462.00R294/2890½
Statement Issued to the Press by the Secretary of State, May 16, 1929
In respect to the statements which have appeared in the press in regard to the participation of any Federal Reserve officials in the [Page 1071] creation or management of the new proposed International Bank, I wish to make clear the position of this Government:
While we look with interest and sympathy upon the efforts being made by the Committee of Experts to suggest a solution and a settlement of the vexing question of German reparations, this Government does not desire to have any American official, directly or indirectly, participate in the collection of German reparations through the agency of this bank or otherwise. Ever since the close of the war the American Government has consistently taken this position; it has never accepted membership on the Reparations Commission; it declined to join the Allied Powers in the confiscation of the sequestered German property and the application of that property to its war claims. The comparatively small sums which it receives under the Dawes Plan are applied solely to the settlement of the claims judicially ascertained by the Mixed Claims Commission, (United States-Germany) in fulfillment of an agreement with Germany, and to the repayment of the expenses of the American Army of Occupation in Coblenz, which remained in such occupation on the request of both the Allied nations and Germany. It does not now wish to take any step which would indicate a reversal of that attitude and for that reason it will not permit any officials of the Federal Reserve System either to themselves serve or to select American representatives as members of the proposed International Bank.