Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 2, The World War

File No. 311.63/59

The Secretary of State to the Swedish Minister ( Ekengren)

No. 307

Washington, December 24, 1917.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of December 18, 1917 (No. 2745/21),¹ inquiring whether there would be any objection on the part of the Department of State to the distribution of relief funds to such Austrian and Hungarian subjects in the United States as may be in need, whether interned or not, by the Prisoners of War Relief Committee of New York City.

In reply I beg leave to inform you that the Department is at present formulating a proposed scheme for the relief of enemy aliens in the United States, which will eventually be brought to your attention as in charge of Austro-Hungarian interests. Until this scheme can be put into operation, the Department will have no objection to the distribution of relief funds to Austrian and Hungarian subjects who may be in need, whether interned or not, by the Prisoners of War Relief Committee of New York City, provided—

(1) That the necessary licenses first be procured from the War Trade Board under the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act, to which Board definite lists of the proposed payments should be submitted by the Committee;

(2) That copies of these lists be submitted also to the Department of State; and

(3) That payments to interned persons be made, when licensed, direct to the United States officers or commissioners in charge of the respective camps or stations for payment to the prisoners according to the regulations of the Departments under which such prisoners are held.

Accept [etc.]

Robert Lansing

[For correspondence regarding the exemption from postal duties of mail and parcels intended for or dispatched by interned civilians, see Department’s circular telegram of January 8, 1918, page 18, and replies, pages 21, 22, 27.]

1. Not printed.