File No. 763.72112/2611
The Chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross (ex-President Taft) to the Secretary of State 4
[Received May 10.]
Sir: As Chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross, and on behalf of that organization, I have the honor to submit the following:
[Page 948]Since the beginning of the present war, the American Red Cross has invited contributions of money and supplies with which to aid the wounded and suffering of all the belligerents. We have shipped to the Red Cross societies of each belligerent hospital supplies contributed to us for that purpose. We have found no difficulty in sending such articles to the Entente Allies. We have had to obtain permits from Great Britain for the shipments to the Red Cross of the Central powers. Until September 1915, there was substantially no delay in the granting of these permits by Great Britain. Since that time, we have had much difficulty in securing them, and the supplies donated in kind and designated for the use of the Central powers have accumulated in our warehouses in New York. A permit was granted for only one shipment since that time—in January of this year. Through your Department, we are now in receipt of a communication from the British Government, announcing that it does not intend to permit any further shipment, unless it is a shipment to our own hospital units, in a territory of the Central powers. This exception amounts to no concession, for the reason that as the British Government was advised in August last, after the first of October, for lack of funds, we were able to maintain no hospital units in any of the belligerent countries. The authorities of the American Red Cross believe that under the Geneva convention, to which the United States and all the belligerent powers are signatories, the United States has the treaty right to insist that articles serving exclusively to aid the sick and wounded in the form of hospital supplies, shipped by the American Red Cross to the Red Cross of the Central powers, shall not be declared contraband, but shall be allowed safe-conduct to their destination. The reasons for this view of the obligation of Great Britain under the Geneva convention of 1906 were set forth in a communication by the undersigned to his excellency, the British Ambassador, under date of December 30, 1915, and a copy of this was transmitted to your Department.1
We are now in receipt of a communication from your Department, enclosing a dispatch from the British Government, in which it definitely withdraws its consent for the shipment of such articles by the American Red Cross, and thus in effect announces its purpose to treat them as contraband of war. The reason as given by the British Government for this conclusion in the dispatch of March 222 is that while it had consented to exempt from treatment as contraband of war, articles serving exclusively to aid the sick and wounded, and coming within the description contained in Article 29 of the Declaration of London, and had expressed that willingness to the Spanish Ambassador, with a view to its communication to the Central powers, nine months had passed since that communication and no definite communication had been received from the German, Austrian, or Turkish Government on the subject of these lists. In view of the fact that the German Government did consent to a reciprocal course on October 15, 1915, in respect to Article 29, and that fact was communicated to the British Foreign Office, as we are advised by the British Ambassador at Washington, we venture to hope that the conclusion of the British Government was based on a misconception, and that when the matter is called to its attention, a change in this [Page 949] policy may be had. Under the Geneva convention, Article 16 provides that the material of aid societies admitted to the benefits of the convention—and the Red Cross of the United States and of the Central powers are such societies—is to be respected as private property. Our contention is that this necessarily exempts our shipments of hospital supplies to the Red Cross of the Central powers from interference as contraband by the British Government, and we think that this construction is sustained by the action of Great Britain and the Central powers in accepting Article 29 of the Declaration of London as a proper guide in respect of contraband. Article 29 provides that articles serving exclusively to aid the sick and wounded shall not be treated as contraband of war. Doctor Ferrière, Chief of the Sanitary Service of the International Bureau for Prisoners of War at Geneva, speaking upon this question, says:
The furnishing of articles absolutely necessary for the care of the wounded is not only a humanitarian duty, but a work of international utility because all of the wounded benefit from it, whether they belong to the national army or whether they are prisoners taken by the enemy. Therefore, it is certainly within the spirit of the convention of Geneva to facilitate the transmittal of articles used strictly for such purposes and for no other end.
It seems to the American Red Cross to be in the interest of the humane conduct of all wars that this construction of the Geneva convention shall obtain, and we respectfully urge upon the State Department the propriety and wisdom of bringing the matter again to the attention of the British Government, with the hope that it may change the attitude taken by it in the most recent dispatches of March 22 and March 30,1 which, as I have already said, seem to be based on a misconception of the attitude of the Central powers in respect to Article 29 of the Declaration of London.
Sincerely yours,