[Act of May 20, 1862, 12 Stat. L., 404.]

That the Secretary of the Treasury, in addition to the powers conferred upon him by the act of the 13th of July, 1861, be, and he is hereby, authorized to refuse a clearance to any vessel or other vehicle laden with goods, wares, or merchandise destined to a foreign or domestic port whenever he shall have satisfactory reason to believe that such goods, wares, or merchandise, or any part thereof, whatever may be their ostensible destination, are intended for ports or places in possession or under control of insurgents against the United States. [Joint resolution No. 25, Apr. 22, 1898, 30 Stat. L., 739.]

That the President is hereby authorized in his descretion, and with such limitations and exceptions as shall seem to him expedient, to prohibit the export of coal or other material used in war from any seaport of the United States until otherwise ordered by the President or by Congress.

By a proclamation of October 14, 1905, the President, by virtue of the authority conferred upon him by the joint resolution of April 22, 1898, prohibited the export of arms and munitions of war from the United States or Porto Rico to the Dominican Republic, "until otherwise ordered by the President or by Congress." (Moore Inter. Law Dig. vii, 195.)

STATEMENT OF MR. OSCAR T. CROSBY, OF WARRENTON, VA.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen of the committee, Mr. Crosby, of Warrenton, Va., desires to be heard briefly in regard to this matter. We could hear him on Thursday morning, or, if he does not desire very much time, we might hear him to-day, and then adjourn until Thursday morning.

Mr. CROSBY. I think I can suggest a modification in the resolution which would bring the various views together.

The CHAIRMAN. How much time would you require to present your suggestion, Mr. Crosby?

Mr. CROSBY. I can present my suggestion in five minutes.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the pleasure of the committee? Shall we hear Mr. Crosby at this time, or shall we postpone hearing him until Thursday morning?

Mr. COOPER. I move that we hear Mr. Crosby now.

(The motion was seconded and carried.)

The CHAIRMAN. Then you may proceed, Mr. Crosby.

Mr. CROSBY. Mr. Chairman, when I first heard of this resolution and felt that it was a bad policy, I did not understand that it was couched in such discretionary terms as I find now it is couched in. The press has not properly referred to the matter.

I have heard a great many objections to this resolution because it was supposed that it was mandatory and because it was supposed to interfere, as has been indicated by the remarks of several members of the committee, with the established usages and might fairly be construed by the allies in those particular senses as being a very unfriendly act, and it was to prevent such a supposition, very well based as it might be on their part, that many persons have opposed this resolution. I find it is in discretionary terms, but I do not think that is sufficient. I believe we could get a resolution based on the grounds indicated by Mr. Metz, which are, after all, the proper grounds, the only grounds we can undertake to establish at this time, by putting a proviso in the resolution to that effect. And I will suggest such a proviso to you, and although I have not had time to organize the words of such a proviso in specific form, it would be

substantially this: In case the President of the United States should become convinced that any belligerent is exercising the customary rights of belligerency in vexatious, unusual, or

Mr. GOODWIN (interposing). Unwarranted.

Mr. CROSBY. Yes; that is a good adjective; in vexatious, unusual, or unwarranted methods; some such adjectives as that; then, in that case, he is authorized to exercise this discretion. My thought being that in that way you can not create those feelings of animosity which I believe would exist in England and in France and in other countries if we went at it boldly; if he had this discretion, or if only this act were passed and he never exercised it.

In either case I believe it would be subject to the criticisms I have heard from several gentlemen around this table. But it would scarcely be the subject of criticism if that discretion were lodged in the President by the use of some such adjectives as have been suggested against any unwarranted exercise of any belligerents in the rights of search, etc., in the disturbance of neutral commerce.

There were one or two other points I had in mind to suggest, but they will all be centered in the suggestion that we thus announce a policy which is not in contravention of the established neutrality laws, if we can dignify with the name of laws that vague mass of talk which we call international law, and give more force to it than if we merely state in this resolution that this rather unsual proceeding may be resorted to by our Executive head in case he finds that our interests are being interfered with as against the usual procedure of international law.

