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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
PASSPORT CONTROL SECTION ACTIVATED
On 23 September 1918, the Military Intelligence Division (MID) activated the Passports and Port Control Section to investigate wartime travel to and from the United States during World War I. Although the Department of State held the ultimate authority over issuing passports to travelers, intelligence officers supplied much of the manpower needed to perform passport screenings and secure major ports of entry.
In the early twentieth century, traveling abroad was primarily an upper-class activity, and passports—slightly bigger than an 11x17-inch certificate—served as a status symbol rather than an official travel document. Until the First World War, the United States did not require citizens or noncitizens to have a passport or visa to enter the country or travel abroad, save for a brief period during the American Civil War. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration began passing numerous wartime measures, including the Travel Control Act of May 1918, which restricted travel without a passport or immigrant visa. In August 1918, the State Department’s Bureau of Citizenship became the Division of Passport Control and was stationed in New York City and San Francisco, the two largest ports of entry in the U.S., and was given almost exclusive authority to issue these documents to travelers.
The MID lobbied strongly for more control over travel restrictions during wartime. However, under the Travel Control Act the MID was subordinate to the State Department and served only in an advisory capacity. Intelligence officers were employed at major ports of entry to perform examinations of foreign and domestic travelers and to provide investigative reports and information to the State Department. The number of travelers increased exponentially in 1918, with large numbers of military personnel and civilians passing into and out of the country, as well as through Allied territory in France. To handle the increased workload, the MID established the Passports and Port Control Section on 23 September 1918. By November, officers from this section were inspecting nearly 9,500 names each month.
American military attachés assigned to the State Department were also tasked with investigating visa and travel applications overseas. In mid-1918, Col. (later Maj. Gen.) Ralph Van Deman, chief of the MID, traveled to Paris, France, where he found the American military attaché and Lt. Col. Cabot Ward, the G-2, Services of Supply (SOS) officer, in disagreement over authority to issue passport and visa clearances in the Allied Zone of Operations. Van Deman wrote to Leland Harrison, the director of the Diplomatic Security Service of the State Department:
"To allow unrestricted travel of enemy agents is to aid the enemy in the prosecution of the war and therefore to add to the number of killed and wounded of our forces, and to the prolongation of the war. The control of travel is, therefore, imposed as a military necessity…."
Van Deman demanded the G-2, SOS, be given priority access to all information on travelers through the Zone of Operations as a matter of security and final approval of all issuances of passports and visas therein. Van Deman’s request was ultimately granted when the State Department established the Central Passport Control Office in Paris, giving expanded authority for travel control to the G-2 in France. Van Deman later commended the work of the office, stating: “I have come to the conclusion that the safest, quickest, and best way to handle this question is to establish a Passport Control office in each country on lines similar to the one established in France.” Passport requirements again went away after the war and would not become permanently necessary for international travelers into and out of the U.S. until 1941.
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| Date Taken: | 09.20.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 09.20.2024 16:35 |
| Story ID: | 481444 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 40 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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