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CHAPTER  9
WHEN IS AN AMERICAN NOT AN AMERICAN ? 
THE following two letters show an attitude on the part of the National Administration which challenges the careful consideration of every American. The letters, which were sent me by Mr. John M. Parker, of New Orleans, explain themselves:
Hon.   William  Jennings  Bryan,   Secretary   of
State, Washington, D. C. Your Excellency:

My father, P. A. Lelong, was a native of France and came to New Orleans when he was about twenty years of age; lived here about forty years. He died here about two years ago, but about five years before his death took out naturalization papers.

I was born in New Orleans, June 18, 1880. I have never been out of the United States and have regularly voted as an American citizen since I reached the age of twenty-one years, and if war had ever occurred between France and the United States, I most certainly would have fought for the United States. I have held the office of Township Commissioner in Henderson County, North Carolina; have held several court appointments, both Federal and State, and am a member of the State and Federal bar, and have considered myself as much an American citizen as President Wilson or any of the members of the Cabinet.

I wish to visit France on business in the near future, and am informed by Mr. Ferrand and the French Consul here that if I go to France I could be either impressed into the French service or punished for not having reported for military duty, and also for having served in the State Militia of Louisiana without permission from the French Government.

I contend that if the French Government had any right to claim me as a citizen under their laws, in times of peace they should have called on me to serve my three years in their military service.

Wishing to know whether my constitutional privileges as an American citizen follow me wherever I go, with its constitutional guarantees, or whether the United States Government will allow the French Government to act in the manner as stated by Mr. Ferrand, the French Consul, I respectfully request an answer at as early a date as possible.
Respectfully yours, (Signed)    P. A. long, jr.
To this the following answer was returned:
department op state,
washington, April 2, 1915. Mr. P. A. Lelong, Junior, 832 Union Street,

New Orleans, Louisiana. Sir:

The Department has received your letter of March 27, 1915, stating that you expect to go to France on business in the near future and inquiring whether you would be molested by the French military authorities. You say that you were born in New Orleans, June 18, 1880, and that your father, a native of France, resided in this country about forty years and obtained naturalization as a citizen of the United States shortly before his death, which occurred about two years ago.

Under the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. Section one, Article VII of the French Civil Code, states that the following are Frenchmen: "Every person   born   of   a   Frenchman   in   France   or abroad."

It thus appears that you were born with a dual nationality, and the Department cannot therefore give you any assurance that you would not be held liable for the performance of military service in France should you voluntarily place yourself within French jurisdiction. I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
For the Secretary of State, 
(Signed)    robert lansing,
Counselor.
One effect of this decision, on an American citizen who actually went abroad, reached me in a letter I received, dated November 6th, 1915, from Camp House, Short Hills, New Jersey. The writer is an Italian woman, Elizabeth Parness. Her husband, Vito Parness, is not only a naturalized citizen, but has served in the Eleventh Cavalry, United States Army, for three years, being discharged a non-commissioned officer. In November, 1914, he went to Italy to see his old father and mother and has not been allowed to return. His wife writes me that she is in dire poverty, having no means of support; that the State Department has been notified, but that nothing has been done. But it is, perhaps, natural that when native-born Americans are murdered and their wives raped with impunity in Mexico, naturalized Americans, even although ex-United States soldiers, receive no protection in Europe.

I hold that it is the clear duty of the American people immediately to repudiate the doctrine thus laid down by the Wilson Administration. According to this doctrine there are in our country very many citizens—and, as a matter of fact, this ruling would apply to millions of citizens—who are "born with a dual nationality." Two or three years ago it was announced that Germany had passed a law by which she provided for her citizens, who became naturalized in the United States or elsewhere, the means of also retaining their German citizenship, so that these men would preserve a dual citizenship, what the Department of State in this letter of April 2nd last calls " a dual nationality." I hold that it was the business of our Government as soon as this statement was published to investigate the facts, to require would-be citizens to repudiate this law, and to notify the German Government that we protested against and would refuse to recognize its action; that we declined to recognize or acquiesce in the principle of such a dual citizenship or a dual nationality; that we would hold naturalized citizens to the full performance of the duties of American citizenship, which were necessarily exclusive of and inconsistent with the profession of citizenship in or allegiance to any other nation, and that in return we would extend the same protection to these citizens that is extended to native-born citizens. Such action was not taken. It is a reproach to us as a nation that it was not taken. We should not for a moment tolerate the assumption by Germany or by any other foreign power that foreign-born citizens of the United States can retain any citizenship in or allegiance to the country from which they came. But the present case is even worse. It seems incredible that the Department of State can promulgate the doctrine of dual nationality promulgated in its letter above quoted. Yet it has been asserted and reasserted, both before and since Mr. Bryan left office. It is dangerously close to treason to the United States to hold that men born here of foreign parentage, men who have served in the militia in this country, who vote and hold office and exercize all the other rights of citizenship, and who in good faith are and always have been Americans, should, nevertheless, be blandly informed by the State Department that if they visit the countries in which their parents were born they can be seized, punished for evasion of military duty, or made to serve in the army.
Let me point out a few of the possible applications of the doctrines thus laid down by the Department of State. If Colonel Goethals went to Holland he would be liable to be shipped out for military service in Sumatra. If Admirals Oster-haus and Schroeder had gone to Germany they could have been forced to serve under Admiral von Tirpitz in the German navy. If General Barry should visit England he could be seized and sent to the trenches in France. If my neighbors Messrs. Peter Dunne and Mark Sullivan, and my friends Judge O'Brien and James Con-oily and Charles Conolly, went to England they could be impressed into the British army for service in Flanders or Ireland. If the sons of Jacob Riis went to Denmark they could be retained in the Danish forces. If the son of the great war correspondent McGahan, whose mother was a Russian lady, went to Russia, he could be sent to serve in the Carpathians. President Andrew Jackson on this theory could have been impressed for military service in the English army against which he fought at New Orleans, if he had ever happened to visit England; and President Arthur would have been in the same plight.

Such incidents seem like the phantasmagoria of an unpleasant dream. Until I saw this letter of April 2nd last, I had not supposed that it would be possible for any human being in our country to uphold such a proposition. Yet in point of rights, Mr. Lelong stands exactly level with the men whom I have thus instanced. Surely it ought not to be necessary to say that the rights of every citizen in this land are as great and as sacred as those of any other citizen. The United States cannot with self-respect permit its organic and fundamental law to be overridden by the laws of a foreign country. It cannot acknowledge any such theory as this of "a dual nationality"—which, incidentally, is a self-evident absurdity.

Mr. Lelong was born in this country; when he became of age he elected to exercise his birthright granted to him by the Constitution of the United States; he took an oath to support that Constitution, and he has held military office under its authority, and under the authority of two states of the American Union. He is eligible to the Presidency of the United States. He is a citizen of the United States, standing on an exact equality of right with all other citizens, and he is entitled to the full protection of the United States both in and out of any foreign country, free and exempt from any provision of the law of that country as to citizenship. There should not be a moment's delay in asserting this doctrine, not only as regards Mr. Lelong and France, but as regards Germany in connection with her law providing for a dual citizenship so far as it concerns immigrants from Germany who become citizens of the United States.

We should assert in the face of all the nations of the world, of France and England, of Russia, Austria and Germany, the principle that we ourselves determine for ourselves the rights of citizenship of our citizens, that we champion them in the full exercise of these rights as against any foreign power that interferes with them, and that in return we hold them to a full accountability for the exercise of these rights in the sole interest of the United States as against any foreign power which claims any allegiance whatsoever from them.