JOHN DAVIS, Acting Secretary to P. S.—Please cause the reply to this to be directed to Hon. Samuel B. Berry, Lebanon, Ky, July 31, 1884
No. 237. Mr. Davis to Mr. Richmond.
No. 87.]
Sir: I have to inclose herewith for your information copies of communications addressed to the President from the Hon. J. B. Beck, United States Senator from Kentucky, his excellency Governor Knott, of Kentucky, and the Hon. S. B. Berry, also of Kentucky, requesting that steps be taken to obtain permission from the Italian Government for the Reverend Father Valentine Theodore Lanciotti, a native of Ciciliano, Italy, to visit his aged father, who still resides at that place.
It appears that the reverend father, after being called upon to perform military service in the Italian army, secretly left Italy in 1870 for the United States, and has since become a citizen of this country.
He very naturally anticipates trouble upon his contemplated visit to Italy, and has, through his friends in Kentucky where he is engaged as vice-president of St. Mary’s College, requested the President to intervene with the Italian Government and request that he be permitted to visit his native land unmolested.
It is represented that Biagio Lanciotti, the father of the applicant, is now eighty years of age, and is anxious to see his son in order to arrange his worldly affairs.
It is also represented that Biagio Lanciotti furnished the Italian army with a son who performed the services due from the reverend father.
In view of these representations you are instructed to request the desired permission of the foreign office of Italy.
I am, &c.,
Acting Secretary.