held by the Alien Property Custodian or deposited in the United States Treasury shall be settled as Congress shall direct."

It is evident therefore that Congress considered that the national emergency would be sufficiently met by seizure without confiscation, leaving the ultimate disposition of the property to be later determined as Congress should provide. In this respect there is a close resemblance to the captured and abandoned property act of March 12, 1863, to which reference has already been made.

The act has fully served its primary purpose. The Alien Property Custodian has seized enemy property of German and Austrian ownership which he estimates to be worth $700,000,000. ( (Report, p. 9.) This property has been placed in 32,296 trusts. Actual valuations already made show a value of over $502,000,000 with some 9,000 cases still to be valued, which as before stated are expected to swell the total to $700,000,000. In regard to this seizure the Alien Property Custodian says on page 13 of his report:

** * *

“The legislative intent was plainly that all enemy property, concealed as well as disclosed, should be placed entirely beyond the control or influences of its former owners where it can not eventually yield aid and comfort to the enemy, directly or indirectly Property in his (the Alien Property Custodian's) hands is in custodia legis in a large sense and the Government can be relied upon at the conclusion of the war to make adequate provisions for the just disposition nd distribution of all this property."

The Alien Property Custodian makes a most significant division of the property seized into two classes, one friendly and one hostile. Thus he says at pages 13 and 14 of his report:

"The enemy investments in America divide themselves into two classes. In the first are the private investments of individual German subjects who, attracted by the possibilities in America, invested their funds in a small way in this country in real estate, in mortgages, and in securities chiefly of industrial and transportation companies. In the second class are the investments which have been made by combined capital in Germany having close ffiliations with the great political and financial powers of the Empire. These latter investments sought dominance and frequently secured control of great industrial establishments of the United States. It seemed to me from the beginning that these two classes of property should be treated differently when they came into the possession of the Alien Property Custodian. Speaking in a general way investments in the first class were friendly. As to them the Alien Property Custodian is constituted a sort of trustee or guardian to see that they are conserved and protected as against the time when the treaty of peace or the act of Congress shall make final disposition of them in kind. Investments in the second class were in a sense hostile. They constituted Germany's great industrial army on American soil. In many cases the factories, warehouses, and offices of these enemy-owned concerns were spy centers before America entered the World War, and would have been nests of sedition if the Alien Property Cutodian had not acted promptly in their seizure. As to these no obligation is owed to their private owners to conserve or care for them with a view of ever returning them in kind. The purpose of Germany in maintaining many of them here was such as to justify their complete eradication as German enterprises and their thorough nationalization into an American character."

The trading with the enemy act as originally passed contained but limited powers of sale. (Report, p. 14.) It made the Alien Property Custodian little more than a conservator. But where investigation demonstrated the existence of this great group of hostile industrial investments, fitly called by the Alien Property Custodian "the German industrial army on American soil," Congress passed an amendment giving to the Alien Property Custodian a general power of sale, intended to destroy this army forever (report, p. 15). In the case of hostile investments this power has been exercised to the full. The chemical, metal, magneto, textile, and numerous other industries have been by sale purged of the German character and thoroughly Americanized. In this way resources valuable for the prosecution of the war were rendered availablesuch as magnetos, cloth, acids, dyes, medicines, and surgical supplies (report, p. 10). The Alien Property Custodian well suggests that the proceeds of these sales constitute a fund which seems ample to pay the claims of our own citizens for losses inflicted by Germany. (Report, p. 18.)

It thus appears that the trading with the enemy act of October 6, 1917, and amendments thereof had in this aspect a fourfold purpose:

First and most important, it provided for the seizure (but not the confiscation) of enemy property in order to prevent any use of it to aid Germany in the prosecution of the war.

Second, by sale of hostile investments it provided for the destruction of the German industrial army on American soil, and thereby ended the German threat to our national economic and industrial prosperity.

Third, it made possible the use of the German industrial army against Germany herself.

III. THE PROPOSED BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF AMERICAN AND NEUTRAL WOMEN WHO HAVE INTERMARRIED WITH ALIENS IS INCONSISTENT WITH NONE OF THESE PURPOSES OF THE ACT OF OCTOBER, 1917.

Your petitioners certainly hold no brief for the German industrial army. On the contrary, they rejoice in its destruction. They do not urge that any part of the proceeds of these hostile investments should be repaid to Germany or German citizens. On the contrary, those proceeds should be used for the relief of our own citizens from losses caused by Germany. The Alien Property Custodian apparently contemplates that German private investments may be restored. He has apparently withheld them from sale, in order to keep this possibility open.

Your petitioners, however, believe and urge that justice, generosity, and chivalry, as well as the humane practice of this country in former wars, require that a small class of property should be restored intact to its former owners, even though they are technically regarded as alien enemies.

