New Britain herald., 1915-12-02
NO PASSPORTS TO
 WARRING COUNTRIES
Will Be Given to Members of Ford Peace Party,
 Says Lansing.

Washington, Dec. 2.-secretary Lansing announced today that mem
 bers of the peace party planning to
 sail on the ship chartered by Henry
 Ford will not be given passports to
 belligerent countries, but only to neu- 1 tral states in Europe.
 l Secretary Lansing made it plain 1 that passports were given to Ameri- l can citizens for belligerent countries l only when business made it absolute | ly necessary to visit there or when 1 they were invited by some govern 1 mental agency in those countries. MT Lansing explained that dis tinction was being drawn between members of the peace party and other American citizens and that the gen eral rule of the department of state was being applied ~ '~''v The ruling, however, was general ly interpreted as meaning that the United States does not regard unoffi cial missions in efforts to make peace by private persons as business of an urgent character.
 Very few applications have been made for passports to visit belliger- ent countries, the plan of the peace party being to assemble a convention in one of the neutral countries and put ito operation their plans, using a neutral capital as base.
 Officials of the passport bureau have not held up any passports for persons of American birth, but 1t was l admitted today that there have been l the usual difficulties with reference to | naturalized persons and the compli- 1 ance with state department technical | regulation with reference to photo | graphs.
 Inez Milholland Boissevain, the suffragist, was refused a passport be- cause her husband is a citizen of a l foreign country. The names of others l who may have experienced difficulty | in getting passports were not dis l closed.
 Officials of the state department
 said today there seemed to be some ! impression in Europe that the United
 States government in some way was 1 sanctioning the Ford plan, and they 1 emphasized that there was not the slightest ground for such an intima- 1 tion. Each application fo. passport
 will be subjected to the closets scrut-
 iny, it being feared, as one official
 said, that "A wolf in sheeps cloth
 ing'' might get aboard the ship and,
 while playing the part of an advocate
 of peace, be in reality spy. The de- l partment is determined that nothing l of the kind shall happen.
 The state department does not con- 1 template that it could stop wireless
 messages being sent out from 8 neu-
 tral European country calling the 1 soldiers from the trenches, but the
 belief was expressed today that such I'll hn | ceived in oelligerent countries by of-
 ficial government stations and would
 be promptly suppressed.
 Legal authorities in the state de-
 partment expressed the opinion to-
 day that if the peace party went to ! any belligerent country and attempted to stop the war they might be con- sidered by the country involved as l prom oters of sedition and treason.
 The state department has refused a
 request to send an agent to New York
 for the special purpose of issuing passports to members of the party. l The number of applications for
 passports received so far is very small
 and Ford himself has sent no appl1-
 cation.
 Only two more days remain before
 the peace ship is scheduled to sail,
 and it is considered doubtful that
 great number of passports can be 1s-
 sued by Saturday unless the depart
 ment receives a large number today
 and before noon tomorrow. Those who
 accompany the peace party, 1t was
 said, will have to make their appll- cations for passports in identically the ) same manner as any other American citizen. The department recognizes
 no special privileges in the issuance of passports.