Jewish Trail of Tears II: Children Refugee Bills of 1939

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Jewish Trail of Tears II: Children Refugee Bills of1939 and 1940Dennis Ross LafferUniversity of South Florida, [email protected]

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Jewish Trail of Tears II

Children Refugee Bills of 1939 and 1940

by

Dennis R. Laffer, M.D.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of History

College of Arts and Sciences

University of South Florida

Major Professor: John Belohlavek, Ph.D.

Graydon Tunstall, Ph.D.

Kees Boterbloem, Ph.D.

Robert I. Weiner, Ph.D.

Date of Approval:

March 29, 2018

Keywords: Intergovernmental Committee, refugees, children, quota, Wagner-Rogers Bill,

Hennings Bill.

Copyright © 2018, Dennis R. Laffer, M.D.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to Ellen, my wife of almost thirty-two years, whose love,

encouragement, and strength enabled my long journey to reach this milestone in my life. The

realization of a Doctorate in history would not have occurred without her boundless patience,

understanding, and companionship, and for this I will always be profoundly grateful.

I also dedicate this work to my daughters, Lauren Abigail and Jenny Elizabeth, for their love,

exuberance, and heartfelt support. I hope that I have set an example for them that it is possible, even

in the latter years of my seventh decade, to attain new levels of accomplishment. My greatest

achievement remains, however, the family with which I am blessed.

Finally, I dedicate this work to the victims of Nazi and modern day persecution whose lives

might have been saved, had the nations of the world shown greater compassion and resoluteness in

confronting despotism and evil. The lessons of the Holocaust era continue to resonate through time

and, hopefully, they will finally be learned. I laud those exceptional individuals and institutions, the

upstanders that possessed the courage to speak out against tyranny and offer relief and refuge to the

innocent victims of man’s hatred against his fellow man.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The late tennis star Arthur Ashe once said “success is a journey, not a destination. The doing

is often more important than the outcome.” Since childhood history has been a passion for me. I tend

to remember dates in my life and that of my family due to their connection with historical events. My

mother was born on December 16; the date the Battle of the Bulge began. My brother was born on

June 25; the anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn. My wedding anniversary occurs on June 22;

the day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Perhaps, ironically, my birthday fell on March 12,

thirteen years after the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Hitler. Events that stemmed from that

act formed the basis of my Master thesis and now my Doctoral dissertation.

My personal odyssey through the academic world of history was initiated and influenced by a

number of people and institutions, without whom I could not have reached this milestone. I want to

mention Dr. Donald M. Goldstein, Richard Frank, the National Museum of the Pacific War, and the

Florida Holocaust Museum. I particularly want to thank Dr. Mary Johnson of Facing History and

Ourselves for encouraging me to focus attention on the Evian Conference of 1938 and to tell its

story. This dissertation was the natural outgrowth of that research. I hope that this work continues to

warrant her confidence.

My journey through the Master’s and Doctoral program would not have been possible

without the kindness, support, expertise, guidance and incredible patience of Drs. John Belohlavek,

Graydon Tunstall, Kees Boterbloem, and Robert I Weiner. I hope that this dissertation warrants their

confidence and a sharing of the pride of ownership. I also want to acknowledge Lisa Thieryung,

whose adroit skillfulness and calmness helped guide me through the steps of formatting and

submitting this work. Without the help of these individuals and many others this excursion into the

past could never have been undertaken.

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1

Chapter One: The Anschluss and the Road to Evian ...........................................................8

Chapter Two: Kristallnacht and the Freedom Path to the United Kingdom .....................22

Chapter Three: The Wagner-Rogers Bill: A Path to Nowhere .........................................48

Chapter Four: The Press and the Wagner-Rogers Bill ......................................................66

Chapter Five: The Proponents ..........................................................................................79

Chapter Six: The Opponents ...........................................................................................105

Chapter Seven: Reconsideration: Return to the Final Roadblock the House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization ...................................................129

Chapter Eight: Failure of the Wagner-Rogers Bill .........................................................152

Chapter Nine: The Hennings Bill: The Road to Nowhere ..............................................174

Chapter Ten: Appraisals of Opportunities Lost ..............................................................196

Conclusion: A Common Thread .....................................................................................240

Bibliography ....................................................................................................................247

Primary Sources ...................................................................................................247

Secondary Sources ...............................................................................................258

Appendices .......................................................................................................................278

Appendix A: Admissions Under Three Variations of Annual Quota System ....279

Appendix B: Total German Immigration into U.S. by Year...............................280

Appendix C: Clerical Petition to President Roosevelt with List of Signatories .281

Appendix D: Text of S.J. Res. 64 and H.J. 165 and 168, 76th Congress,

1st Session: Joint Resolution To authorize the admission into the United

States of a limited number of German refugee Children ...............................283

Appendix E: List of Contributors to Plan for the Care of German Refugee

ii

Children...........................................................................................................284

Appendix F: Composition of House and Senate Immigration Committees

and Subcommittees .........................................................................................285

Appendix G: List of Senators For, Uncertain or Against Wagner-Rodgers Bill

based on March 24, 1939 Polling Data ...........................................................287

Appendix H: List of Officers of Allied Patriotic Societies .................................289

Appendix I: Committee on Immigration and Naturalization Hennings Bill.......290

Appendix J: Text of Hennings Bill .....................................................................291

About the Author ................................................................................................... End Page

iii

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this dissertation was to compare and contrast the origins, formulation,

course, and outcome of three major American immigration schemes to provide haven for

German Jewish and non-Aryan refugees and British children: The Intergovernmental Committee

for Political Refugees (better known as the Evian Conference), and particularly the German

Refugee Children’s Bill (also labeled as the Wagner-Rogers Bill) and the Hennings Bill. The

Evian Conference, called for by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the aftermath of the

Anschluss, the German annexation of Austria, sought to create a global solution to the problem

of forced migration.1 The Wagner-Rogers Bill, influenced by the November 1938 nationwide

pogrom of Kristallnacht and the British Kindertransport, a project to resettle Jewish and

Christian children from the Reich into the United Kingdom, attempted, by legislative means, to

allow the entry of ten thousand children outside of the annual German and Austrian quotas in

1939 and 1940. The Henning Bill endeavored to rescue British children from the perils of aerial

warfare in 1940. This measure necessitated the amendment of the Neutrality Act of 1939, which

prohibited American shipping from entering war zones.

It has been argued that the Evian Conference was, at its core, a publicity ploy, designed

to express sympathy for persecuted German minorities, while avoiding any political cost or

acceptance of impoverished refugees. The Wagner-Rogers Bill failed as a result of the interplay

1 Bat-Ami Zucker, In Search of Refuge, (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2001), 48. Roosevelt in the aftermath of

the annexation of Austria forecast a surge of Jewish pressure to admit refugee. He discussed the possibility of

special action to assist political refugees from the Reich during a March 18, 1938 cabinet session. The President

stated that America had accepted “many fine Germans” following the failed 1848 revolutions. Therefore, provision

of sanctuary should be considered. This action was tabled due to the introduction of a plethora of anti-immigration

proposals into Congress, the refusal of the House to provide necessary funding for such a project, the number of

potential refugees, and popular opposition to any expansion of immigration.

iv

of multiple factors that included: lack of presidential backing; the economic throes of the Great

Depression; fear of aliens; anti-Semitism; growing isolationism and resistance to continued

immigration, and a disunited and fractious Jewish community that sought to avoid stimulation of

domestic prejudice and more restrictive immigration policies. A key component was a critical

misreading of the bill’s sponsors of public compassion for Hitler’s victims; sentiments that did

not translate into a willingness to accept Jewish refugees. The Henning Bill, which FDR

endorsed with strict qualifications, demonstrated preferences for particular ethnic groups;

specifically, British Christian children. In contrast with the Wagner-Rogers Bill, this legislation

rapidly made its way through Congress and into law. Its failure lay in the inability to acquire

guarantees of safe passage through contested waters by the warring powers.

A general review followed by a more detailed examination was made of existing official

and un-official sources, employing public records, private diaries, books, newspapers, journals,

and other periodicals for the critical period of January 1, 1938 through December 31, 1940.

Various historiographical appraisals have been made of the actions of Roosevelt, his

administration, Congress, the Jewish community, and general public, and these opinions have

generated markedly divergent opinions. Some have alleged that FDR and his administration,

particularly the Department of State, abandoned the Jews to their fate while others assert that, in

the context of the time, he did everything that was potentially achievable. Debate has also been

waged over wide-ranging accusations of inaction, apathy, prejudice, and complicity involving

official sources, the general public, and American Jewry. I argue that any assessment of

responsibility for failure to attempt rescue can be laid at the feet of many actors in this existential

drama of life and death.

1

INTRODUCTION

“The world seems to be divided into two parts—those where the Jews could not live and those

where they could not enter.” 2

The Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees (IGCPR) of July 1938, better

known as the Evian Conference, was an international gathering, convened by President Franklin

D. Roosevelt. The goal was a global solution to a mass migration crisis involving German Jews

and non-Aryans that had been sparked by the Anschluss, the German annexation of Austria on

March 12, 1938.3 Its decisive failure and the inadequacy of its sole construction, the London-

based Intergovernmental Committee, emboldened the National Socialist regime.

By 1938 the Nazi-Jewish strategy of compulsory emigration had proven ineffective, in

part due to the resistance of other nations to accept involuntary, stateless, and destitute refugees.

Consequently, enactment of a more extreme approach became necessary to resolve the Jewish

Question. Arguably, the futility of the Evian Conference and the abandonment of

2 Chaim Weizmann, Manchester Guardian, 23rd May 1936, in A.J. Sherman, Island Refuge, Britain and the

Refugees from the Third Reich, 1933-1939 (London: Elek Books Limited, 1973), 112.

3 “The Reich Citizenship Law” of November 1935 delineated the legal bounds of German citizenship. A member

of the German community was classified as a “subject who is of German or kindred blood” who established that “he

is both desirous and fit to serve the German people and Reich faithfully.” Jews, in the context of Nazi racial theory,

were not of Nordic or Aryan lineage. Therefore, their rights as citizens were annulled, placing them in a stateless

condition. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds. Documents on Nazism, 1919-1945 (London: Cape Publishing,

1974), 463-467. German Jews and non-Aryans were categorized as “political refugees” for the purposes of the Evian

Conference. Jack Fischel argues that this word selection was deliberately chosen by Roosevelt in order to downplay

the predominantly Jewish identity of the forced émigrés. He believes the President was motivated by concerns of

stimulating domestic anti-Semitism as heralded by such individuals as Father Charles E. Coughlin, Gerald L.K.

Smith, Gerald Winrod, William D. Pelley and the German-American Bund. Any open display of sympathy or

support for Jews, it was feared, opened Roosevelt up to charges of being the father of the “Jew Deal.” Jack R.

Fischel, The Holocaust (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 28.

2

Czechoslovakia during the Munich Conference of September 28-29, 1938, galvanized the Nazis

to carry out the November 1938 pogrom, Kristallnacht that swept across greater Germany. Not

coincidentally, Crystal Night occurred only four months following the closure of the Evian

Conference.

Reaction to the widespread violence against German Jewry precipitated the

Kindertransport, the British governmental, religious, and public effort to rescue ten thousand

Christian and Jewish children, aged 6-14, for resettlement within the United Kingdom. This

initiative, despite its limited extent and results, led prominent Americans to adopt a similar plan

that purportedly reflected long-standing national traditions of offering sanctuary. It culminated in

the German Refugee Children’s Bill, variably known as the Wagner-Rogers Bill or the Wagner-

Dingell-Rogers Resolutions, which represented a one-time attempt to permit the entry of 10,000

Jewish and non-Aryan children during 1939 and 1940, outside of the annual quota allowance of

27,370. The legislation, proposed in early 1939, underwent three sets of Congressional hearings,

but was withdrawn by its sponsors due to modifications that required these refugees to be

deducted from the yearly allotment.

The bankruptcy of the Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees was ensured

by a host of factors, including the American invitation that stated that no country was expected to

change its existing immigration laws, and finances for resettlement were to be obtained from

private sources. These conditions provided participating governments the opportunity and

rationale to avoid any meaningful responsibility in this humanitarian crisis. The sole American

contribution to what turned out to be a publicity ploy was the consolidation of the annual

German and Austrian immigration quota years. In advance, the United States and Great Britain

had secretly agreed to avoid any discussion of Palestine as a potential haven for large-scale

3

migration.4 Thus, the Evian Conference was largely a dead letter, before it even commenced; its

lack of preparedness and the insincerity of its goals were clearly evident to the attendees and to

Nazi Germany.5

Only one year later, the promoters of the Wagner-Rogers Bill crucially misread the

timidity of the American Jewish community, resistance within Washington, and sweeping public

sentiments against the persecution of minorities within the Reich in which sympathy did not

translate into action. Prominent Christian clerics had sent a petition to FDR seeking his aid for

the resettlement of German Jewish children into the United States, which became the initiating

step in the construction of the legislation. Despite ardent expressions of support for the measure,

the majority of the Gentile leadership, with few exceptions such as Samuel Mcrea Cavert of the

Federal Churches of Christ in America, addressed the House and Senate hearings as individuals

and not as spokespersons for their collective religious bodies; an approach shared by many lay

witnesses as well. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, one of the foremost national Jewish leaders, expressed

the conundrum faced by many of his co-religionists in the United States: “American” vs.

“American Jew.” The American Federation of Labor was frequently reported to have endorsed

the bill, signifying their belief that young refugees did not threaten domestic employment; a key

point promoted by supporters of the enterprise. However, testimony of William Green, the

President of the A.F.L., and his attorney proxy, demonstrated that Green was similarly speaking

4 Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of the War 1941-1945 (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin,

1959), 207-208. The original White House invitation was to have restricted participants to European countries, with

Germany excluded. However, the U.K., concerned that excessive focus would be placed upon its Palestinian

Mandate and its potential to serve as political refuge, pressed for the participation of non-European nations. In

addition, the British government declared that its participation was contingent upon the total exclusion of Palestine

from discussion coupled with an absolute guarantee that the U.S. government was not going to demand that the

Mandate must accept additional Jewish refugees. Alternatively, Britain assured the American authorities that it

would not call for revision of United States immigration laws.

5 Dennis R. Laffer, “The Jewish Trail of Tears: The Evian Conference of July 1938.” Masters Thesis, University

of South Florida, 2011.

4

as an individual and not as the collective voice of the union’s leadership and rank and file. The

Department of State and its bureaucratic and consular apparatus also opposed the Wagner-

Rogers Bill.

The Evian Conference and Wagner-Rogers Bills were envisioned as acts primarily

favoring German and Austrian Jews and non-Aryans. The outbreak of a new European

continental war, however, generated fears of German bombing raids on British coastal cities and

towns. Therefore, American concerns over the dangers faced by British Gentile children

spawned a fourth rescue enterprise that necessitated an amendment to the Neutrality Act of 1939,

which prohibited United States shipping from sailing into designated war zones. The 1940

“Mercy Ship” movement led to the introduction of the Hennings Bill, which empowered

American flagged vessels to enter contested waters to facilitate evacuation.

This legislation, in essence, represented an attempt to an attempt to rescue unlimited

numbers of British Christian children within and without the yearly quota (refugees not fleeing

political, racial, or religious persecution, but evacuees evading the exigencies of war). The

measure received broad public and governmental support that enabled its successful and rapid

passage through Congress and into law. The lesson of its achievement was clear: not all refugees

were equal and some were significantly more desirable than others. The inability to obtain

guarantees of safe passage from all belligerent parties, the key component of changes to the

Neutrality Act, lack of sufficient American shipping, and the U-boat sinking of a British liner

carrying child evacuees in September 1940, terminated the plan.

Collectively, these projects provide examples of the varying opinions and roles played by

Roosevelt, his administration, Congress, the Jewish community, and the American public at large

in confronting European immigration and humanitarian issues, revealing similarities,

5

contradictions, and inherent inconsistencies. Within the backdrop of the Evian Conference,

Kristallnacht, and the Kindertransport, this dissertation will explore the Wagner-Rogers and

Hennings Bills by comparing and contrasting their formulation, construction, course, and

divergent outcomes. As primary sources, governmental and other official records and

correspondences, newspapers, magazines, journals, personal documents, and books for the

January 1, 1933-December 31, 1940 period were employed. These events marked critical

milestones along a continuum that linked the fate of German Jewry and set the stage for what

was to follow. Careful juxtaposition of the evolution and terms of each bill robustly illustrates

the crucial differences between the two.

Not surprisingly, owing to the horror of what followed, diverse secondary assessments

have been made regarding the reactions of Roosevelt et al to this human calamity. Essentially,

two contradictory schools of thought have arisen over the role of the President. Critical post-

Holocaust writers, such as Arthur Morse, David Wyman, Henry Feingold, Saul Friedman and

Raphael Medoff, et al assert that FDR could have substantially done more to aid refugees, but

essentially abandoned them to their collective fate. They contend that the problem of German

Jews and non-Aryans was a low priority to a Chief Executive whose overriding focus was upon

domestic economic and social recovery and the strengthening of national defense in the pre- and

intra-war eras.6

6Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy (NY: The Overlook Press, 1967); David

Wyman, Paper Walls and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968), The

Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945. (NY: New Press, 1998); Henry Feingold, The

Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945 (Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University

press, 1970) and Bearing Witness: How America and its Jews Responded to the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse

University Press, 1995); Saul Friedman, No Haven for the Oppressed: United States Policy Towards Jewish

Refugees, 1938-1945 (Wayne State University Press, 1973); Rafael Medoff, The Deafening Silence (NY: Shapolsky

Publishers, 1988) and Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., and the Struggle for a U.S. Response

to the Holocaust (W. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009); Richard D. Breitman and Alan M. Kraut,

American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945 (Bloomingdale, IN.: Indiana University Press, 1987).

6

Other authors, including Richard D. Breitman, Alan M. Kraut, Howard M. Sachar, Hasia

R. Diner, Robert N. Rosen, and William J. vanden Heuvel, claim that given the economic, social,

and political climate and constraints of the time, the President did everything possible to provide

assistance. In either case, little political capital was to be expended upon an issue that lacked

sweeping public support coupled with limitations on American power and influence to affect a

meaningful rescue.7

Roosevelt did not keep a private diary, and it was noted by many of his close associates

that he frequently kept his own counsel and did not reveal his innermost thoughts, motivations,

and plans. He was the consummate master of the political calculus, and spoke out or remained

silent, depending upon the benefit that could be accrued from such action. He expressed a

modicum of private comments about the Wagner-Rogers Bill and offered limited public

expressions of support for the Hennings Bill. After a multiyear engagement with the history of

the Evian Conference, and a more recent involvement with the German Refugee Children’s Bill

and lesser known Mercy Ship scheme, I have come to the conclusion that FDR was a complex

and composite figure that did not completely abandon nor entirely support German Jewry. He

possessed many of the characteristics and qualities espoused by his judges and defenders, but the

President was a product of his era, worldview, and ambitions, which regarded Jews and

Christians differently within the framework of political risks and advantages. His domestic and

international priorities were frequently divorced from loftier humanitarian concerns. This, I

7 Jeffrey Gurlock, ed., “America, American Jews and the Holocaust,” American Jewish History, vol. 7 (NY:

Routledge, 1998); Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (NY: Columbia University

Press, 1982) and Anti-Semitism in America (NY: Oxford University Press, 1994); William D. Rubinstein, The Myth

of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not have Save More Jews from the Nazis (NY: Routledge, 1977); Robert N.

Rosen, Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust (NY: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006); Howard M.

Sachar, A History of the Jews in the Modern World (NY: Vintage Books, 2005); Hasia R. Diner, The Jews of the

United States: 1654-2000 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).

7

believe, is the essential reason for the decisive failure of the Intergovernmental Committee for

Political Refugees from Germany and the German Refugee Children’s Bill.

The situation was further complicated by internecine rivalries within the Jewish

community and fears that pro-active actions or statements calling for increased immigration

would result in more restrictive quota laws as well as an exacerbation of domestic anti-Semitism.

Accordingly, significant members of the Jewish leadership remained relatively silent, seemingly

more concerned to retain their status of “Americans” than to speak and act for their beleaguered

German co-religionists. Those who sought to resettle German Jewish children underestimated the

extent of Christian, and to some degree, Jewish resistance to opening the gates. The expedited

passage of the Henning Bill clearly demonstrated the hypocrisy of its supporters and the

widespread influence of anti-Jewish prejudice reflected in its preferential acceptance of a specific

group of young Gentile refugees.

