A dispatch received from the United States embassy at Paris, under date of February 13, ultimo, reports the arrest of Mr. Gendrot and the steps taken by the embassy to afford him all possible relief from the situation in which he has voluntarily placed himself by returning to France, against the advice of this Department, given him on the 26th of November, 1897, by the letter of which I inclose a copy for your information. Mr. Vignaud, chargé d'affaires of the United States at Paris, states that Mr. Gendrot's case was to come up before the second council of war on February 18, and he anticipates that the military court will hold that, so far as the army authorities are concerned, Mr. Gendrot is French and, as such, liable to punishment for having failed to comply with the military laws of France, but that such action will still leave to him the right of appeal from the decision of the military court to a civil court, where the question of nationality would remain to be finally decided. Mr. Vignaud adds that Mr. Gendrot, having passed the age of service in the active army, can, according to the law of 1889, renounce French citizenship without the permission of the French Government, and that the civil court may perhaps recognize him as an American citizen. Mr. Gendrot, however, states that want of funds would prevent him from taking appeal. The ambassador has been instructed to continue to do all that he properly can to effect Mr. Gendrot's release. I am, etc., JOHN HAY. [Subinclosure.] Mr. Adee to Mr. Gendrot. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 26, 1897. SIR: Your letter of November 17, making inquiries as to your present status with regard to the claim of your allegiance heretofore put forth by the French Government, has been received and considered, and I am directed by the Secretary of State to make reply thereto. Your case is an interesting one, and the correspondence had on the subject in 1888 is printed in the volume of Foreign Relations of the United States for that year, pages 495, 497, and 498. Your case was then held to be one of those common in private international law wherein the individual is invested with a dual allegiance, each complete in its own sphere. By your birth at Cambridge, Mass., April 28, 1866, you were held by the law of the United States to have possessed the status of an American citizen while subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. By the French laws, being born abroad of French parents who never lost their French status, you were a naturalborn French subject so far as the jurisdiction of France is concerned. Being held for military service in France, you appear to have taken Mr. Bayard's advice, then given to Minister McLane, to elect and maintain your American nationality by a prompt return to this country. Such return, however, could not affect the proceedings instituted against you under French law within French jurisdiction further than to leave them undetermined or determinable by a judgment pronounced by default, of which, however, the Department is not advised. The purport of your present inquiry is not clearly understood. You ask whether you would be entitled as an American citizen to the protection of the United States Government under the circumstances you recite, and you conclude by requesting to be informed fully as to your rights under the circumstances. As to your rights as a citizen of the United States there can be no question so long as you are within the jurisdiction of the United States, and, although this is a hypothetical case, you would possess equal rights and be entitled to equal protection in the territory of a third state. But should you voluntarily put yourself within French jurisdiction, the dual claim of that country to your allegiance would revive and you could scarcely hope to escape judicial proceedings, perhaps under added disadvantage of being regarded as a fugitive from military service by reason of your return to the United States in 1888. There is no naturalization treaty between the United States and France. Under the French code a person born a Frenchman can only lose that status by process of law, one of the causes of such loss being naturalization in a foreign country. You have not been naturalized in the United States, and the fact of your being born in the United States is by French law no bar to the French claim upon your allegiance; it is, on the contrary, a case expressly provided for by that law, so that the French courts would be precluded from declaring you to be anything but a French citizen should the case actually arise for judicial determination. This contingency, however, could not arise, so far as seen, except by your own voluntary act in returning to France, and in such a case it is doubtful if this Government could efficiently protect you outside of its own jurisdiction. Respectfully, yours, No. 434.] ALVEY A. ADEE, Second Assistant Secretary. Mr. Porter to Mr. Hay. EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES, Paris, March 16, 1899. SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 566, of March 3, concerning the case of Gendrot. No further steps seem to have been taken in the matter since my writing you on February 24. But Gendrot will surely call one of these days to say that his civil suit is fixed for a certain day and