tions regarding the threatened imposition of a fine upon Mr. Rosenthal's father in Russia." Mr. Uhl, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Cook, Nov. 20, 1893, 194 MS. Dom. A fortiori no steps can be taken by the Department to prevent the collec- Miss Cecilia C. Gaertner, a naturalized citizen of the United States, of Russian origin, who left her native land at the age of fifteen without permission of the Russian Government, inquired of the Department of State whether she could return to Russia without fear of molestation. The Department suggested that the most discreet course for her to pursue would be to address a formal petition directly to the proper authority for release from Russian subjection. She adopted this course, and the American minister at St. Petersburg was instructed to use his personal good offices to obtain early and favorable consideration for the petition. The petition was granted. Mr. Gresham, Sec. of State, to Mr. White, min. to Russia, Feb. 10, 1894, MS. Inst. Russia, XVII. 205; Mr. Uhl, Act. Sec. of State, to Miss Gaertner, Jan. 29, 1895, 200 MS. Dom. Let. 404, enclosing a note from the Russian foreign office of Jan. 11, 1895, announcing that the Emperor had granted her petition for permission to throw off her Russian allegiance. The note of the foreign office accompanied dispatch No. 27, Jan. 14, 1895, 46 MS. Desp. from Russia. It was reported in 1894 that Stanislaus Krzeminski, a naturalized citizen of the United States, had been exiled to Siberia for expatriating himself without permission. Mr. Gresham, as Secretary of State, in an instruction to Mr. White, American minister at St. Petersburg, July 3, 1894, said that, if the report were true, Krzeminski's “exile to Siberia, for no reason save his having quitted his native country some thirty years ago without imperial consent, would entail a hardship calling for earnest remonstrance." Mr. White wrote to the foreign office, and also visited it, urging the earliest and most favorable attention possible to the subject. There being delay, he applied to the minister of the interior for information and learned, informally, that, although Krzeminski had committed an offence in leaving the empire without permission, he had been relieved from all penalties for it by an imperial amnesty, but that he was detained on a charge of defalcation as a police official before he left the empire, and that further application regarding the case would best be made to the ministry of justice. Mr. White afterwards called at that ministry; and, besides, had two interviews with the acting minister of foreign affairs, with whom he left "a personal note." Krzeminski subsequently died in prison at Warsaw. For. Rel. 1894, 541-557. In a dispatch, No. 267, of September 29, 1894, Mr. White, referring to his interviews with the Russian officials, said: "While personally very civil, they seem to regard it as incompatible with their national dignity to give any account to another power regarding any person whom they look upon as a Russian subject or as a violator of Russian law. This position here taken is so fully recognized by other powers that even Great Britain, which has the reputation of protecting her subjects with the utmost care in all parts of the world, never interferes in behalf of one of its naturalized subjects who returns to the country of his origin. In any other country she claims the right to protect him to the extent of her power, but if he revisits the land of his birth, from which he has separated himself by a formal act, he does this at his own risk and peril, and the representative of the British Government absolutely refuses to consider the case. I hope that my successor may reap some advantage from my efforts in this case, but I can not say that I expect it." (For. Rel. 1894, 545.) "But few cases of interference with naturalized citizens returning to Russia have been reported during the current year. One Krzeminski was arrested last summer in a Polish province, on a reported charge of unpermitted renunciation of Russian allegiance, but it transpired that the proceedings originated in alleged malfeasance committed by Krzeminski while an Imperial official a number of years ago. Efforts for his release, which promised to be successful, were in progress when his death was reported." (President Cleveland, annual message, Dec. 3, 1894, For. Rel. 1894, xiii.) See Mr. Gresham, Sec. of State, to Mr. Dasler, Aug. 29, 1894, 198 MS. Dom. Let. 423; Mr. Gresham, Sec. of State, to Mr. Jansen, April 13, 1895, 201 MS. Dom. Let. 494; to Mr. Studebaker, June 5, 1893, 192 id. 244; to Mr. Izer, July 17, 1893, id. 615. "There is no naturalization treaty between the United States and Russia, and it is understood that the laws of that Empire forbid a subject to