr. Frank Zotti is not only simply a journalist and, proprietor of a newspaper who has been inconvenienced without any reason on his part, by a disloyal action of the Consulate General. Mr. Frank Zotti is very well known to the Department of Justice by his conduct before and during the war, as one of those American citizens who was not always loyal to the United States or to the countries associated with the United States.
Mr. Frank Zotti has specially during the war carried on a propaganda against the kingdom of Serbia and continues to do so against the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In his journal, the “Narodni List” he systematically and without any scruple attacks the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in such a fashion as to provoke disaccord between our subjects and lead american citizens to distrust our government. In short, his journal only exists for this purpose. It is possible that the laws of the United States give him the right and the liberty to write whatever he pleases against any country but it is indubitably our duty to watch [Page 952] and to take action against anything which might disturb the good relations between our Kingdom and the United States.
It results from all this that the royal Consulate General in New York has drawn the attention of certain agencies which have commercial and financial relations with our Kingdom that it is not desirable, in our common interest, that these relations should be conducted by persons who are openly enemies of our Kingdom.
The Consul General has made no menace nor has he made an improper use of his official position, but he was obliged to pay attention as to what agents he would have relations with and what agents he would avoid. If certain of these agents have been inconvenienced, this is not a result of the acts of the Consulate General but the result of their own acts.
In all his acts, political, economical, or financial the policy of the representative of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is to gain the greatest confidence of the Government of the United States and the commercial world. Our duty is not to inconvenience american citizens, but to aid them under all circumstances to create the most cordial relations with our Kingdom. Inspired only by such duties we have not been able to approve the conduct of Mr. Frank Zotti.
I take the liberty of expressing the hope that after communication of the above information your Excellency will find that the affirmations of Mr. Zotti are unfounded and that your Excellency will be in a position to inform me of the fact.
Accept [etc.]