Thus, the debates over admission into the United States were impacted by a multiplicity

of factors that influenced the predilections and actions of Christians and Jews alike. The attitudes

and agency of Roosevelt served as a common thread that linked together these significant

moments in American immigration history, but other actors were involved. The Jewish and non-

Jewish public, Congress, and shared conflicting perceptions and assumptions with respect to the

danger of increased Jewish immigration, also significantly influenced the final outcome of these

rescue schemes.

8

CHAPTER 1:

THE ANSCHLUSS AND THE ROAD TO EVIAN

“Vienna will “become German again. The Jew must know we do not care to live with him. He

must go.”8

“Plundering, beatings, arrests and dispossession were only a forerunner of a more drastic

persecution to come.”9

The Anschluss, the German annexation of Austria into the Third Reich on March 12,

1938 marked the major turning point in the lot of Jews and non-Aryans residing within a now

greater Germany. The anti-Jewish laws and regulations that had been introduced gradually into

the country since April 1933 were enacted rapidly within the Ostmark, the new Austrian

province, over the course of two to three months. Dr. Leo Lauterbach, the London based

Director of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), reported from the former capital to its

Executive on April 29, 1938 that the new policies within Austria appeared to be fundamentally

different from those enacted within Germany. Austrian Jews were now faced with the prospect

of “complete annihilation”10 by their exclusion from the economy, seizure of financial assets,

8 Field Marshal Herman Goering, Washington Post, March 27, 1938, 1.

9 Washington Post, March 15, 1938, 4.

10 “The Situation of the Jews in Austria, April, 1938: Report Submitted to the Executive of the Zionist

Organization by Dr. Leo Lauterbach,” in Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds., Documents

of the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet

Union (Jerusalem: Ktav Publishing House, 1981), 93.

9

impoverishment, and ultimate starvation or forced emigration, dependent upon Jewish charity

and the whims and willingness of foreign nations to accept them.11

The international press reported that looting, physical assaults, and imprisonments were a

harbinger of a “more drastic persecution” to come.12 The New York Times, noting that the

Jewish suicide rate in Vienna had increased dramatically, commented that for both rich and poor

alike, death represented the “kindest gift”13 that offered a reprieve from an Austria that had

devolved into a “vast prison” of intensifying persecution and want.”14 Israel Cohen, another

representative of the WZO in Vienna, observed that rising levels of hopelessness had driven

Jews by the thousands to besiege the embassies and consulates of various nations in desperate

attempts to obtain entry visas.15

The goal of the first phase of Nazi anti-Jewish policy was to purge the Reich of Jews by

the employment of forced emigration, enabled by the seizure of Jewish wealth and property, the

exclusion from the workforce, and by the application of terror. The plight of these Jews, and

fears of potential mass migrations, led to calls for an international solution to this escalating

refugee crisis. New York Post foreign correspondent Dorothy Thompson predicted that if aid

was not provided to the victims of Nazi persecution then “a catastrophe [lay] ahead for more than

the immigrants and the would-be immigrants.”16 A solution necessitated international

cooperation and the creation of an organization that possessed the proper amount of expertise,

11 Ibid.

12 Washington Post, March 15, 1938, 4.

13 New York Times, March 20, 1938, 61.

14 Ibid.

15 Israel Cohen, Travels In Jewry (NY: E.P. Dutton, 1953), 42.

16 Foreign Affairs, 16 no. 3 (April 1938): 375-387.

10

influence and finances.17 The European refugee situation, she warned, posed a potential

entrapment for the United States and the Western European nations. Any failure to act could

make them accessories to Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies, discredit them in the eyes of their

citizens, or precipitate ineffectual policies that divided popular opinion at home.18 Therefore, on

March 25, 1938, the U.S. State Department issued a press release announcing that the American

government had recognized the urgency of the humanitarian situation and sought to establish a

select committee of European and Western Hemisphere nations [including New Zealand and

Australia], the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees, that would assemble in

Evian, France19 with the goal of enabling the orderly departure of “political refugees”20 from

Austria and Germany. The two major and inherently self-defeating provisions of the American

invitation to thirty-two countries specified that the cost of resettlement must be borne by non-

governmental organizations and no nation was obligated to accept refugees in excess of the

numbers embodied in their respective immigration laws.21

President Roosevelt, on the same day as the State Department announcement, declared

that the primary American contribution to the immigration dilemma was the consolidation of the

annual German and Austrian quotas (open to both Christians and Jews) without any changes in

existing immigration laws.22 FDR knew that his administration faced political risk in promoting

17 Ibid.

18 Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (NY: Public Affairs, 2003), 87.

19 This meeting, commonly known as the Evian Conference met over July 6-15, 1938 and needed to end prior to

the visit of the King and Queen of England to France.

20 Department of State, Press Releases, XVIII, March 26, 1938.

21 Ibid.

22 Press Conferences of FDR, Vol. 11-12, 1938 (NY: De Capa Press, 1972), #445.

11

Jewish immigration into the US. Gallup polls from June 1936 to January 1938 demonstrated that

approximately 65 percent of Americans were against his seeking a third term.23 An opinion poll

taken in March 1938, at the time of the Anschluss, revealed that 41 percent of Americans

believed that “Jews have too much power”24 in the United States; i.e. control of finance,

commerce, the press, and entertainment. Twenty-five percent of respondents desired the

exclusion of Jews from “government and politics”25 and 20 percent favored the expulsion of

Jews from the United States. Nineteen percent were supportive of a domestic anti-Semitic

campaign.26 A June 1938 Fortune magazine poll demonstrated that 67.4 percent of Americans

believed that current economic conditions mandated a complete ban on immigration but 18.2

percent replied that some refugees should be admitted within the bounds of the quota system.

Only 4.9 percent advocated an increase in the annual allotment. The remainder was undecided.27

A Gallup poll conducted during the same month revealed that 72 percent of Americans opposed

an increase in the number of German Jews granted entry visas and 51 percent were against the

provision of funds to resettle “Jewish and Catholic exiles…in other lands.”28 The polling data

enabled Roosevelt to argue that he was assuming an international “humanitarian role…at least

23 Time, April 11, 1938, 11.

24 Charles H. Stembler, Jews in the Mind of America (NY: Basis Books, 1966), 121-131.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ronald Sanders, Shores of Refuge: A Hundred Years of Jewish Emigration (Henry Holt and Company: NY,

1988), 438.

28 Robert Edwin Herzstein, Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War NY: Paragon House, 1989), 256. The sampling

techniques varied between Gallup and Fortune. When considering issues of national import, the Gallup Poll

surveyed “all eligible U.S. voters” whereas the magazine defined his cohort as anyone over the age of 21 years. S.S.

Wilks, “Representative Sampling and Poll Reliability,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, 4, no 2 (June 1940): 261-262.

12

symbolically”29 while simultaneously minimizing potential political repercussions from

restrictionist members of Congress and the public at large.30

The U.S. immigration laws, revised in 1921 and 1924 under Presidents Warren Harding

and Calvin Coolidge, established specific national quotas for foreign countries. The largest

percentage was allocated to Europeans of the Nordic and Anglo-Saxon race due to the belief that

these specific groups were inherently biologically superior to Eastern and Southern Europeans.

For example, the eugenicist Madison Grant, a contributor to the writing of the National Origins

Act of 1924, perceived Jews as an internal threat to America because of their “dwarf stature,

peculiar mentality and ruthless concentration on self-interest”31 that threatened the superior

“stock of the nation.” 32 Similarly, Wilbur J. Carr, Director of the Consular Service from 1909-

1924 and Assistant Secretary of State, 1924-1937, claimed that Jewish immigrants were “filthy,

most un-American…often dangerous… [and] mentally deficient.” 33 Under the terms of the

National Origins Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act), 153,774 immigrants per year were allowed

entrance into the United States with each allotment limited to 2 percent of the various

nationalities residing in America in 1890.34

President Herbert Hoover in 1930 directed that any alien who had a high probability of

becoming dependent upon tax payer charity was to be denied admission. However, he decided

29 Breitman and Kraut, American Refugee Policy, 230.

30 Ibid.

31 Madison Grant, The Passing of Great Race: Or the Racial Basis of European History (NY: Scribner’s Sons,

1922), 17.

32 Ibid.

33 Sachar, A History of Jews, 296-298.

34 The British quota was established at 65,271 per year and the German at 25,957.

13

that American consuls abroad retained exclusionary power to determine whether a potential

immigrant satisfied the Likely to become Public Charge or LPC clause.35 As a result, the

decision to grant an entry visa was often based upon subjective opinions made independently of

objective facts, framed by personal interpretations of immigration laws and requirements. Thus,

the consul assumed the mantle of “gate-keeper, the one who held the keys to safety for the many

who sought refuge.”36 State Department Visa officer John Farr Simmons advised Pierrepont

Moffat, Chief of Western European Affairs that enforcement of this provision had led to “an

immediate and considerable reduction in immigration”37 preventing entry of approximately

seven million immigrants over the previous seven years who were potential competitors for

American jobs or additional sources of unemployed workers.

The announcement of the Evian Conference generated varying degrees of public and

private support and opposition. The “Question of the Week” of the United States News asked

prominent lay and clerical citizens for their opinions regarding the maintenance, restriction, or

liberalization of the current immigration system.38 A wide range of responses, crossing religious

and political lines, were elicited, and while many agreed with the premise of the conference,

viewpoints were markedly divided; arguments that later resonated through the course of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill debate.

Dr. William E. Gilroy, editor of the Congregationist The Advance, believed that

35 Zucker, “in Search,” 65. The State Department maintained 30 consulates within the Reich. Offices in Berlin,

Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Vienna were approved to grant entry visas and all were allowed to issue visitors’ visas. The

ultimate authority, however, rested with the Consul-General stationed in Berlin.

36 Ibid., 4.

37 Ibid. John Farr Simmons to Pierrepont Moffitt, September 2, 1937, 150.01/2552, 43.

38 “Question of the Week,” The United States News, April 4, 1938. “What should be the American policy towards

oppressed minorities of foreign nations who look to this country as a haven of refuge? Should the barriers…be

lowered to help them find new homes here or should the present regulatory restrictions on entry apply to them the

same as every other alien?”

14

United States immigration policy must be guided by even-handedness and charity.

Elias Rex, editor of The Jewish Review, called upon Congress to expand the limits of the quota in

order to receive a greater number of persecuted German minorities. Dr. Guy Emery Shipler,

editor of the Episcopalian magazine The Churchman, viewed the proposed conclave as a symbol

of the traditional and time honored American democratic values. However, he was resistant to

any revision of immigration law due to the high level of domestic unemployment. Reform Rabbi

Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress and purported Roosevelt

confidante, did not believe that it was likely that Washington was amenable to or even should

modify the existing quotas. Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the conservative American Jewish

Committee, opposed changes in existing legislation as he deemed it improbable that the numbers

of Jewish refugees could exceed the annual German and Austrian quotas. The Reverend Francis

Talbot, editor of the Catholic weekly America, declared that it was absurd to admit aliens

harboring foreign ideologies whose assimilation into American society necessitated “grave

economic, political and social readjustments.”39 Dr. Hiram Wesley Evans, Imperial Wizard,

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan argued that the primary responsibility of the nation was to provide

for its own needy citizens and not those of other lands. William Green, President of the

American Federation of Labor (AFL) praised the Evian plan for its humanitarianism, but insisted

that economic conditions prevented the acceptance of German and Austrian refugees above the

limit set by law.40

Representative Samuel Dickstein (Democrat, NY), the Jewish Chairman of the House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, criticized the nation for repeatedly “preach[ing]

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

15

about [America’s role as] asylum for the oppressed”41 while being unwilling to “carry that

reputation to realization.”42 Nevertheless, he stated that any derangement of the existing

immigration system was ill-advised in view of the current economic conditions.43 Congressman

Noah M. Mason (Rep., IL) supported the provision of American funding for resettlement of

refugees in Palestine or other locations, but remained adamantly opposed to any temporary or

permanent increase in the annual quota allotments. Senator Robert Wagner (Dem., NY),

Member, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, endorsed the international meeting but argued

that admittance of refugees had to be in compliance with existing limitations; sentiments shared

by other Senators.44

Other objections were raised against the Evian Conference that were employed during the

hearings on the Wagner-Rogers Bill: fears of entanglement in foreign affairs and conflicts;

inundation by victimized and jobless European refugees; opening gambit to erode immigration

protections; introduction of dangerous ideologies; other nations would offer little or no

cooperation in resettlement projects; primary duty of the Federal Government was to provide aid

and assistance to needy Americans; competition for employment.45

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid. Dickstein did propose the consolidation of the unused quotas of the 1938 and 1939 fiscal years and their

placement under the control of the Departments of State, Labor, and Commerce.

44 Ibid.

45 “Refugee Plan Pushes Ideal of Democracy,” Tampa Tribune March 27, 1938, 14; Congressional Record

Appendix, March 28, 1938, Seventy-Fifth Congress, Third Session, vol. 10, 1207. Congressional Record March 28,

1938 vol. 83, part 4, 4227. Congressman Thomas J. Jenkins (Rep., OH.), for example, accused FDR of asking

Americans to accept a body of people deemed “undesirable to European dictators” and accused the President of

pursuing a “visionary excursion into the warm fields of altruism” while ignoring the “cold winds of poverty and

penury” that affected the “ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-fed.”

16

Various motives have been offered to explain Roosevelt’s decision to convene the

Intergovernmental Committee. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, who had promoted the

idea of the forum to the President and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, envisaged the meeting as

an opportunity “to get out in front”46 of liberal opinion, particularly the views of such influential

columnists as Dorothy Thompson and “certain Congressmen [presumably Jewish] with

metropolitan constituencies.”47 It also provided an opening to blunt forces that sought to increase

Jewish immigration by altering immigration law, and to preemptively divert responsibility for

the refugees away from the United States and towards the thirty-two national attendees.48

Action to curtail forced expulsion and migration, and the limitation of the conference to

consideration of only German and Austrian refugees would, it was hoped, prevent the ejection of

unwanted Jews from Rumania, Poland and Hungary; countries that were formulating their own

solutions to the Jewish Question.49 Therefore, refugees under consideration were

euphemistically categorized as “political refugees from Germany and Austria” and not as Jews.50

The global gathering could also serve as a means of converting isolationist sentiments

within the American public to “active opposition [to] international gangsters.”51 However, if the

conference successfully created a mechanism that facilitated an orderly exodus of Jews from

46 National Archives, State Department Records, File 9000-1/2:840-8, Memorandum on Refugees, 1938, in

Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None Is Too Many (NY: Random House, 1983), 16.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Mashberg, Michael. “American Diplomacy and the Jewish Refugees, 1938-1939,” Yivo Annual of Jewish

Social Science 15 (1974): 346.

50 Newsweek, April 4, 1938, 18.

51 Michael Blakeney, Australia and the Jewish Refugees, 1933-1948 (Australia: Croom Helm, 1985), 127.

17

Germany then, it was hoped, Nazi aggressiveness might be curtailed.52 A Jewish advisor to

FDR, Isador Lubin, believed that the President’s decision was the result of pressure applied by

Rabbi Wise “for whom [Roosevelt] had a great deal of affection.”53 Frances Perkins, U.S.

Secretary of Labor, thought that FDR had been influenced by the opinion of social activist, Jane

Addams who argued immigration created future consumers that strengthened the national

economy.54 Jewish Presidential advisor Ben Cohen assumed that if the conference ended in

failure, Nazi Germany could be blamed for creating and facilitating the international refugee

problem.55

Overall, the Evian Conference failed to generate any meaningful results. Elsewhere I

have argued that the summit was constructed to serve as a “politically expedient means of

avoiding action to assist the Jews” that was set up to fail.56 The refusal of the United Kingdom

and the United States to alter their immigration laws led “interested and disinterested spectators

alike”57 to interpret the conference as an “exercise in Anglo-American collaborative

hypocrisy.”58 This realization emboldened lesser nations to resist accepting Jewish migrants. 59

Italian Fascist editor Virginio Gayda, writing for the Giornale d’Italia, concluded that the Evian

52 “America Proposes Sanctuaries for Victims of Nazis,” Tampa Tribune, March 25, 1938,1, 9.

53 Letter from Lubin to Feingold in Feingold, The Politics of Rescue, 23.

54 Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (NY: Viking Press, 1946), 92.

55 See Herbert Pell to Moffat, September 10, 1938, Houghton Library, and Harvard, cited in American Refugee

Policy, 61.

56 Dennis R. Laffer, “Evian Conference,” History in Dispute, The Holocaust 1933-1945, 11 (Farmington Hills,

MI: St. James Press, 2003), 56.

57 Ronnie S. Landau, The Nazi Holocaust, (London: Ivan R. Dees, 1994), 138.

58 Ibid.

59 “No One Wants to Have Them,” Voelkischer Beobachter, July 13, 1938 in Shoah Center, Yad Vashem,

http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203347.pdf; Internet; accessed June 25, 2008.

18

Conference had been unable to produce any concrete results and despite the soaring oratory and

many declarations of good will, the reality remained that the Jews of Central Europe were simply

unwanted. Each country preferred that some other nation accept the brunt of the human load.

Gayda criticized the American President for never missing an opportunity to present the “world

with some resounding verbal gesture”60 of little substance. Consequently, “the merry game of

passing responsibility along continue[d] uninterruptedly.”61

FDR selected Myron C. Taylor, a Quaker and a retired Chairman of U.S. Steel, to head

the American delegation. Despite his grand title of Ambassador Extraordinary and

Plenipotentiary, the appointment of a non-diplomat implied lack of seriousness about the

conference and its potential work.62 Taylor and his British counterparts agreed in advance that

Palestine was to be excluded from consideration.63 The Roosevelt administration, despite its call

for a refugee conference, did not attempt to garner public or political support for accepting a

larger number of refugees. The Great Depression, unemployment, fear of aliens, isolationism,

and anti-Semitism were significant factors that promoted anti-immigrant attitudes.64 Jewish

groups were unable to agree on a unified policy towards immigration and failed to dispatch high-

60 New York Times, November 22, 1938, 4.

61 Ibid.

62 Welles had recommended to FDR and Hull that the U.S. delegation be led by Hull, accompanied by Secretary

of Labor Francis Perkins, George Messersmith, the head of the Foreign Service Personnel Board and himself; FDR

chose the Quaker, Myron C. Taylor, James G. McDonald, presidential advisor on refugee affairs, George L. Warren,

executive secretary of the Committee on Political Refugees, plus technical assistants—none of these delegates were

particularly politically influential.

63 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1938, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: 1955), 752.

64 “Evian Conference”, 57; A May 1938 Gallup Poll demonstrated that only 55 percent were in favor of

Roosevelt’s re-election in November 1940. George Gallup and Claude Robinson, “American Institute of Public

Opinion—Surveys, 1935-1938,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 2, no. 3 (July 1938): 376.

19

level representation.65 The meeting avoided any direct criticism of Nazi anti-Semitic policies

and its humanitarian depredations.66 Lord Winteron, the head of the British delegation, alleged

that vilification of the Reich jeopardized chances of German cooperation and noted that the

British had successfully blocked an American attempt to formulate a “clause of a denunciatory

character” against the Reich government.67 CBS correspondent William Shirer observed that the

American, British and French delegations appeared “anxious not to do anything to offend

Hitler”; the individual who was the genesis of their dilemma.68

Representatives to the conference manipulated the Intergovernmental Committee’s

proceedings as a means of protecting their national interests by diverting humanitarian pressure

away from their respective countries. The delegations engaged in lofty and laudable elocution,

bereft of any practicable solutions to the refugee situation.69 Country after country espoused

“platonic sympathies”70 for the plight of the expelled minority but presented a variety of

explanations as to why they could not offer any meaningful asylum.71 The session’s nine days

65 Meyer W. Weisgal, ed. Chaim Weizmann: Statesman, Scientist, Builder of the Jewish Commonwealth (NY,

Dial,1944), 304-328.

66 Henderson to Halifax, July 4, 1938, FO 371/22529, W 8887/104/98 and Winterton to Halifax, July 8, 1938, FO

371/22530, W 9531/104/98 in Sherman, Island Refuge, 113.

67 Landau, Nazi Holocaust, 148.

68William Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1942),

101.

69 Tommie Sjoberg, The Powers and the Persecuted: The Refugee Problem & ICR (Lund, Sweden: Lund

University Press, 1991) in Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-48 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2000), 5; St. Petersburg Times July 8, 1938.

70 S.D. Waley to Sir Frederick Phillips, memorandum, Evian Conference, June 17, 1938 in London, Whitehall

and the Jew, 88.