Mr. COOPER. The bare fact that he did intervene would be a direct statement to the belligerent that "you have been doing what you ought not to do"?

Mr. CROSBY. Absolutely.

Mr. COOPER. That would be an international insult.

Mr. CROSBY. Certainly; and we must come to that.

Mr. COOPER. If we put in the proviso which you suggest, the President can not exercise discretion unless he finds that there has been an act of that kind, and that would amount to an insult. Mr. CROSBY. I see the point.

Mr. COOPER. That would be worse than the original resolution. Mr. CROSBY. I feel that nobody would take it up practically on humanitarian grounds.

Mr. COOPER. We should not give the President the power to insult a foreign nation.

Let me ask you one question. Suppose Turkey were fighting Greece and had Greece surrounded, and we should give the President only the power proposed in your proviso. Turkey might be destroying a free government. We must permit our people to sell guns to Turkey until such time as the President shall declare that Turkey is violating the laws of neutrality, when, as a matter of fact. it might not violate them at all.

Mr. CROSBY. Mr. Cooper, the converse of the proposition you suggest is the very ground upon which I was opposed to the resolution originally, that you are striking down by such a general policy, the opportunity of a weak nation to arm itself. If this idea which has been expounded here, the putting of this proposition on a moral ground. to be crystallized into an unbroken rule, it would be to the

detriment of agricultural nations that have not very many manufacturers.

Mr. COOPER. That presupposes that the President of the United States is going to exercise that discretion against the interests of just such nations, and you have just said that the President would not exercise that discretion except in the best way.

Mr. CROSBY. I would not quite say that. I say that Congress should give him that discretion, with a statement which practically means that when a new move shall be taken by him it will be because we have been offended. Then you leave open the case of a weak nation, which ought to be given the opportunity to receive arms, on a humanitarian ground. I do not believe this would be exercised except

Mr. COOPER (interposing). I recall distinctly the speech of Daniel Webster expressing our sympathy with Greece. The sympathy of the American Nation was entirely with the nation struggling against what Americans looked upon as despotic power. You could not conceive that the United States Government or the President of the Republic would ever, as you said a moment ago, do anything against people struggling for liberty, so far as the enforcement of the rights

Mr. CROSBY (interposing). The trouble would most likely come in his not doing anything in permitting this trade to go along in certain conditions and issuing this pronunciamento under other conditions.

Mr. COOPER. If you limit the President by your proviso to this proposition, he would be bound to find, as a condition precedent, that a belligerent had violated the rules of international law. You thus would compel him to find what might amount to an insult to that nation, whereas he would not be compelled to assign any such ground under the terms of the original resolution.

Mr. CROSBY. If to-day the president should exercise discretion in the case before us, I do not believe it could be construed otherwise than as an act of affront. While I have no desire to be on one side or the other, I equally desire that we should not give an affront to one side or the other.

Mr. ROGERS. May I ask you a question right there?
Mr. CROSBY. Certainly.

Mr. ROGERS. You simply show that Mr. Cooper's position is an untenable one, but you do not argue in favor of your own by that

answer.

Mr. CROSBY. My position about the resolution as amended by this suggestion would be this, that it may be a very desirable trading point, as Mr. Metz has indicated, but if it be not accompanied by this statement as to the conditions which have brought on the withdrawal of this trade, then we are left in the position of having affronted Great Britain, France, and Germany.

But in the very statement of the case by the Congress, that they lay down the conditions, which were given by Mr. Metz, that where our trading is interfered with in an unwarranted way, if that be the case, by Great Britain, and if Great Britain will not correct those unwarranted interferences, this would bring Great Britain to her senses, assuming that she has done those things.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. The proposed amendment to the resolution leaves the whole matter within the discretion of the President of the United States.

Mr. CROSBY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. And if we use the words which I am in favor of using, "with such exceptions and limitations as the President may see fit to impose," that leaves the matter entirely in the hands of the President.

Mr. CROSBY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. If such a case arises, in which the President in his judgment believes this ought to be enforced, do you not think the President will make just such a statement which you want us to make here in the resolution, giving his reasons why he enforces this resolution?

