The CHAIRMAN. Can that be done until the reparation commission passes upon these various claims and sends in their finding? Mr. GARVAN. Those will never be passed upon by the reparation commission, Mr. Chairman. Our matters are entirely in your hands, in the hands of Congress. That was very carefully covered in the treaty. In view of the provision in the trading with the enemy act that the disposition of this property was reserved for the further action of Congress, we were very particular in having our representatives at Paris insist that we took no part in any reparation or any idea which was in conflict with the full freedom of Congress to do exactly as they wished with this property, irrespective of anything that our representatives might have wished to do or had in their minds in Paris. So the field is absolutely open for the action of Congress.

Mr. SIMS. I would like to ask a question there. In a case like the one covered by the Butler Hill, the Hilprecht case, that seems to be attended by circumstances that appeal for immediate action. In a former hearing I suggested to the attorney general from Pennsylvania, who was pressing the matter, and Mr. Butler that a case like that, which did not seem to involve the whole general question, and where we expected, of course, to hear from you or the Alien Property Custodian; that where there was no defense against--in other words, where the United States had nothing to set off and admitted all the facts that a single private bill returning that property to Mrs. Hilprecht, or whatever her present name is, should be passed, and do it immediately, simply as a single claim.

Mr. GARVAN. I have no possible objection to that.

Mr. SIMS. But to hold up such a meritorious claim as that, where, as I understand it, the lady is in Switzerland, and contributions by her people had to be made in this country, that such cases as that should receive the immediate attention. Now, in Congress I know we used to pass war claims, private omnibus bills, without regard to any general policy. Now, I can see that general legislation covering this whole subject ought to be very carefully considered, and that we ought to take plenty of time in both House and Senate to do so. Meanwhile these persons that would undoubtedly be covered by any general legislation are suffering and doing without their property, and I have suggested, thinking that we might reach the merits of specially important pressing cases that could not possibly make a bad precedent for us, that a bill might be presented in the Hilprecht case and reported favorably and let it get through. That was my thought in advocating it, and would that or not be liable to impair or embarrass the general situation or general legislation? Mr. GARVAN. No; it would not embarrass me. It is all up to you as to how you want to consider it.

Mr. WINSLOW. Does that case stand out alone in your mind as being specially worthy of consideration?

Mr. GARVAN. No, sir; I must say, gentlemen, that the people that this bill affects are among-there are many more cases of poor people that are much more appealing to me than the cases of these people of considerable wealth, because the person with considerable wealth, even though the money is in my hands, generally has associations or recourse in some way. But we have a great many cases,

for instance, of compensation, where we have had to step in in order to protect the right of the deceased, or his representatives, to recover for the death, lest the right run out during the time allowed by different State statutes, and recover $1,000, $500, $1,500, which we are holding for the heirs of the people who have been injured and are just claims under the laws of the different States. Now that is an extreme hardship, of course, as many of these are people who have lost the provider of the family, and can not get the little retribution which our laws entitle their heirs and representatives to. Mr. WINSLOW. These will run into thousands, will they? Mr. GARVAN. $47,000.

Mr. WINSLOW. Now, beginning at the most appealing one of all, Mr. Garvan, and running down to the $47,000, the line of demarcation probably between the most appealing and the one next to it would be so slight that you could not hardly tell where to draw the line?

Mr. GARVAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. WINSLOW. And it would not warrant a more general bill than a personal bill applying to 1 or 100 cases?

Mr. GARVAN. Well, I hesitate to express an opinion. I think a general bill would be better, of course. I am very anxious to see a general bill, but I have no objection to any relief of any individual or class of individuals.

Mr. WINSLOW. The point I wanted to bring out was this

Mr. GARVAN (interposing). I would like to see the people of Alsace-Lorraine relieved. Those people were in many cases the most loyal French citizens all the way through the war. They are people that have clung to their French allegiance ever since 1871. Although oppression and the fact that Germany had control of that Province has been a fact since that time, these people have never given up their loyalty to the fatherland. Now they find themselves back in France and they find that we have their property, and we are helpless. France has protested, and rightly so, but under the terms of the act we can do nothing, and those countries need that money now more than they ever will again, I hope.

