The CHAIRMAN. Give us your name and address and status. Mr. RYAN. Well, I have listed all that at the end of this brief. The CHAIRMAN. I would like to have it here for those present. Mr. RYAN. James W. Ryan, general counsel for Mr. Isbrandtsen and Mr. Osborn, the American trustees of the Danish ships. Also I was counsel for the Danish Shipping Committee during the several months that that existed, and I am also, and have been for the last 5 years, chairman of the American Bar Association's committee on law protecting Americans and their property in foreign countries and on the high seas; and I was formerly special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States in international law and maritime law matters. I was also elected for a 4-year term to the council of the section of international law of the American Bar Association in 1938, and that expires next year.

The CHAIRMAN. You take the view that Mr. Isbrandtsen is a trustee for the Danish ships?

Mr. RYAN. Yes; I don't think there is any doubt upon that score, and I expand on that in my brief.

The CHAIRMAN. He was very doubtful about it.

Mr. RYAN. You must understand that there is a kind of personal element involved here. A. P. Moller is his first cousin, this Dane over in Denmark. He is there under German influence now.

Recently, from Copenhagen there have been some communications coming, purporting to emanate from Mr. Moller, that would indicate that Mr. Isbrandtsen was not to go ahead or do anything with these ships. We took the matter up with the Treasury Department and asked for a license to do the things that were asked in these recent communications coming from Copenhagen, and the Treasury Department, after extensive consideration of the matter, refused to allow Mr. Isbrandtsen to abrogate his trusteeship or to do any of these things that have been recently asked from German-dominated Denmark. The CHAIRMAN. Who refused?

Mr. RYAN. The Treasury Department. You see, the Treasury Department has control over all funds and moneys and vessels in this country belonging to people of these invaded countries, insofar as any transfer is concerned.

There are specific provisions to that effect in the Executive order of April 10, 1940. So that if there is to be any change in any trusteeship, or any transfer in any sense of property rights to or from one of the aliens of these invaded countries, a license must be applied for to the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury Department.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, the Treasury Department has asserted its jurisdiction and control over the ships in our waters?

Mr. RYAN. Yes; and it has recently done that under another specific act providing for taking custody for the purpose of preventing further sabotage or damage when there is any evidence existing of sabotage or intention to sabotage.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, now, I don't know that this question is quite proper, but what is the attitude of the Danish Minister in the premises?

Mr. RYAN. The Danish Minister?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; to this country.

316404-41--5

Mr. RYAN. Well, of course, our Government recognized the Danish Minister as having certain powers in connection with our taking over the protection of Greenland, but since then the Danish Minister has been formally notified that his services are terminated; and I really don't like to pass on the authority of a minister, but, as I see it now, I don't see what he has to do with it in any sense.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, I will ask you one other question: Is Mr. Isbrandtsen or Mr. Osborn, as trustees, protesting against the passage of this bill, or possible action under the bill?

Mr. RYAN. None of the American trustees-that is, Isbrandtsen or Osborn-or anyone else, nor anybody in possession of these vessels, nor any of the masters or crews, have ever been asked by anybody to present the facts of this matter to the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, or to anybody else. This legislation has just come out of some place and gone ahead. So that they have not been opposing anything.

The CHAIRMAN. I asked Mr. Isbrandtsen, when he was here, and gave him a full opportunity to protest, and he did not protest. Mr. RYAN. No; Mr. Isbrandtsen is not protesting.

My personal position is, in view of the fact that Senator George and you asked me for the legal views on it-I gave my legal views here for such consideration as you want to give them on the facts as I know them.

I am not protesting against anything. I do, however, suggest in my memorandum an amendment that I think would be in this Government's interest. We have no ax to grind in this thing whatever; we are the trustees, and that is that; and if somebody wants to take the property away from us, and it is our Government, why, certainly, we are not opposing what our Government, after proper consideration of the facts, wants to do, and we don't want to be put in that position.

