OCR Text |
Show ALIEN ENEMY PROPERTY SHOULD BE. SEIZED. The people are just being informed of the enormous amount , of German-owned property in this country in much of which the ' Oerman government is directly interested. In financial circles in New York the facts have been common knowledge for a long time. An estimate made some time ago in one of the papers of the financial district, placed the amount of property so owned in that city alone at $3,000,000,000. That the Kaiser has had large personal deposits in some of the New York banks, not however in his own name, has often been asserted. The government of the United "States will never confiscate outright the property of private citizens of Germany, however hard pressed it may be though it may use it as a "hostage" to effect a fair accounting with Germany. But the property of the German government, or property in which it has a large interest stands, in international, law, on an entirely different basis. When ' the German government partially owns great interests, like the immense docks in Hoboken and many manufacturing concerns, the remainder of the ownership being vested in alien enemies, it is altogether right that proper measures should be taken to secure possession and use it in the prosecution of the war. |