71 Ibid.

20

resembled, to one observer, the “unexciting table water” for which Evian was renowned.72 One

paper editorialized that “if this is coming to the help of refugees, then what would the nations do

if they meant to desert them?”73 Sumner Welles himself noted, following World War II, that the

Evian Conference might have resulted in exemplary humanitarian accomplishments had not the

American government allowed the committee to descend into insignificance.74

Finally, the sole accomplishment of the Conference, the creation of the London based

Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees, failed in its goal to persuade nations to

offer realistic opportunities for resettlement or to convince the German government to allow

refugees to retain sufficient financial assets to reestablish themselves in a new life. In 1933

emigrants from Germany preserved 75 percent of the value of their possessions. This percentage

was later reduced to 15 percent and by 1938 it had declined to 5 percent.75 German Foreign

Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop warned that the refugee dilemma was a non-negotiable

domestic German issue and declared the Reich would not release greater amounts of Jewish

funds nor would it cooperate with the Evian conferees.76

The German government and press fully recognized the futility and hypocrisy of the

Evian Conference. Hitler remarked that he expected and hoped that the democracies that held

72 Time, July 18, 1938, 6.

73 Daily Herald, August 26, 1938 in Andrew Sharf, The British Press and Jews Under Nazi Rule, (Oxford:

Oxford University Press,1964), 171.

74 Sumner Welles, Where Are We Headed? (Harper and Company: NY,1946) in Wyman, Paper Walls, 51. See

Appendix A and B for German immigration figures for U.S.

75 The Times, July 6, 1938, 15; Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, 3496/EO19935-36, Circular of

the State Secretary Berlin, July 8, 1938, 83-29 8/7 no. 640; Case XI, NG 1522-23 in Gerald Reitlinger, The Final

Solution, (Northvale, N.J.: J. Aronson, 1987), 19.

76 Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, 3496/EO19935-36 Circular of the State Secretary Berlin

July 8, 1938 83-29 8/7 no. 640.

21

“such deep sympathy for these criminals”77 would be willing to transform their compassion into

workable solutions.78 He criticized the West for accusing Germany of engaging in limitless

brutality in the enactment of its anti-Jewish policies while the democracies refused to accept

displaced Jews. Instead, these nations declared with “icy coldness”79 that they were unable to

open their borders. “So no help is given, but morality is saved.”80 Moreover, the German press

highlighted the inherent hypocrisy in an American immigration system based upon a racial quota

system. 81 The papers also noted the expression of benevolence for the German Jewish situation

and its use as a form of incitement against the Nazi state. However, despite such appeals to

humanity no nation was willing to accept a few thousand Jews when the opportunity arose. The

hollow words of charity, the press argued, validated German anti-Semitism, and the

establishment of a permanent committee to continue the work of the Evian Conference

demonstrated that the outcomes of this meeting were insubstantial at best.82 Violent events

played out on the streets of Germany and Austria in the aftermath of the July Intergovernmental

Committee meeting had generated an impetus to conduct rescue attempts, but on an extremely

constricted scale.

77 “Hitler is Pleased to Get Rid of his Foes,” New York Times, March 27, 1938, 15.

78 “Ibid.

79 Lyn H. Harper, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler April 1922-August 1939, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford Press, 1942),

719-720.

80 Ibid.

81 Voelkischer Beobachter, April 26, 1938 in Manus I. Mdlarsky, The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth

Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 244.

82 “No One Wants to Have Them,” Voelkischer Beobachter, July 13, 1938.

22

CHAPTER 2:

KRISTALLNACHT AND THE FREEDOM PATH TO THE UNITED KINGDOM

“No doubt Jews aren’t a loveable people; I don’t care about them myself; – but that is not

sufficient to explain the Pogrom.”83

“As soon as we found out [about the Kindertransport], my mother went to where the committee

was and put my name down. She wouldn’t put my brother down because, she said, ‘I don’t want

to lose both my sons on one day.”84

A brief overview of Jewish history within the United Kingdom is required to understand

the genesis of the Kindertransport or Children’s Transport, the British public and governmental

project to rescue a small percentage of Central European Jewish and non-Aryan children from

escalating Nazi persecution and violence. The significance of the scheme, although extremely

limited in scope, lay not only in the saving of innocent lives, but also in its influence upon

American citizens and politicians who sought to replicate its efforts in the context of a one-time

amendment to immigration law; the German Refugee Children’s Bill.

Jewish settlement within the British Isles may have dated back to the Roman era, but they

were clearly present during the eleventh-century reign of William the Conqueror. Although King

Edward I ordered their mass expulsion on All Saint’s Day in 1290, some Jews hid their religious

83 Michael M. Marrus, The Nazi Holocaust—Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews. Part 8-

Bystanders to the Holocaust, vol. 1 (London: Meckler, 1989), 382.

84 Naomi Koppol. Interview with Oscar Findling, “The Day We Left Hitler Behind: Survivors of the

Kindertransport Tell Their Stories,” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-day-we-left-hitler-

behind-survivors-of-the-kindertransport-tell-their-stories-8983603.html; Internet; accessed February 4, 2018.

23

identity until unofficial immigration resumed in 1656.85 The failed Continental revolutions of

1848 precipitated an influx of German Jews who attained educational, financial and material

success by the 1880s, a period marked by rising assimilation, voting rights, membership in

Parliament, titles, and inter-marriage into the dominant Christian British culture and society. The

1881-1882 pogroms conducted within the Czarist Pale of Settlement86 led to a second major

wave of Jewish immigration. Many Jews regarded Great Britain as a transit point on their road to

the United States. Greater than 120,000 Eastern European Orthodox Jews resided within the

island nation by the onset of the Great War in 1914, but frequently suffered from poverty and

overcrowded slums. Although these more recent arrivals had introduced Yiddish language and

literature, new cultural elements, and a resurgence of Judaic religious observance, they were

viewed with disdain and trepidation by many in the longer established and more assimilated

British Jewish community. While providing social services, shelters, and funding for potential

re-emigration to America, Anglo-Jewry feared that their innate foreignness and proclivity to

congregate within major cities threatened a resurgence of domestic anti-Semitism. Therefore,

many British Jews were careful to avoid any outward appearance that they were encouraging

immigration from the East.87

85 Albert Montefiore Hyamson, A History of the Jewish England (London: Chatto and Windus, 1908), 8; Robin

Mundill, England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion, 1261-1290 (NY: Cambridge University Press,

1998), 1.

86 “Pale of Settlement,” http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Pale_of_Settlement; Internet; accessed

October 6, 2017. The Pale was a territory in which Jews were granted permanent residence.

87 Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back: The Jewish Refugee Children in Great Britain, 1938-1945

(West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2012), 23-25, 71; P. Shatzkes, Holocaust and Rescue: Impotent or

Indifferent? Anglo-Jewry 1938-1945 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004), 10, 24; Werner E. Mosse and Julius

Carlebach, Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-Speaking Jews in the United Kingdom (Tübingen: Mohr,

1991), 476, 478, f.n. 479.

24

The Alien Restriction Act of 1905, which received support from many within the Anglo-

Jewish community, was designed to abridge the admittance of their Eastern European Orthodox

co-religionists and other immigrants by enacting “highly selective port controls for aliens

traveling in steerage class.”88 Immigrants were barred from landing if they lacked sufficient

funding and resources and risked deportation if they went on the public dole within one year of

entry. This legislation marked the first time the central government excluded immigrants who

might pose a “burden to the state”89 but refugees fleeing religious or political persecution were

still granted admittance. The creation of the Act was stimulated, in part, by fears that foreign

Jews living within the East End of London posed “an economic and social threat” to the British

population.90 The subsequent Alien Registration Act of 1914 effectively terminated immigration

for a number of years and authorized the Home Secretary to control the “entry, registration,

residence, and disposition of all aliens.”91 They were effectively denied the right to come into the

country unless they could demonstrate their value to the nation.92

88 Arye Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England: 1870-1914 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2001), 127;

Bernard Gainer, The Alien Invasion: The Origins of the Aliens Act of 1905 (London: Heinemann Educational Books,

Ltd, 1972), 55. Wartime fears that aliens, including German Jews, posed a security threat prompted the

promulgation of this legislation. The Home Secretary was given wide latitude in determining whether an immigrant

threatened the “safety of the realm.” Michael P. Hanagan and Charles Tilly, Extending Citizenship: Reconfiguring

States (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998), 74.

89 Alice Bloch, The Migration and Settlement of Refugees in Britain (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, 25.

90 Ibid. It was necessary for immigrants to provide proof that they were confronted with “prosecution or

punishment, on religious or political grounds or for an offence of a political character” or were fleeing from

“persecution, involving danger of imprisonment or danger to life or limb, on account of religious belief.” 1905 Alien

Restriction Act cited in Werner E. Mosse and Julius Carlebach, Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-Speaking

Jews in the United Kingdom (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991), 488.

91 Bloch, The Migration and Settlement, 26.

92 Rieko Karatani, Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth and Modern Britain (Portland, OR:

Frank Cass, 2003), 84.

25

By the 1930s many of the Jewish immigrants of the late 1800s had become integrated

within all social classes, professions, and trades and a well organized communal life had given

rise to Reform, Liberal, Orthodox, and Ultra-orthodox denominations. The Reform movement,

similar to American Conservative Judaism, focused upon changes in religious practices, such as

the increased use of English as the favored liturgical language. The Liberal division, comparable

to the American Jewish Reform movement, self-identified as British, but aspired to retain a

connection with Judaism. The “Cousins,” a privileged group of elite Anglo-Jews, assumed

responsibility for the majority of sectarian philanthropic activities. All groups, however, were

confronted with two compelling problems: the rise of National Socialism with its burgeoning

policies of anti-Semitic persecution, disenfranchisement, and involuntary mass migration.93

Five hundred thousand Jews resided within Germany at the time of Hitler’s January 30,

1933 ascension to power, and children comprised 20 percent of the total.94 The new regime

rapidly enacted the April 25 Law against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities (Gesetz

gegen die Überfüllung der deutschen Schulen und Hochschulen) that inordinately reduced the

number of Jewish students and educators to 1.5 percent of a school’s total student and staff

population. Consequently, Jewish pupils were compelled to attend Jewish schools, but fell victim

to overt acts of verbal and physical abuse en route to and from classes.95 One child, later

removed to Britain, recalled that she no longer wanted to be “outdoors [as] life seemed too

93 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 26-27; Daniel Gutwein, The Divided Elite: Economics, Politics and

Anglo-Jewry 1882-1917 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 8-11, 21, 23.

94 Baumel-Sehwartz, Never Look Back, 28.

95 Andrea Hammel, “Child Refugees Forever? The History of the Kindertransport to Britain 1938/1939,” Diskurs

und Jugendforschung Heft (2: 2010): S 132.

26

unsafe.”96 Twenty Jewish schools relocated to the United Kingdom (and other nations) during a

time in which His Majesty’s Government did not require entry visas. These reestablished

institutions confronted issues of finance, language, cordial relations with Christian neighbors,

and the provision of religious education. However, many Jews remaining within Germany

regarded these children and adults as an exclusive minority due to their ability and opportunity to

emigrate.97 Deteriorating social and economic conditions, the enactment of the Nuremberg

Racial Laws of 1935, coupled with the resignation of James G. MacDonald, the American High

Commissioner for Political Refugees of the League of Nations, forced the Council of German

Jews (Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden) in late 1937 to place a greater emphasis upon the

expatriation of Jewish children. The majority of refugee children entering the United Kingdom

between 1933-1938 were accompanied by their families, a situation that considerable changed

over time.98

A number of Jewish associations were established in England during this period to

provide aid and sustenance to German Jewish refugee adults and children. While the inpouring

of involuntary émigrés fleeing the Reich intensified, philanthropist Otto M. Schiff, the president

of the Jews’ Temporary Shelter, joined with other organizational leaders such as Neville Laski,

the head of the Jewish Board of Deputies, and Leonard Montefiore, the leader of the Anglo-

Jewish Association, to offer the British Home Office monetary guarantees that migrants would

96 Ruth L. David, Child of Our Time: A Young Girl’s Flight from the Holocaust (London: I.B. Taurus, 2003), 16.

97 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 29, 32.

98 Ibid., 36.

27

not become public charges.99 Their efforts led to the inception of the Jewish Refugees

Committee (JRC) that dealt with Jewish and Christian non-Aryans individuals and families. The

JRC was subdivided into operational compartments: Hospitality and Education Committees; a

Professional Committee to deal with displaced academics and scholars; Retraining Department;

Clothing Department; and Free Meal Service. The Emigration Committee would ultimately

become engaged in the Kindertranport, the project to rescue German Jewish children.100

Prominent British Jews recognized that an escalating demand for relief services

necessitated a nationwide fundraising campaign within the entirety of the Jewish community.

Subsequently, the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBF) was founded in 1933 that drew

upon Zionist and non-Zionist factions. The CBF, in turn, fostered the Council for German Jewry

(CGJ) in early 1936, that initiated a network of international connections. A nexus was

established within the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Continent that included

the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the United Palestine Appeal. The CGJ

functioned as the primary body managing the requisite funding and maintained ties with the new

High Commissioner for Refugees under the Protection of the League of Nations (commencing

January 1, 1939), Sir Herbert Emerson, and global rescue organizations. Viscount Herbert

Samuel, the future chairman of the CGJ in the post-Kristallnacht period, assured the Home

Office that sufficient private funds were available to sustain refugee children who were expected

99 The Jews’ Temporary Shelter was created to offer assistance to Russian Jews prior to the outbreak of World

War I and to Jews fleeing the Continent during 1914-1918. “Proposals of the Jewish Community as Regards Jewish

Refugees from Germany,” n.d. PRO HO 213/1627 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 35.

100 Before the JRC the only “major voluntary group” that dealt with the problem of non-Aryan refugees was the

German Emergency Committee of the Friends Service Committee (Quakers). The Anglican minister William W.

Simpson established the Christian Council for Refugees in 1938. Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 35; London,

Whitehall, 25, 39, 54, 56; Hagit Lavsky, The Creation of the German-Jewish: Interwar German-Jewish Immigration

to Palestine, The USA, and England (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2017), 94, 132.

28

to transmigrate in the future. Five thousand was established as the maximum limit out of

concerns that a greater number would overtax the budget.

However, prior to the November 1938 pogroms only the Children’s Inter-Aid Committee,

a non-sectarian group founded in 1936 by the activist Gladys Skelton and Francis Bendit, dealt

exclusively with the immigration and resettlement of Jewish and non-Aryan Christians. One

hundred twenty-four children arrived in Britain between May-June 1936; 55 percent were Jews

and 45 percent were Christians. By the onset of Kristallnacht in November 1938 471 children

had been admitted.101

Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz and others argue that the male elite Anglo-Jewish

community’s shared culture and belief system was crucial for the construction and success of the

various refugee efforts and rescue plans. This group of prominent Jews, molded by the Victorian

era, were infused with communal feelings of accountability, charity, and duty, and the need to

preserve personal reputations. They provided, through their philanthropic enterprises, the “lay

and religious leadership of the assimilated Anglo-Jewish establishment.”102 The very name of

Otto Schiff, a German-born banker and British citizen, engendered such credibility within the

Home Office that officials accepted his personal guarantee that Jewish refugees would not

101 The Children’s Inter-Aid Committee drew upon monies from the CGJ, the Save the Children Fund, and

private donations. Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, Ltd. First Annual Report, 3, Central British

Fund Archives, The Wiener Library Microfilm document collection 27/28/153 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look

Back, 37; Stephan E.C. Wendehorst, British Jewry, Zionism, and the Jewish State, 1936-1956 (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2011), 65, 186, 218.

102 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 37-39. These Jewish notables included Otto Schiff; Neville J. Laski

(1890-1969) was a prominent attorney and a president of the Jewish Board of Deputies; Simon Marks (1888-1964),

was the First Baron of Broughton and successful merchant; Nathaniel Goldsmid Montefiore (1889-1961) was a

scholar, Great War veteran, and major donor; Sir Norman De Mattos Bentwich (1883-1971) was a lawyer, legal

professor, and first Attorney General of the British Mandate for Palestine; Lord Herbert Louis, 1st Viscount Samuel

(1870-1963) was an ardent Zionist, politician and first High Commissioner for Palestine; Lionel De Rothschild

(1882-1942) was a politician, banker, and chairman of the Emigration (Planning) Committee of the CBF.

29

become public charges. Consequently, bureaucratic obstacles were removed to facilitate the

admission of forced migrants.103

Eminent women such as Cissie (Phina Emily) Laski; Helen Caroline Bentwich; Anna

Schwab and Alice Model were products of a similar Victorian cultural background that

emphasized “female helping behavior.”104 They were representative of the many women who

effected the success of a variety of refugee organizations.105 Feminist writer Sybil Oldfield

suggests that the patricians of Anglo-Jewish society provided “institutional legitimacy” but it

was the women who assured the enterprise’s outcome.106

The Anschluss, the German annexation of the former Republic of Austria, marked a

milestone in the history of Jewish emigration from the Reich. At the time of this March 1938

event, 180,000 Jews lived in Austria (30,000 were children younger than twelve years-of-age)

with 165,000 residing in Vienna.107 The slower implementation of anti-Semitic laws and

regulations within Nazi Germany from 1933-1938 had fostered a gradual social, economic, and

political disenfranchisement of the Jewish community.

103 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 37-39; A.J. Sherman and Pamela Shatzker, “Otto M. Schiff (1875-1952),

Unsung Hero,” The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 54, no. 1 (January 2009), 243-271; Amy Zahl Gottlieb, Men of

Vision: Anglo-Jewry’s Aid to Victims of the Nazi Regime: 1933-1945 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), 24-

29.

104 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 40

105 Ibid. Cissie Laski, for example, was the spouse of Neville Laski. Baumel-Schwartz argued that her

involvement in philanthropic enterprises devolved from “gendered expectations” and “the noblesse oblige

expectations of those coming from her background.”.

106 Sybill Oldfield, “’It is Usually She’: The Role of British Women in the Rescue and Care of the

Kindertransport Kinder,” An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 23, no. 1 (2004): 57-58.

107 Eugene M. Kulischer, Europe on the Move: War and Population Figures, 1917-47 (Fairfield, NJ: A.M.

Kelley, 1979), 199. Other authors have offered different population figures: Total of 200,000 with 170,000 living in

Vienna, Oskar Karbach, The Liquidation of the Jewish Community of Vienna (NY: Ktav Pub. House, 1940), 256;

185,246 in Austria, Yehuda Bauer, My Brother’s Keeper, 233.

30

However, rapid enactment of these policies within the Ostmark precipitated frenzied

searches for means of escape. Thus, the British Government, fearing a potential flood of frantic

and poverty stricken refugees, instituted a system of visa restrictions that diminished the chances

that Austrian and German Jews and non-Aryans could gain entry into the British Isles.

Applications were carefully examined by passport control officers assigned to embassies and

consulates. Prospective immigrants were required to meet specific security and economic

requirements. Overall, the process was cumbersome and ineffective for processing large numbers

of refugees.108 The Evian Conference of July 1938 was constituted as a reaction to these events,

and as earlier noted, represented a futile attempt to find an international resolution. The situation

was further exacerbated by the Munich Crisis of September 1938 in which Great Britain and

France compelled Czechoslovakia to cede the strategic Sudetenland to the Reich, inciting

additional waves of coercive migration.

Over time, however, official British policies towards German refugees began to change,

in part, due to a sense of responsibility over Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of

appeasement towards Hitler and press reports describing the condition of Jews, non-Aryans, and

political dissidents within the annexed territory and Czechoslovakia itself.109 Sir Neill Malcolm,

MacDonald’s successor as League of Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees, and Sir Harry

Twyford, the Lord Mayor of London, undertook a tour of the now abbreviated country. They

observed that Jews and non-Aryans who had fled the Sudetenland were either denied entry into

108 The number of Germans Jews and non-Jews who entered the United Kingdom between 1933-1938 is unclear,

as a number returned to the Reich, and varied among different historians. By the end of 1939 42,000 had been

admitted. Sherman, Island Refuge, 54, 89; Sir John Hope Simpson, The Refugee Problem, Report of a Survey

(London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 562; T.W.E. Roche, The Key in the Lock: A History of Immigration

Control in England from 1066 to the Present Day (London: John Murray, 1969), 126; Joshua Berton Stein, Britain

and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1939 (Dissertation: St. Louis University, 1972), 303.

