Office of the Historian

841.857 L 97/87

The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Peters) to the Counselor for the Department of State (Lansing)

Washington, May 8, 1915.

Dear Mr. Lansing: In response to Mr. Woolsey’s request on the telephone this morning, that I obtain certain information from the Collector at New York in regard to the Cunard Liner Lusitania,32 I beg to report as follows:—

1.
Whether she had any contraband or ammunition on board at the time she sailed from New York:
Practically all of her cargo was contraband of some kind.
2.
The character or nature of such contraband and munitions:
  • Her cargo included:
    • 32 cases cotton goods & 313 cases raw furs.
    • Sheet brass, 260,000 lbs.
    • Copper ingots and base, 111,000 lbs.
    • Insulated copper wire, 58,000 lbs.
    • Cheese, 217,000. lbs.
    • Beef, 342,000. lbs.
    • Butter, 43,000 lbs.
    • Lard, 40,000 lbs.
    • Bacon, 85,000 lbs.
    • 31 packages of hardware, aluminum, brass, iron, old rubber
    • 1271 packages ammunition consigned by Bethlehem Steel Co., consisting of
      • 6 cases of fuses
      • 12 cases “ “
      • 1250 cases “ shrapnel
    • 8 packages of motor cycles and parts
    • 89 pieces of leather
    • 2400 [4200?] cases of metallic packages [cartridges] shipped by Remington Arms Company.
    • 185 cases accoutrements
3.
Whether the vessel had any guns mounted on board.
Neutrality men were on board every day. No guns at any time found mounted, nor, so far as they knew, on board.
4.
And whether she had any ammunition for the same, and its character:
  • Answered above.

Yours sincerely,

A. J. Peters
  1. For, correspondence previously printed concerning the sinking of the Lusitania, see ibid., pp. 384 ff.↩