you intend to become a naturalized citizen of this country as soon as you reach the age of twenty-one years, and enquiring whether, under these circumstances, you or your people in Germany can be punished on account of your failure to respond to a notice to return to your native country to perform military service, has been received. "In reply I have to inform you that it is understood that the German authorities can do nothing more than to place an attachment upon any estate your parents may leave, to prevent its being divided. until your military fine has been paid. This attachment would expire in seven years by limitation. Under these circumstances your parents need not pay the fine which will be assessed against you." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Authes, August 7, 1885, 156 MS. Dom. 'You will be [if a deserter] liable to punishment on your return to Germany. If, however, you have merely been fined for emigration without permission, the fine can be released by the intercession of our legation at Berlin." (Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Brauer, Feb. 9, 1886, 159 MS. Dom. Let. 15.) Jacob Gallewski was born in Germany, September 21, 1858. In July, 1873, he emigrated to the United States, where he was naturalized May 5, 1884, under the name of Jacob Phillips. In the same month he returned to his native place, where, in 1887, he was compelled to pay fines and costs for alleged evasion of military duty. The case was brought to the attention of the German Government, with the request that it be investigated and that the amount of the fines and costs be returned, together with the citizenship papers. The German Government replied that it was not considered feasible to repay the fines and cancel the costs, and gave as a reason for this decision (1) that the sentence under which the fines were collected was pronounced by a royal Prussian court on March 20, 1884, when Gallewski was "still a Prussian subject;" (2) that when the fines were collected he had already sojourned in Germany beyond the two years mentioned in Article IV. of the treaty of February 22, 1868; and (3) that besides, on April 29, 1887, he formally declared before the proper Prussian authorities that he intended to remain permanently in Germany, and divested himself of all rights as an American citizen. Mr. Pendleton, min. to Germany, to Count Bismarck, April 5, 1887; Count April 13, 1888, Ludwig Walter, a native of Alsace, was sentenced by the land court at Saargemünd to pay a fine of 600 marks and costs of the proceedings, for failure to appear and perform military duty. H. Doc. 551-vol 3-28 The costs amounted to nearly 100 marks. Of the whole amount due, 540.92 marks were collected out of his share of his mother's estate. In 1891 the authorities, on the petition of Walter's attorney, remitted, as an act of grace, the remainder of the fine, amounting to 147.34 marks; but they declined to return the sums already collected. Mr. Phelps, min. to Germany, to Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, No. 431, April 25, 1892, enclosing copy of a note of the German foreign office of April 21, 1892, 53 MS. Desp. Germany. See Mr. Wharton, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Phelps, No. 438, June 29, 1892, 18 MS. Inst. Germany, 595. "If Mr. 's interest in any estate he may have inherited in Germany has been attached by the German authorities for the payment of any military fine which may have been assessed against him, it is possible, but not certain, that he might be able to obtain the release of the property through the intervention of our embassy at Berlin. "If Mr. desires to make application for the release of his property, the Department will bring the matter to the attention of the German Government upon being furnished with a copy of his certificate of naturalization and with an affidavit setting forth the facts of the case, with a view to such action as the circumstances may be found to warrant." Mr. Day, Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Dygert, March 29, 1898, 227 MS. See Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec of State, to Mr. Weniger, Dec. 23, 1884, 153 . Your No. 1665, of the 10th instant, reports that Paul N. Friedlaender, a native of Germany, was naturalized at Chicago May 28, 1897, after having resided in the United States for a full term of five years; that his mother was called upon about a year ago to pay a fine on his account, and that the embassy had addressed the foreign office asking the refunding of any money already paid on account of his failure to report for military service, and the cessation of all proceedings against him which may have been taken on the same account and his recognition as an American citizen.. You further state that Friedlaender had been sentenced to pay a fine or suffer imprisonment by the judgment of a local court April 10, 1900, on account of his unauthorized emigration; that the German foreign office has advised that Friedlaender petition the Emperor directly for a vacation of the judgment or remission of the penalty, and suggested that in order to expedite matters his petition be supported by the embassy, which the latter declined to do for the reason that the case is governed by the naturalization treaty of 1868 and by the two ministerial decrees of July of that year, and that since the Prussian minister of justice has decreed that the penalty for punishable emigration is not to be executed there would appear to be no reason for a formal petition of pardon. “To this the foreign office replied, advising that Friedlaender send in a petition before. coming to Germany, as otherwise a demand for payment will be made upon him and difficulties for him will arise therefrom, as then the remission of the penalty will not at that time have been introduced in the official way. "You express doubt whether you should give support to any petition by Freidlaender, as by so doing it might be construed as an admission of the correctness of the position taken by the foreign office, rendering it necessary to pursue the same course in respect of every American citizen of German origin desiring to visit his former home. "The naturalization convention of 1868 provides: "ARTICLE I. Citizens of the North German Confederation who become naturalized citizens of the United States of America and shall have resided uninterruptedly within the United States five years shall be held by the North German Confederation to be American citizens and shall be treated as such. This article shall apply as well to those already naturalized as those hereafter naturalized. "ARTICLE II. A naturalized citizen of the one party remains liable to trial and punishment for