File No. 861.48/350
The Secretary of State to Messrs. C. B. Richard & Co., New York City 2
Gentlemen: With reference to your letter of August 21,1 I take pleasure in informing you that your firm is hereby authorized to undertake the transmission of relief funds to American citizens or [Page 508] Russian subjects in that part of Russian Poland now occupied by German or Austro-Hungarian forces, under the conditions and limitations laid down by the Department in conference with your representative, Mr. Egelhoff, and subject to such alterations of these conditions and limitations as may from time to time become necessary under new legislation or reconsideration of policy on the part of this Government.
According to the request expressed to Mr. Egelhoff by Mr. Grew, the Department will be glad to receive from you a letter confirming in detail the conditions and limitations mentioned above, as understood by your firm, as well as a concise statement explaining the machinery and channels which you propose to adopt for the transmission of funds to Poland, for ensuring the return of signed receipts from the payees, for checking against duplication, and for ascertaining that the intended payees are not enemy subjects.
The conditions and limitations mentioned above are as follows:
- 1.
- A monthly statement to be furnished to the Department giving the total sum of amounts remitted.
- 2.
- No sum to any one person, or any one family, in any one month, to exceed $125.
- 3.
- Remittances to be made through a Dutch bank direct to Warsaw, not passing through any bank in Germany.
- 4.
- Distribution to be effected by postal order in Poland, it being understood that the remittances shall be returned where signed receipts from the payees cannot be procured.
- 5.
- Distribution to be effected through the German military authorities only when no doubt exists that signed receipts from the payees can be procured.
I am [etc.]
Assistant Secretary