be paid on each passport at the time at which it shall be issued or renewed, it is essential to the protection of the revenue from this source that foreign consuls should abstain from attaching their visa to passports.. . which are a year or more old, when presented for visé.' "This note, it is to be observed, requests that the officers of foreign governments shall not recognize as valid American passports beyond a certain age. "On the 5th of February, 1878, Mr. Secretary Evarts, in an instruction to Mr. Everett, chargé d'affaires at Berlin, said: "Upon that subject I have to inform you that applicants at the Department are uniformly advised that a passport is good for two years from its date and no longer; and that persons applying to an American representative abroad will be required to furnish satisfactory evidence that they are still entitled to protection of the United States. It is considered that indefinite residence abroad might be quite as much encouraged by the possession of a passport good for an indefinite period as by the operation of the rule which forces the party to submit his case anew to the careful scrutiny of the legation as often as once in two years, with suitable evidence bearing upon his claim to continued protection. "In the printed personal instructions to the diplomatic agents of the United States there is the following direction: A new "No visé will be attached to a passport after two years from its date. passport may, however, be issued in its place by the proper authority, as hereinbefore provided, if desired by a holder who has not forfeited citizenship. "These provisions are repeated in an existing circular of this Department, containing general instructions in regard to passports. "In section 174 of the Consular Regulations of the United States, issued in 1881 and unrevoked, there are the following provisions: "A passport is good for two years from its date and no longer. No visé will be attached to a passport after two years from its date. "It is thus indubitable that under the regulations and practice of this Department passports are not regarded by the Department as valid after two years from the date of their issue. The reasons for this rule have already been disclosed. In the first place, there is the matter of revenue. In many cases the fee for the renewal of passports is the only contribution made by citizens of the United States residing abroad to the support of this Government, whose protection they claim and enjoy, together with the privileges, immunities, and exemptions incident to their American citizenship. In the second place, this Government, while granting passports, is entitled to place them under such restrictions as to time as would in part preclude them from being made under changed circumstances the instrument of imposition either upon itself or upon foreign governments. "Now, as this Government has announced and acts upon the rule that its passports are not valid after two years from the date of issue, A this Department is unable to perceive upon what ground it could ask foreign governments to recognize those passports as valid after that period, provided there has been opportunity to obtain new ones. passport is evidence of citizenship, and as such is entitled to recognition as long as it remains in force; but if this Government decides that its passports are not valid for more than two years, it must be held to mean that they are not to be internationally used as evidence of citizenship after that time; and this being so, the Department is unable to see how it could ask the authorities of foreign countries, in which alone passports are required or intended to be used, to recognize them as valid evidence after they have ceased to be so by our own express regulations. "The refusal of a foreign government, under these circumstances, to recognize an extinct passport is not a denial of American citizenship or of any of its incidental rights, but merely a requirement of proper evidence of such citizenship. "In the case of Switzerland this requirement is strengthened by Article IV. of the treaty of 1850, in which it is provided that passports or other evidences of nationality of citizens of the two countries shall be furnished or authenticated by a diplomatic or consular agent of their nation residing in the one of the two countries which they wish to inhabit.' "It has been seen that an American passport more than two years old can not be authenticated either by a diplomatic or a consular agent of the United States; consequently, if this Department should contend that the Swiss authorities ought to recognize American passports more than two years old, it might be placed in the position of asking those authorities to recognize as valid passports neither furnished nor authenticated by the diplomatic agent or by any consular officer of the United States in Switzerland. "You will therefore inform citizens of the United States seeking instruction on the subject that, under the regulations of the Department of State, made pursuant to law, passports are good for two years from their date, and no longer, and that this Government can not ask foreign governments to recognize American passports more than two years old." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Winchester, min. to Switz., No. 80, "By a circular issued September 1, 1873, the Department ordered that the duration of passports should be limited to two years from the date of their issuance, and this ruling has been in force ever since. One of the objects of prescribing it was to secure at reasonable intervals evidence of the conservation of American citizenship by persons residing indefinitely abroad. Under the law (section 2000, Revised Statutes of the United States) naturalized and native-born citizens are required to receive from this Government the same protection of persons and property while they are abroad. It would, therefore, be obviously improper for this Government to make a distinction in favor of native-born citizens in the duration of its passports." Mr. Hill, Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Clarke, Nov. 4, 1898, For. Rel. 1899, 88. 