File No. 763.72115/3401
The Acting Secretary of State to the Swiss Minister ( Sulzer)
The Acting Secretary of State presents his compliments to the Minister of Switzerland, in charge of German interests in the United States, and has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the Legation’s memoranda of September 161 and September 30, 1918, transmitting copies of two communications from the German Government dated August 12 and August 31 respectively, regarding the internment of German women in the United States.
In reply Mr. Polk requests Doctor Sulzer to bring to the attention of the German Government the following facts:
No general policy has been adopted by the Government of the United States calling for the internment of any considerable number of German women, nor have extensive measures been taken for their internment, and the internment of German women has not in any instance been ordered as a matter of reprisal. The United States statutes and the presidential proclamations issued in pursuance thereof, by virtue of which the power of internment is exercised by this Government, limit the application of this power to those enemy aliens who there is reasonable cause to believe are aiding or about to aid the enemy or who may be at large to the danger of the public peace or safety, or who violate or attempt to violate, or who there is reasonable ground to believe are about to violate, any regulation duly promulgated by the President, or any criminal law of the United States, or of the States or Territories thereof. Down to the present time, only 15 German women have been actually interned, although others have been temporarily detained and then released, and the Government of the United States does not contemplate any general measures of internment affecting German women or that there will be any great increase in the number of women interned.
It has been the policy of the Government of the United States not to discuss the reasons for the presidential action exercised in individual cases of internment and the United States Government must decline to furnish the German Government with any statement of the specific grounds upon which the persons in question were interned.
Under the circumstances as stated above, it would seem that if the German Government refuses a safe-conduct to American women in the absence of any facts tending to show that such American women are in any way dangerous upon the assumption that considerable [Page 204] numbers of German women are being interned by the Government of the United States without cause, such action by the German Government is predicated upon a complete misapprehension of the facts. The Government of the United States feels unable to give the guarantee which has been requested by the German Government in its note verbale of August 31, 1918, that German women in the United States will be exempt from any kind of internment.
- Not printed.↩