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Minutes.
<4-t
January 7th, 19kl
I telephoned to Mrs, Roosevelt's
Personal Secretary (Kiss Thompson) this
morning.     I reminded her of Mrs. Roosevelt's
telephone call to me on January 2nd and said
I would rather reply orally by telephone or
somewhere else.     Miss Thompson invited me to
give my reply over the telephone.
I said Mrs. Roosevelt had put 2 points
to me: (l) what she should do with the cheques
which had Reached her, and (2) whether she
could safely put something in her column to
the effect that she had received some contri-
butions and would gladly accept others.
1 have now consulted the text of the
Neutrality Act and found that Section 8 (a)
made it illegal for any person in the U.S. to.-
solicit or receive contributions on behalf of a
belligerent government.
In the light of ihis and of our experience
as regards donations previously sent us I v/ould
venture to give Mrs. Roosevelt the following
replies on her two points:-
As regards (l) it would be perfectly all right
if she cared to send to this Embassy the cheques
that had been sent to her as the Embassy occu-
pied a privileged position in respect of U.S.
law and the s,D. did not object to our accepting
spontaneous contributions though they preferred
that this should be done with as little pub-
licity as possible.
ks regards (2) I thought Mrs. Roosevelt would
probably decide^jnot to write anything in her
column that looked like an invitation that

Minutes.
January 7th, 19U1
I telephoned to Mrs. Roosevelt's
Personal Secretary (Miss Thompson) this
morning.     I reminded her of Mrs. Roosevelt's
telephone call to me on January 2nd and said
I would rather reply orally "by telephone or
somewhere else.     Miss Thompson invited me to
give my reply over the telephone.
I said Mrs. Roosevelt had put 2 points
to me: (1) what she should do with the cheques
which had Reached her, and (2) whether she
could safely put something in her column to
the effect that she had received some contri-
butions and would gladly accept others.
I have now consulted the text of the
Neutrality Act and found that Section 8 (a)
made it illegal for any person in the U.S. to.-
solicit or receive contributions on "behalf of a
belligerent government.
In the light of ;his and of our experience
as regards donations previously sent us I would
venture to give Mrs. Roosevelt the following
replies on her two points:-
As regards (l) it would be perfectly all right
if she cared to send to this Embassy the cheques
that had been sent to her as the Embassy occu-
pied a privileged position in respect of U.S.
law and the S,D. did not object to our accepting
spontaneous contributions though they preferred
that this should be done with as little pub-
licity as possible.
ks regards (2) I thought Mrs. Roosevelt would
probably decideJnot to write anything in her
column that looked like an invitation that

Minutes,
readers should send further donations to
herself.     The Neutrality Act however did
not in any way prohibit spontaneous dona-
tions and I saw no reason why Mrs. Roosevelt
should not point out, either in her column,
or at some press conference, and in rela-
tion to the contributions that had already
been sent her, that there was nothing to
prevent Americans making out cheques to the
British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mrs. Roosevelt had also raised withi
me the points that the donors should know
exactly to what object they were donating,
and secondly that this object should be
agreeable to the British Government. I
suggested that Mr. R. R. Appleby, 730, 5th A(ve.,
N.Y. could give advice on these points to
any persons who cared to refer to him.
Miss Thompson promised to bring these
points to the attention of Mrs. Roosevelt.
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