150.071 Control/32
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the British Ambassador (Lindsay)
During the call of the British Ambassador this morning, he brought up the subject of the pending shipping bill (S. 202) about which he was very much troubled. He told me that one of its provisions permitted ships to be searched and if any sailors were found who were aliens not qualified to become citizens of this country they must be [Page 819] seized and deported. He said that this provision would prevent every British ship from touching at our Pacific Coast ports, because these ships always had among their crews many Lascars and Chinese.
I then told him that the Secretary of Labor had brought up this question at the last Cabinet meeting and the President had expressed himself in favor of the bill, and pursuant to his direction I had told the Committee so; that after a talk with Mr. Johnson33 of the Committee who had pointed out what I believed to be the same section of the bill (Section 7) which the Ambassador referred to as affecting our Pacific Coast ports, I had directed Mr. Flournoy34 to try to amend this bill so as to be unobjectionable in that way. I tried to get Mr. Flournoy on the telephone but he was at the Capitol and could not be reached. I called up the Secretary of Labor while the Ambassador was still here and he told me he believed the bill had been amended so as to reach this provision. I reported this to the Ambassador and he went away.