Of course the task of the embassy in protecting American citizens abroad was especially increased in those times of commotion. At such periods the number of ways in which American citizens, native or naturalized, can get into trouble seems infinite; and here, too, even from the first moment of my arrival in Berlin as ambassador, I saw evidences of the same evil which had struck me during my previous missions in Berlin and St. Petersburg--namely, the constant and ingenious efforts to prostitute American citizenship. Among the manifold duties of an ambassador is the granting of passports. The great majority of those who ask for them are entitled to them; but there are always a considerable number of persons who, having left Europe just in time to escape military service, have stayed in America just long enough to acquire American citizenship, and then, having returned to their native country, seek to enjoy the advantages of both countries while discharging the duties of neither. Even worse were the cases of the descendants of such so-called Americans, most of them born in Europe and not able even to speak the English language; worst of all were the cases of sundry Russians--sometimes stigmatized as "predatory Hebrews"--who, having left Russia and gone to America, had stayed just long enough to acquire citizenship, and then returned and settled in the eastern part of Germany, as near the Russian frontier as possible. These were naturally regarded as fraudulent interlopers by both the German and Russian authorities, and much trouble resulted. Some of them led a life hardly outside the limits of criminality; but they never hesitated on this account to insist on their claims to American protection. When they were reminded that American citizenship was conferred upon them, not that they might shirk its duties and misuse its advantages in the land of their birth, but that they might enjoy it and discharge its duties in the land of their adoption, they scouted the idea and insisted on their right, as American citizens, to live where they pleased. Their communications to the embassy were, almost without exception, in German, Russian, or Polish; very few of them wrote or even spoke English, and very many of them could neither read nor write in any language. For the hard-working immigrant, whether Jew or Gentile, who comes to our country and casts in his lot with us, to take his share not only of privilege but of duty, I have the fullest respect and sympathy, and have always been glad to intervene in his favor; but intervention in behalf of those fraudulent pretenders I always felt to be a galling burden.