File No. 654.119/221
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland ( Stovall)
1846. Legation 3210, April 30, 1 p.m., Dresel No. 18. It is not the fact that no wheat ships for Switzerland will leave the United States for the next three months. It is the fact that Germany has semi-officially announced (and this announcement has been confirmed verbally to Department by Swiss Minister) that her proffered safe conduct for United States ships en route to Cette for Swiss relief cannot be effective for three months, since it will take this period to modify the existing orders to submarine commanders under which American ships carrying wheat to Cette for Swiss relief are to be torpedoed. This means in so far as American ships are concerned that Germany is still maintaining an armed blockade of Switzerland and that the American wheat on American ships heretofore tendered to Switzerland cannot go forward unless these ships are prepared to fight their way through the blockade which Germany has created and which even closes the supposed free passage to the port of Cette. This challenge the Government of the United States is prepared to meet. Two ships under American flag loaded with grain for Switzerland are now en route to a French Atlantic port escorted by units of the United States Navy.
In addition to such measure of relief as can be afforded to the Swiss by the United States diverting its naval forces to insure by force of arms the receipt of grain by Switzerland, there still exists [Page 1620] the possibility of receiving supplies on neutral ships although this possibility has greatly diminished since the sinking by a German submarine of the Spanish steamer Sardinero, outside of the war zone limits, when engaged in carrying wheat for Swiss relief.
The measures heretofore taken by the United States should, however, be a sufficient earnest of the intention of the United States to insure delivery of wheat for Switzerland, and it should be borne in mind that the extraordinary efforts which the United States has made and will continue to make, will result in still further diminishing of supply of wheat for our own people, when exports already made to cobelligerents and to neutral countries have reduced domestic supplies to a point where the average per capita consumption of wheat in the United States is substantially below the per capita consumption of wheat in Switzerland.
You are authorized to give publicity to the foregoing statement if you see fit, making any change in the verbiage which seems to you desirable.