Mr. CROSBY. That is possible, but I happen to be one of those men having a perfectly fixed and immobile, immovable opinion that great matters of this kind should be decided by Congress. I am averse to the idea of vesting such a vast power in the President, whether I happen to have supported him as I did in the case of the present occupant of the White House--or whether I did not support him.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. But you realize that the Constitution of the United States makes the President the guardian of our foreign affairs?

Mr. CROSBY. With the aid of the Senate, and with the aid of general public opinion, which is best expressed here; as a matter of fact, in practically re-forming international law, and I do not want to see that power lodged elsewhere. This is my sovereign, as I conceive it.

And in relation to the legislative body, I have come, after a long period of study and thought, to believe that is the thing I ought to stand for in my small effort along that line-that is, that the legislative body is more completely my sovereign-and I want to say, with as great emphasis as possible, that I would prefer the determination of such a matter made by this body than to leave it to the President of the United States, no matter whom he might be, untrammeled in his determination, although I happen to have very great respect for the present occupant of the White House.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. I know you are interested in the same ideals in which I am interested, Mr. Crosby, and I want to ask you whether you would not object to the present practice of the United States which tends to prolong the war in Europe by the sale of arms and ammunition?

Mr. CROSBY. I should object to it, if it had not already been so determined in the past that in making the move now, if not related to some objection such as I have suggested, we would seem to be establishing a new rule of international law which works against one of the contestants.

If we assume that the war is to be diminished in its duration, it means that an advantage is expected to be given to Germany and Austria as against conditions which have been established, and which you and I hope some day to see changed.

In an ungoverned world there has been a growing up of certain influences and practices, and this is one of them. I utterly disagree

with those who have said that this is an entirely new affair. The world, as it existed during the wars of the Spanish succession, was as much shocked and disturbed as it is to-day. The effect of such a condition then was just as wide as the effect of such a condition in the world to-day.

I happened to be in Japan and China when this war came on, and the reverberations of it came to you out there, they were literally heard there, but the same thing occurred then, save that China was not so much in our civilization.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. I was in hopes that we might agree on a proposition of that kind, because it seems to me you must see, as nearly every other citizen of the United States sees, that we are now in an attitude of unfriendly neutrality to one side in this war, and by passing this resolution we will put ourselves in a position of absolute neutrality by helping neither side, and letting them all fight it out without any aid or support at all from us.

Mr. CROSBY. That supposes that the President will exercise this discretion by prohibiting the sale of arms to the allies, and therefore I could not feel that to be true, unless I knew the President's mind.

While I refused to be overswept by the torrent of feeling I found in my own country when I returned, running against Germany, I quite declined to do that--I do believe that as long as the power of Great Britain extends as it does, once in a while it must be challenged, and I recognize that this practice has grown up, it has grown to be 100 years old, and to modify it just now without hanging it to a cause, without reference to our interests in the matter, would be declaring a position which is more dangerous than almost any one thing we could do just now.

Mr. BARTHOLDT. Is it not true that the right-which exists-that the right is exercised now to an extent to which it has never been exercised before?

Mr. CROSBY. No; and if you read President Madison's paper dated some time in 1814, when the war

Mr. BARTHOLDT (interposing). Why, in 1814, Mr. Crosby, we did not manufacture during one whole year in all the factories of the United States $300,000,000 worth of goods.

Mr. CROSBY. So far as our action is concerned, you are right; but so far as England's control is concerned, during the period when negotiations for ending the War of 1812 were going on, Napoleon having fallen, England remained with her vast power, emerging from this war unchanged in its relation to the world, and it must ever have a trade that must meet its power over the sea. One must only need go to the old parts of the world to feel the embarrassment that you are always dealing by the grace of England. But there has been no abuse of that power by England during the last few years. Mr. COOPER. What about the Boer Republic?

Mr. CROSBY. I meant as against great nations. As against them there has been no abuse. We are all free to trade in England. I would have felt it to be a grievous folly on the part of Germany if she had challenged England's power in her colonies while England leaves the door open.

But when you are considering this question of England's power in the world you must take into account the tariff-reform party.