763.72111/634a
The Secretary of State to President Wilson
My Dear Mr. President: I enclose an opinion in regard to the sale of Submarines.3 I fear that we would be “skating on thin ice” if we adopted the rule suggested.
It may be within the rules of neutrality but I am afraid we could not convince the average citizen there was any difference in allowing a vessel to be completed here and allowing the parts to be made so that a complete vessel could be shipped and the parts assembled in another port.4
If you are in doubt about the matter I would like to talk with you before the matter is finally settled, as I think there is danger in this proposition.
With assurances [etc.]
- No copy of this enclosure found in Department files.↩
- For correspondence previously printed concerning the sale of submarines in parts, see Foreign Relations, 1914, supp., p. 577; ibid., 1915, supp., pp. 782–783.↩