No. 412.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. McLane.
Washington, October 30, 1888.
Sir: Supplementing the Department’s instruction to you, No. 393, of the 26th instant, in relation to the evidence upon which passports were issued by your legation during the past quarter, I have to invite your [Page 562] attention to the application of Mr. Stephen L. Heidenheimer, No. 773, upon which a passport was issued July 20, 1888.
Mr. Heidenheimer therein swears that he was born at Offenbach, Germany, on or about the 16th day of August, 1848; that he emigrated to the United States by the Australasia in 1866 (date of voyage not given); that he resided in the United States five years uninterruptedly, from 1866 to 1871; that he was naturalized before the court of common pleas of New York City on the 26th of April, 1871, as shown by his certificate of naturalization duly exhibited; that six days thereafter, to wit, on the 2d day of May, 1871, he received passport No. 11,314 from the Department of State; that he left the United States on the Java in 1871 (date of departure not given); that he has resided at No. 14, rue Martel, in Paris, since 1871; and that he intends to return to the United States “in or about a few years.” The accompanying certificate of identification is signed by Mr. J. L. Rathbone, consul-general.
The facts as above stated, disclosing naturalization early in the fifth year of residence in the United States and immediate removal from this country, followed by a continuous residence abroad for some seventeen years, coupled with the vague and wholly unsatisfactory declaration of the essential intention to return, suggest a very doubtful case of title to protection as an American citizen during such extended residence, with presumption of domicile, abroad.
The Department has consequently made inquiry with a view to supplying the dates omitted from Mr. Heidenheimer’s affidavit and thus removing or confirming the doubts suggested, with the following results:
- (1)
- The surveyor of the port of New York reports in a letter dated the 26th instant that the steamship Australasia arrived at New York four times in 1866, and that on none of those voyages does Stephen E. Heidenheimer appear as a passenger, but that “the passenger list of the voyage ending November 1 shows the name of Edward Heidenheim, aged 18; occupation, gentleman; country, Germany.” The age so given agrees with that of Stephen E. Heidenheimer, who was born as stated, August 16, 1848.
- (2)
- The passenger list of the steamship Java, leaving New York May 10, 1871, as found printed in the New York Times of May 11, 1871, contains the name of E. Heidenhimser.
- (3)
- The place, court, and date of naturalization, and incidentally the date of birth of Mr. Stephen E. Heidenheimer, are found verified by the Department’s record of the issuance of a passport to him on the 2d day of May, 1871.
The application in question is apparently filled up, except the phrase “or about a few years,” in the handwriting of Mr. Augustus Jay, who signs as having administered the prescribed oath to Mr. Heidenheimer; and while the discrepancy as to the name of the vessel by which the applicant came to the United States, given in the application as Australasia and in the surveyor’s report as Australasian, remains unexplained, it is reasonable to attribute an error to the perfunctory filling up of the blank.
The inference from the facts, as thus stated and verified, is that Mr. Heidenheimer arrived in the United States November 1, 1866; was naturalized April 26, 1871, after a residence in the United States of only four years five months and twenty-six days; obtained a passport immediately thereafter; within fourteen days from the date or naturalizaion departed from the United States, and has since resided seventeent years abroad, with no apparent intention whatever of returning.
[Page 563]Unless this inference and the testimony upon which it rests is disproved, the case is one of unlawful naturalization obtained by fraud upon the court, for the sole purpose of securing in a foreign land permanent protection as a citizen of the United States.
The circumstance of Mr. Heidenheimer’s immediate departure from the United States and complete evasion of the duties and burdens of our citizenship would of itself have enjoined caution in issuing to him legal evidence of a continued right to our protection; while the omission to furnish important dates essential to a judgment as to the validity of his claim to lawful citizenship should have excited suspicion and caused investigation.
On the facts before your legation, the passport in question was improvidently issued. On the facts as now collected by the Department, Mr. Heidenheimer has no right to a passport.
You should at once investigate the case, which you can readily do in view of Mr. Heidenheimer’s permanent residence in Paris and his identification by the consul-general, and unless it should be conclusively established, by evidence of judicial value, that he arrived in the United States on or prior to the 26th day of April, 1866, and that his residence abroad is not in abuse of the high right of protection as an American citizen which he claims, you will withdraw the passport.
To show the bona fides of Mr. Heidenheimer’s claim, very positive evidence should be forthcoming to explain his sojourn abroad for seventeen years without renewing his passport, as contemplated by the regulations in force all that time.
Your prompt report in this case will be awaited with interest.
I am, etc.,