(Committee room, gallery floor, west corridor. Telephone 230.) CYRUS CLINE, Indiana. HORACE W. VAUGHAN, Texas. HENRY A. COOPER, Wisconsin. ROBERT CATLETT, Clerk. B. F. ODEN, Assistant Clerk. 2 D. of D. NOV & 1915 EXPORTATION OF MUNITIONS OF WAR. COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Monday, January 4, 1915. The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Henry D. Flood (chairman) presiding. There were present before the committee a number of persons, whose remarks appear hereafter. The following persons were also present, but did not address the committee: Henry Weissman, of Brooklyn, president of the Brooklyn Branch of the National German-American Alliance; the Rev. Dr. Julius Hofmann, of Baltimore, paster of German Lutheran Zions' Church; Martin Wiegand, of Washington, president of the District of Columbia Branch of the National German-American Alliance; Mr. Moran, of Washington, member of the executive committee of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians; Charles R. Schmidt, of Baltimore, representing the Maryland Citizens' Committee for Furtherance of American Neutrality; E. V. P. Schneiderhahn, St. Louis, Mo.; Gustav S. Ripka, of Wilmington, president of the Delaware State Branch; Dr. Gustav Scholer, New York City; George W. Spier, Washington; George H. Mohlhenrich, Ferdinand Walther, president of Chicago Branch of German-American Alliance; George Landan, president of United Societies (180,000 Chicago members); Henry Runkel; Otto C. Schmidt; G. F. Hummel; and John Niggel, manager of the Carolina Cut Stone Co. (Inc.), Wilmington, N. C. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. You may proceed, Dr. Bartholdt. Mr. BARTHOLDT. Mr. Chairman, I trust that the committee will be able to give us a little more time than was originally planned. There are gentlemen present from quite a number of American cities representing the committee of one hundred of several of the cities; also German-American organizations and other bodies of our citizenship that have come from quite a distance, and, of course, we would like to have the committee hear them if possible, if only very briefly. The CHAIRMAN. Let me say it will be impossible for the committee to hear every one who wishes to be heard on these resolutions. We have a number of requests from gentlemen who favor the resolution, and a number from gentlemen who oppose them, and I would be very glad if the gentlemen who are here representing organizations and the different cities would select spokesmen for their particular organization or city, so that we may save as much time in the hearing as possible. Of course, the arguments which 49 different gentlemen will make may be very similar, and we would appreciate it, if gentlemen can do so without inconvenience to themselves, to have the minimum amount of repetition. Mr. BARTHOLDT. There is certainly no intention on our part to delay the proceedings, and we shall try to get through just as quick as possible. Of course, many of these gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, have been sent here by vote of their organizations, and it would be perhaps rather embarrassing to them to have to return home with the information that the committee could not hear them. Perhaps if we could give some of them only a few minutes, that might do. The CHAIRMAN. You mean that some organizations have sent quite a number of gentlemen. here? Mr. BARTHOLDT. Oh, no; we want you to hear only one representative of each organization. The CHAIRMAN. That is the suggestion I made, that each organization select one or two gentlemen to speak for it. Mr. BARTHOLDT. Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I take great pleasure in introducing to you the president of the National GermanAmerican Alliance, Dr. C. J. Hexamer, of Philadelphia, Pa. STATEMENT OF DR. C. J. HEXAMER, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL GERMAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: As the president of the National German-American Alliance I beg leave to thank you for your courtesy in granting us this hearing. Permit me to state that the National German-American Alliance is a patriotic American organization, incorporated by act of Congress, the branches of which extend into every State and Territory of the Union, with a total membership of over 2,000,000. The members of our alliance have no ulterior motives for appearing before you; it is solely in behalf of good American citizenship that we come here from our homes to plead for real neutrality and for American fair play. In every crisis, in colonial times as well as during our national existence, the German element in our land has stood for order and good common sense and has always counseled well. As early as 1688 our forefathers at Germantown passed the first of all protests against slavery. What misery would have been averted had their advice then been heeded. Their declaration for independence at Philadelphia antedates that of Jefferson; they fed and clothed the army of Washington at Valley Forge; they gave the cause of liberty a De Kalb, Steuben, "the father of the American Army," a Herkimer, and a Mühlenberg. A Stricker and an Armistead defended and saved Baltimore in 1814. About 200,000 of them fought and bled that not one star should be torn from the field of blue of our glorious banner. And when the fiat money craze spread over the country they, regardless of party, stood as one man for national honor and honesty, voting for sound money. Permit me, as a native American, to plead the case of the United States. Much is said about the cases of Germany, England, and the other belligerents relating to the European war, and very little of the cases of the neutrals and especially of the United States. Haven't we a case? Are we not directly interested in and suffering from this war? When we speak of our case we must suppress all sympathy for either belligerent party. We must simply state the cold facts that have affected and will still further affect our Nation and draw our conclusions from them as far as they touch our interest and wellbeing. Here are the facts as they came into existence since the war broke out: Our people who were traveling abroad on business or pleasure could not, or only with serious trouble and delay, secure passage on boats for American ports, which fact caused many hardships, large expenses, loss of property, etc., and made it necessary for our Government to send relief expeditions abroad. Our mail and settlements to or from Europe are seriously interfered with. Our legitimate export and import business is totally demoralized; we can not export neutral goods to belligerents; we can not ship our goods to neutral countries except by grace of belligerent nations; we can not buy ships for even neutral trade; we can only with great difficulty import our needs. We can not realize on our crops sufficiently to pay for our foreign obligations. We had to temporarily close our stock exchanges. Our revenues from duties are so cut that we must levy a heavy war tax on our people, amounting to about a hundred million dollars a year. Our farmers can not market their products properly in foreign markets, nor can our factories who work for foreign trade. In consequence our people are suffering severely, factories are idle, workingmen and their families starving. All this and more is happening to us while we are neutral and at peace with all the world." During war our conditions would of course be infinitely worse, and let us not deceive ourselves. Our entire foreign trade would be cut off absolutely. Why? Because our only means of intercourse with all great foreign nations are the seas. Only by way of the seas can we reach them-market our products, import our needs. What we suffer now is only one-hundredth part of what we would suffer then. Our people abroad can not reach us, our wheat will rot, our cotton will not be worth the harvesting, our merchant marine will be destroyed, confiscated, or bottled up, our factories will be idle, our laborers starving, and mortality increase. To avoid this we have but two ways and none other; and anybody can see this if we remember that we are as isolated from the other great nations as England is. The first way would be to establish the doctrine of Great Britain— that we have to have a navy stronger than the combined navies of any two countries. It must be strong enough to forcibly open the seas; or, the second may be to establish in cooperation with all civilized nations the international principle that all merchant ships and all goods, except actual war material, shall be inviolable, just as private property on land even in war times is inviolable at the |