File No. 763.72115/3254a
The Secretary of State to the Secretary of Labor ( Wilson)1
Sir: The question of the general relief of the wives and families of enemy aliens interned in the United States under the provisions of the President’s proclamation of April 6, 1917,2 or because of their failure to comply with our immigration requirements, is daily becoming more pressing. It is unquestionably in our interest that these people be kept from destitution, being deprived of their former means of support through the internment of their husbands or fathers, and equally important that a careful control be exercised over the amounts of the relief payments, so that the money may not be used for purposes contrary to the interests of this Government.
At present this relief work is undertaken by the Prisoners of War Relief Society of New York, a German-American organization, presumably loyal, but financed entirely by individual contributors. The Department’s control over it has hitherto been limited to an examination of the lists of payments which the Swiss Legation, in charge of German interests in the United States, has been required to submit regularly.
According to the Swiss Legation, the German Government has taken the attitude that there is no necessity for using German Government funds for making relief payments, inasmuch as there are many German subjects and German-Americans in this country who are financially able and willing to contribute to the relief of German subjects less favorably situated.
The Department considers this attitude wrong. The German Government spent at least a million and a half roubles a month for the relief of German civilians in Russia while our Embassy in Petro-grad was in charge of German interests and at least a million marks a quarter for the relief of German civilians in the British Empire. They can therefore well afford to do likewise in this country, particularly in the cases of those individuals or families whose husbands, sons or brothers have been interned because of acts unfriendly to the United States and acts presumably meant to be of service to the German Government.
Believing that the Legation of Switzerland should be made the sole distributing center of these relief funds and that it should, as heretofore, be required to give us an account of its activities in this direction [Page 189] I append herewith a tentative scheme for controlling this relief work1 and shall be glad to have an expression of your views in regard thereto, in so far as the scheme applies to enemy aliens under the control of your Department. I particularly request your opinion with regard to the maximum payments to be permitted, mentioned in paragraphs 7 and 8, the Department having taken more or less arbitrary figures as a tentative proposal.
I have worded the draft in such a way that it may subsequently be made to apply also to Austro-Hungarian subjects under the protection of the Legation of Sweden.
I have [etc.]