2. CANCELLATION. § 524. Where a passport was issued to a Prussian subject, on the strength of erroneous representations that he was a citizen of the United States, the person who obtained it for him was requested to return it; and, as he failed to comply with the request, possibly because the holder had sailed for Europe, the American minister at Berlin was instructed to make the "necessary explanations to the Prussian Government." Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Vroom, min. to Prussia, No. 3, Jan. 20, 1854, MS. Inst. Prussia, XIV. 210. A person obtained a passport from the Department of State on an application in which he swore that he was a naturalized citizen of the United States. He subsequently became involved in difficulty with some of the German authorities and invoked the protection of the United States, when the fact was discovered that he was not a citizen, but had only declared his intention to become one. The American consul-general at Frankfort was instructed to obtain the passport and return it to the Department to be cancelled, which was done. The individual then brought a suit against the consul-general for damages. The facts were communicated to the proper authorities in the United States, in order that criminal proceedings might be taken against the person in question, in case of his return. Mr. Cass, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hillyer, Solicitor of the Treasury, March 1, 1860, 52 MS. Dom. Let. 2. The proper course with regard to expired passports is to draw two or three pen strokes through the signature and write "cancelled across the face of the document, in bold letters, and then return it to the holder. Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Winchester, min. to Switz., No. 111, In the case of Hercules A. Proios, who was held not to be entitled to the protection of the United States legation in Constantinople, the legation was instructed to take no action beyond the withholding of recognition of his alleged American citizenship" and the cancellation of his passport." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Straus, min. to Turkey, Oct. 26, 1888, Where it appeared that a passport had twice been issued to a person who had not at the time of his naturalization fulfilled by six months the condition of five years' residence in the United States, the Department of State said: "You will cancel the passport heretofore issued by you to Mr. Heidenheimer, and you will return hither the passport issued to him in 1871 by this Department." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. McLane, min. to France, Dec. 8, 1888, Where a qualified passport was issued to a person whose retention of June 6, 1899, John Wilson obtained a passport from the legation of the United States at Vienna on an application in which he swore that he was born in Virginia City, Nevada. The legation afterwards learned that he had been arrested on criminal charges. This circumstance led to inquiries by which the legation ascertained that he had previously obtained a passport at Paris by swearing that he was born at Bloomington, Illinois, and it appeared that he stated to the Austrian court before which he was arraigned that he was born in Chicago. It also appeared that he had five aliases and that he had previously been convicted at Vienna of crimes of fraud and theft. The legation obtained his passport from the judicial authorities and cancelled it, and sent it to the Department of State. For. Rel. 1899, 77. "The retention of an applicant's former passport in case of a refusal to issue a new one is, under the Department's instructions, warranted when the facts elicited show that the holder has been illegally naturalized, and is therefore wrongfully in possession of such formal certification of citizenship. To retain a regularly issued passport when no fraud appears, and when its return is demanded by the party, is a doubtful proceeding, it being the property of the holder." Mr. Hay, Sec. of State, to Mr. Storer, min. to Belgium, Feb. 4, 1899, For. VII. INTERNATIONAL EFFECT. 1. EVIDENTIAL FORCE. § 525. "This Government has a right to ask that if citizens of the United States, who are traveling with regular passports, or what appear to be such passports, happen to fall under unjust suspicions, every facility will be granted to them to vindicate their innocence. The refusal to let friends communicate with them while under arrest, or to let them appeal to our consuls and ministers, was an illiberality of treatment on the part of subordinate officials that can not but be reproved by the Executive Government of Switzerland. It is expected that they will take proper steps to prevent this in future.” Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Fay, No. 16, Oct. 4, 1854, MS. Inst. Switz. "Your predecessor was instructed that we would not in any instance allow the sufficiency or supremacy of a passport to be questioned by Mexican authorities. Such a proceeding would clearly constitute an international case." Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Foster, No. 43, Oct. 31, 1873, MS. Inst. This instruction related to the action of the Mexican authorities in "A certificate of naturalization and the possession of a passport are presumptive proof, in the absence of other evidence, that the person named therein is a citizen of the United States. If he has not forfeited his right to be so regarded he remains such. The question in each case must be decided by the facts peculiar to it, and should be investigated and decided by the officer to whom the application is made. Where the facts have been investigated and doubt exists, a reference may be made to this Department." Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Davis, Dec. 22, 1874, MS. Inst. Prussia, "The pretension of that Government [Mexico], too, to ignore the passport of this Department, and to require an inspection of the certificate of the naturalization of an alien, cannot be acquiesced in. You will distinctly apprise the minister for foreign affairs to that effect, and will add that this Government will expect to hold that of Mexico accountable for any injury to a citizen of the United States which may be occasioned by a refusal to treat the passport of this Department as sufficient proof of his nationality. |