ultimate disposition of all enemy property. In the name of my mother, who is old, sick, and in great distress, I solicit the Congress: 1. To instruct the Alien Property Custodian to restitute the sum of $1,677.29 to the executors Messrs. Emil Carlebach and Joseph Haberman. 2. To allow these executors to pay to my mother this sum and the further interests falling due. The capital is according to the disposition of the testator in the hands of the executors; it is therefore no enemy property. The interests were falling due after the outbreak of the war; so they are also no enemy property which was existing at the beginning of the war and to which only the regulations of the treaty of peace are referring. The maintenance of the sequestration could not be justified, neither in the moral nor in the human sense. As above mentioned, my mother is old, sick, and in great distress. It was the will of the testator to avoid this, and the Congress certainly will not act against the last will of an American citizen, and it would be inhuman to put a person into misery only because the ratification of the treaty of peace could not yet take place. Hoping that the Congress will fulfill my request, I have the honor to be, sirs, HEINRICH BLÜN. Address, Heinrich Blün, Berlin-Halensee, Katharinenstrasse 5. LETTERS SUBMITTED BY HON. MORRIS SHEPPARD, N. C. SCHLEMMER, AND HON. UNITED STATES SENATE, April 6, 1920. MY DEAR MR. BUTLER: Please note the inclosed correspondence relative to the bill you have introduced, No. 12651, relating to married women intermarried with aliens. Please note what is said in one of the inclosures regarding certain changes in the measure which the writer deems advisable. With cordial good wishes, I am, Yours, very sincerely, Hon. THOMAS S. BUTLER, M. C., MORRIS SHEPPARD. Washington, D. C. Hon. MORRIS SHEPPARD, Washington. ELMHURST, KYLE, TEX.. March 31, 1920. MY DEAR SENATOR: The inclosed letter from Mr. Wiggan, Germantown, Pa., is self-explanatory. If you can consistently support the bill referred to, possibly somewhat changed as suggested by Mr. Wiggan, I would greatly appreciate your assistance. Very truly, yours, N. C. SCHLEMMER, Formerly Postmaster at Austin. P. S.-I met Mr. Wiggan's sister is Europe during the war and know her to be a loyal American, born in Pennsylvania. Her father was English and her mother native American. Her husband is a German. PHILADELPHIA, PA., March 12, 1920. Mr. N. C. SCHLEMMER, Elmhurst, Kyle, Tex. MY DEAR MR. SCHLEMMER: Knowing the high regard in which you hold my sister, and having also in mind your offer of any help possible for her, I am writing you the following facts with the urgent request that you promptly give the matter the aid of all the influence you possess. 178028-206 66 Hon. Thomas S. Butler, of Pennsylvania, has introduced House bill No. 12651, entitled Relating to married women intermarried with aliens." This bill has been referred to the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. The present condition of many of these American-born women is most deplorable. American-born women, whose patriotism and loyalty is unquestioned, who upon the declaration of war, by virtue of their marriage to aliens, were automatically classed as enemy aliens," and all of whose property-real and personal, principal and interest-was taken over by the Alien Property Custodian under the trading-with-the-enemy act. 66 This act, while inflicting much hardship, was a very necessary measure during the continuance of the war, but the war has virtually been ended for much over a year, and it is simply the long-drawn-out existence of the legal figment of a state of war " that continues the operation of this act as a most unnecessary, needless, and unjust hardship on these innocent victims, who are of our own flesh and blood and kindred in every sentiment. 66 My sister's case is a concrete example of those intended to receive a just and very necessary relief under the provisions of this bill, which bill, while too narrow in its application as presented, and requires amendment, provides a method for the return of the property, income, etc., of American-born women married prior to April 6, 1917, to enemy aliens, which was taken over and held by the Alien Property Custodian under the trading-with-the-enemy act. My sister was born in this State, of straight English ancestry on both sides, and always resided in this State, until some 14 years ago, when, at the age of 48 years, she married a German subject, whose two brothers were naturalized American citizens and had resided in this country for many years, one of them having previously married my cousin by marriage, also born in this State. My sister went to Germany with her husband to live there temporarily, because her husband's aged and feeble mother lived there and needed the care of her son, but it was their intention to return to this country after the mother's death. They were caught in Germany by the war and were compelled to remain there. During the war