to ask that legal assistance be given him. He does not seem to realize that under the circumstances it would have been better for him to abstain from visiting France; he insists that he is a native-born American citizen and as such claims the protection of our Government. If properly assisted, the French civil court might possibly recognize his American title, because his case differs from the others in this important particular, that he has not committed the offense of renouncing French citizenship and of assuming another nationality of his own volition, an offense specially mentioned in the law of June 26, 1889. In his case the presentation of naturalization papers would have weakened his position. Besides, Gendrot holds that he is a native-born citizen and does not want to change his status as such for that of a naturalized citizen. The case is an interesting one and deserves the attention of the embassy. SIR: I have received your dispatch No. 434, of the 16th instant, in further relation to the case of Gendrot. You report that no further steps seem to have been taken in the matter since your dispatch of February 24, but that Gendrot will surely call one of these days to say that his civil suit is fixed for a certain day and to ask that legal assistance be given him. You add that, if properly assisted, the French civil court might possibly recognize Gendrot's American title, because his case differs from the others in the important particular that he has not committed the offense of renouncing French citizenship and assuming any other nationality of his own volition, and that you think the case is an interesting one and deserves the attention of the embassy. Although you do not expressly request instructions as to the employment of counsel in Gendrot's behalf, it seems proper, in the light of what you say, to instruct you upon this point. The Department would not favor taking original steps to promote an appeal of the case to the civil court, but should the contingency arise and Gendrot's case actually be before that court, and it be satisfactorily shown to you that Gendrot is without money or property and is unable to employ counsel, you are authorized, but only in those contingencies, to arrange with the gentlemen from whom the embassy takes legal counsel to look after the case in the civil branch, with the understanding, if necessary, that a reasonable fee may be charged for the service performed. In the event of their so serving, you will report the fact to the Department and render special account for the fee should it be asked. The matter is necessarily left largely to your discretion. Gendrot, by his acts, has somewhat prejudiced himself in the eyes of the Department, but his personal merit or demerit as an American citizen in distress should not enter into your determination so much as the likelihood of carrying the matter to such conclusion as will afford a favorable precedent for future cases. I have, etc., No. 448.] JOHN HAY. Mr. Porter to Mr. Hay. SIR: Referring to previous correspondence concerning the case of Gendrot, I now send a copy and a translation of Mr. Delcassé's reply to my statement that Gendrot was a native-born American and claiming him as such. In this reply the minister of foreign affairs, expressing the view of the minister of justice, assumes quite a new position. In its correspondence with this embassy, and particularly in the case of Giron (1897), the French Government had admitted that a Frenchman having passed the age of service in the active army was no longer obliged to obtain permission from the French authorities to change his original nationality, an admission which is in strict conformity with the revised article 17 of the Civil Code. It is now contended for the first time that no Frenchman has the right to change his nationality without the consent of the French Government, if he has not complied with the military laws, whether he has passed or not the age of doing military service. No law is quoted in support of this view. Mr. Delcassé's note might call for other remarks, but as it is admitted that Gendrot can have his case settled by appealing to a civil court, and as he has chosen to do so, I shall let the matter rest until a decision is obtained or until further instructions are received from the Department if it is deemed advisable to send any. I have, etc., HORACE PORTER. [Inclosure.-Translation.] Mr. Delcassé to Mr. Porter. PARIS, March 29, 1899. Mr. AMBASSADOR: On the 10th of February last your excellency was good enough to call the attention of my department to Mr. Felix Albert Gendrot, born at Cambridge, Mass., April 28, 1866, of French father, who claims American citizenship. Mr. Gendrot, who is at present in France, was recently called before the military authorities at Paris to make known the motives which prevented him from complying with the recruiting obligations. You remark that the individual in question, being born in the United States, was considered by the Federal authorities as an American citizen, and that, having never lived in France, he, like his father, also must have lost his title to French citizenship according to the old article 17, section 3, of the Civil Code, by being established abroad without any intention of returning. You added that the person in question had passed the age of military