The same is true of Czechoslovakia, where we are sending money for the relief of many people, and I am quite confident that when you do generally legislate, it will never be the intention of Congress to keep the money of our actual Allies or our present Allies or friendly nations.

Mr. WINSLOW. Is there any difficulty between drawing the line between what we might call the personal claims, and those which might be regarded as the more commercial claims?

Mr. GARVAN. I do not think that there would be any difficulty about that. As we said, in our annual report, there was a demarcation between friendly and unfriendly investment in this country; between the business investments, which we maintain were more or less the outposts of the militaristic system of Germany, and the honest, frank investments, which were invited here by the opportunities of this country.

Mr. WINSLOW. So that there would be very little cause for embarrassment in the interpretation of a general bill which we might report and pass bearing on what I would term, for want of a better

name, the personal claims? There would be no difficulty for you to discriminate?

Mr. GARVAN. I do not feel that there would be any unsurmountable difficulty in that. Of course, before you gave back this tremendous amount of property I feel that you should consider what you are going to do in reference to claims of Americans against Germany. They say the amount-I can not vouch for this; you would have to get that from the State Department-the information on paper is that these claims amount to over $1,000,000,000. Those are the survivors of the Lusitania, the heirs of people on the Lusttania; they consist of people whose property was confiscated in Germany, and they consist of people whose property in Belgium was confiscated, whose mills were cleaned out of their machinery which was sent back to Germany, and they consist of the destruction wrought in this country before we went in the war, during the period of neutrality, on behalf of the German Government, ships that were injured and blown up in New York Harbor by Rintellan and men of that type who were working here before the war-the thousand and one things which you gentlemen can well imagine might grow out of the war.

Mr. WINSLOW. Would you expect to pay those out of what we might call the business or commercial claims?

Mr. GARVAN. Well, as I say, I do not know what they amount to, and before the property should be depleted to any great extent, I feel that Congress ought to know what those claims are and know whether or not they intend to pay these claims. I myself would not be in favor of paying those claims out of this money. I believe that the individuals should not be made to suffer and to pay 100 per cent of their property for the injuries which the German Government caused. But it may well be your policy that the Government desires to hold this property en bloc until such time as Germany furnishes us with security that the claims of American citizens will be paid and taken care of. Of course, the treaty does provide that Germany will pay her citizens. Now, from our experience here, and from our talks with different representatives of German citizens they say that that is equivalent to confiscation for them, because Germany can pay them in long deferred bonds or in marks, in the first place, which cut their property in 20, into a twentieth part, and those are questions which should be taken up by you.

I would be in favor of holding this property until such time as Germany furnished the United States Government with some security that American claims would be paid.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it is not likely that that would be possible until the treaty had been completed.

Mr. GARVAN. I can't see how it could be.

The CHAIRMAN. Because we would have to provide some commission that would have to pass upon the claims of Germany against us, and of our people against Germany.

Mr. GARVAN. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you would strike your balance, and it is not possible, according to international law, that private property of citizens should be seized or confiscated to pay what are in their nature public debts.

Mr. GARVAN. I certainly would not be in favor of that. The CHAIRMAN. This country has never adopted this policy. Mr. GARVAN. No; our historic policy from the time of the treaty which we made with Great Britain at the time of the Revolution, provided, not only for the return of English property, but also recommended the States return all that they had confiscated, and then when the States did not return it, on account of the differences over State rights, and so forth, at that time, Congress, by a later treaty, in 1794, I think it was, made provision for the repayment through England of the private property that had been seized. It has been the historic policy of our Government not to confiscate the property, private property, to pay the public debts.