the old mother died and they are now free from that obligation, but must remain in Germany at least until conditions have materially improved and Germans are permitted entry into the United States. All of my sister's securities, amounting to a good many thousands of dollars, were taken over by the Alien Property Custodian, and all income arising to her benefit from trusts under my father's and my mother's wills, amounting to about $4,500 per year, has been paid over to the Alien Property Custodian and must continue to be paid over to him until the anomalous condition of a "state of war" is ended somehow. Not a cent, therefore, has gone to her from this country since January before we entered the war, and she is now, as she has been during the war period, dependent on her husband's salary (small from American standards), which is now woefully insufficient under present German money values and, on account of the "state of war" still existing, I am not permitted to send her any of my own money, even as a gift. She writes me most touchingly, though very bravely, of the hardships endured and being endured. She says that those of the present are much worse than those during the war; that she has simply bought nothing in the way of clothing for over four years, because every cent was needed for rent and food, dresses, shoes, stockings, and other personal garments having been patched and repatched to a degree that she would previously have believed impossible; new things, even now, are out of the question on account of the enormous prices, a pair of lady's shoes of ordinary quality costing 400 marks; she has lost over 30 pounds in weight, and you know she had not much to lose, her normal weight being around 140 pounds. It is a most unpleasant and exasperating feeling for Americans to realize that their flesh and blood are needlessly suffering from the continuation of an act-purely a war measure--which long since passed the point of either usefulness or necessity, and to realize further that by the very continued operation of the act they are not allowed to send a cent of their own money— not even as a gift-for the relief of those near and dear to them, while we are called upon to relieve those of every other possible nationality. All of my sister's securities were in purely American investments and were almost entirely such as had come to her direct, either by gift or bequest, from her grandfather, her father, or her mother. She left them all here in the hands of the National Bank of Germantown, where she continued to keep her personal account, and did not take them to Germany with her, because she always had in mind her ultimate return to this country. She was always an ardent American and remains so to-day, although by her marriage she is legally a German subject. The bill in question is an admirable one, in that it proposes to do justice to many American women who, while just as American as they ever were, are classed as enemy aliens through the unfortunate fact that they contracted marriages prior to the World War with subjects of other countries, which became enemy countries during the war and, being thus classed as enemy aliens," their property, both principal and income, has been taken over by the Alien Property Custodian under the trading-with-the-enemy act. 66 It seems to me, however, that the requirement on line 4 of this bill introduced by Hon. Thomas Butler is too drastic and restrictive, in that it requires that the woman's parents shall be "also born in the United States." This makes the bill look a little too much like general legislation for a favored few, and, in order that the act may be freed from any unnecessary narrowness of application and may have its protection extended to all those who should properly and justly come under its provisions, it should be amended so that the parents, or at least one of them, need not have been born in the United States, but may have been born in one of the countries allied with us in the war-that is, if it is desired to exclude those whose parents or parent were born in enemy countries. In the case of my sister her mother was born in the United States, while her father was born in England and came to this country an infant in arms. I have nothing but loathing and contempt for German militarism and for all those who, either in thought, word, or deed were associated with or countenanced its barbarous, inhuman, and devilish application during the war, and they justly deserve all the hardships they are enduring, and more, but I can not place my sister, or any other American-born girl, in this class, and I think it will be a national disgrace and a lasting shame if we permit them to be so classed by lack of proper Government action. I am sure that I can count on your fullest aid and influence in support of this bill, if it is amended as suggested, so that it may properly reach all those entitled to protection. Thanking you in advance for your assistance, and with highest personal regards, I remain, |