The consequences of the rule that an American woman loses her citizenship by marriage with a foreigner should not be pressed beyond the reason of the rule itself. It is quite another thing to press the rule to the extent that if her husband becomes an alien enemy her property should be forfeited. Doubtless her property is subject to seizure. In time of war we necessarily seize first and inquire afterwards as to the propriety of confiscation. But if the private property of alien enemies should not be forfeited save in the most special circumstances, she is entitled to peculiar consideration.

But this bill does not protect even all American women. It is restricted to those who married Germans or Austrians prior to July 28, 1914. At that date this country was not at war. We did not come in until April 6, 1917, nearly three years later. Even Belgium was not invaded until August 4, 1914. It was that act which stamped once and for all the character of the war which Germany began. She who married a German or an Austrian on the eve of the struggle or after it began is left to bear the full consequences of her choice. Only she who married an Austrian or a German while those countries were ranked as civilized nations is protected by this bill.

Even a member of the very limited class who may claim the protection of this bill is not protected as to all her property. It does not affect any property which she received from her husbard or from any citizen of Austria or of Germany or their allies. With few exceptions it will cover only property which she received or inherited from her American parents-property doubtless made in this country and which her affection and trust in our justice and generosity induced her to leave in this country. If the public opinion of civilized rations usually protects the friendly private investments even of alien enemies, how much more should we accord mercy-nay, justice—to the American property of American women who are only alien enemies in a technical sense.

It appears from the report of the Alien Property Custodian (p. 8) that the property of Turks and Bulgarians has not even been seized save in a few isolated cases. Surely it can not be the intention of Corgress that the property of American origin belonging to American women should receive harsher treatment than the property of the Bulgarian and the Turk, simply because she married a German or an Austrian in time of profound peace and then relied upon our chivalry and honor.

Finally it can not be used that to accord such justice would in any way defeat the purposes of the trading with the enemy act of October 6, 1917. This property was in no sense a unit in the German industrial army. It was in no sense a hostile investment. It has not been used for enemy purposes. It is still awaiting the action of Congress. The usage of civilized nations, our own previous war policy, and reasons of wise public policy all require that it be restored. Friendly investments in American securities should be regarded the world over as safe as the traditional investment in the Bank of England. If we protect these investments now it will repay us a thousand times over in the years ahead when we seek foreign markets to sell our securities during times of peace. And on the contrary, for us now to create a precedent of not returning

these friendly investments will not only injure the future business of our own citizens, but also may create a precedent which will be used by the Governments of other countries against our own citizens, should in the future we have a war with any nation with whom our citizens have had financial dealings. On all grounds this bill ought to receive a favorable report from this committee and ought to pass.

STATEMENT OF MR. ERNEST L. FRISBEE, BUFFALO, N. Y.

The CHAIRMAN. Please give your name and address for the record. Mr. FRISBEE. Ernest L. Frisbee, Buffalo, N. Y. Mr. Chairman, I did not come here prepared to make any formal statement. However, there have been so many valuable features brought out here this morning, with some duplication, that I think perhaps I might add a little by reference to a new phase, or a new viewpoint, and I think one not to-day mentioned, concerning the subject matter (which has naturally been largely special cases). I think that if 100 men were to speak on 100 special cases you would have 100 different cases presented to you, each, perhaps, requiring separate treatment, or bills, whereas the phase I refer to, I believe, applies to all; and in the end you will agree with me it should be adopted.

I represent a woman by the name of Clara Schlubeck, who, like her mother before her, was born in the State of Wisconsin, and was of the Schandein family, with whom, I presume, the chairman of this committee is familiar.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; they live in Milwaukee.

Mr. FRISBEE. Yes; and I suppose the chairman also knows a good many of the things that occurred in connection with that prominent family. I was the attorney for the mother, and after her death I took part in sustaining the mother's will, in which the daughter, my present client, was individually interested. As a result of that litigation she received in the settlement the bonds of a Wisconsin corporation which I am about to mention. The bonds were registered under her name. Later, after a long period of sorrow and domestic unhappiness, and after she had secured a divorce from her first husband under the law of Wisconsin, she went to Germany, and later she married there, 13 years ago, a German portrait artist by the name of Schlubeck, and became technically an alien enemy when our war began. Mrs. Schlubeck has retained here under my advice, some real estate and these corporation bonds, to which I have referred, having no stock in the corporation, but leaving her funds here in the form of bonds and real estate as an investment. She did that, first, because I advised her that it was the safest country in the world in which to leave her property, no matter where she might have her residence, and, second, because she was an American born woman and these bonds and real estate were connected with the institution founded and built up as a life work by her father and mother. As I have said, her mother, like herself, was a native-born citizen of the State of Wisconsin. I based my advice on what I believed and still believe and think nearly all American lawyers believe, that under our American conception of international law, private property was sacro sanct, and whatever the eventuality the honor of our Government and citizens and institutions could be depended upon to sustain all its traditions. Such

a thought with reference to a war with Germany, of course, was not present, but the principle remains.