emigrate or to become naturalized in a foreign country without the permission of the Emperor, or to throw off his allegiance until he has performed military service, under penalty of fine or exile. Should you return to Russia you will place yourself within the jurisdiction of these laws, and while, if you should be arrested on a charge of infraction of some of the above-mentioned laws, the legation of the United States at St. Petersburg would, on receiving proof of your American citizenship, intervene in your behalf, the success of that intervention can not be foreseen. "The entrance of alien Jews into the Empire is also forbidden, as is also the visa of their passports by Russian consular officers.” Mr. Olney, Sec. of State, to Mr. Kassell, June 22, 1895, 203 MS. Dom. As to the passport of application of Simon Behrman, see Mr. Olney. Sec. of State, to Peirce, chargé, Feb. 13, 1897, MS. Inst. Russia, XVII, 546. "The position taken by the Imperial Government in Yablkowski's case, accompanied as it is by the text of the Russian law claimed to be applicable to such cases, constitutes the most direct statement of the Russian contention in this regard that has as yet been presented. "Taking the two clauses of the law together, they amount to a claim for the punishment of a Russian subject for the imputed offense of becoming a citizen or subject of another state, or even of entering into the service of another state. Unlike the legislation of some other countries, the Russian law does not decree loss of citizenship by the fact of embracing any other allegiance, and the deprivation of civil rights and perpetual banishment from the territory of the Empire, coupled with deportation to Siberia in the event of the individual's return to Russia, are only consistent with the assertion of continuing Russian subjection and with a claim to punish him as a subject. "The position of the United States as to the right of expatriation is long established and well known. The doctrine announced by us at an early stage of our national existence has been since generally adopted by all the European states except Russia and Turkey; and the Turkish Government does not go so far as to assert in practice a claim to punish a Turk for the offense of acquiring any other nationality. That every sovereign state has an indefeasible right to prescribe and apply the conditions under which an alien, being within its territorial jurisdiction, may be admitted to citizenship is a proposition not to be denied and scarcely capable of any material qualification. The legislation of the United States proceeds upon this theory. "Under the circumstances, and under the statutes of this country, this Government can not acquiesce in the Russian contention now formally announced, and must continue in the future to do as it has done in the past, and remonstrate against denial of the rights of American citizenship to persons of Russian origin who by due process of law have acquired our nationality, controverting any and every attempt to treat the acquisition of our citizenship as a penal offense against the law of the country of origin. "It is deeply to be regretted that no treaty of naturalization exists between the United States and Russia similar to those concluded with other states of Europe which for many years held to the doctrine of perpetual allegiance as strongly as the Imperial Government now seems disposed to do. Whatever be the abstract rights of the matter contended for by the respective parties, some form of conventional agreement in reconcilement of their conflicting claims is alike desir able and honorable. Overtures in this sense have been made at times heretofore without immediate result, but it is earnestly hoped that at no distant time the two countries may be able to come to a mutually beneficial understanding in this respect, which, while subserving their several interests, will remove a notable cause of difference between them in a manner befitting their traditional friendship." Mr. Olney, Sec. of State, to Mr. Peirce, chargé d'affaires ad int. at St. Anton Yablkowski, a naturalized citizen of the United States, of Russian "Whoever absents himself from his fatherland and enters foreign service without the permission of the Government, or becomes subject of a foreign power, is condemned for such violation of duty and oath of faithful subjection to the privation of all civil rights and to perpetual banishment from the territory of the Empire, or, in case of voluntary return to Russia, to deportation to Siberia." (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1099, 1104, 1105.) Another translation, sent by Mr. Rawicz, United States consul at Warsaw, reads: "Whoever, after leaving this country, shall enter into the military service in another