109 Baumel, Never Look Back, 44.

31

or expelled from the remainder of the Czech nation. Officials claimed that the situation had been

created by the interference of Britain and France who were now obligated to assume

responsibility for the now stateless refugees. Consequently, the central government was

compelled to become “as hard as those countries that condemned them” to this onerous

circumstance.110 For example, thirty Jewish men, women, and children, ejected from the new

German territory, were prevented from entering Czechoslovakia and were relegated to the zone

between borders, deprived of all sustenance.111 Anti-Jewish rioting erupted in Prague when

Czech law and medical students, joined by young physicians, declared “Out with the Jews!” and

“Czechoslovakia for Czechoslovakia.”112

Premier and Defense Minister Jan Syrovy accused Great Britain and other European

democracies of abandoning Czechoslovakia and he informed Sir Malcolm that he was

determined to guarantee his country would never again fall victim to two decades of

“suffer[ing]…on the grounds of the German minority”113 that spelled the ruination of the state.

In an attempt to ensure its survival, his government cultivated closer relations with the Nazi

regime; a futile attempt that would be demonstrated by the imminent German occupation of

Bohemia and Moravia. Members of the British Parliament Giller and Grenfell admitted that

110 New York Times, G.E.R. Gedye, “Refugee Problem Disturbs Czechs,” October 11, 1938, 16. The deportation

order claimed that preservation of “public peace and order” justified their expulsion and that they were obliged to

“return without delay to [their] former residence.” Failure to comply risked fines, imprisonment, or conscription into

forced labor governed by military discipline. New York Times, G.E.R. Gedye, “Prague Adamant on Refugee Curbs,”

October 12, 1938, 21.

111 New York Times, October 23, 1938, 11.

112 Tampa Tribune, “Prague Students Dispersed after Anti-Jewish Riot,” October 23, 1938, 1.

113 New York Times, G.E.R. Gedye, “Pleas for Refugees Futile,” October 13, 1938, 6.

32

Czechoslovakia had been betrayed by both the French Republic and Great Britain.114 At the same

time, tens of thousands of Jews, Czechs, and German political refugees within the Sudetenland,

were subjected to mass arrest, seizure of assets, and incarceration within concentration camps,

torture and murder. Waves of suicides were occurring reminiscent of those that followed in the

wake of the Anschluss.115

The number of unaccompanied German children began to rise during the summer months

of 1938. Contributing causes included the Anschluss and the juni Aktion, the intensification of

anti-Jewish polices that began during June.116 The Children’s Inter-Aid Committee was the first

refugee organization to discern this change.117 A. Levay Lawrence, president of the First B’nai

B’rith lodge of Great Britain, called upon the Jewish community to provide foster care for a

limited number of refugee children or to donate funding to support a displaced refugee child or

their resettlement within Palestine via the Youth Aliyah program.118

The situation within Czechoslovakia was a portent of future events.119 The Polish

Parliament (Seym) adopted legislation in the wake of the Anschluss that nullified the citizenship

of all Polish Jews who resided outside of the country for greater than five years, unless Polish

114 New York Times, “Pleas for Refugees Futile,” October 13, 1938, 6; Rick Fawn and Jiri Hochman, Historical

Dictionary of the Czech State (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 244-245

115 “A New Crop of Refugees,” The New Republic, October 12, 1938, 254.

116 Beate Meyer, Herman Simon, and Chana C. Schütz, Jews in Nazi Berlin: From Kristallnacht to Liberation

(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2009), 7.

117 Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, Ltd. First Annual Report, 3, in Baumel-Schwartz, Never

Look Back, 49. Financing of unaccompanied children was also provided by the CBF, JRC, and the CGR.

118 The Jewish Chronicle, September 16, 1938, 25; Brian Amkraut, Between Home and Homeland: Youth Aliyah

from Nazi Germany (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 45.

119 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 44.

33

Consulates issued them new visas. Implementation was scheduled to begin during October.120

Unsuccessful negotiations between Germany and the Polish Government necessitated the Reich

authorities to take actions that restricted the number of Jews who, in all likelihood, would be

denied “revalidation” and become stateless and on the dole.121 As a result, twelve thousand

Jews were deported to the German-Polish border “with only10 marks and the clothes on their

backs.”122 Four thousand were permitted entry into Poland but eight thousand remained stranded

within “little villages along the frontier near where they had been driven out by the Gestapo and

left.” Belatedly, the majority of Jews held at the border were relocated within Poland but

approximately three thousand remained in the town of Zbaszyn and its adjacent horse stables,

lacking in adequate food, clothing and shelter.123

At this moment, Bertha Grynszpan, the daughter of a family expelled from Hanover,

Germany, contacted her seventeen-year-old brother, Herschel, an illegal alien living in Paris, and

informed him of their situation: “No one told us what was up, but we realized this was…the end

[italics added] …We haven’t a penny. Could you send us something?”124 After receiving her

distraught postcard Herschel heard of “instances of insanity and suicides” among the

120 The bill would strip Poles of citizenship if “they have been absent without interruption…for five years…lost

contact with the State; if they have worked abroad to the detriment of the State; or if they have failed to return to

Poland when summoned.” The primary target were Jews who had settled within Eastern and Central Europe and

who were believed to have “adopted a ‘passive and indifferent attitude’” towards the State.” The Times, “Polish

Jews Abroad: Loss of Citizenship Under New Law,” March 30, 1938, 13; Tampa Tribune, October 29, 1938, 4.

121 St. Louis-Times Dispatch, “Nazis Force Polish Jews to Get Out of Germany,” October 28, 1938, 1; Tampa

Daily Times, “Nazis Expel Polish Jews,” October 28, 1938, 9. Negotiations between Germany and Poland succeeded

after the Polish Government threatened to take steps against Germans residing in their country.

122 New York Times, October 29, 1938, 1.

123 The Times, “Expelled Jews: Dark Outlook,” November 1, 1938, 13. The number of Polish Jews held in

Zbaszyn varied among different sources, ranging from 3,000-18,000.

124 Martin Gilbert, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (NY: HarpersCollins, 2006), 23-24, 26.

34

deportees.125 This prompted him to attempt an assassination of the German Ambassador to

France, but he mistakenly murdered the Embassy’s Third Secretary, Ernst vom Rath.

The more extreme elements of the Nazi regime had long sought an opportunity to carry

out violent actions against the German Jewish community. Vom Rath’s death provided such an

opening. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, ordered the

unleashing of allegedly popular “’spontaneous demonstrations’”126 that were, in reality, carried

out by the SS, SA, and Hitler Youth.127 Throughout the Reich synagogues were set ablaze,

Jewish businesses were looted and destroyed, terror swept the streets, and approximately thirty

thousand Jewish men were arrested, with many sent to concentration camps. One hundred were

murdered. Lord James de Rothschild noted that “almost the only thing left [for Jews was] death

and for many that would be a welcome and blessed relief.”128 Failure to act, he warned, must

result in enormous fatalities.129 The levying of an atonement fine of one billion Reichsmarks

($400,000,000) as a “penalty for the dastardly murder”130 of vom Rath severely curtailed

prospects of emigration, for no nation was willing to accept refugees likely to become a public

charge.131 Professor Johan J. Smertenko, Executive Director of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi

League, declared this manner of collective punishment effectively decimated the “entire Jewish

125 Ibid.

126 Ibid.

127 Ibid.

128 New York Times, November 12, 1938, 1, 5.

129 New York Times, November 12, 1938, 1, 5; The Times, Letter to the Editor, November 12, 1938, 13; Jewish

Chronicle, December 16, 1938 in Vera K. Fast, Children’s Exodus: A History of the Kindertransport (London: I.B.

Taurus, 2011), 17. Rothschild was a member of a very prominent Jewish international banking company.

130 “Jews are Fined $400,000,000 in Envoy Death,” Tampa Daily Times November 12, 1938, 1, 3.

131 Ibid.

35

race in Germany”132 by relegating five hundred thousand people to starvation, bereft of

employment or charitable aid.133 The accelerating political, social and economic

disenfranchisement that followed the November 1938 nationwide pogrom essentially sealed the

fate of Jews within Germany.

Many Britons expressed a sense of moral outrage in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.

Letters to The Times criticized the Nazis for their “excesses of hatred, malice,”134 destruction,

and disruption of the policy of appeasement, and called for the provision of aid until refugees

could emigrate.135 A reporter for this daily touring Berlin labeled the actions as a rampage of

business-like pillage and devastation that targeted Jewish men, women, and children.136 Sir

Archibald Sinclair, a Liberal Party leader speaking before a town hall meeting in Northampton,

described the violence as the worst pogrom Central Europe had witnessed since medieval

times.137 The spectacle served as an impetus for the development of organized programs to

deliver assistance to unaccompanied refugee children. Increasing numbers of German Jewish and

non-Aryan parents recognized that survival of their offspring depended upon evacuation, even if

the fracturing of their families proved to be permanent.

Similarly, refugee organizations, as well as governments, prioritized the admission of

children over adults. Various reasons were offered for this selectivity. Children garnered a

132 Tampa Tribune November 13, 1938, 1, 8.

133 Ibid. The Anti-Nazi League was founded in 1933 and was intimately involved in the economic boycott of

Germany.

134 “Chamberlain Plan Hit by Nazis’ Actions,” Tampa Tribune, November 13, 1938, 8.

135 The Times, Letters to the Editor, November 11, 1938, 10; The Times, Letters to the Editor, “Archbishop’s

Appeal,” November 12, 1938, 13; The Times, Letter to the Editor, “Germany and the Jews,” November 14, 1938, 8.

136 The Times, “Nazi Attacks on Jews” Orgy of Hitler Youth,” November 11, 1938, 14.

137 The Times, “Nazis and Jews: Lessons of German Persecution,” November 12, 1938, 14.

36

greater sense of humanitarian need because of their vulnerability. They were not seen as a threat

to domestic employment because of their age, and assimilation would be facilitated by their

youth.138 France, Switzerland, and The Netherlands viewed the problem of forced migration

through this lens and strictly limited the numbers they were willing to accept.139 The response of

the United States to Kristallnacht and its aftermath was constrained: the recall of Hugh Wilson,

the American Ambassador from Berlin, and the indefinite extension of visitors’ visas held by

12,000-15,000 Germans and Austrians. Roosevelt believed it was inhumane to force their return

to the Reich upon expiration of the permits.140

Anglo-Jewish groups increased their political pressure upon His Majesty’s Government

to accept child refugees, but officials were faced with two conflicting choices: either increase

Jewish immigration into Palestine or continue the Foreign and Colonial Office’s practice of

seeking Arab and Muslim appeasement. Wilfred Israel (1899-1943), a member of the British and

German Jewish upper class, called upon the Council for Germany Jewry to propose the urgent

salvation of an estimated 60,000-70,000 children, seventeen years-of-age or younger. He

collaborated with the Society of Friends in Britain who attested to the willingness of parents to

be separated from their offspring. Consequently, a delegation of members of the CGJ met with

Chamberlain on November 15. Lord Samuel assured him that Jewish organizations possessed


139 France would accept 200 per month under the care of the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants and the Comité

Israelite pour les Enfants tenant dalliance et de Europe Centrale; Switzerland which had been collaborating with

Germany to bar Jewish entry agreed to accept some chidren placed in the care of the Comité Suisse d’aide aux

Enfants d’émigrés. Aryeh Tartakower and Kurt Richard Grossman, The Jewish Refugee (NY: Institute of Jewish

Affairs of the American Jewish Congress and World Jewish Congress, 1944), 220, 298, 307, 309, 470, 487; Elsa

Castendyck, “Refugee Children in Europe,” Social Science Review 13, no. 4 (1939): 592-96.

140 The Times, “’Refugees Visas: American Permits Extended,” November 19, 1938, 12. Representative Martin

Dies, Chairman of the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities, objected to this action, arguing that

it violated the “spirit” and intent of immigration statues, which stated that such “permits [were] granted for

temporary purposes” only. Tampa Daily Times, November 19. 1938, 1, 10.

37

sufficient resources to maintain the children who were to be educated in Britain with the

expectation of future emigration to other countries. Chamberlain realized that the government

needed to find a solution that assuaged mounting American pressure to admit refugees into

Palestine while preventing greater levels of Jewish immigration into the island nation.141

The Jewish Agency and Chaim Weizmann, the Director of the World Zionist

Organization, insisted, in the shadows of Kristallnacht, that the Mandate immediately accept one

hundred thousand Jews, but their demands were tempered by a willingness to accept the transfer

of ten thousand children from Central Europe to Palestine. The Agency assumed all costs and

child-care responsibilities and the proposal generated domestic and international interest.142 The

Colonial Office, however, opposed any increase in Jewish immigration and deferred the issue of

refugee children to the Foreign and Home Offices.143 Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax attempted

to find an alternative solution by instructing the British Ambassador to the United States to

recommend to the State Department that the underutilized British quota be applied to Germany

and Austria. The British diplomat was informed that American immigration law barred the

employment of one national quota to fill another.144 Lord Winterton, the United Kingdom

141 Samuel to Chamberlain, record of meeting, November 15, 1938 PRO PREM 1/326; Minutes of the Executive

Committee of the Council for German Jewry, November 17, 1938, Central British Fund Archives, the Wiener

Library Microfilm document collection 21/1/20 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 54, 66; Naomi Shepherd,

Wilfred Israel: German Jewry’s Secret Ambassador (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1984), 146; Viscount

Herbert Louis Samuel, Memoirs (London: Cresset Press, 1945), 255. The delegation included, in addition to Samuel,

the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Dr. J.H. Hertz; Viscount Bearsted; Lionel de Rothschild; Neville Laski; Chaim

Weizmann.

142 Baumel, “The Adoption Plan of Children from Germany 1938,” [Heb.]. Dapim Leheker Tekufat Hashoah 3,

Haifa University/Ghetto Fighters House, 1985, 212-229 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 54. 69; The Times,

“Helping Jewish Refugees: New Palestine Offer,” November 24, 1938, 9; The Times “Child Adoption Plans in

Palestine: Immediate Response,” November 1938, 13.

143 Record of meeting by Prime Minister’s Private Secretary, November 16, 1938. OF 371/22536, W

15037/104/98 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Backward, 54.

144 Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles memorandum, November 17, 1938, Foreign Relations United States

(FRUS) diplomatic papers, general: 1938 I (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938), 829-31.

38

representative at the Evian Conference and chairman of the London-based Intergovernmental

Committee on Political Refugees, commented during an October Cabinet meeting that the

American delegation was hailed for its consolidation of the Austrian and German quotas (total of

27,370) following the Anschluss, but had not committed itself to accept any refugees.145

A rescue plan was finally devised by the Emigration Department of the Jewish Refugees

Committee that relocated five thousand children to temporary housing in summer camps along

the British coast. Groups of 200-500 children were to arrive at intervals and be placed under the

auspices of the Inter-Aid Committee for Children (IAC). Education and vocational training was

to be provided for potential employment within the United Kingdom or in countries of final

resettlement. However, the Council for German Jewry argued that the resources of the IAC were

inadequate to handle large numbers of émigrés. Therefore, a new structure, the Movement for the

Care of Children from Germany (MCCG) was created that proposed the scheme to the Home

Office. It evolved into a non-sectarian group that included Christians of various denominations

and Jews but lacked Orthodox Jewish representation.

The response of His Majesty’s Government to this escalating humanitarian crisis was

primarily guided and shaped by political rather than charitable considerations. These included

criticisms of British acquiescence to the cession of the Sudetenland, shifting policies regarding

immigration into Palestine, and pressure from the public at large and prominent Jewish

individuals and groups. As a result, Chamberlain and his Cabinet were compelled to seek a path

that dampened domestic and American censure while enhancing positive popular opinion at

_________________________________

145 CAB23_96_pdf, Cabinet 49 (38), October 19, 1938, 5-6.

39

home.146 He informed the House of Commons that the government was committed to the pursuit

of any strategy that ameliorated the extreme dangers confronting German Jewry while deflecting

international and domestic pressure.147 The proposal provided the Government with the means to

achieve its political goals, clothed in charitable intent, while avoiding any meaningful

opposition. However, refugee children admitted as transmigrants were obligated to re-emigrate

following the completion of their education and vocational training.

Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare concluded, in the face of mounting disapproval that

the only option was to offer expressions of compassion.148 The admission of 66,000 Belgian

children in the opening year of the Great War, coupled with Basque refugees from the Spanish

Civil War, set a precedent for charitable enterprises.149 Addressing the Commons on November

21 he assured the nation that the United Kingdom was capable of providing care for large

numbers of Jewish and non-Aryan children without detriment to domestic interests.150 He

announced that guarantees of financial support and care by relief organizations or private persons

minimized the bureaucratic hurdles confronting these children.151 Individual applications for

entry were waived and the necessary documents were to be issued on a group basis.

146 New York Times, October 10, 1938, “Munich Pact Denounced: Rabbi S.S. Wise Declares Merely Postponed

War,”; Christian Science Monitor, October 22, 1938, “Lloyd George Hits Munich Peace Pact”; Washington Post,

October 25, 1938, “British Cabinet Considers Roosevelt Stand on Palestine” in Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz,

Never Look Back, 49-55; Cabinet Conclusions 55(38), November 16, 1938, CAB 23/96, 221-228, U.K., National

Archives; Internet; http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/image/Index/D77389?index=3&page=1;

accessed January 12, 2015.

147 London, Whitehall,” 99.

148 Cabinet Meeting, record of meeting by Prime Minister’s Private Secretary, November 16, 1938, FO

371/22536, W 15037/104/98 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 60.


150 Stefan K. Schimanski, Contemporary Jewish Record 2, 4 (July 1, 1939): 24.

151 London, Whitehall, 104; The Times, November 22, 1938, 9, 14.

40

Ideally, every child was to be placed in a foster home, carefully selected, and given a £50

bond to pay for eventual transport to another country. Seventeen years was established as the

maximum allowable age and the Home Secretary called for public donations to the Lord Baldwin

Appeal Fund that served Jewish and Christian victims of persecution.152 The endowment,

established by former Prime Minister Stanley Earl Baldwin and affiliated with non-

denominational organizations, agreed to pay the £50 for un-sponsored children and for sponsors

who were unable to afford the bond.153 Baldwin issued a radio appeal for contributions by

describing the children as victims of “man’s inhumanity to man.”154

Ultimately, £200,000 was donated to the Refugee Children’s Movement. By the time its

fundraising efforts were concluded in the summer of 1939 more than £500,000 had been raised;

90 percent derived from Jewish sources.155 In summary, the project was portrayed in terms

designed to be palatable to the general British public: no competition in the domestic job market;

children expected to be students for a number of years; transmigrants and not permanent settlers;

private funding and consumers who would stimulate the economy. Overall, the leadership of

British Jewry collaborated to a greater degree with HMG, although there were significant

conflicts among the various denominations, particularly with the Orthodox. This cooperation

may, in part, reflect a longer and greater presence of Jews within government, as British Jews

had served as Prime Ministers and were frequent members of Parliament. The American Jewish

community was, however, more reluctant to engage in pressure tactics to advance their specific

152 The Times, Letters to the Editor, “Child Refugees from Germany: Appeal for Maintenance and training,”

November 25, 1938, 11.

153 New York Times, December 8, 1938, 17.

154 The Times, December 9, 1938, 16; The Jewish Chronicle, December 16, 1938, 30.

155 Bauer, My Brother’s Keeper, 271.

41

causes, particularly the enactment of the Wagner-Rogers Act. In addition, few Jews served in

Congress and many of those who functioned within the Roosevelt Administration maintained

little connection to their co-religionists.

The British nation, Hoare argued, was presented with an opportunity to preserve “a

young generation of a great people”156 while moderating the afflictions of parents and friends.

Lord Winterton commented that compassion alone was insufficient and, therefore, England was

prepared to expend great effort to assist these stateless children. The number admitted was linked

to the resources of the voluntary organizations that assumed care. He hoped that thousands could

be admitted whose education would enable their eventual overseas resettlement.157

However, not everyone in British society shared these beneficent feelings. A letter writer

to a newspaper, for example, declared that the provision of foster homes to foreigners further

diminished the domestic birth rate due to increased household financial burdens.158 Hoare’s

actions, along with many in the government, were, however, framed by ulterior motives. The

Cabinet believed that the admission of German children was more acceptable to immigration-

conscious Americans than adult German refugees.159 If the people of Britain were supportive of

such an operation it was presumed that comparable actions would be undertaken by the United

States and other nations so that the burden was shared.160 In reality, the number of refugee

children to be admitted had already been predetermined to match the ten thousand suggested by

156 “Plight of German Jews, Plea for World Policy,” The Times, November 22, 1938, 9.

157 The Times, November 23, 1938, 16; New York Times, November 23, 1938, 8.

158 The London Times, Letter to Editor, “Can It be that the Preservation of the Island Race Means Nothing to the

Government,” November 28, 1938, 10.

159 Judith Tydor Baumel, Unfilled Promise: Rescue and Resettlement of Jewish Refugee Children in the United

States, 1934-1945 (Juneau, AK: Denali Press, 1990), 15-16.

