763.72113 Au 7/21
The Secretary of State to Senator Reed Smoot 8
My Dear Senator: It has been brought to my attention informally that some of the members of the Committee on Finance are considering the question whether the Committee should recommend amendments to the “Settlement of War Claims Act of 1928” (H. R. 7201) now being discussed before the Committee for the purpose of providing for the return, under certain conditions, of the Austrian and Hungarian property sequestrated by the Alien Property Custodian.
Early last month the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means informed me that his Committee was giving attention to that [Page 465] question, and requested for the information of the Committee a statement outlining the considerations involved therein. Under date of December 10, 1927, I wrote Mr. Green at some length on this subject and transmitted several documents bearing thereon, and since it appears that your Committee is likely to interest itself in the same matter, I feel that you should have before you the same information that I furnished to the Committee on Ways and Means. Accordingly, I take pleasure in transmitting a copy of my letter to Mr. Green of December 10, 1927, and the enclosures thereto.9
Since sending the enclosed letter to Mr. Green I have been informed by the Austrian Minister that his Government has no objection to the publication of his note of November 29, 1927.10 As a result, the request contained in the last paragraph of my letter of December 10, 1927, to the effect that the communications from the Austrian and Hungarian Legations be treated as confidential is now applicable only to the memorandum which the Hungarian Minister submitted to me under date of December 16, 1926.11
I am [etc.]
- Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1927, vol. i, p. 303.↩
- Ibid., p. 301.↩
- Ibid., 1926, vol. i, p. 143.↩