an action punishable by the laws of his original country and committed before his emigration, saving always the limitations established by the laws of his original country. "ARTICLE IV. If a German naturalized in America renews his residence in North Germany without the intent to return to America, he shall be held to have renounced his naturalization in the United States. . The intent not to return may be held to exist when the person naturalized in the one country resides more than two years in the other country. "The circular of the minister of justice, dated July 5, 1868, states that it was the prevailing intention of the treaty that in conformity with its second article the punishment incurred by punishable emigration is not to be brought to execution on occasion of a return of the emigrant to his original country if the returning emigrant has obtained naturalization in the other country in conformity with the first article of the treaty. "The circular of the minister of the interior, dated July 6, 1868, states that it was the prevailing intention of the treaty that in conformity with Article II. of the treaty the punishable action committed by the unauthorized emigration of a citizen of the confederation to the United States of America should not be made the ground for a penal prosecution upon the return of such person to his former country after absence of not less than five years, and that the punishment for such action, even though already legally declared, should not be consummated if the person has acquired in America the right of citizenship in conformity with Article I. of said treaty. "A state has the unquestionable legal right to regulate under penalties either the emigration of its subjects or the immigration of aliens, as also to punish its nationals for failure to report for military service, except so far as restrained by treaty. (1 Rivier, 269; 2 Wharton, sec. 171.) "A state does not, however, necessarily take official notice of the naturalization of its subjects as citizens of another state. Consequently, in the absence of such official knowledge, it may, if authorized to do so by its own laws, proceed against them by judicial trial and condemnation, even in their absence. With such treatment by it of its own subjects no other state has any concern. "As the case is stated, Friedlaender was a native-born German subject and appears to have been condemned as for punishable emigration. If he had received permission to emigrate, the judgment was not unlawful, though erroneous in point of fact, unless the fact was shown at the trial; if he had not received such permission, it was not unlawful unless at the trial proof was submitted showing his naturalization in the United States and his compliance with the terms of the treaty. As the case is stated, it does not appear that the judgment was unlawfully rendered, although erroneous. And as the German court or Government would not know this error without evidence of the facts which brought Friedlaender within the exemption of the treaty, it is entirely proper that he should take steps before the court to have the judgment vacated and set aside, on proof of the facts which would have constituted a good defense of the action if they had been presented at the trial, or that he should petition the Emperor to vacate the judgment, submitting the facts and proofs necessary to show that the judgment was in fact given in violation of the treaty. "While this may result in some inconvenience in practice, it is the course pursued in the United States in analogous cases. If a judgment by default has been rendered against a person during his absence, provision is usually made for his application to the court, within a given period, to have the judgment set aside for error of law or fact. If a person has been condemned as a criminal, he may have. judicial proceedings to correct an erroneous conviction, and in the last instance may appeal to the Executive to grant a pardon. "The advice of the German foreign office that an appeal be made to the Emperor to set aside the judgment on the grounds stated in your dispatch, so far from involving a concession that the conviction was not erroneous in fact, may be accepted in the sense that it was erroneous because rendered in violation of the treaty, as authentically interpreted in the circulars. A pardon would be inappropriate as implying a guilt which is shown not to exist in fact, yet if this is the only way the Emperor can lawfully proceed, the proceeding should be accompanied by you with this interpretation. "The better course in all such cases is for the naturalized American to have proceedings instituted in the proper court to vacate the judgment, if such remedy is given by the local laws; and in all cases if they have notice they should make defense by counsel if allowable to suits of that character while pending. They should not burden the embassy by asking it to relieve them from the consequences of their own neglect to defend; but it is, of course, proper for you to render them all necessary assistance, even when they could have avoided. trouble by timely attention to their own interests." Mr. Hill, Acting Sec. of State, to Mr. White, amb. to Germany, July 26, 1901, For. Rel. 1901, 181. (2) STATUTES OF LIMITATION. § 403. By the treaty of naturalization with the North German Confederation, it is provided that crimes committed before emigration may be punished on the return of the emigrant, saving always the limitation established by the laws of his original country. The naturalization treaties with the other German States add the words "or any other remission of liability to punishment." Bavaria adds to this that the returned emigrant is not to be made punishable for the act of emigration itself, and Baden makes special provision concerning trial and punishment for non fulfillment of military duty. Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Bancroft, min. to Germany, April 14, "It is true that the treaties with the four South German States expressly . . Thus the five treaties are on (Mr. Bancroft, min., to Germany, to Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, May 8, 1873, For. Rel. 1873, I. 284, 287-288, where the reasons for this statement are given.) In an instruction to the legation at Berlin, May 21, 1887, Mr. Bayard stated that it appeared by a dispatch from the legation, No. 95, of March 21, 1879, published in Foreign Relations for 1879, page 373, that by the law of Würtemberg, where property was attached to enforce the payment of a fine imposed upon a person found guilty of desertion for failing to perform military duty, the attachment expired by limitation. In this relation Mr. Bayard asked the lega |