160 London Times, “Refugee Children,” November 25, 1938, 11.

42

the Jewish agency. The Home Secretary believed that such a numerical restriction was justified

by the presence of a domestic anti-Semitism that responsible people wanted to see repressed.161

The Catholic Herald predicted that Catholics were not willing to assist refugee children

who did not share their faith.162 Other papers, such as Lord Beaverbrook’s The Daily Mail,

Sunday Dispatch, and the Evening Herald, opposed the general principal of immigration into

England. The Times, for the most part, avoided any expression of public support for the rescue

program.163 Overall, the relocation of German refugee children was regarded essentially as a

Jewish concern and only the Jewish Chronicle provided frequent coverage. The outbreak of war

and the internal evacuation of British and refugee children relegated the issue into obscurity. The

Jewish paper published over the course of the war only thirty-seven articles dealing with this

issue. Although public sentiment and the press coerced the government to accept German

children in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, its overall impact on His Majesty’s Government was

limited.164

The selection of children for evacuation was to be carried out within Germany and

Austria. The division of child emigration (Abteilung Kinderauswanderung der Reichsvertretund

der deutschen Juden) had been created in 1933 by the Council for German Jews. The German

office, located in Berlin, served as a central clearing house for applications and determined

which files were to be forwarded on to Britain and the Movement for the Care of Children in

German, which was transformed into the Refugee Children’s Movement (RCM) in April 1939.

161 Tampa Daily Times, November 22, 1938, 1, 13.

162 Andrew Sharf, The British Press and Nazis under Nazi Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 207.


164 Ibid., 66.

43

Christians primarily directed this new organization out of concerns that a higher Jewish profile

strengthened domestic anti-Jewish sentiments and prevented a more expansive popular base of

support. A Gentile directorship, it was believed, would garner greater financial and political

backing from wider segments of British society.165

The Central Committee of the RCM was thus composed of Roman Catholics, Anglicans,

and secular Jews. Its functions were diverse: meeting refugee children upon their arrival in

British ports; establishment of transit camps; notification of local relief committees of arrival

times; intermittent inspection of foster homes and youth hostels; provision of financial

guarantees to the Home Office, and the maintenance of a central card file that recorded personal

and demographic information.166 The local committees were charged with supervision of the

children and the provision of public and parochial education and vocational training.

Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox children were essentially excluded from the purview of the

RCM. The Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council (CRREC) assumed responsibility for

their care. Adaptation into the dominant Christian culture or less observant Jewish families

complicated their placement. The CRREC criticized the RCM for its willingness to place Jewish

children into non-Jewish foster homes, in which it was feared they would be exposed to

proselytizing influences and pressured into potential conversion. In response, the Refugee

Children’s Movement cited the immediacy of the situation within Germany and the inadequate

number of Jewish homes willing to accept foster children. The ongoing lack of cooperation and

internecine conflicts had previously led the Home Office to establish in May 1938 the

165 Haim Genizi, “American Non-Sectarian Refugee Relief Organizations, 1933-1945,” Yad Vashem Studies, 11

(1976), 164-220.

166 The Jewish Chronicle, December 2, 1938, 20; Bulletin of the Co-ordinating Committee for Refugees, April

1939, 7 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 77.

44

Coordinating Committee for Refugees (CCR). It operated as a bridge between the different relief

groups and the government by formulating joint policies and fostering improved cooperation.

The CCR assumed responsibility for refugee children arriving from Czechoslovakia and German

children accompanied by their parents through the work of the German-Jewish Aid

Committee.167

In addition to the work of formalized refugee organizations, such as the RCM, three

additional modes of transfer were devised to facilitate the shepherding of children from the Reich

to Great Britain. They could be incorporated within groups of children subsidized by sympathetic

individuals with sufficient financial resources and the ability to provide foster homes. Nicholas

Winton, for example, focused primarily upon Sudeten orphans, abandoned children or parents

seeking the evacuation of their children from the remnant of Czechoslovakia. He, like the RCM,

accepted placement of Jews within Christian homes and recognized the risks of possible

conversion but, when possible, preferentially chose B’nai B’rith or Youth Aliyah due to their

emphasis on the preservation of Jewish identity. By the conclusion of his efforts he had saved

669 primarily Jewish children. The Society of Friends was able to create such aggregations by

virtue of a special standing granted by the Nazi government due to their relief work within

Germany following the end of the Great War. Such positioning allowed the Quakers to operate

as intermediaries between German officials and Jewish rescue organizations. Finally, an

individual child could be escorted by an individual adult or as part of a family group, frequently

led by their mothers, who sought employment in the United Kingdom as domestic servants.168

167 Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, Ltd. First Annual Report, Central British Fund Archives,

The Wiener Library Microfilm document collection 27/28/153; M. Omerod to Makins, June 10, 1938, PRO OF

371/22527, W7582/104/98, f.82 in Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 83-84, 121.

168 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 84-85; François Lafitte, The Internment of Aliens (London: Libris,

1988), 48.

45

Geoffrey Lord, Undersecretary for the Home Office, announced on November 24, 1938

that the British government refused to subsidize the costs of maintenance, education, and training

for refugee children. Citing the declaration of the Evian Conference that all costs must be borne

by private organizations, a tax deduction was granted to foster parents. The authorities, however,

came to recognize that private funding was insufficient, forcing the government to bear 75

percent of the administrative and maintenance costs.169 Financial constraints at the level of the

RCM and the inadequate availability of foster homes mandated a limitation on the number of

children that could be transferred to Britain.

Children selected for evacuation made their way to the United Kingdom from the port of

Hoek van Holland in The Netherlands. The first group of 600 children departed on December 1,

1938 and the initial allotment of 196 arrived in Harwich, England the next day. Following

screening interviews potential foster parents were permitted to travel to reception centers where

they selected a child from the non-guaranteed group of refugees. “Looks, coloring, and [a] docile

personality”170 played a prominent role in the decision process. Younger children and girls with

blue eyes and blond hair, aged three to seven years of age, were particularly sought after.171

Eventually, specific households were selected by the RCM prior to the meeting of foster parents

and child.172 Guaranteed children were sent directly to London to meet their sponsors and travel

to their new homes. In general, German Jewish refugee children were dispersed to avoid over-

_________________________________

169 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 95. Children were reclassified by the Inter-Governmental Conference as

“involuntary immigrants.” Previously, children and adults had been labeled “political refugees.” S. Adler-Rudel, The

Evian Conference on the Refugee Question (London: Sage, 1968), 272, Appendix II.

170 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 108, 113, 115. Eva Reading, For the Record: The Memoirs of Eva,

Marchioness of Reading (London: Hutchinson, 1973), 166.

171 Ibid. 1,000 children were able to leave Germany accompanied by a parent; typically, their mothers.

172 The Jewish Chronicle, January 6, 1939, 24.

46

concentration that could promote endemic anti-Semitism. Teenagers were significantly less

likely to be accepted into foster homes and were most often sent to hostels, which frequently

failed to provide consistent mental health services, emotional care, and religious education.173

This Kindertransport or Children’s Transports program proved to be the largest and most

successful rescue scheme carried out during the years of the Holocaust. The British government

accepted 9,354 German, Austrian, Czech refugee children, of whom 6,690 were Jews, during the

period between December 2, 1938-May 14, 1940 when the fall of The Netherlands prevented

further evacuation. Acceptance was conditional, however, upon their re-emigration when they

reached the age of twenty-one years.174

Overall, approximately twelve thousand Jewish and non-Aryan children were saved

through various projects in the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, in

addition to the Kindertransport.175 France, Belgium, and the Netherlands permitted the entry of

3,000 refugee children from December 1938 until August 1939 but many perished in the Nazi

extermination program.176 The conception of the German Children’s Refugee Bill, better known

as the Wagner-Rogers Bill, stemmed from British private and official attempts to salvage a fixed

number of German and Austrian children following the Night of the Broken Glass. While the

Kindertransport served as a template for the American effort, there were fundamental


174 “Kindertransport, 1938-1940” http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005260; Internet;

accessed April 20 2008; Grossman and Tartakower, cited in Jeffrey S. Gurlock, ed., “America, American Jews, and

the Holocaust,” American Jewish History, Routledge (NY: 1998), 200.

175 Esther J. Baumel, “The Jewish Refugee Children in Great Britain, 1938-1945,” Master’s Thesis, Bar-Ilan

University (Ramat-Gan, Israel, 1981); Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, 200; Castendyck, “Refugee Children in

Europe,” 598.

176 Dan Michman, “The Jewish Refugees from Germany in The Netherlands, 1933-1940,” Ph.D. dissertation

(Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1978), 248, 475; Castendyck, “Refugee Children,” 593-596; Grossman and

Tartakower, The Jewish Refugee (NY: Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1944), 485.

47

conceptual, organizational, and mechanistic differences. Both schemes were driven by similar

humanitarian and political considerations, but they drastically diverged in their ultimate

accomplishments.

48

CHAPTER 3:

THE WAGNER-ROGERS BILL: A PATH TO NOWHERE

“The lamp remained lifted beside the golden door, but the flame had been

extinguished and the door was padlocked.”177

“Suffer little children to come unto Me and forbid them not;

for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Sen. Robert Wagner” 178

The British acceptance of German children refugees established a model that reverberated

within America. The committee for the Care of Children from Germany (British Inter-Aid

Committee) was constructed to facilitate the admission of Jewish and non-Aryan children,

seventeen years and younger, via a network of local non-denominational, social and

philanthropic chapters and organizations. Initial care and orientation of these young émigrés took

place through a system of hostels whose staff determined the appropriate home setting for each

child while attempting to satisfy the preferences of potential foster parents: generally younger

than ten years of age, of which there were limited numbers, as the majority were 14-16 years old.

A centralized commission supervised the transport, maintenance, distribution, and resettlement

of these children within carefully inspected and selected free or compensated private foster

homes. Assurances were given to the Home Secretary that sufficient private capitalization was

available for proper childcare. Prospective parents were held responsible for the needs and

177 Morse, While Six Million Died, 149.

178 Joint Resolutions to Authorize the Admission into the United States of a Limited Number of German Refugee

Children. April 20,1939. Printed for the use of the Committee on Immigration. (Washington, D.C.: United States

Government Printing Office, 1939), 5-7.

49

education of their wards until they could be reunited with their parents or reached an age of self-

sufficiency. Over time, they would either emigrate abroad (U.K. serving as a site of transit) or be

granted citizenship if all immigration rules and regulations were met (U.K serving as site of

permanent refuge).

It was recognized that the majority of these displaced children were Jews and that

placement of the non-Orthodox within Christian homes might become necessary. However, the

decision was made that an Orthodox child must be assigned to an Orthodox household, a process

that frequently failed.179 Quentin Reynolds, an associate editor at Collier’s Weekly, attempted to

paint a human face on these involuntary immigrants as he described a group of five hundred

German Jewish children arriving in Harwich, England of whom less than 10 percent knew the

location of their parents or religious affiliation.180

Subsequently, a group of forty-nine leading American Protestant and Catholic clerics,

seeking to emulate the Kindertransport in Great Britain and the rescue projects of The

Netherlands, petitioned Franklin Roosevelt to admit at least ten thousand German refugee

children. Four prominent Catholic and Protestant clergymen, headed by Monsignor John A.

Ryan, a member of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, delivered the appeal to the

Executive Mansion.181 They represented the Committee for Catholic Refugees from Germany,

the American Friends Service Committee, the Committee for Catholic Refugees from Germany,

179 The Times, “Hospitality to Refugees, Finding Homes for Children, Local Committees as Guardians,” January

6, 1939, 18; Washington Post, January 10, 1939, 1; Washington Times, January 11, 1939, 4

180 “Excerpts from letters to the Children’s Committee in Amsterdam,” November 15, 1938, AFSC, Refugee

Service Files, 12, 28 in David S. Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis 1938-1941 (NY: Pantheon

Books, 1985), 75; Portland Oregonian, “Let Them In,” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 39.

181 See Appendix C for text of petition and list of supporting clergies. Ryan was accompanied by the Very

Reverend Arthur O’Leary, President of Georgetown University; the Rev. Oscar F. Blackwelder, pastor of the

Church of the Reformation (Lutheran); and the Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Canon on Washington Cathedral.

50

and the National Coordinating Committee for Aid to Refugees and Immigrants. They focused

primarily upon children under fourteen years of age whose parents had been forced into

concentration camps, necessitating their placement within orphanages or the domiciles of family

friends after they had been deprived of country, home, and kin. The nation, they believed, had

been particularly affected by the predicament of these children and needed to do fulfill its moral

obligations. Such action served as a symbol of American compassion and conviction in the

sanctity of the brotherhood of man. Acceptance of a limited number of refugee children, these

clergymen argued, would lessen opposition from nativist and restrictionist groups. Private

financial resources were expected to satisfy and be in compliance with the provisions of the

Likely to Become Public Charge (LPC) clause of current immigration law.182

FDR, according to his wife, Eleanor, gave the “the green light”183 to the bill that had been

endorsed by Herbert Hoover, one-time Kansas Governor and 1936 Republican presidential

candidate, Alfred M. Landon, newspaper editor and publisher, and Frank Knox, 1936 Republican

Vice-Presidential running mate, and Secretary of the Navy in the Roosevelt Administration.184

Hoover’s support was a surprise to many in view of his administration’s policies that constrained

immigration due to domestic economic conditions. However, review of his historical record

demonstrated multiple points of intersection with Jewry and Zionism and the quest for a Jewish

national homeland in Palestine. His relief activities in post-war Europe had enabled the feeding

of starving Jewish enclaves. He persuaded the new government of an independent Poland to take

182 Washington Post January 10, 1939, 1.; New York Times, “Ask Roosevelt Aid Refugee Children,” January 10,

1939, 9.

183 Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of their Relationship, Based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s Private

Papers (NY: W.W. Norton, 1971), 576.

184 “Nation-Wide Group Backs Refugee Bill,” New York Times, April 19, 1939, 41.

51

action against local pogroms that had arisen against Jewish communities. Over time, he

developed friendships with prominent Jews on the basis of shared humanitarian concerns. These

avenues of personal contact provided the former President with vital information regarding the

problems and anxieties of this minority group. While serving as Chief Executive he publicly

supported the enactment of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that called for the foundation of an

independent Jewish state within Palestine, despite the anti-Zionist positioning of State

Department officials. He also instructed William Dodd, his Ambassador to Berlin, to protest the

Nazi treatment of German Jews; a course of action Roosevelt did not pursue with Dodd or his

successor, Hugh Wilson. Finally, Hoover, in spite of his policy of abridging immigration during

the early phase of the Great Depression, endorsed the German Refugee Bill as a unique

exception to the law.185

Hoover wired Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes that the willingness of America to accept its

proportionate percentage of European refugee children would be readily accepted by the public.

This act, he predicted, would not exacerbate domestic unemployment, but was in harmony with

the national tradition of offering sanctuary; reflective of the desire of every American to provide

for the protection of children.186 In addition, he attempted to influence members of Congress

behind the scenes who were undecided in their support for this endeavor.187 James McDonald,

the Chairman of the President’s Advisory Committee for Political Refugees, suggested to FDR

185 Sonja Schoepf Wentling and Rafael Medoff. Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the “Jewish Vote”

and Bipartisan Support for Israel (Washington, D.C.: David Wyman Institute, 2012), 160; George H. Nash, ed.,

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath. (Stanford, CA:

Hoover Institution Press, 2011), xxx.

186 Washington Post, “Hoover Joins Plea for U.S. to Admit Child Refugees,” January 16, 1939, 1; Washington

Post, January 19, 1939, 5; New York Times, April 23, 1939, 1, 34.

187 “U.S. Policy During World War II: The Wagner-Rogers Bill (1939), Jewish Virtual Library,

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/wagnerrogers.html; Internet; accessed September 19, 2016.

52

that Hoover should, in view of his experience in delivering mass relief to post-Great War

Europe, be named to head the effort to raise the needed funding for and the placement of refugee

children within acceptable homes. However, Roosevelt and his administration resisted this

suggestion.188

The First Lady advised Justine Wise Polier, the daughter of the prominent Rabbi Stephen

Wise, a New York juvenile court justice, and one of the organizers of the newly formed Non-

Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children (NSCGRC), that her husband believed

successful passage of such a bill through Congress was highly dependent upon bipartisan

sponsorship from a member of each Chamber. The selection of these individuals required careful

consideration as well as an attempt to obtain “all the Catholic support you can.”189 Polier

responded that she and other members of the committee had already been receiving widespread

endorsements from a host of sources.190 Eleanor provided private backing and advice but did not

take a strong public position on the bill.191 When asked whether she favored the measure Mrs.

Roosevelt responded that it appeared to be the “humanitarian thing to do.”192

188 Rafael Medoff. “Ex-Presidents and the Jews: Carter vs. Hoover,”

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/22815/ex-presidents-jews-carter-vs-hoover/#KJ06S2vrbCIfXrhg.97; Internet;

accessed September 21, 2016; Tampa Tribune, November 21, 1938, 1, 3. Nash, Freedom Betrayed, xvii-xviii.

Roosevelt’s refusal to involve Hoover in the formulation and operation of the German Refugee Children’s Bill was

multifaceted. The former President was an opponent of New Deal policies and regarded them as an assault on

“individualism” by “sheer socialism.” He opposed the increasing centralization of political power within the Federal

Government and FDR’s growing involvement with European affairs. Hoover, with his strong background and

experience in relief efforts could have forcefully promoted passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill but this was a piece

of legislation that Roosevelt was unable to support for parochial political concerns.

189 Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Polier regarding refugee children, January 4, 1939, FDRL,

Holocaust/Refugee Collection, Additional materials from the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Correspondence with Justine

Wise Polier, no. 6, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/hol/hol00437.pdf; Internet; accessed July 17, 2016

190 Letter from Polier to Eleanor Roosevelt regarding progress of bill, January 9, 1939, FDRL, Holocaust/Refugee

Collection; Additional materials from the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Correspondence with Justine Wise Polier, no.

10, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/hol/hol00437.pdf; Internet; accessed July 17, 2016

191 “U.S. Policy During World War II: The Wagner-Rogers Bill (1939),” The Jewish Virtual Library,

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wagner-rogers-bill, Internet, accessed June 25, 2015; Wyman, Paper Walls, 97.

53

Clarence E. Pickett, the Executive Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee,

formally announced the formulation of the Non-Sectarian Committee. The organization was led

by prominent members of the Christian clergy and lay public.193 The task force was the end

result of the combined work of the Quakers and experts in the field of child welfare. A proposal

had been formulated, Pickett declared, to provide refuge for the youngest and most vulnerable

children; a movement, he believed, that was supported by large segments of the American

public. Their endorsement, he asserted, had crystallized into the writing of the German Refugee

Children’s Bill. Responsibilities for enacting the program were be borne by and channeled

through the Committee, which planned to disperse the children across the nation to prevent

congregation in large cities.

Pickett cited the work of The Netherlands that had received more than ten thousand

requests for placement. Dutch sources indicated the willingness of German parents to be

separated from their offspring as a means of shielding them from “ghastly moral degradation and

actual physical danger.”194 He noted that Holland had accepted 1,700 children, England 5,000,

and France, Belgium and Sweden were in the process of formulating similar plans. Pickett

observed that offers of American foster homes of all religious denominations had been received

from forty-one states. The nation, he contended, had a responsibility to recall the “admonition of

_________________________________

192 Montgomery Advertiser, Editorial, “Suffer Little Children,” February 17, 1939, Joint Hearings 17-18.

193 The Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children included Rev. Bernard James Sheil; Rev. Anson

Phelps Stokes; New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman; the Pulitzer Prize winning Kansas City Editor William

Allen White; daughter of former President William Howard Taft and Dean of Bryn Mawr College, Helen Taft

Manning, and University of North Carolina President Frank Porter Graham.