Mr. SIMS. I did not want the gentleman to think that I thought the Hilprecht case was more important or more appealing than many others, but I used it as typical. Here is a woman that is a German citizen simply by operation of law-legal construction. It was not her intention to become a German citizen, but she became such by being married to a German who lived here and contemplated living here but simply had not been naturalized, and I felt that in cases like that, and the one you spoke of a while ago, we might include in an omnibus bill without having to go through general legislation covering all the subject matters which you have so kindly related, and it was not at all that I did not want to have general legislation.

Mr. GARVAN. I understand that.

Mr. SIMS. But I thought that if there were urgent cases they ought to be acted on without waiting to see what the ultimate legislation ought to cover in a general way.

Mr. GARVAN. Every one of these cases that you relieve would please me very much.

Mr. SIMS. Not alone the case of this woman, but it was to cover such cases as that, without having to wait for a general bill covering all legislation that might be necessary before the final winding up of all the cases.

Mr. GARVAN. I am in absolute sympathy with relieving anyone from the harshness of this act who can be relieved, where there is no taint of their having been disloyal to this country, and there is none in these cases.

Mr. SIMS. We have passed covering Civil War claims omnibus bills where each claim in it was an individual claim, but we put them all together and made a general omnibus private claims bill, and so far such claims have been so treated. I suggested that the same could be done as to many of these pending claims; that we could pass upon the merits of each claim in the committee and then report on all of them as we do a pension bill and let it be passed without having to wait until all adjustments by legislation, treaty or otherwise, that will ultimately be necessary have been made before final disposition of all of the property in the Alien Property Custodian's hands. That is what I meant.

Mr. JONES. Have you in your hands property belonging to citizens of neutral countries?

Mr. GARVAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. You also have in your custody property belonging to what we might call friendly enemies, like Alsatians?

Mr. GARVAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. These two bills, the Butler bill and the Winslow bill, might be termed the married women's act. They relate wholly to married women. Is it your thought that this legislation should be so broad that property belonging to males, for instance, of a neutral country, or males in Alsace-Lorraine, could repossess themselves? Mr. GARVAN. As to Alsace-Lorraine, I think that is true. As to males in neutral countries, I think further investigation would have to be necessary before you could make such a general rule, because there were males in neutral countries who were distinctly hostile to this country.

Mr. JONES. I was not going into the facts in particular cases that might justify us in not making the return, but I was thinking of the enactment of the law, the Butler bill and the Winslow bill, as relating wholly to married women. Now, I was wondering whether a condition might arise whereby a man or a single woman, a citizen of a neutral country or a friendly enemy, may have property under the custody of the United States-whether the act should not be broad enough to take them in where the facts justify the return. That would be on the general policy of closing up the custodian's work altogether.

Mr. GARVAN. Yes; the broader you make the bill the better I would be pleased.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions by the committee? You will leave the memorandum that you have there; and if you have any other memorandum that you desire to leave with the committee, we would like to have it.

Mr. GARVAN. Then I will leave this memoranda, which is a digest of the cases which are in our files of the people who have been specifically mentioned.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Garvan, may I ask you one more question? I think it advisable, if you concluded not to put into the record possibly your entire investigation as to these particular cases that were presented at our last hearing-but have you read over the facts that were given in the particular cases at our last hearing so as to reach a conclusion as to whether the facts are practically correct, whether there is any issue in the testimony?

Mr. GARVAN. Just let me verify that. There is nothing to object to in the statements by any of the gentlemen as to questions of fact. Mr. JONES. On the particular case presented?

Mr. GARVAN. Yes; nothing at all.

Mr. MORGAN. Mr. Jones, I have just read the report made upon Mrs. Hilprecht's case, the official report. Mr. Garvan handed it to me. It is in entire accord with the statement made here the other day in the hearing.

Mr. GARVAN. I am quite convinced of the good faith of the people. I have not seen the slightest thing to question.

I think you gentlemen asked-I am not sure, but I find it prepared for me a reference to what Great Britain and France had done with the property since the war.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. GARVAN. The State Department notified us on January 26, 1920, that Great Britain had adopted the clearing office as provided