At the same time we feel that, being the trustees-and I am counsel for the trustees-we ought to bring the facts before the committee, and in view of the fact that I was asked about it I presented it rather fully in this memorandum.

The amendment that Mr. Osborn suggests in his letter to you, as chairman of this committee, and which he prepared and signed the day before yesterday, and which I submit herewith, suggests a provision that no Danish vessel shall be requisitioned whose use can be made available by operation or charter by United States interests in essential American trades outside the war zones proclaimed under the Neutrality Act of 1939.

That is all he suggests, not that anything be changed in the act excepting this, that the requisition powers be not asserted if the fact is that requisition isn't necessary and the vessels can be operated or chartered by United States interests and operated in the United States essential trades without any requisition-and I personally subscribe to that myself. I think, for the reasons I give in my memorandum, that that is important.

Senator BROWN. Do you confine that amendment to Danish ships? Mr. RYAN. That is all I represent, Danish ships. I do mention the other ships in passing, and that is explained in my memorandum.

Senator BROWN. What reason would there be to give that advantage or privilege to Danish ships, and not to any other ships?

Mr. RYAN. The reasons are fully set forth in my memorandum. Senator BROWN. There are reasons for it?

Mr. RYAN. Yes, and there are very good reasons for it.

The CHAIRMAN. I think your point is that we can get their service without going through a legal process?

Mr. RYAN. Exactly.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be a matter of contract, I should think, which could be worked out with the Maritime Commission, and I think you might see them.

Mr. RYAN. This full matter as to Danish ships was gone over in the most thorough fashion, and all the facts explored, and everybody interested called down for extended hearings here by the late Judge Moore, counsellor of the State Department, and as a result of that he prepared a formal memorandum which was sent by Secretary Hull to Ambassador Kennedy and to the British Government on April 30, 1940. That is the memorandum that was referred to and quoted in full by Mr. Isbrandtsen in his testimony.

That set forth the situation then and the situation since. It doesn't cost any money to our Government to carry out that plan, and I don't understand why that formal position taken by the Government isn't carried out.

But we don't want to interfere with whatever the Government really wants to do in an emergency; but I do think that there is your source of facts, if you will look at that memorandum, you will see that the whole thing is outlined by Judge Moore.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that memorandum in the record?

Mr. RYAN. Yes, Mr. Isbrandtsen read it in full here before the committee; at any rate, it is over in the State Department, it is all around in all the departments, everybody knows about it.

Senator RADCLIFFE. Is it your opinion that the plan of Judge Moore, to which you refer, would give the Federal Government substantially the same facilities that it would get under this plan outlined by the bill?

Mr. RYAN. It will give everything that is in this bill without one cent of expense by the Government, excepting that it won't allow the ships merely to be given away free to the British Government, and except it won't allow the ships to go through the war zone with Danish crews. Outside of that, there are no strings on it at all, and it wouldn't cost anything.

The CHAIRMAN. It would be on all fours with our American ships? Mr. RYAN. Yes; that is right. Anyway, I have put it rather fully in the memorandum here. We didn't really want to do this, but I feel we have a kind of duty to bring these facts to the committee's attention.

I submit here a list, corrected as best we can up to date, of all Danish ships in United States ports and in ports of other neutral countries, together with their dead-weight tonnage and their owners. The CHAIRMAN. Do you say anything about the number of the crews and what we should do with the crews if we seize these ships? Mr. RYAN. That is all in my memorandum.

I will file that list with the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. That may be inserted in the record at this point. (The document referred to is as follows:)

Maersk vessels in neutral ports-H. J. Isbrandtsen, American trustee

Mr. RYAN. That includes not only the ships in this country but also the ships in other neutral countries, and I explain in my memorandum that that is divided up into 3 large groups, each of which had a representative on this Danish shipping committee, and they comprised 46 out of a total of 67 Danish ships in the United States and other