194 Remarks of Senator Robert Wagner in Senate,” February 27, 1939, Joint Hearings, 16.

54

Him who said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’”195 The admission of these innocent

subjects of German persecution was, in their view, commensurate with American certainty in the

principles of human fellowship.196

The Catholic Senator Robert Wagner (Democrat, NY) and Protestant Representative

Edith Nourse Rogers (Republican, Rhode Island) co-sponsored the German Refugee Children’s

Bill (S.J. Res. 64 and H.J. Res. 168, 767th Congress, 1st Session), introduced on February 9,

1939, to allow the one-time entrance of ten thousand Jewish and Christian non-Aryan children

into the United States outside of the quota in 1939 and 1940.197 This act, Wagner declared,

would free these children from a life devoid of optimism and opportunity, and allow them to

endure and flourish within highly selected foster homes. The bill specifically stated that existing

immigration laws remained in force and guaranteed that the children, 6-14 years of age, met

mandated mental health and physical standards. Private financial backing ensured that the LPC

Clause was satisfied and that they did not pose any danger to American industry and labor.198

Wagner unequivocally affirmed that he opposed any legislation that linked religious affiliation

195 “Statement by a Group of Representatives of the Religious Faiths in America,” Non-Sectarian Committee for

German Refugee Children, Wagner-Rogers Bill, Correspondence, Clergy, (Box 2, Folder 34), 2, January 1939,

“Religious Faiths of America,”

http://digital.cjh.org/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=1990783.xml&dvs=1519776319213~492&locale=en_US

&search_terms=&adjacency=&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=2&divType=&u

sePid1=true&usePid2=true; Internet; available July 15, 2009.

196 Ibid.

197 Joint Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration. U.S. Senate and a Subcommittee of

the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 76th Congress, 1st Session on S.J. Res.

64 and H.J. Res. 168. Joint Resolutions to Authorize the Admission into the United States of a Limited Number of

German Refugee Children, April 20, 1939. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939), 4. Jewish

organizations that united in support of the bill maintained a low profile during the public debate in an attempt to

downplay Jewish connection with the legislation. See Appendix D for text of Wagner-Rogers Bill.

198 Jacksonville Journal, April 19, 1939.

55

with admission. As a result, the bill deliberately omitted any reference to the Jewish identity of

refugee children as a means of minimizing anti-Semitic resistance.199

Representative John H. Dingell, an African-American Democratic Congressman from the

Fifteenth District, Michigan, introduced his own measure, Joint Resolution 165, prior to that of

Congresswoman Rogers. He stated that both plans sought to achieve the same ends. Dingell

asserted, during the Joint Hearings, that the United States possessed the capacity to receive and

absorb an extremely small number of refugees without detriment to American citizens. He

declared that opponents of the rescue plan had been misinformed. The argument that charity

began at home was ill-founded as many prospective foster parents who came forward to receive

German refugee children were unwilling to accept American children from orphanages. In

addition, Dingell echoed the observation that domestic demand for local adoptions decidedly

exceeded supply. He challenged the claim that the legislation must include persecuted children of

other nations. The situation within the Reich, the Representative believed, was much more

compelling. The United States, he insisted, was obligated to follow the example set by the United

Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, and France.200

Representative Rogers, who had won the seat occupied by her husband, John, upon his

death in 1925, announced her intention to introduce a House resolution seeking admission of

twenty thousand German refugee children over a two-year period. She believed that this action

demonstrated the bipartisan nature of the proposed immigration legislation. Roger’s scheme

199 Friedman, No Haven, 91.

200 “Statement of Hon. John Dingell, A Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan” in April 20,

1939, Joint Hearings, 79-81.

56

reflected her 1937 warnings of the dangers posed by Nazism and Italian Fascism and her moral

outrage over the treatment of German Jewry.201

Commenting on the components of the joint enactment, she assured the nation that the

current quota system remained intact, and that provisions for the care and upkeep of these

children had been secured. Rogers interpreted the support of the A.F.L. and the C.I.O. as

recognition that they did not pose a threat to the American worker. Their parents or other family

members were required to apply for admission through the established channels of the quota

system. The Congresswoman stated that fifty thousand children were at risk in Germany, of

which slightly more than half were Jews. They had been forced out of school, frequently

separated from kith and kin, and in extremis, they were bereft of a life of hope and joy. She

admitted that many German parents were willing to part ways with the foreknowledge that

separation could be permanent as long as they were provided with the opportunity to resume a

normal life.202 By mid-April five thousand homes had proffered refuge.

Dr. Marion Kenworthy, Director of the Department of Mental Hygiene of the New York

School of Social Work, and other professionals in the field of child-welfare, provided Pickett and

the NSCGRC, in the aftermath of the announcement of the Wagner-Rogers Bill, with a schema

that outlined the critical mechanics, steps, and benchmarks that needed to be satisfied. This plan,

aided by the cooperation and assistance of the Federal Children’s Bureau, grew out of a

201 “Rogers, Edith Nourse, 1881-1960,” http://history.house.gov/People/Listing/R/ROGERS,-Edith-Nourse-

(R000392)/; Internet; accessed August 30, 2017.

202 Washington Post, “Mrs. Rogers Backs Bill for Refugee Youth,” February 13, 1939, 7.

57

collaborative effort of individual Christian and Jewish welfare workers motivated by

humanitarian concerns, and the clerical appeal to the White House and Congress.203

Kenworthy observed following Kristallnacht that other nations enacted contingency

plans that permitted the acceptance of thousands of young refugees. She believed that admission

into the United States, should the government decide to travel down a similar road, mandated

new legislation that presented a unique opportunity to avoid provocation of a social crisis within

any receiving community. Accordingly, the group presented Pickett with a comprehensive

breakdown of the primary difficulties that such a program engendered, coupled with potential

resolutions to problems should they arise. Success was aided by the expertise and experience of

the Children’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, the International Migration

Service, and the American Friends’ Service Committee.

Kenworthy gave Pickett a first draft of the machinery that transformed the Wagner-

Rogers Bill into a viable and functioning reality. The proposal was carefully designed with the

aim of conjoining efficiency of effort with the legal requirements of immigration law. Every step

of the process was clearly delineated: selection, reception, distribution, and finances. Each of its

components would be reiterated in the testimony of pro-bill witnesses who sought Congressional

approval and the reassurance of a potentially doubtful and resistant body politic.

The proposition did not seek the disruption of the family; the process was already

intensifying under the pressures of the Nazi onslaught. Every means were to be employed to

preserve contact, if possible, between the refugee child and parents. Many Jewish and non-Aryan

203 “Plan for the Care of German Refugee Children in the United States, Letter from Marion E. Kenworthy, MD,

to Clarence E. Pickett” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 67-70. (List of collaborators in plan); New York Times,

March 31, 1939, 4; Congressional Record Appendix, April 4, 1939, 1292-1294; The Jewish Centurion, “Housing

Planned in United States for 20,000 Refugee Children,” April 7, 1939, 93, no. 22, 6; Non-Sectarian Children,

Memorandum on German Children’s Committee, February 15, 1939 (Box 2, Folder 29), 1-3. See Appendix D for

listing of child-welfare experts.

58

fathers and mothers regarded emigration of their children as a method of ensuring their

protection from harm. Selection was to be guided by expert inquiry and parental discussion, to

ensure that resettlement was imperative for their child’s current and prospective wellbeing.

Kenworthy and her associates highlighted the experience of the American Friends Service

Committee (AFSC) in the provision of care to children in post-Great War Germany. The

organization was already accruing real-time experience in the handling of refugee children

within the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium and the expanded Reich. Accordingly,

the Quaker organization was expected to serve as the central body for the selection of foreign

children, aided by well-trained American social workers and child-welfare experts, conforming

to the requirements of U.S. immigration laws, the Departments of Labor and State, and the

decisions of American Consuls. If accepted, a visa for permanent residence within the United

States was to be granted.

The body receiving children at a port of entry would function as parental surrogates while

the staff of accredited child-welfare agencies facilitated their introduction into American society.

Variations in the times of arrival of passenger ships and of the awaiting personnel necessitated

the provision of local temporary housing for the promotion of quietude, diversion, and

readjustment prior to placement. The religious background of the child and parental preference

for a particular theological education was factored into the assignment process. The new

immigrants were to be distributed across the country to avoid the appearance of ghettoization, an

over concentration of Jews within the port cities.

Kenworthy cited the White House Conference on Children of 1909 that affirmed every

child possessed a constitutive right to domestic stability and security; a principle consistently

reaffirmed by subsequent administrations. The NSCGRC engaged experienced welfare and

59

social agencies to ensure child-care satisfied approved standards and to offer assistance in the

identification and selection of suitable foster homes. Similarly, the delivery of medical and

psychological services and education were subject to local and state requirements. Individual

case files were to be maintained in a centralized database that accrued essential information

regarding each child and their new home. The Non-Sectarian Committee guaranteed the

necessary financial support and a contingency fund was created to meet unexpected needs.

In summary, the Kenworthy plan affirmed that each child was subject to a deliberate

process of selection that assured only the best material were granted visas. Proper supervision en

route to the United States and after landing was expected to diminish the emotional impact of

separation while aiding orientation into a new country, society, and home. Hopefully, the unified

collation of demographic and official information would enable parents to establish and retain

contact with their children. Although this scheme was devised in response to exceptional

circumstances it was held accountable to American norms, abetted by the knowledge and skill of

experienced child welfare workers.204

Although FDR had privately given the go-ahead for the Wagner-Rogers Bill, he warned

that any attempt at amending or modifying the annual quota could provoke the anti-immigration

elements in Congress to promote more restrictive immigration laws and regulations.205 When

Representative Caroline O’Day (Democrat, NY), a long-time friend, confidante, and ardent

supporter of the First Lady, sent a message to FDR in June 1939 questioning his position on the

Wagner-Rogers bill, he did not respond and ordered that her message be marked “File No

204 “Plan for the Care of German Refugee Children in the United States,” letter from Marion E. Kenworthy,

M.D., to Clarence E. Pickett in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 67-70; Letter from Kenworthy to Pickett, February

11, 1939, Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, Correspondence, American Friends Service

Committee (Box 1, Folder 14), 5,6.

205 Morse, “Voyage to Doom.”

60

action.”206 Eleanor Roosevelt did openly express her support for the rescue plan during a press

conference held on February 13, 1939. She stated that the United Kingdom, France, and the

nations of Scandinavia were “admitting their share, and I think we should also do so”207 and

hoped the legislation would be adopted, as it was the right and fair action to pursue.208

Privately, however, the Eleanor was skeptical of the bill’s fate. She informed Justine

Wise Polier that James G. MacDonald had warned that any attempt to pressure FDR into openly

promoting the bill could be harmful if the measure was defeated. Failure risked the immediate

introduction into Congress of more stringent quotas and regulations.209 North Carolina

Democratic Senator Robert Reynolds was already seeking a 90 percent cut in immigration, and

claimed during an hour-long oration in the Senate, that the admission of these refugee children

represented an opening for mass Jewish immigration into the country.210 Therefore, the

P.A.C.P.R. was hesitant in explicitly affirming its support.

Faced with this situation, Eleanor wired the President seeking his consent to publicly

articulate her endorsement and to conduct conversations with Undersecretary of State Welles.

The President responded that he favored passage of the measure but declined to issue any formal

206 Wyman, Paper Walls, 96; Morse, Six Million, 268.

207 “First Lady Urges Help for Refugees,” Pittsburgh Press, February 13, 1939, 5.

208 “First Lady Backs Move to Open U.S. to 20,000 Exiles,” Washington Post, February 14, 1939, 1. Eleanor

Roosevelt did recognize the reasons for her husband’s reticence to overtly support the Wagner-Rogers Bill and

stated during an April 25,1939 press conference that the issue was at present a legislative concern, and until it was

either adopted or enacted she “should make no official comment.” Maurine Beasley, The White House Conferences,

of Eleanor Roosevelt (NY: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1983), 90, 100.

209 Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Judge Justine Polier regarding WRB, February 28, 1939, FDRL,

Holocaust/Refugee Collection, Additional Materials from the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Correspondence with

Justine Wise Polier, no. 2, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/hol/hol00437.pdf; Internet; accessed July

17, 2016; letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Justine Polier, May 28, 1939, FDRL in Saving the Jews, 87.

210 Washington Post, “Reynolds Denounces Child Refugee Plan,” February 24, 1939, 2. Rep. Stephen Pace, GA

introduced HR 9999, which included 60 anti-alien propositions including the immediate deportation of every alien

residing in the United States. Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 149.

61

statement of approval. Welles advised Mrs. Roosevelt that any attempt by her husband to

verbalize his backing hazarded extreme political embarrassment should the bill fail, although he

believed that FDR desired to see it succeed. He, like MacDonald, feared the potential backlash of

restrictionists and acknowledged the volume of letters that the State Department was receiving

accusing it of conspiring to admit large numbers of Jewish refugees. Thus, he would not attempt

to influence Roosevelt.211 The First Lady belatedly sought an explanation from her spouse

explaining his refusal to publicly endorse the German Refugee Children’s Bill. He responded:

“They are not our Jews.”212

In short, the President did not attempt to employ his executive influence to promote

passage. Katharine F. Lenroot was allowed to testify as a private individual but not as the

director of the Federal Children’s Bureau. As with the earlier Evian Conference, Roosevelt did

not want to expend critical political capital on issues to which he assigned lower national

priority. Congressional support, particularly from Southern Democratic Representatives and

Senators, was crucial for his plans to modernize and expand the military and its infrastructure

while providing the French and British with armaments and munitions in an environment that

was infused with increasing isolationist sentiments.213

FDR once again attempted to attain the moral high ground by engaging in non-committal

generalities. He declared on March 5, 1939 that the United States would peacefully contest the

widening suppression of personal liberties, particularly religious freedom, and along with the

other democracies, reaffirm its opposition to oppression and despotism. The nation, Roosevelt

211 Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Judge Justine Polier, FDRL.

212 Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After, Vol. 3, 1939-1962 (New York: Viking,

2016), 30.

213 Feingold, Bearing Witness, 149-151.

62

insisted, could not, by inaction, “lend encouragement to those who today persecute religion or

deny it.”214 Instead, he asserted the country’s answer to the erosion of human rights and the

ascension of dictatorships must remain, as it had from the birth of the republic, a resounding

“NO.”215

Other members of the Roosevelt administration were non-supportive of the Wagner-

Rogers Bill. Cordell Hull and the State Department opposed the bill, arguing that the official

handling of twenty thousand visas in its current formulation created administrative hurdles, cost

$150,000, and required additional employees and space.216 Privately, the Department warned

that the legislation could precipitate more rigorous immigration laws. Assistant Secretary of

State George S. Messersmith had, during the period leading up to the Evian Conference,

informed six Jewish Congressmen, including, Representatives Emanuel Celler of NY, and

Adolph Sabath, of Illinois, that any suggestion of liberalizing immigration laws must result in

greater degrees of restriction. As a result, they accepted his advice and pledged their opposition

against any new legislative attempts to liberalize the quota system.217 The Undersecretary further

suggested that adoption of the children’s refugee bill would undoubtedly encourage other

European nations, such as Poland, Hungary and Rumania, to emulate Germany by engaging in a

214 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 6, 1939, “Roosevelt Hits Religious Persecution; Asserts U.S. Can’t be

Passive.”

215 Ibid.

216 Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, Hearings on the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Admission

of a Limited Number of Refugee Children, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. (May 24, 25, 31 and June 1, 1939), 2; New York

Times May 2, 1939 in Congressional Record Appendix June 8, 1939 76th Cong. 1st Sess., vol. 84, part 13, 2473.

Clarence Pickett had offered to hire and compensate Americans well versed in German to assist American

consulates in Europe, but Undersecretary of State George Messersmith opposed the proposition. Clarence E. Pickett,

For More than Bread (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1953), 140-141.

217 Memo Messersmith to Hull, April 17, 1938, 150-01 Bills/34 \ in Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman,

FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 147; Messersmith to Welles, April 7, 1938,

Department of State 150.01 Bills/34.

63

policy of forced expulsion; an act that would dramatically exacerbate the problem of mass

migration.218 Furthermore, Messersmith described Labor Secretary Frances Perkins as a threat

due to her flexibility regarding the admission of refugees.219 Overall, he held an anti-refugee bias

that accused forced émigrés of believing that America “owe[d]”220 them some form of obligation

and that the United States was specifically conscripted to be their deliverer. The nation and its

ideals, he asserted, remained the inheritance of native-born Americans. 221

At this moment Eddie Cantor, the singer, comedian and strong supporter of Roosevelt

and the March of Dimes Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, sent a letter to the Presidential

Secretary, Marvin H. McIntyre, urging FDR’s advocacy for the Wagner-Rogers Bill. Cantor

predicted that positive action on the part of the Executive Branch would lead these refugee

children to regard the President as “a saint…for generations to come.”222 He offered to provide

the names and qualifications of those families willing to accept the émigrés. McIntyre passed on

the missive to Sumner Welles who provided guidance for a reply to Cantor. The Press Secretary

indicated that although large numbers of people were sympathetic to the victims of Nazi

persecution he believed that it was not prudent to broach, during the current Congressional

session, any proposal that increased or markedly altered the present quota allotments. Such

218 George S. Messersmith to Hull, Welles January 23, 1939, NA, SD Records, File 150.01 Bills/99 in Wyman,

Paper Walls, 96.

219 Messersmith to Geist, December 8, 1938, Messersmith Papers, 1938, box 1, folder E.

220 Messersmith to John C. Wiley, Consul General of Vienna Embassy, June 28, 1938, Messersmith Papers,

1938, box 1, folder B.

221 Ibid.

222 David Weinstein, The Eddie Cantor Story: A Jewish Life in Performance and Politics (Lebanon, NH:

Brandeis University Press, 2018), 135.

64

action, he warned, strengthened the hand of the anti-immigration faction within Congress.223

The institutional anti-Semitism and the rigid enforcement of the quota system was

exemplified by Wilbur Carr who had served as Assistant Secretary of State and Director of the

Consular Service under several Presidents from July 1, 1924-July 28, 1937, and subsequently, as

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotenitary to Czechoslovakia until its assimilation into

greater Germany. He had long opposed the entry of Jewish immigrants, particularly those from

Eastern Europe, and professed during the early 1920s debates over the enactment of exclusionary

immigration laws, that they were “filthy, most un-American…often dangerous in their habits,

economically [and] socially undesirable…abnormally twisted…mentally deficient [and

potential] political and labor agitators.”224

However, Carr also regarded non-Jewish aliens as a threat to the social order and

economic stability of the nation during a time of depression.225 He had authored a 1933 State

Department memo, “The Problem of Aliens Seeking Relief From Persecution in Germany,” that

encapsulated his views and those of his Foggy Bottom colleagues regarding the admission of

refugees. The paper argued that American immigration laws did not provide any special

consideration for foreigners who desired sanctuary to avoid religious or other forms of

persecution.226 Nonetheless, by March 1939, while serving in Prague, he informed Hull of the

mass arrests carried out in the typical Nazi fashion. Local Jews, Czech Social Democrats, and

223 Morse, Six Million, 252-269; Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, 29; Letters from Sumner Wells to Marvin H. McIntyre

and McIntyre to Eddie Cantor, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/hol/hol00338.pdf; Internet; accessed

March 12, 2017.

224 Rosen, Saving the Jews, 39; Richard Breitman, FDR and the Jews (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2013),

22.

225 Breitman and Kraut, American Refugee Policy, 39.

226 Robert H. Gillette, “The Topography of Exclusion,” http://jhssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Gillette-

SJHS-talk-Topography-of-Exclusion.pdf; Internet; accessed November 15, 2016.

65

members of the fallen national government were, Carr argued, facing particular dangers from the

new National Socialist regime. As a result, he asserted that the American Government had a

moral duty to collaborate in an international movement that enabled enable the emigration of this

population at risk, although he was doubtful of its success.227 However, the failure of the 1938

Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees, and the refusal of attending States to

modify their immigration laws, demonstrated to Carr the futility of global collective action.

Thus, international apathy coupled with State Department prejudices and rigid enforcement of

administrative entrance requirements produced additional impediments to the implementation of

the Wagner-Rogers Bill.

The German Refugee Children’s Bill created a battleground on which proponents, and

adversaries, espoused their opinions within the halls of Congress and in the pages of the national

and local press. The persecutions underway within the Reich were vividly reported and generated

a sense of public moral outrage against Germany. Supporters of the Bill regarded expressions of

sympathy as proof that the legislation would be enacted into law. Public opinion polls, however,

provided a different view in which compassion did not transmute into a willingness to open the

Golden Gates of immigration. This discordance, reflected within the media, was to play a key

role in the forthcoming Congressional hearings.

227 Livia Rothkirchen, The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 99.

66

CHAPTER 4:

THE PRESS AND THE WAGNER-ROGERS BILL

Newspapers around the country expressed their support for the Wagner-Rogers Bill. At

least eighty-five papers published within thirty-six states printed editorials calling for its passage.

Twenty-six were located within the South; a region of the country known for its restrictionist

stance. Proponents of the bill placed more than ninety editorials into the Congressional

Record.228 Significantly, however, the issue of twenty thousand German refugee children that

was regarded as an exceptional case was not equivalent to consent to liberalize or breach the

quota system.229 America admittedly was unable to serve as the haven for all refugees but

rejection of the German Refugee Children’s Bill was perceived by many as a violation of long-

held national beliefs in compassion and liberty.230 The assertion that these young involuntary

emigrants would, with time, compete with Americans for employment was dismissed with the

argument that “objections to letting down the bars to men and women of working age [did] not

apply to children.”231 Minors chosen for admission were expected to possess the desired qualities

228 Deborah E. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust 1933-1945 (New

York: The Free Press, 1986), 113.

