763.72119/633½a
The Secretary of State to President Wilson
My Dear Mr. President: I have just had a talk with Morris Hill-quit, the socialist, who is seeking a passport to go abroad and attend the Stockholm conference.25 . . .
. . . I do not see how it can result in good and it may do much harm. I understand that the British are greatly disturbed over it and are disposed not to issue passports to their socialists who wish [Page 33] to attend and that the French have the same view. They feel if we issue passports to our socialists that they will be forced to do the same.
The question is shall we issue passports to men who are avowedly going to the Conference. If we refuse, it may make them martyrs. If we do issue them, we may encourage a dangerous pro-German movement and permit agitators near Russia who are frankly hostile to the Commission to Russia and will seek every means to discredit it and weaken their influence with the socialistic and labor element.
Will you be good enough to give me your opinion as to the action which we should take?
I enclose a letter which I received yesterday from Mr. Russell and which bears on this subject.26
Faithfully yours,
- For correspondence previously printed on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1917, supp. 2, vol. i, pp. 738 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