Executive Order No. 2616

[Listing alien enemies for International Red Cross.]

THE WHITE HOUSE, May, 9, 1917

  Whereas Section 4 of the Red Cross Convention signed at Geneva,
July 6, 1906, to which the United States is a party, provides:

    Belligerents will keep each other mutually advised of internments
  and transfers, together with admissions to hospitals and deaths which
  occur among the sick and wounded in their hands. They will col-
  lect all objects of personal use, valuables, letters, etc., which are found
  upon the field of battle, or have been left by the sick or wounded
  who have died in sanitary formations, or other establishments, for
  transmission to persons in interest through the authorities of their
  own country (35 Stat. Pt. 2, 1885, 1891).

  And Whereas the Charter of the American Red Cross of January 5,
1905, in Section 3, paragraph 4, provides:

    That the purposes of this corporation are and shall be Fourth.
  To act in matters of voluntary relief and in accord with the military
  and naval authorities as a medium of communication between the
  people of the United States of America and their Army and
  Navy, and to act in such matters between similar national socie-
  ties of other governments through the "Comite International de
  Secours" and the Government and the people and the Army and
  Navy of the United States of America. (33 Stat. 600.)

  Now Therefore, in order that the said Conventional provision shall be
carried out in good faith by the United States, it is ordered that the Ex-
ecutive Departments of the United States shall furnish to such represen-
tative as may be designed by the American Red Cross lists of all alien
enemies now interned in the United States, to the end that the said lists
may be forwarded to the International Red Cross at Geneva, in pursuance
of the said recited provision of the Charter of the American Red Cross.

WOODROW WILSON.