229 New York Herald Tribune, editorial, “The Child Refugees,” February 11, 1939 in Admission of German

Refugee Children: Joint Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration, United States Senate,

and a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 76th Cong., 1st

sess., April 20, 1939, 11.

230 Galveston News, February 20, 1939, editorial in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 21.

231 Washington Post, February 13, 1939 editorial in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 9.

67

and abilities that facilitated evolution into worthwhile citizens, indoctrinated with American

ideals and values, who could readily assimilate into the body politic. Ultimately, they might

compete for employment, but in the interim they functioned as consumers of domestic products

and services. The possibility that they could be Jews was not mentioned in this opinion piece.232

However, other columns were careful to point out that non-Aryan Protestant and Catholics were

expected to be included within the parameters of the bill.233

One editorialist predicted that the German annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia—

Bohemia and Moravia—and more recently of the Memel Territory (detached from the defeated

Imperial Germany and ceded to Lithuania) hastened the refugee bill’s enactment as a means of

expressing America’s collective rebuke of Nazi policies and aggression. The writer predicted

that the severance of child from parent would become permanent. The opinion piece accentuated

the chronic under filling of the annual German and Austrian immigration quotas. Following the

Anschluss the sole American contribution to the Intergovernmental Committee for Political

Refugees had been the amalgamation of the per annum Austrian allotment of 1,413 with the

German, numbering 25,957. However, during the remainder of the 1938 fiscal year, only 65 per

cent of the combined cohort of 27,370 were admitted. A similar situation applied to the total

annual immigration allowance of approximately 150,000. Only 42,494 had been granted entry

permits during 1937, of which roughly 20,000 were younger than twenty-one years old.234

_________________________________

232 Miami News, editorial, Suffer Little Children,” February 21, 1939 cited in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 22-

23.

233 Montgomery Advertiser, editorial, “Suffer Little Children,” February 17, 1939 cited in Joint Hearings, 17.

234 The Morning Herald, “Proposal to Admit 20,000 German Children,” March 24, 1939, 18.

68

Another paper commented that during 1938 net immigration amounted to 42,648—a

fraction of 1 percent of the entire nation’s population; a figure that robustly challenged

oppositional claims that hoards of aliens were inundating the country. Analysis of 1937

immigration statistics disclosed that the number of aliens admitted approximated 7 percent of the

amount allowable for 1924, the initial year of the National Origins Act. These numbers, one

editorialist argued, exerted an insignificant impact on the American society and employment.

Consequently, it was inconceivable that if the public recognized this fact that such a

limited scheme could be defeated by a minority that promoted “a hysterical Americanism”235

conjoined with the fear of the Other.236 Some papers qualified their endorsement by ensuring

their readership that they remained opposed to any modification of immigration laws while

noting that admission of twenty thousand children translated into the placement of five refugees

per county in the United States.237

The Los Angeles Times extolled the bill as a sign of “the purest of human sentiments”238

and argued that the children created a pool of consumers and future reservoir of skilled labor.

The California Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that urged Congress to enact the

bill.239 Columnist Herbert Agar of the Louisville Courier Journal insisted that America had an

overriding duty to assist the victims of racial, political and religious prejudice in Germany and

Central Europe. Although mass migration was an international concern, the admission of twenty

235 Cincinnati Enquirer, “This Land of Immigrants,” May 25, 1939, 4.

236 Ibid.

237 Ibid., May 28, 1939, “Immigration Policy,” 4.

238 Los Angeles Times, “The Wagner-Rogers Bill,” May 25, 1939, 22.

239 Ibid.

69

thousand children did not threaten the integrity of the immigration system. The children selected

for entry were taken “from the cream of the oppressed people of Europe,”240 and leading experts

in child social welfare declared their admittance would focus domestic attention upon

underprivileged American children.241

Smaller papers joined in the debate. The Asbury Park Press reported that Rabbi Ario S.

Hyams of Temple Beth Shalom, Roslyn Heights, had called upon local residents to tune into a

special radio broadcast of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America that expressed

its support for the bill. Significantly, he concluded that the creation of the Non-Sectarian

Committee demonstrated that an increasing number of Americans were acknowledging that

Nazism represented a preeminent threat to both Jews and Christians.242 A Burlington (VT) paper

noted a Boston sub-committee of the Federal Council was offering assistance to German

Protestants, but remained opposed to any alteration of the quota system except for the admission

of refugee children under the Wagner-Rogers Bill.243

The New York Times argued that a precedent had been set for the reception of refugees in

American history: Belgium, France, post-Revolutionary Russia, Eastern Europe, and China.

Although the United States was no longer able to afford or support an open door immigration

policy, its innate humanity allowed the reception of a small number of refugee children. This

non-partisan and non-sectarian legislation simply represented the kind act of offering assistance

240 The Courier-Journal, Herbert Agar, “Time and Tide: The Wagner-Rogers Bill,” May 22, 1939, 4.

241 Ibid.

242 Asbury Park Press, “Residents Urged to Hear Program,” June 22, 1939, 18.

243 Burlington Free Press, “Verse and Editorial Opinion of Others: Protestant Refugees,” May 8, 1939, 4.

70

to those in desperate situations. The editorialist was certain that a popular groundswell of support

would propel the bill through the halls of Congress and into law.244

On the other hand, T.M. Dobbins submitted a letter to the editor of the Asheville Citizen-

Times that was critical of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. His arguments and their refutation by the

newspaper’s editorial writer presented a microcosm of the debate that in due course resonated

through Congress and its hearings. Dobbins professed that altruism began at home. The

resources of the country needed, he believed, to be mobilized to succor its own underprivileged

children whose wants superceded those of the children of Europe. The admission of these

German refugee children would intensify, he predicted, domestic competition for a finite number

of jobs. The diversion of aid represented an act that deserved public condemnation.

In response, the editorial argued that humanitarianism and kindness transcended national

boundaries and cited the “Parable of the Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37); an act consistent

with the long-standing United States’ custom of offering refuge and assistance to the maltreated

and unwanted. More importantly, the writer argued that the plight of young German Jewish and

non-Aryan children outweighed by orders of magnitude, the problems confronted by needy

American children: escalating persecution and privation; physical abuse and terror;

homelessness; and the fracturing of the family and separation from parents who were missing,

emigrated, imprisoned, or dead. Native-born children, it was asserted, were not subjected to

such an organized program of discrimination, danger, and exclusion by the national government,

but were protected by the tenets of American democracy. The admission of twenty thousand

refugee children represented a minute percentage of all of the nation’s children. Finally, the

paper acknowledged that to a certain extent German refugee children would help offset a

244 New York Times, Editorial, “Children in the Dark,” February 18, 1939 in Joint Hearings, 12.

71

declining birthrate in which an aging population became more dependent upon the productivity

and taxpaying abilities of younger workers.245

Bertram Benedict, an editor and writer of the Washington based Editorial Research

Reports, constructed a hypothetical dialogue between the members of a stereotypical American

married couple, Helen and Howard Robinson, in which the arguments for and against the

Wagner Rogers Bill were dissected and expressed in easy to understand terms. Separated into

their respective positions, Helen presented the pro-stance position. The American Friends’

Service Committee was to be responsible for the selection, provisioning, passage, and

resettlement of the migrant children. However, acceptance remained contingent upon the

consuls’ assessment of the worthiness of every child immigrant. The refugee group included

Jews, Catholics and Protestants; particularly Christians who had been categorized by the 1935

Nuremberg Race Laws as Jewish. Helen noted that the American population in 1939 contained

more than forty million children under the age of fifteen years. Therefore, this “little temporary

act of mercy”246 that distributed approximately four hundred young refugees per state could not

have a marked impact upon the care and nurturing of American children.

The fictitious housewife cogently observed that the quota allowance, stipulated by the

National Origins Act of 1924 and its modification in 1929, permitted the entry of 1.2 million

aliens during 1930-1939, with 150,000 slots set aside for Western and Central Europe. However,

consular biases and restrictions greatly diminished the number of aliens granted admission. In

reality, she argued, a net loss of immigrants had occurred due to rising levels of admitted

Europeans returning to the Continent or other destinations. She also cited the under filling of the

245 Asheville Citizen-Times, “Unto the Least of Them,” May 7, 1939, 12.

246 Pittsburgh Press, Bertram Benedict, “Husband Accuses Wife of Being Sentimental Over Refugee Children,”

June 11, 1939, 1.

72

annual quotas allotted to Great Britain, Ireland, and the Scandinavian nations and suggested that

the unused visas be awarded to refugees fleeing greater Germany. Rather than becoming future

competitors for employment these children would function as consumers that stimulated

industry, job creation, production, and the flow of cash. The children, Helen contended, were to

be chosen from “the best heredity that we can get”247 and did not jeopardize the adoption of

American children because many foster parents were dissatisfied with the available choices of

orphans; an allegation validated by children welfare agencies across the nation. She cited the

contributions and accomplishments of immigrant children such as the German born Senator

Robert Wagner and Danish William S. Knudsen, President of General Motors.

The fabricated husband, Howard Robinson, provided a voice for the opposition by

presenting oft-repeated objections to the bill’s passage. Although in absolute terms the twenty

thousand refugee children embodied a very small number, he insisted that they represented an

opening that enabled the admittance of their foreign parents. Large-scale immigration, up to the

time of the enactment of the National Origins Act, had resulted in the dilution of the American

“old stock,”248 the acceptance of physically or mentally inferior aliens, and the dissemination of

ideologies inimical to national ideals and democracy. “For every Knudsen or Wagner, we’ve let

in 10 Reds or Pinks. Ten incompetents and shovel leaners. Ten shyster lawyers and quack

doctors.”249 Howard claimed that large numbers of American children suffered from unmet

needs and that it was the responsibility of the country to take care of its own. When the refugee

247 Ibid.

248 Ibid.

249 Ibid.

73

children reached the age of majority they would deprive the nation’s young of a like number of

jobs.250

Newspaper editorialists and writers to the editor also expressed their disapproval of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill. A column in the Arizona Republic (Phoenix) endorsed Senator Reynolds’

call for a total ban on immigration for a minimum of ten years. Passage of the children’s refugee

bill, the paper alleged, threatened the collapse of the entire immigration system by encouraging

other nations to dispatch their undesirable and impoverished minorities to the United States.

Alternatively, the writer argued that the Senator’s push for a complete prohibition against

acceptance of these castaways could be met by a rigid enforcement of the LPC clause.

Nationally syndicated columnist Ray Tucker perceptively noted that the humanitarian

goals of the Wagner-Rogers Bill were insufficient to overcome an “overwhelmingly nationalistic

and materialistic”251 76th Congress. Despite exceptional pressure brought to bear by pro-

admission forces, and the assumed silent support of the President, fears that refugee children

would eventually compete for jobs against American born high school and college graduates had

evolved into an insurmountable obstacle.252 King Feature’s columnist and Roosevelt critic Paul

Mallon presciently predicted that the bill would be amended to deduct the twenty thousand from

the annual combined quota. He argued that Congressional legislators were not cold-blooded but

were determined to provide assistance to America’s unfortunates. Mallon also contended that

250 Ibid.

251 Oakland Tribune, Ray Tucker, “The National Whirligig Offers View: News Behind the News as Gleaned At

Washington,” April 13, 1939, 13

252 Oakland Tribune, “The National Whirligig,” April 13, 1939, 13; Winfield Scott Downs, Encyclopedia of

American Biography: New Series (NY: The American Historical Society,1934), 468.

74

opponents of the legislation believed that child refugees from other sites of conflict such as

Spain, China, and Ethiopia were equally deserving of special consideration for admission.253

One writer articulated commonly held attitudes that the nation had crossed the boundaries

of rationality by maintaining an unrestricted admissions policy towards non-Americans. Such an

undertaking, he asserted, exceeded the absorptive capacity of the country. The Division of

Immigration and Naturalization had become too lax but needed to become more selective. The

United States was unable keep its “own house warm and comfortable by leaving the windows

and doors open to the great outside.”254

Edward James Smythe, the Chairman of the National Executive Committee of the

Protestant War Veterans of the United States, castigated fundraising by the supporters of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill. Instead, he advocated for Federal financial support of the brave American

veterans of the Great War who were now dependent for survival upon the public trough. Reciting

the mantra that compassion begins at home, Smythe maintained that “American children [were]

America’s problem [and] European children [were] Europe’s problem.”255 Smythe was noted for

his promotion of anti-Semitism, praise of Hitler and Italian Fascism, ties to the pro-Nazi

German-American Bund and its leader, Fritz Kuhn, and the Ku Klux Klan. He was an ardent

critic of Roosevelt and avidly described him as a puppet of an international Jewish conspiracy.256

Eventually, he faced indictment as a co-defendant under the Smith Act of 1940 (United States v.

253 The Mason City Globe-Gazette, “Behind the News,” June 21, 1939, 3.

254 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “For and Against the Wagner-Rogers Bill,” April 28, 1939, 18.

255 Washington Post, Letters to the Editor, April 28, 1939, 14.

256 Glen Jeansonne, Women of the Far Right: The Mothers’ Movement and World War II. (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1996), 75; David Mark Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (Durham:

Duke University Press, 1987), 322.

75

McWilliams) and charged with attempts to demoralize members of the American military during

a time of peace.257

G.W. Jackson, of Seattle, affirmed his opposition to the refugee children’s scheme in a

letter to Episcopal Bishop Anson Stokes. Noting the support of Hoover, Jackson suggested that

the efforts of the former President and like-minded individuals be directed towards the

deprivations afflicting the children of his city and that of Los Angeles. Neglect, Jackson warned,

risked the genesis of a generation of miscreants and criminals. He declared that the Democratic

and Republican Parties had abandoned their responsibilities and must be replaced by a new order

based on Fascist principles that led the nation into an era of stability and progress; a strategy that

was dependent upon the collaboration of a “few practical farsighted men.”258 Stokes responded

to Jackson that although penury was a grave problem for many American youth, the bill

represented an attempt to assuage the lot of the persecuted German child. It was a Christian act

of conscience and did not threaten domestic stability. He disavowed any role for American

fascism as a remedy to the nation’s afflictions.259

R. B. Baker, the Chairman of the Welfare Committee of the Virginia State Council of the

Junior Order United American, wrote a letter to the editor of the Richmond Daily News’ column,

“Bring Over the Children,” that encapsulated the objections that populated the presentations of

the Wagner-Rogers Bill’s opponents during the upcoming hearings: diversion of charity away

from needy and neglected American children; additional costs to be borne by an already stressed

257 Jeansonne, Women of the Far Right, 152; Michal R. Belknap, American Political Trials (Westport, CT:

Praeger, 1994), 181.

258 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, January 17, 1939, Wagner-Rogers Bill, Opposition

(Box 3, Folder 13), 2.

259 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, January 25, 1939, Wagner-Rogers Bill, Opposition

(Box 3, Folder 13).

76

population of taxpayers; loss of employment that deservedly belonged to the youth of the

country, and the eventual entry of alien parents, siblings, and extended family members. Baker

calculated that each immigrant child would produce four children, who in turn would become

parents, resulting within five generations a national population increase of 640,000. He alleged

that if admission of these German refugee children had become a national priority then ten

thousand slots of the annual quota should be preferentially granted to this group. However, he

maintained that the Ethiopian victims of Italian aggression, the persecuted “Reds” of Spain,

China, and Germany, and Palestinian Arabs who were being downtrodden and robbed of their

homes deserved equal humanitarian consideration.260

African-American newspapers expressed a variety of opinions regarding the persecution

of Germany Jewry and the question of immigration. An editorialist of the Chicago Defender

averred that unemployment would be exacerbated by the admittance of German refugees and

wondered if many of the proponents of the legislation were more concerned about the fate of

European Jewry than that of colored Americans. If their concerns were driven by moral

convictions then a similar degree of attention must be expended upon the economic tribulations

of fifteen million blacks of which half were victims of starvation.261 This theme of

disingenuousness influenced black opinion towards Jews and anti-Semitism. The papers attacked

Hitlerism and expressed sympathy for its Jewish victims but were unable to “tolerate the

nauseating hypocrisy of those who are all against race prejudice”262 within the Reich but could

not admit its existence in the United States. Many viewed each group as equal victims of

260 Richmond News Leader, Letter to the Editor, March 13, 1939., cited in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 35.

261 Robert L. Fleegler, Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 57.

262 “American Hypocrisy,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 22, 1933, 10.

77

prejudice that necessitated cooperation, but American Jews were frequently criticized for

remaining silent or complicit in the maltreatment of African-Americans. Jewry was poised to

rebuke the treatment of its German co-religionists, but infrequently spoke out against

“discrimination practiced against Negroes.”263 Appeals to the President for racial justice went

unanswered.264 The events of Kristallnacht stimulated feelings among the black community that

similar actions could take place in America due to the proliferation of propaganda espousing

racial hatred. African-Americans were more vulnerable due to financial constraints, lack of

political power, and the absence of supporting organizations or networks.265

Correspondent and author Marquis W. Child suggested it was highly unlikely that the

Wagner-Rogers Bill was going to be adopted. He declared that the fundamental opposition to the

legislation was derived from particular Southerners within both Houses, and highlighted Senator

Reynolds who alleged that thousands of members of his new patriotic society, The Vindicators

Association, Inc., shared his restrictionist doctrine. If the bill made it to the Senate floor, he

threatened a filibuster. Child described him as a political zealot whose career would be enhanced

by engagement with the “anti-alien, anti-ism cry”266 that echoed across the country. Furthermore,

263 Pittsburgh Courier, “The Economic Background of Mobbism,” April 8, 1933, 10. Criticism was leveled

against “Jewish merchants, bankers and hotel proprietors [who were] not noted for any unusual liberality and

helpfulness towards ambitious and talented young Negroes emerging from colleges with scholastic honors but no

jobs.” Felecia G. Jones Ross and Sakile Kai Camara, “The African American Press and the Holocaust,” The Journal

of Intergroup Relations 33, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 32-47. The Defender cited the support of the N.A.A.C.P. for the Evian

Conference but asserted that the U.S. Government should be “equally indignant at the lynching of American citizens

by American mobs on American soil.” “Hails Aid to Jews; Asks About Lynching,” April 2, 1938, 7.

264 Chicago Defender, “Sen. Robinson Decries Jewish Persecution,” June 17, 1933, 14.

265 “Chicago Defender, “It Can Happen Here,” November 26, 1938, 16. W.E.B. Dubois had issued a similar

warning prior to the pogrom. Chicago Defender, “Dubois Warns, Nazi Race Persecution Methods May Gain

Foothold in South,” November 5, 1938, 2.

266 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Wagner-Rogers Bill to Admit 20,000 Refugee Children to U.S. Facing Hard Fight

in Congress,” Marquis W. Child, June 11, 1939, 1, 6.

78

the writer asserted that the Senator’s rhetoric and writings in his paper, The American Vindicator,

risked incitement of overt anti-Semitism.267

The arguments for and against the Wagner-Rogers Bill debated within the press were

reiterated during the various immigration committee meetings held within the Senate and House.

Events proved that newspaper editorial and opinion pieces did not function as an echo chamber

for popular sentiment. Professor of Jewish Studies Deborah Lipstadt noted that the print media’s

support for the legislation represented a rare instance in which it “vigorously moved out ‘ahead’

of the public.”268 Still, these arguments were not, she insisted, powerful enough to overcome

popular resistance to any exception to immigration law.269

267 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Wagner-Rogers Bill,” June 11, 1939, 1, 6; Julian M. Pleasants, Buncombe Bob: The

Life and Times of Robert Rice Reynolds (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 159.

268 Lipstadt, Beyond Belief, 14.

269 Ibid.

79

CHAPTER 5:

PROPONENTS

“In a sea of human beings, it is difficult, at times even impossible,

to see the human as being.” 270 Aysha Taryam

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who

watch them without doing anything.” 271 Albert Einstein

The Kindertransport served as a guide for the individuals and groups that developed and

coalesced behind the German child refugee rescue plan, the Wagner-Rogers Bill. Both schemes

were marked by consonance and divergence in their construction and concerns. The children

were perceived as more acceptable immigrants than adults who might aggravate unemployment

or become dependent upon the financial support of taxpayers.272 Nonetheless, the Children’s

Transport project regarded these young evacuees as transmigrants; temporary residents of the

United Kingdom, expected to re-emigrate once they had reached age 21 with completion of their

education or vocational training. This concept was anomalous to the United States in the context

of its long tradition of granting permanent residence and citizenship when legal requirements had

been met.

