No. 395.
Mr. McLane
to Mr. Bayard.
Paris, July 2, 1888. (Received July 16.)
Sir: I have your telegram in reply to mine of this instant, to the effect that you do not feel justified in enlarging my discretion as to parol proof of the existence of naturalization certificates beyond that which is conferred in your No. 343.
[Page 548]In this connection I desire to call your attention to paragraph 120, article 12, personal instructions to the diplomatic agents of the United States,* and to ask whether the last paragraph thereof dispenses with the necessity of producing other evidence of citizenship.
It has been the practice of this legation to accept passports from the State Department within two years from their date as sufficient evidence of citizenship to authorize the issuing of a new passport in lieu of the one issued by the Department of State, notwithstanding paragraph 127 of these same instructions.
The conditions under which your No. 343 permits parol proof of naturalization are difficult to comply with by very many applicants and excite great dissatisfaction on the part of many very respectable and well known naturalized citizens, who find themselves in Europe without their naturalization certificate, but who could easily establish to the satisfaction of the minister their citizenship, as the native-born citizen does.
I thought it my duty to call your attention to this matter in anticipation of complaints which will certainly be addressed to you and to the public as to the practical discrimination made between naturalized and native-born citizens seeking passports from the diplomatic agents of the United States in Europe.
Many of these complaints come from well known naturalized American citizens who have passed the whole period of their lives in the United States engaged in commerce and business, and who have not had occasion to produce their certificates of naturalization abroad, since most of the civilized countries of Europe have not of late years exacted the production of such passports. Even now, Germany only exacts their production on the frontier of Alsace Lorraine and France. It was in view of such cases that I suggested by my telegram of June 29 the propriety of leaving to me some discretion in establishing the citizenship of applicants for passports when the certificate of naturalization-has been left in America, and when it can not be procured in time to meet the necessities of the case. Though I have inadvertently strained, in one or two cases, your instructions in No. 343, where well known naturalized citizens and their children are concerned, I shall accept them for the government of this legation unless you direct their modification.
I have, etc.,
- When an application is made for a passport by a native citizen, before it be granted the applicant must make a written declaration under oath, stating his name in full, age, and place of birth, supported also, if possible, by the affidavit of a creditable person, to whom the applicant is personally known, and to the best of whose knowledge and belief the declaration is true, and the minister or consul may require such other evidence as he may deem necessary to establish the applicant’s citizenship. If the applicant claims to be a naturalized citizen, he shall also produce the original or certified copy of the decree of the court by which he was declared to be a citizen, and it is the duty of the minister or consul, at the close of each quarter, to transmit to the Department a statement of the evidence on which all such passports were issued or granted. The applicant should also, in both cases, be required to take the oath of allegiance, and the oath should be transmitted to the Department with the quarterly return. A passport issued from this Department, coupled with the proof that the person in whose behalf it is presented is the person named therein, may be taken as prima facie evidence of the citizenship of the applicant, within two-years from its date.↩