File No. 860c.01/91
The Secretary of State to the Representative of the Polish National Committee ( Paderewski )
Sir: I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 18th instant1 in which, in view of the facts stated by you that one of the principal objects of the Polish National Committee of Paris, now recognized by the Government of the United States as an official Polish organization, is to protect the numerous Poles scattered all over the world, to help them through such difficulties as arise from the fact that the countries in which they are now resident, are in a state of war with the Governments which, by right of conquest, claim them as their subjects, and the number of Poles residing in the United States, claimed by Germany and Austria-Hungary as their subjects, is particularly large, and, as a rigorous application of the Enemy Alien Act to these people, whose loyalty to his [their] country is above suspicion, might create, and has already practically created, a great deal of suffering, you inquire whether the Government of the United States would deem it advisable to authorize the Polish National Committee to establish in Washington or New York a consular bureau for the purposes of identifying Poles and issuing certificates of Polish nationality to all Poles whose loyalty and irreproachable conduct would be guaranteed by reliable and responsible citizens.
In reply I have to inform you that the Government of the United States would see no objection to the establishment by the Polish National Committee of an agency for the purposes you mention.
The Government of the United States would not, however, be willing that such agency, at the present time, assume a consular character since to do so would require the issuance of formal commissions by a recognized government and the issuance of exequaturs by the Department of State thereunder.
I am [etc.]
- Not printed.↩