service in the active army, and that, consequently, he could decline French citizenship without the consent of the Government of the Republic. My colleague, the minister of justice, to whom I did not fail to communicate this information, remarks to me this day that it does not belong to him to examine whether Gendrot can claim American citizenship because he was born in the United States. Each country is free and independent in the exercise of its sovereignty, but there is no doubt that this individual must be considered with regard to French law as French, in accordance with article 8, section 1, of the Civil Code (old article 10). As to the question whether an individual has lost his title to French citizenship by establishing himself abroad without any intention of returning, it depends on circumstances of the fact, which the courts, sovereign judges in questions of nationality, can alone decide, and if Gendrot proposes to invoke this motive he can submit his case to the judicial authorities. Lastly, the fact that the interested party has passed the age of military service in the active army does not give him the right to claim foreign nationality. He could oppose this foreign title only by showing that he has been naturalized in the United States in accordance with the laws in force. Now, such is not the case. Moreover, in order to acquire validly, with regard to the French Government, American naturalization he should have a formal authorization. He is, in fact, to-day still subject to the obligations of military service in the active army, because he is in the position of one who has been omitted or who did not submit. It is the fact of having complied with the obligations of the military service in the active army and in the reserve, and not the fact of having reached the age when one is transferred to the territorial army, which enables a Frenchman to have himself naturalized abroad without the consent of the Government. Under these conditions, the keeper of the seals is of opinion that until a contrary decision is obtained from the courts Gendrot should be considered as being of French nationality. Accept, etc., DELCASSÉ. Ex-President Harrison expected arrive in France about Wednesday, 24. Have authorities notified, so that any proper courtesies may be extended. Mr. Porter to Mr. Hay. HAY. No. 487.] EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: With reference to your cable of May 15, instructing me to notify the French authorities that ex-President Harrison would shortly arrive in France, I have to report that your instructions were complied with, and that Mr. Harrison has been the recipient of many courtesies on the part of the French Government. An official of high rank waited on him when he landed at Havre and welcomed him officially to France. A gentleman belonging to the foreign office, representing the French Government, was sent to receive him at the station, where he was met by Mr. Vignaud and myself when the train arrived from Havre. I arranged interviews between him and the minister of foreign affairs, the president of the council, and the president of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. President Loubet entertained him and Mrs. Harrison at dinner and gave them the seats of honor at his table. He also sent them twice his box at the opera and invitations to his tribune at the races, and they received similar courtesies from other members of the Government. I have, etc., SIR: The heirs of the late Anthony Pollok, of Washington, D. C., have decided to found a prize in his memory, to be known as the "Anthony Pollok Memorial Prize.” Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Pollok were passengers on the steamer La Bourgogne, and were lost when that vessel sank after collision with the Cromartyshire off Sable Island, on July 4, 1899. Mr. Pollok was held in the highest esteem by all who were privileged to know him and were aware of the many good deeds he did with a characteristic avoidance of ostentation. By his relatives and a wide circle of friends he is deeply mourned. A graduate of the Ecole Centrale of Paris, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France, counselor at law at Washington, he owed his success to no happy incident, to no special favor of fortune, but to sheer force of character. His name is prominently connected with many of the most important inventions of the last half of the nineteenth century, and will always be remembered as a potent factor in the development of the patent system. He cherished a dream of universal patent practice embracing all the nations of the world, and inspired in France the first step toward its realization in the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, of which he was vice-president. When the United States at first refused its adherence he aroused the interest of the manufacturers, and appeared twice before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States Senate, answering objections and advocating the measure in printed briefs and oral arguments, finally attaining the object of his efforts. With sorrowing hearts and profound respect, those who loved him and deplore his loss have founded this prize in sacred remembrance of their affection and as a crowning monument to honor and perpetuate the memory of Anthony Pollok. FR 99 -18 |