No. 256.
Mr. Hoppin
to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
London, October 23, 1883. (Received November 3.)
Sir: On Sunday, the 22d instant, one of Mr. Lowell’s servants brought me a telegram in cipher from you, which had been received the previous night, of which the following is the translation. [See telegram of October 20, printed ante.]
This message was addressed [by telegraph officers in London] to the private residence of the minister. It is fortunate that he had left servants in his house during his absence on the Continent; otherwise there would have been great delay in the telegram reaching me.
In my No. 637 of the 18th instant I stated that I had come to the conclusion, if the accounts of the police authorities were true, that O’Donnell had not resided continuously in the United States for the five years next preceding the date of his naturalization certificate, and that consequently the certificate in his possession was either granted to some other person bearing the same name, or had been illegally obtained.
I desired, however, to have more precise information upon this point of continuous residence, and also to understand why the certificate stated that O’Donnell had come to the United States before he was eighteen years of age. I therefore requested the police authorities to make further and more exact inquiries on these two questions, which they promised to do.
Upon the reception of your telegram, I decided not to wait for their further report, and as it would be fair and just to hear O’Donnell’s own account of the matter, I made up my mind, although such a course is quite unusual, and would be very disagreeable, to have a personal interview with him myself. I therefore at once obtained the necessary permission from the home office, and at half past 1 o’clock yesterday I went to Newgate, accompanied by Mr. Hodson, the messenger of the legation, who was to take notes of the conversation.
[Page 470]I found O’Donnell to be a quiet, mild-looking, undemonstrative man, with a strong Irish accent and possessed of a fair degree of intelligence, although quite illiterate. He gave a reasonably clear and tolerably connected statement of his life in the United States, mispronouncing the names of localities, but not to such an extent as to throw any suspicion upon the fact of his having lived in the places indicated. He said he was born at Gwedore, county Donegal, Ireland, and that, “as near as he could reckon,” he was forty-eight years of age. He could not remember the exact date at which he went to the United States with his mother—his father had gone there previously—but believed it was when he was I between four and six years of age, and that he resided with his parents at “Janesville,” Pa. He came to Ireland again when about twelve years of age and returned to the United States in 1861, “on my own hook,” as he said, and “worked on a new railroad at Holly, in York State” (presum ably Hawley’s Railroad). From thence he went to Wilkes Barre, Pa., in 1862, afterwards working in a coal mine at Buck’s Mountain and on I a dam at Newhaven in the same State. He said he endeavored on three! occasions to enter the United States Army, but was rejected on account of some injury or disease in his left arm. In 1864 he was employed as a teamster in a United States Government supply train on the plains in! Colorado. He then went to the “Grava diggings,” near Saint Louis, which he left in 1867 and returned to Ireland, where he resided for three or four years at Gwedore, after which he went to the United States again and worked at Lobdell’s foundry, Wilmington, Del.; then at Dupont’s gunpowder factory, Brandy wine, and at a rolling mill at “Arrasokway,” Northampton County, near Allentown, Pa., where he staid about two years; proceeding thence to Ironton, Lawrence County, Ohio, in the spring of 1873. He remained there about three years and went then to Newport, Ky., where he took the ague, which compelled him after a short period to return to Ironton and subsequently to become an inmate of Penn’s Hospital, Philadelphia, for three or four months. After the Presidential election in 1876 he came back to Ireland, and returning to the United States after two or three years went to work on the “Town lake” and sewers in Chicago, Ill.
He says his father became a naturalized citizen while he, Patrick, was a minor. He, himself, voted as a citizen on more than one occasion at State elections, and because his vote was challenged at Ironton he took out naturalization papers in 1876 in order to vote without being challenged at the Presidential election of that year. He had had a continuous residence in the United States of about seven years previous to that time. He says all these facts can be proved by Michael McGinley, his witness at the time of his naturalization, if still alive. McjGinley worked at the steel rolling mills at Ironton and was a well-known citizen there, and could probably give also the present whereabouts of Hugh Dugan, his other witness on the occasion above mentioned.
It is of course impossible for me to verify O’Donnell’s statement that his father was naturalized while he, Patrick, was yet a minor. Perhaps this could be proved by McGinley. If this be true it would seem that Patrick’s subsequent return to Ireland and residence there for thirteen or fourteen years would not invalidate his claim to citizenship. At any rate he appears to have elected to consider himself a citizen after his return and voted at elections. I cannot avoid concluding, however, that the certificate of naturalization, a copy of which I inclose herewith, was improperly issued according to O’Donnell’s own statement. Section 2167 of the Revised Statutes provides that “any alien being under [Page 471] the age of twenty-one years, who has resided in the United States three years next preceding his arriving at that age, and who has continued to reside therein to the time he makes an application to be a citizen, may,” &c.
It is evident that O’Donnell did not reside in the United States three years next preceding his attaining his majority, or up to the time he made the application, unless his visits to Ireland should be considered not to be changes of residence, but temporary absences only. He probably adopted this mode of applying for a certificate because it saved him from the necessity of proving a previous declaration of intention.
It is of course impossible for me to give an authoritative opinion upon this question of citizenship. I can only state that I was impressed by the apparent truth of O’Donnell’s statements, and having given all the facts that have come to my knowledge, must leave the final decision to the superior wisdom of the Department of State.
I sent a telegram embodying my conclusions to you yesterday in cipher, of which the following is a translation. [See telegram of October 22, printed ante.]
I have, &c.,