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FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF DALLAS Dallas, Texas, December 10, 1941 To All Banking Institutions, and Others Concerned, In the Eleventh Federal Reserve District: The Secretary of the Treasury has issued the following press statement: “ Secretary Morgenthau announced today that Treasury agents had taken custody of the premises of Japanese banking and business enterprises throughout the United States. Treasury personnel, who included, among others, bank examiners, customs officers, and Treasury investigators, had special instructions to prevent the access of all persons to the premises of such enterprises and to prevent the destruction or removal of their books, records and other property. “ The Secretary arranged the precautionary measure through telegrams yesterday to the presi dents of all Federal Reserve banks, whom he requested to obtain the cooperation of local police wherever necessary to carry out his instructions. “ Secretary Morgenthau said that the presence of Treasury Department personnel had fore stalled numerous attempts to remove securities and other valuable documents from the premises of Japanese enterprises. In one instance in San Francisco, Japanese nationals were prevented from removing from a Japanese company securities estimated as having a value of $40,000 or more. “ The Secretary supplemented his announcement by stating that any person destroying, secreting, or altering any record, paper, or other document relating in any way to any property transaction in which any blocked national, including a national of Japan, or a person acting for or on behalf of such a national, has any interest, is exposing himself to criminal prosecution, to a fine of $10,000 and to imprisonment for ten years. Any person aiding in, abetting, advising, or conspiring in the destruc tion, secreting, or alteration of any such document is similarly subject to these criminal penalties. E. H. FOLEY, JR. Acting Secretary of the Treasury” December 8,1941 Yours very truly, R. R. GILBERT President This publication was digitized and made available by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Historical Library (FedHistory@dal.frb.org)
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