Emanuele v. N. Y.

King Vittorio Emanuele III and New York State went to law last month (TIME, June 17). A piffling $900, and a far-reaching principle, were at stake. The principle which Italy hoped to write down in international law was that the estate of any person who has been a resident but not a citizen of a foreign state, and who dies intestate, shall be administered by his own, rather than his adopted country.

The $900 claimed from New York by Italy's King represented the savings of one Antonio Comincio, who sailed from Italy 42 years ago. In Manhattan he earned his bread with pick & shovel, lived as an Americano, though legally a subject of the Italian crown. In 1925 Laborer Comincio died, leaving no will, no heir, and $900 in the bank which duly escheated to New York State.

Some weeks ago alert Prime Minister Benito Mussolini ferreted out the incident. Remembering the "consular agreement" which provides that Italy may settle the estate of any Italian citizen who dies while living temporarily in the U. S. and vice versa, Signor Mussolini instructed Consul Emanuele Grazzi at New York to file claim for the Comincio savings.

Eloquent Signor Grazzi presented the claim to Surrogate James A. Foley in Manhattan. Other European diplomats watched the test case closely. If it were fixed by precedent that foreign countries could lay hands on the unclaimed estates of their citizens domiciled in the U. S., they might expect a neat annual revenue from this source. Italy might get as much as $100,000 yearly in New York State alone, where at least $5,000,000 in claims by other nations were ready for presentation.

Judge Foley pondered all this in his office at Manhattan's Hall of Records. Finally he decided that: 1) Antonio Comincio had signified his desire to set up his domicile in the U. S.; 2) that domicile, not nationality, decides the succession of personal property.

Prime Minister Mussolini made no comment on the decision. He had hoped to receive not only the unclaimed estates of Italians in the U. S. but of Italians in Argentina, who largely control that country's business and who, fond of Italy, seldom become Argentine citizens.

In the U. S. most Italians eventually become naturalized. And most people of substance, whether in a foreign land or not, make wills. Among Italian noncitizens in the U. S. who, if they have made no wills, have no heirs, might have enriched Italy's treasury had the decision gone the other way, are Count Villa, silkman: Editor Luigi Barzini of Carriere a"America; President Siero Susi of the Manhattan branch of the Italian Commercial Bank.