Under the law the Alien Property Custodian, on the 29th of January last, seized her bonds, having a par value of $1,059,000, or seized the debt represented by the bonds, and they, or the debt, were later sold. The proceeds of the sale and the income from the real estate are now in the hands of the Treasurer of the United States, and she is now, and since the war, has been without a single cent of income from this country out of this bequest from her mother. And in Germany she is surrounded by such a condition of affairs (which I recently took a trip to Germany to investigate) that she can not give up and leave that country without forfeiting one-half of what she possesses there.

This woman is in a little different situation from most of those who have been mentioned here this morning. There is no need of my telling the chairman of this committee about the charities, a similarity to those mentioned, and the good acts of herself and her mother in Wisconsin; that information is more or less public property.

But here is an American woman, an American-born woman, who is between the upper and lower millstones. Her own country has seized her holdings of bonds and income which were not unfriendly holdings or income in the sense that it was or is dangerous for her to hold them. She can get nothing from that property in any way, shape, or form; and under the operation of this law as it now stands she has no hope of ever getting it, unless Congress gives relief. And what remnant she has over there, locked up in her home, is practically useless the minute she leaves that country.

It seems to me that one or two of the distinguished gentlemen who have preceded me here to-day have given echo to something that I, as an American citizen, feel is very broadly set out-perhaps between the lines, but at the same time thoroughly set out in this bill, which is known as the Winslow bill. And from my conversations with distinguished men, both in Europe and in this country, it seems to me that there is a matter here of great public policy involved which we have not yet touched upon.

Our people, our great interests, and, I think, even our Government itself, have been favoring and fostering the going out into all the world by American interests and American capital. We have an enormous corporation which has been formed particularly for that purpose, of going everywhere on the face of the earth where they need reconstruction or advancement and expansion, with all kinds of American methods, building up the countries that are far behind-even going to the uncivilized countries. We have and will continue to encourage and urge our people into that sort of invest

ments.

Now, the momentous question confronts us of establishing a precedent which makes everything that I said to this woman false, or at least, bad advice, when I urged her to leave her investments here in this her native country and let them work with our American institutions, handled by American men, because she finds now, that after all, our Government has forced her to lose her principal and income because 13 years ago, she married the man of her choice, after

having a very bitter experience here; so much so, that the wife, or the widow, or the daughter of any man in this room would, I feel sure, have fled to Germany, or anywhere else in the world, rather than live among the sourroundings which caused her so much bitterness and finally I believe caused her mother's death.

If we make this precedent permanent, any foreign country at war with us, or in some way affected by international complications, may on the pretense of conserving and protecting it, seize our citizens' private property and finally sell and possible apply it to the payment of national obligations. In other words, if we establish this precedent now, some foreign country in the future may change its mind after seizure in a similar case and say, we think we will pay off public debts with this private property so seized. And that I am sure would be a bad precedent, even though they should say, "We must keep the American precedent (and property); the sufferers can go to some other, and perhaps bankrupt country for their redress, payable very probably in practically worthless currency." It seems to me that such a precedent once established, other countries will follow it and may use it against us in the future now that we are a world power. They will say, "The United States did the same thing with German property and Austrian property owned by their own native-born women. "The United States treated private and harmless property of these women in that way during the World War." Then will we not with our investments and institutions all over the world, some day wish that we had never created such a precedent? It will be so easy for other countries to so quote and apply it against us. Now, perhaps that thought will at first seem too broad for some in this discussion; but as a mater of great public policy for the future and involving our traditional position and honor in the past, I submit it very respectfully for your consideration when this whole question is gone into and all special cases have been heard from.

It seems to me, moreover, that the broad policy of simple American citizenship prior to the alien marriage, which evidently is the intention in the Winslow bill, is the only one that you will ever get that is broad enough to be equal and just, without passing countless particular bills to apply to particular cases.

We are perfectly willing to submit our situation in such a bill as that. We feel that in the necessary sacrifice and cost of administration which all must endure, if any part of it pinches in the operation of any plan for relief for all American-born women, then as the loyal representative of this woman, we must take our share of the medicine. But on broad and just principles most of this property can and should be saved for the original owner. Any American-born woman should not be penalized for having married a German 13 years before the war. I would be very glad to see this principle recognized in any bill that the committee may pass.

On the general principles as affecting these particular bonds, and property of that sort, we feel that the Winslow bill (as long as the American birth of the woman is made the basis of it) will save this woman from the danger of suddenly falling from the position of a woman of affluence and wealth (which she was using judiciously and charitably) into the position of a woman without sufficient means to support herself. We feel that this bill should give relief;