The Tolan Committee on National Defense Migration, it was learned authoritatively today, has asked the War and Justice Departments for an official explanation of the recent statement by Lieut. Gen. Hugh A. Drum that he had authority to use “selective processes” in evacuating enemy aliens from declared military zones along the eastern seaboard.
At the same time, a committee spokesman said that that body was strenuously opposed to any indiscriminate, wholesale movement of German and Italian nationals from the coast to interior areas under present conditions. Although, he added, such a step might be justified in the event of an invasion or even enemy raids on the Atlantic seaboard, it did not seem necessary at this time.
Rep. John H. Tolan, committee chairman, it was predicted, may soon make an official statement on the matter. Meanwhile, Tolan is awaiting replies to his inquiry from Secretary of War Stimson and Attorney General Biddle. Thus far his inquiries have merely been acknowledged – not answered.
Gen. Drum, chief officer of the Eastern Defense Command of the 1st Army, made his statement on April 27. He then proposed the establishment of a special military area including six Atlantic coast states. The committee, which recently submitted a report to the House urging a careful and discriminate policy of dealing with enemy nationals in the United States, was charged with the formulation of war-time measures for the treatment of these groups. Recently a representative of the committee has been holding conferences with social organizations in New York, including officials of the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations, with particular reference to the problem of enemy aliens in the East. Results of these conference, it was said, will probably be announced shortly.
A committee spokesman said today that while the War Department had indicated it planned no immediate wholesale evacuation in the East, it had made no binding commitment. “We do not believe,” the spokesman said, “that the purposes of national defense will be served by a wholesale evacuation, unless there is real danger of an invasion or raids along the coast.” The committee, he added, believes that the problem is being competently handled by the F.B.I. and Army and Navy Intelligence who are arresting aliens known to be disloyal or dangerous and that more direct and drastic action by the military authorities is not needed.
The spokesman added that the U.S. Immigration Service, in investigating enemy aliens who wish to become citizens, has found about ninety-four percent of them unquestionably loyal to the American Government.
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