country without the permission of this Government, or shall become a citizen of another country, will, for breaking his allegiance and oath, be punished by the loss of all the rights of the state and the expulsion from the country forever, and in case he should return of his free will to Russia he shall be sent to Siberia to settle there forever." (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1111.) For another translation, in 1887, see supra, p. 636. Mr. Peirce, in his first report of the case, Oct. 10, 1895, said: “In the absence of instructions, I felt it to be more prudent to make a protest against the continuance of these proceedings based simply upon the principles of international law as laid down by Vattel, Book II, Chapter VIII, sections 100 to 104, inclusive, and by other authorities. I hesitated to touch upon the stipulations of our treaty with Russia of 1832, Article X, far as this action seems to be from the spirit of that compact, lest it should be claimed that this case came within the limitations covered by the closing sentence of that article." (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1097.) In a note to Mr. Chichkine, Sept. 28-Oct. 10, 1895, Mr. Peirce, referring to the visé of Yablkowski's passport by the Russian consul at Danzig. and also to the question of expatriation said: “I submit, therefore, that this man has been granted unconditional permission to enter the Empire as an American citizen by the official act of a duly quali fied officer of the Imperial Government, and that the continuance of proceedings against him, upon a criminal indictment, for the act of becoming a citizen of the United States, would hardly be in accordance with the laws of nations as defined by the most eminent authorities." (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1103.) See, also, Mr. Peirce to Mr. Chichkine, Sept. 28-Oct. 10, 1895, For. Rel. 1895, II. 1102. Mr. Chichkine, Oct. 3/15, 1895, replied: "It is precisely the character of legality which fails in the action of which Yablkowski is accused. The action imputed to Yablkowski would form an infraction of article 325 of the penal code. . . . Our consul-general at Danzig could not in any possible way know the antecedents of the man Yablkowski, and did not have a plausible excuse to refuse to visé his passport, and this can not consequently prevent justice from following its course." (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1104-1105.) Mr. Peirce reaffirmed his position in a note to Mr. Chichkine, Oct. 4/16, 1895, For. Rel. 1895, II. 1105. With reference to this note, Prince Lobanow, writing to Mr. Breckinridge, United States minister, Oct. 28-Nov. 9, 1895, said: "I regret that I am not able to share your manner of seeing [the matter], inasmuch as it concerns a crime committed against Russian law by an individual who had not been released from his liens of subjection at the time he embraced another nationality. He formally violated this law by not seeking the permission of his Government. "If the administrative authorities of the Empire had been acquainted with this fact during the time Mr. Yablkowski was abroad he would have been, according to law, condemned by default to perpetual banishment. But whereas, in this case, the Russian law would only have attainted him in fact and in right in this manner, it had to apply another more rigorous disposition once he returned to his original country and the infraction was proved. "Having delivered himself to the Russian law for crime committed against it, which he should not have been ignorant of, the Russian authorities legitimately arrested him, and he could not escape the proceedings to which he was liable. "With regard to the visé affixed by the Russian consular authority on the passport in the possession of Mr. Yablkowski, it does not change the question in any manner whatever." Prince Lobanow further stated that Yablkowski was detained, but not imprisoned. (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1109–1110.) Mr. Breckinridge incorporated the substance of Mr. Olney's instructions of Nov. 4, supra, in a note to Prince Lobanow of Nov. 17/29, 1895, with which he also enclosed a copy of §§ 1999, 2000, and 2001 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1112.) Prince Lobanow, Dec. 5/17, 1895, wrote: "This question will be the subject of a careful examination on the part of the Imperial Government." (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1113.) For a report of the American consul at Warsaw concerning the case in 1896, see For. Rel. 1896, 507–509. January 14/26, 1897, the Russian foreign office informed the United States legation that the prosecution had come to an end in conformity with the Imperial manifest of November 14/26, 1894, consequent |