The Secretary of State to the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.
Washington, January 5, 1905.
Dear Mr. Ambassador: I have had the pleasure to receive your memorandum dated the 1st instant in reference to the newspaper statements regarding the action of the Royal Hungarian authorities in confiscating prepaid passage tickets to the United States.
Various complaints have been presented to me where the Hungarian authorities have confiscated passage tickets issued and paid for in the United States, and where American citizens visiting Hungary have been detained and prevented from going to an Atlantic or North Sea port to take returning passage. These cases are being pressed by the American embassy. The Austro-Hungarian Government has admitted that unlawful acts have been done by the Hungarian officers through zeal in the performance of their supposed duty. I am in hopes of hearing soon that an effective remedy and rebuke has been applied and proper reparation made in these cases, especially in the extreme instances where it is reported that American citizens holding return tickets by other lines have been arrested, their time-limit tickets taken up and rendered useless by expiration, and they themselves ordered to take passage by the subsidized Hungarian line from Fiume. Your memorandum gives me additional assurance that this will be done and the abuse checked.
Thanking you for the information you convey, I am, etc.,