HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE UNITED STATES SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H. R. 4960

A BILL TO Define, reguLATE, AND PUNISH TRADING WITH THE ENEMY, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

AUGUST 13, 1917

PART 2

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY.

MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1917.

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11 o'clock a. m., in the committee room, Capitol, Senator Joseph E. Ransdell presiding. Present: Senators Ransdell (chairman) and Vardaman of the subcommittee; and Senator Fletcher.

Also present, Hon. William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce; Hon. Charles Warren, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, and Albert Lee Thurman, Esq., Solicitor of the Department of Commerce.

The committee had under consideration the bill (H. R. 4960) "to define, regulate, and punish trading with the enemy and for other purposes.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We will first hear the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Redfield,

Mr. Secretary, will you please make a statement in regard to the proposed amendment to section 13 of the pending bill, which reads as follows [reading]:

All instructions issued to the collector of customs by the Secretary of Commerce under authority of this act or of the act of June 15, 1917, shall be transmitted through the Secretary of the Treasury.

I will thank you to give a full explanation of this whole matter, in your own words.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM C. REDFIELD, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE.

Secretary REDFIELD. May I begin by saying that, knowing the Postmaster General had consulted the President on this subject, I spoke to the Postmaster General last evening. He authorizes me to say to this committee that he called me on the telephone to say that the President had told him he wished the matter of clearances to remain with the Department of Commerce; and the Postmaster General asked me to convey that message to the committee this morning. The CHAIRMAN. By "the matter of clearances" you mean

Secretary REDFIELD. The whole matter of clearances of which this is a part.

The CHAIRMAN. And does that include the 'instructions to collectors of customs?

Secretary REDFIELD. Yes; concerning everything.

Let me offer two suggestions for the consideration of the committee.

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The first point is that the existing law should be obeyed, and the second is that that law having been enacted as the result of long experience and careful deliberation should not be altered piecemeal without due inquiry; if altered at all, it should be after a thoughtful study of the whole situation.

On that let me then say, first, that the law is not now obeyed. Second, that the proposed amendment is a reversal of existing law. Third, that it substitutes confusion and delay for celerity and promptness.

Fourth, that it involves a far greater matter than appears upon the surface.

Taking up these four statements specifically, first I point out that the existing law is not now obeyed. That law is found in the organic act forming the Department of Commerce approved February 14, 1903. Section 10 of that act is as follows [reading]:

All duties, power, authority, and jurisdiction, whether supervisory, appellate, or otherwise, now imposed or conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury by acts of Congress relating to merchant vessels or yachts, their measurement, numbers, names, registers, enrollments, licenses, commissions, records, mortgages, bills of sale, transfers, entry, clearance, movements, and tansportation of their cargoes and passengers, owners, officers, seamen, passengers, fees, inspection, equipment for the better security of life, and by acts of Congress relating to tonnage tax, boilers on steam vessels, the carrying of inflammable, explosive, or dangerous cargo on vessels. the use of petroleum or other similar substances to produce motive power and relating to the remission or refund of fines, penalties, forfeitures, exactions, or charges incurred for violating any provisions of law relating to vessels or seamen or to informer's shares of such fines, and by acts of Congress relating to the commissioner and Bureau of Navigation, shipping commissioners, their officers and employees, SteamboatInspection Service, and any of the officials thereof, shall be, and hereby are, transferred to and imposed and conferred upon the Secretary of Commerce from and after the time of the transfer of the Bureau of Navigation, the shipping commissioners, and the tSeamboat-Inspection Service to the Department of Commerce, and shall not thereafter be imposed upon or exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury. And all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are, so far as inconsistent, hereby repealed.

It will be noticed on examining this section that it is of a twofold character:

1. It transfers to and imposes and confers upon the Secretary of Commerce the duties detailed in the section.

2. It provides expressly that these duties shall not thereafter be imposed upon or exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury.

It will be noted also that this act not only refers to clearances but to a very wide variety of duties, which are transferred to the Department of Commerce and prohibited to be exercised thereafter by the Secretary of the Treasury. Among these duties is that concerning clearances, but the matter of clearances is but one out of many such duties, among which others are those of caring for "registers, enrollments, licenses, commissions, records, mortgages, bills of sale, transfers, entry (clearance), movements and transportation of their cargoes and passengers, owners, officers, seamen," etc.; duties concerning fees, inspection, equipment, and many others.

Under this law, since its enactment, the Bureau of Navigation of the Department of Commerce has administered those duties, and now administers them all save on the one subject of clearances. The act has been during this period of 14 years repeatedly reviewed by the Attorney General, whose numerous opinions upon the subject are all