811.111 Colleges 62/27

The German Embassy to the Department of State

[Translation]

The German Embassy has the honor to refer to the esteemed note of September 3 of this year—No. 811.111 Colleges 62/25 [26]—and to call attention to the enclosed application addressed to the Department of Labor by the German Students’ Co-operative Association on December 3 of this year. The Association expresses therein the request that it be granted the admission to the United States of 50 German work students (sic) for the year 1931, according to the agreement concluded on February 4, 1926. Details of the circumstances upon which this request is based are set forth in the enclosure.

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The Embassy deems it worth while upon this occasion, and upon its own behalf, again to call attention to the high cultural significance which it attaches to the efficacy which has heretofore characterized the exchange of work students as a means of promoting understanding and a mutual inspiration to intellectual relations between the American and the German peoples. It therefore has the honor to give the present request its warmest support.

[Enclosure]

Mr. Herbert Boehmer of the German Students’ Cooperative Association to the Second Assistant Secretary of Labor (Husband)

My Dear Mr. Husband: In reference to our today’s conversation we have much pleasure in handing you herewith application for the admission of 50 German work students during the coming year, 1931.

In support of this application we beg to submit for your consideration the following:

You indicated during the conversation which we had with you during the summer in Washington that the 35 students admitted in April were the maximum which you could allow to enter during the present year. The considerations which guided you in this decision have been appreciated by our organization in spite of the fact that this sudden reduction in the number of students admitted meant a very serious blow to the whole institution of the student exchange and to our work in maintaining this institution.

At present there are 124 students in this country, a group of 12 of whom is due to leave during the month of January, 1931 and another group of 48 in April, so that a total number of only 64 students will remain after that date in the United States, of which again about the half will be due to leave in the fall of 1931. If, therefore, the 50 new students are admitted for that year, for which the application is now being made, the total would remain about 100 or exactly the half of the heretofore figure.

The figure for which we now apply is moreover the absolute minimum for which it is possible to maintain the work of our organization. A reduction below this figure would place us before the question of completely giving up our activities, as has already been suggested by some of those who are supporting it financially in Germany and we submit that it would, in view of the experiences of the past and the acknowledged inestimable value of this exchange, be a very great loss if the whole institution had to be abandoned for all time just on [Page 115] account of a pro tempore condition of economic depression which in the opinion of all experts is already on the wane.

With reference to the latter we wish, however, to add that it is not our intention to have the students all come over at once, but in such groups as locations can be found for.

We fully realize and appreciate the objections of the Department of Labor but beg to submit that the 50 students for whom this application is made could not conceivably upset or even impair the unemployment situation in this country. Our students are, moreover, taken care of by our organization, are not immigrants come to stay and cannot in any respect become a public charge whilst here. For this reason we have cause to believe that neither on the part of the American Federation of Labor nor of any other institution will there be any objections raised against the entry of 50 work students in 1931.

In respect of the whole question we beg to make reference to repeated expressions since the conclusion of our agreement with the Department of Labor on February 4, 1926, to the expression made in the matter by the German Embassy and to the recent conversations with Dr. Edmund Stinnes, one of our most enthusiastic sponsors in Germany, had with you in October. The institution of work students exchange which is based on the principles of reciprocity, offering the same facilities to all American students in Germany who wish to avail themselves thereof, has proved to be of greatest educational, social and economic value to both countries and should be upheld by all means.

We finally wish to voice our gratitude for the kindness and assistance rendered during the past years and express the sincere hope that the good will of the Labor Department may be extended to us for the future.

Yours respectfully,

Herbert Boehmer