File No. 763.72111/5676
The Secretary of State to the Swiss Minister ( Sulzer)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your memorandum of September 28, 1917,1 and previous correspondence regarding the conditions under which interned Germans have been held at the immigration station, Angel Island, Calif.
In reply I have the honor to inform you that the Department of State has now been advised that the Department of Labor, which has jurisdiction over the interned aliens who have been unable to comply with the immigration laws, is now able to carry out its original plan with regard to this class of aliens. It has recently given instructions to the Director of Internment to remove all the officers and men, whom it has heretofore been necessary to hold at the immigration station at Angel Island, San Francisco Harbor, to the newly constructed and fully equipped internment station at Hot Springs, N. C.
In advising the Department of State of the above, the Department of Labor reiterates the statement that it was never intended that these alien enemies should be detained for any considerable length of time at the Angel Island station. They were taken to Angel Island because it was the best most convenient and from every point of view the safest place for their internment immediately available, pending such a time as the more suitable and regular internment camp could be established at Hot Springs.
Accept [etc.]
- Not printed.↩