File No. 150.07/24.
The Secretary of State to Ambassador Penfield.10
Washington, August 29, 1914.
The Secretary of Labor is endeavoring through the Bureau of Immigration to meet in a spirit of reasonable liberality and broad humanity, the various problems arising in connection with immigration to this country by reason of the war conditions in Europe and elsewhere. He has already called the attention of the various steamship companies, in justice to intending immigrants, to the necessity for the strict observance of particular care in the selection and transportation of alien passengers. As the immigration laws of the United States must be observed and enforced irrespective of the existence abroad of the said conditions, the bringing of aliens at this time to ports of the United States who are not clearly of the [Page 20] admissible classes must, therefore, result in even more than the ordinary hardship and distress as well as expense, because of the difficulty of deporting safely and promptly, either to the country of origin, or that of embarkation, those whom it may be necessary under the said laws to reject. In the cases of aliens from nations now at war proceeding to a seaport of a neutral nation and thence embarking for the United States, greater hardships may be suffered and more dangers encountered.
It is the desire of this Government in this emergency, by diligence and careful attention to reduce to a minimum all unfavorable elements, and this Department joins the Department of Labor in inviting the cooperation of all governments and immigration authorities to work in unison for the attainment of this purpose by the exercise of care in permitting the transportation to the United States from foreign ports of such aliens only as are clearly of the admissible classes under the immigration laws of the United States, section 2, act of February 20, 1907, as amended by act March 26, 1910, copy in your office.
The foregoing has been transmitted to the diplomatic representatives of foreign nations at this capital and you are requested to aid as far as you can consistently in carrying out the object of this communication and to bring the same to the attention of the Government to which you are accredited and to all interested parties.
Repeat to consuls.
- The same mutatis mutandis to the American Embassies at Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, St. Petersburg, San Sebastian, and Constantinople and to the American Legations at Brussels, The Hague, Christiania, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Athens, Lisbon, Bucharest, and Berne.↩