File No. 763.72113/415
The Secretary of State to the Swiss Minister ( Sulzer)1
Sir: The Department’s attention has been called to the fact that in a number of cases involving the settlement in the courts of the United States of estates in which persons defined as enemies or allies of enemy by the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act, are interested, the consuls of the neutral countries having charge of the interests in the United States of the enemy or ally-of-enemy governments of which such persons are subjects, have made demands upon the present custodians of the funds involved for payment to them of the amounts due the respective enemy or ally-of-enemy subjects represented by them.
The Department has further been informed that the consuls of such neutral countries are appearing before workmen’s compensation boards and other tribunals in the United States claiming the right to represent enemy or ally-of-enemy subjects in the collection and receipt of funds awarded by the boards and tribunals to such subjects.
I, therefore, beg to call your attention to the provisions of section 7(c) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, approved October 6, 1917, which read as follows:
If the President shall so require, any money or other property owing or belonging to or held for, by, on account of, or on behalf of, or for the benefit of an enemy or ally of enemy not holding a license granted by the President hereunder, which the President after investigation shall determine is so owing or so belongs or is so held, shall be conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid over to the Alien Property Custodian.
In view of the fact that, pursuant to the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the President has appointed an Alien Property Custodian whose duty it is to receive funds owing and payable to enemy or ally-of-enemy subjects, the Department is of the opinion [Page 274] that it would be well if, in the interest of uniformity of action, and in order to obviate possible confusion and misunderstanding regarding matters of this character, you could find it convenient to bring to the attention of the Swiss consular officers in the United States the above-quoted provisions of the act in question.
Accept [etc.]
- The same, mutatis mutandis, on the same date, to the Spanish Ambassador, in charge of Turkish interests in the United States (No. 773), and to the Swedish Minister, in charge of Austro-Hungarian interests (No. 317).↩