270 Aysha Taryam is the first female Editor-in-Chief of an English language newspaper in the Middle East.

271 Francis L. Gbee, Tears of Fear, Dreams for My Country: Based on the True Life Story of a Long Time

Refugee (Xlibris Corporation: 2015), iii.

272 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 61; Baumel, Unfilled Promise, 15-16; New York Times, July 23, 1940,

15.

80

However, British Jews maintained a higher profile in the development and promotion of

the Kindertransport. American Jewry, on the other hand, exerted pressure upon HMG to admit

increasing numbers of German refugee children into Britain and Palestine but failed to make

similar demands upon the American government. The majority of Jewish leaders, with the

exception of the Jewish Labor Committee, adopted a more hesitant approach towards

modification of the quota system, out of fear of stimulating anti-Semitism or provoking Congress

to adopt a more restrictive posture towards refugees. Greater emphasis was placed upon the

economic boycott of Nazi Germany than in attempts to change immigration policies.273 Although

the number of Jews testifying in support of the Wagner-Rogers Bill was purposefully kept to a

minimum, there was a long history of institutions dedicated to the provision of aid and

deliverance to Jews of Europe.274 Proponents of enactment strove to contest perceptions that this

legislation was a Jewish bill by underscoring its non-sectarian inclusivity. The supportive

arguments were essentially formulaic and repetitive, as were the objections raised by the

measure’s opponents.

Senator Wagner was the first to testify before the April 1939 Joint Hearings. He

reiterated the terms of the proposed legislation which, he insisted, evolved from American

273 Baumel-Schwartz, Never Look Back, 61-62; David Brody, “American Jewry, the Refugees and Immigration

Restriction 1932-1942,” in Abraham Karp, ed., The Jewish Experience in America, Vol. 5 (Waltham, MA:

American Jewish Historical Society, 1969), 339-344. The Jewish Labor Committee, founded in 1934, included the

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, United Hebrew

Trades, Workmen’s Circle and other unions and groups. Goals: Expansion of the organized labor movement; fund

raising; aid to the Jewish community and raising public awareness of the “growing plight of European Jewry.” Arieh

Lebowitz, “An Introduction to the Jewish Labor Committee,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies

2, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 96-99. The more staid American Jewish Committee opposed the boycott and public protests,

preferring a more back door policy of seeking change.

274 The following are organizations that were involved with the welfare, protection, and immigration of European

Jews but whose presence was minimal to absent during the hearings on the Wagner-Rogers Bill: American Jewish

Congress; American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; German Jewish Children’s Aid; Hebrew Sheltering

House Association (HIAS); National Coordinating Committee; National Council of Jewish Women; National

Refugee Service; Self Help for German émigrés.

81

concerns regarding the tragic situation unfolding upon the Central European stage. Wagner cited

the failure of the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees, but insisted that the

collective conscience of America and the world had been sufficiently aroused to undertake

positive action. The Senator accepted the reality that events within the Reich had torn families

asunder. He acknowledged the willingness of parents to accept a potentially permanent

separation from their offspring as a means of securing their lives and future. This resettlement

effort, driven in part by parallel efforts in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and the

Netherlands, was a highly symbolic act. The detailed planning of Dr. Marion Kenworthy and

other child-care experts, conjoined with the leadership and expertise of the AFSC and the

NSCGRC, advanced the program’s chances of success.275

Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers explained to the Joint Hearing that various

individuals and groups that aspired to admit Jewish and non-Aryan children under the auspices

of accredited refugee organizations had contacted her to be a co-sponsor of the German Refugee

Children’s Bill. She believed that this venture would draw the support of anyone ingrained with a

sense of humanity. Her decision was bolstered by the involvement of the AFSC, the provisions

that assured careful selection and placement, and the assent of the A.F.L. and C.I.O.276 Troubling

events within Germany necessitated prioritization of this particular group of children as

compared with other nationalities. Although she was opposed to the disruption of families,

Rogers accepted the realities of the situation.

275 Statement of Senator Robert F. Wagner to the Joint Immigration Committee cited in April 20, 1939 Joint

Hearings, 5-9. The NSCGRC’s attorney, Wilbur La Roe, Jr., was selected as floor manager for witnesses testifying

in favor of the bill’s adoption. See Appendix E and F for list of contributors to the Wagner-Rogers Bill plan and the

members of the House and Senate sitting on the Joint Hearing.

276 Rogers interpreted the advocacy of the two leading labor unions as a sign that they did not regard the

legislation as a threat to American employment.

82

However, Roger’s comments deviated from those of Wagner and Dingell. She was

concerned that excessive numbers of children would be admitted at one time. Concentration in

the ports of entry was to be avoided and the children were to be diffused across the nation. If

they became ill-behaved or displayed ingratitude to the democratic country that had provided

sanctuary then, she believed, they must be subject to deportation, but did not specify if this

meant a return to Germany. There was not any rationale for permitting such miscreants to remain

within the United States to create problems or oppose the American system of government.

Citizenship was a right to be earned and Rogers believed that in due course such status was

achievable. Perhaps, of greater significance, she predicted that protections written into the bill

prevented the admission of 20,000, let alone 10,000 children over the course of two years.277

Clarence Pickett came to the fore during the opening session of the Joint Hearings and

identified himself as the Executive Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee of

Philadelphia and the Acting Director of the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee

Children. He recounted the extensive experience of the Friends in the provision of post-war relief

on the European Continent and his role as eyewitness to Nazi persecution of Jews and non-

Aryans. The AFSC estimated that 100,000 children were in harm’s way in Germany with an

additional 30,000 within the former Czechoslovakia. Pickett again outlined the key components

of the Wagner-Rogers Bill.278 He asserted that these children were to be carefully chosen in

277 “Statement of Hon. Edith Nourse Rogers, A Representative in Congress from the State of Massachusetts” in

April 21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 114-117.

278 Many of the witnesses speaking for the measure reiterated the terms of the legislation: Careful selection,

transportation, and allocation to approved and meticulously monitored foster homes; provision of sufficient financial

support and satisfaction of the LPC clause; the non-denominational nature of the act based on need; compliance with

the physical and mental requirements of the Departments of State and Labor; exclusion from the job market;

consumers of American products and services; final decision remained within the hands of American consuls

abroad.

83

anticipation that they would become ideal American citizens and, contrary to Roger’s opinion, he

did not believe that disobedient and unredeemable minors represented a compelling issue. The

planned detailed screening obviated such a occurrences.279 The children, because of their age and

the better-educated background of their families, were expected to be readily “assimilated, cared

for, educated, and made into useful men and women and good Americans.”280

Pickett countered the allegation that the United States was being flooded by aliens, noting

that 241,962 immigrants had entered while 246,000 left permanently during July 1, 1932 to July

1, 1938. The addition of twenty thousand children offset to a minimal degree a declining national

birthrate. He also contended that the disintegration of refugee families was the inevitable

consequence of German policies that drove parents to suicide or into concentration camps, and

that the bill did not represent an involuntary separation of families or “a case of children-

snatching.”281

Newbold Morris, the treasurer of the NSCGRC, presented the financial arguments. He

cited three primary reasons for the formation of the committee: an expression of tangible support

for the legislation; the fulfillment of all legal, immigration, and financial requirements and

obligations, once the measure was passed, and the assumption of organizational responsibility for

transportation and aftercare. Morris informed the Joint Hearing that 1,500 letters had been

received from 46 states offering free foster homes and he anticipated that this number would

extend into the thousands should the bill come to fruition. The NSCGRC was prepared to

provide funding for placement in foster boarding homes and for any necessary expansion of

279 “Statement of Clarence E. Pickett” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 55-67.

280 Bluefield (WVA) Daily Telegraph “Refugee Children” in Congressional Record, vol. 84, part 4, 3866.

281 New York Times, May 5, 1939, 5L.

84

child-welfare or social service staffs. He identified three important reservoirs of financial

support. The first entailed a $250,000 revolving fund derived entirely from private sources.

Second, an emergency account was created to meet unexpected or additional needs. Third, and

perhaps most importantly, he announced that negotiations between George Rublee, the Executive

Director of the London-based Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees, and the

German government had achieved a successful denouement regarding the capitalization of

resettlement. The Reich was prepared, Morris revealed, to provide $120 per child for

transportation costs to America. Unfortunately, despite his assertions to the contrary, such an

accord had never been reached. Its failure reflected internal conflicts over Jewish policy between

the moderate and extreme wings of the Nazi hierarchy.

Representative Charles Kramer (Dem., CA) referenced earlier statements of Secretary

Hull that the admission and processing of refugee children necessitated additional expenses

(personnel, space, and supplies) for the Department, Bureau of Immigration, and consuls. The

Bureau’s Commissioner James L. Houghteling, however, reported that the Immigration Act of

1917 allowed the Department of Labor to admit children younger than sixteen years of age

provided the LPC clause was satisfied; a guarantee that had been offered by the NSCGR. He did

admit, however, that his agency required only the hiring of three to six additional staff

workers.282

D. Robert Yarnell of the Philadelphia Friends testified that he and several other Quakers

had met with Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht and officials of the German Foreign Office

during December 1938. They left with the firm conviction that the Nazi regime was determined

282 “Statement of Newbold Morris, Treasurer, Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children” in April

21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 117-123.

85

to continue, with unflinching determination, the maltreatment of Jews and non-Aryans, despite

American abhorrence towards the events of Kristallnacht. The Reich officials declared that the

violence represented a “spontaneous uprising of the [Aryan] people,”283 and ominously warned

that such outbursts were likely to continue until the “Christian conscience of the world”284 agreed

to accept this unwanted minority. Crystal Night intensified, Yarnell observed, the desperation of

Christian and Jewish parents to seek evacuation of their children. Failure to provide sanctuary, he

warned, ensured the immediate or near future demise of these children.285

Samuel McCrea Cavert, the General Secretary of the Federal Churches of Christ in

America, had written to Sen. Wagner expressing his organization’s support; one of the few

Christian church groups to do so. He cited an Executive Committee resolution that trumpeted

efforts to admit refugee children outside of the quota. The unanimity of Protestant clergymen,

Cavert argued, was derived from the shared belief that the effort embodied a pragmatic

exposition of Christian faith and actualized the duty to extricate and care for children caught up

in a frightful maelstrom. America must not, he proclaimed, as it had done at Evian, merely

engage in diplomatic protests, expressions of moral outrage or call upon other countries to act.

Rather, it was a moral imperative for the United States to fulfill its humanitarian obligations. He

concluded that churches ranging across the country were willing to join together during this time

of great peril. 286 Cavert’s position was fortified by fellow clerics, Harry Emerson Fosdick and

283 “Statement of D. Robert Yarnell, Philadelphia, PA” in April 21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 133.

284 Ibid.

285 “Statement of D. Robert Yarnell,” Joint Hearings, 133-141 in April 21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 133-141; Tampa

Daily Times, November 11, 1938, 1, 13; Tampa Daily Times, November 12, 1938, 4; New York Times, November

14, 1938, 6; Philadelphia Inquirer, May 25, 1939, “Quaker Leader Backs Bill to Admit 20,000 Refugees,” 4.

286 Joint Hearings, Letter from Samuel McCrea Cavert, Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, to

Senator Robert F. Wagner, February 10, 1939, 10. “Statement of Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert, Representing the

86

Henry S. Coffin who firmly believed that the majority of the American public endorsed the

German Refugee Children’s Bill.287

Anson Stokes, Canon of the Washington Cathedral, had been one of the Christian clerics

who visited the White House during January 1939 to discuss the issue of refugee children.

Significantly, but not uniquely, Stokes presented himself not as an official church spokesman but

as an individual offering his personal opinions regarding the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He argued that

four critical questions demanded satisfactory answers before Congress could consider passage.

First, the act needed to mitigate, in a limited manner, a great human need, as one hundred

thousand children were in peril within Nazi Germany. Second, the components of the enactment,

aided by the AFSC and the NSCGRC, must be credible and assured of a high degree of success.

Third, if the children were permitted entry then their care and supervision had to be safeguarded

by eminently reputable and experienced child-welfare workers and organizations. Finally,

admission must not exacerbate unemployment or place an undue strain upon the American

taxpayer. Stokes considered this last eventuality to be unlikely due to the advocacy of the A.F.L.

and C.I.O. and the provision of appropriate financial guarantees. Fulfillment of these stringent

criteria, he proclaimed, demonstrated that the Wagner-Rogers bill was an exemplary plan.

Consequently, he did not conceive of any reasonable objections that could be raised and was

secure in the belief that the country’s churches supported this endeavor that would stimulate the

_________________________________ Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America” in April 21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 107-108. The Council was

comprised of 24 nationwide denominations listing a combined membership of 22 million.

287 Letters from Harry Emerson Fosdick and Henry S. Coffin to Sen. Robert Wagner, February 15, 1939, Joint

Hearings, 13. Fosdick presided at the New York City Riverside Church and Coffin at the Union Theological

Seminary.

87

expansion of social welfare assistance to the nation’s disadvantaged while reaffirming American

principles.288

Reverend Carl C. Rasmussen, D.D. of the Luther Place Memorial Church of Washington,

D.C. spoke in favor of ratification. He was the President of the Maryland Synod of the United

Lutheran Church in America, one of the three-major Lutheran groups in the country. He admitted

that he spoke not as a representative of the collective church, which had not staked an official

position on the issue, but rather as a voice for co-religionists who supported the act. Rasmussen

focused attention upon Christian and non-Aryan children, whose parents faced, because of

resistance to Nazi policies, imprisonment in concentration camps or death. Therefore, he

interpreted the immigration exception as a non-sectarian measure. On a broader plane, he argued

that the deteriorating situation of German Jewry was a harbinger, a social canary in the mine of

intolerance that predicted German Catholics and Protestants were to become the next victims of

the Hitlerian regime.289 His admonition antedated the more famous post-war quotation of the

German Lutheran theologian, Martin Niemöller, who warned that “first [the Nazis] came for the

socialists…”290

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the founder of the Free Synagogue of New York City, a major

voice within the American Jewish community, and himself a child immigrant from Hungary,

confronted the conundrum of the need to demonstrate that he was an American first and not an

American Jew who could be accused of divided loyalties. His remarks to the Joint Hearing were

infused with internal conflicts. “No sane person,” he insisted, justified any alteration of the

288 “Statement of Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Canon, Washington Cathedral” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings,

166-169.

289 “Statement of Rev. Carl C. Rasmussen, D.D.” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 88-90.

290 Martin Neimöller” “First They Came for the Socialists…”,

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392; Internet; accessed June 22, 2017.

88

existing immigration laws.291 The welfare of the nation and its children took precedence over

German refugee children. Speaking as a citizen, and not as a Jew or Rabbi, he proclaimed that

charity began at home and in any conflict of interests the United States must take precedence. If

it was impossible to aid these foreign children, then they could not be helped because no action

should be undertaken inimical to the nation’s interests. He believed that the Congressional

members of the committee shared his view.

Wise then pivoted into the role of a supporter of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He cited the

large number of American Jews and Christians who voiced their desire to receive a German

refugee child. He described the opponents of the legislation as “folk to whom children are a

nuisance, [and] are strange and alien beings,”292 but he ardently believed that the United States

was always prepared to help and would, like the United Kingdom and Holland, carry out this

compassionate action. Contradicting his opening comments, the Rabbi avowed that he clearly

recognized the nation was unable to ignore conditions within Nazi Germany or refuse to offer

sanctuary to Hitler’s victims. In his view, America was morally obligated to act but he, like

many, failed to define the parameters of such intervention. Wise described the German

persecutions as a sign of the “rebarbarization of mankind”293 in which innocents were being

“crucified upon the cross of racial and religious differences [and] political opinion;”294 a

Christian allusion that suggested that German refugee children could be resurrected into a new

life in a democratic and free America. While reaffirming his devotion for his adopted land, the

291 “Statement of Dr. Stephen S. Wise,” April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 155. Wise had expressed similar views

following the announcement of the Evian Conference.

292 Ibid., 156.

293 Ibid., 157.

294 Ibid.

89

cleric insisted that America was bound to extend its “hands to a certain number (which was not

delineated) of these children, to shield, defend, and bless them [within the] radiance of the

freedom from oppression, which is ours.”295 Quoting Psalm 118:19 Wise called upon the nation

to open “the gates of righteousness and freedom and hope [so that] we may enter therein.”296 He

believed that such a plea would be heard.297

Jacob Kepecs, a member of the NCCGRC, and a leading expert in the field of child-

welfare and placement within foster homes, painted a portrait of the three categories of people

who were motivated to take in foreign children. Childless couples, infused with strong parental

instincts constituted the first group, who were unable to successfully reproduce or adopt an

American orphan due to demand that exceeded supply. These adults regarded alien foster

children as their own. Kepecs anticipated that a sufficient number of homes were available to

accept and provide care for these children.

The second group of prospective parents included those whose children had reached

adulthood. Kepecs speculated that a significant percentage of these mothers needed the presence

of children to fulfill a utilitarian function; the instilment of a sense of purpose and to have

something to occupy their time. These women, he believed, preferred to function primarily

within the domestic sphere and had filed at least one hundred applications for refugee children.

He predicted that this number would grow appreciably if Congress successfully passed the bill.

A family that already possessed one to two children but sought to add more to the household

constituted the third group. As with the second cohort of parents, the mothers did not seek

295 Ibid.

296 Ibid.

297 Ibid., “Statement of Dr. Stephen S. Wise” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 155-160.

90

outside employment, but needed to be engaged in some activity. The refugee children would be

accepted if a reasonable rate of payment was offered that compensated for the costs of

maintaining each child. Therefore, according to Kepec’s analysis, each cluster of prospective

foster parents was driven by different goals or endpoints that superceded pure humanitarianism,

although this charitable act was strongly emphasized by the bill’s proponents as a fundamental

rationale for its adoption.298

New York Post foreign correspondent Dorothy Thompson’s testimony mirrored many of

her earlier concerns that influenced the formation of the Evian Conference. Continued forced

mass migration, of which twenty thousand German refugee children represented a small fraction,

posed a fundamental threat to democratic nations and its institutions. The Wagner-Rogers Bill

represented a minor but reasonable expression of humanitarianism and moral justice that

inevitably benefited the nation. Failure to adopt this measure, Thompson warned, provided

negative imagery that defamed American values. She reiterated a litany of the guarantees

embodied within the legislation and reaffirmed that the demand for adoptions significantly

eclipsed the supply.299

Alf Landon sent a letter of support to Clarence Pickett, which was submitted to the

immigration hearings. His backing was qualified, however, as he believed that the maximum age

of the refugee children should have been markedly lowered. Landon warned there was a danger

298 “Statement of Jacob Kepecs, Member of the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children” in

April 21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 142-146. Some members of Kepec’s third group of parents had written that they

sought a refugee child as a means of providing a playmate and company to a single child.

299 New York Times, April 23, 1939, 1, 34; “Statement of Dorothy Thompson” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings,

160-166.

91

that pressure would be exerted upon Congress to admit the parents of these children; a

circumstance that “create[d] another heart-rending situation.”300

Although humanitarian considerations induced A.F.L. President William Green and

C.I.O. President John L. Lewis to endorse the bill, they opposed any move to alter the restrictive

terms of the National Origins Act. Green recognized that the proposal was a one-time limited

exception to existing laws.301 Thus, he believed the union’s executive council was supportive of

the plan as it did not involve the admission of alien adults.302 Joseph A. Padway, attorney for the

A.F.L., represented Green before the Joint Hearing and reiterated his approbation of the

legislation. The union continued its long-standing resistance to immigration but the altruistic

nature of the Wagner-Rogers Bill superceded such concerns.303 Padway presented a missive

written on union letterhead that Green had sent to Senator Wagner on the first day of the

300 The Morning News, April 25, 1939, “Danger is Seen: Landon Backs Admission of 10,000 Children But Fears

Parents May Seek Entry,” 2; Washington Post, April 25, 1939, “Landon Backs Bill to Admit Child Exiles,” 7.

301 Washington Post February 10, 1939, 3. Green asserted that he could “conceive of no more noble act on the

part of our government and the people of a great country” than to welcome into their homes twenty thousand young

children whose existence was predicated “upon our generosity” and mercy. Bakersfield Californian, Bernice Harrell

Chipman, “What Do You Think?” July 3, 1939, 5.

302 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 10, 1939 “AFL, CIO Approve Plan to Admit 10,000 Refugee

Children”; Miami Herald, February 13, 1939; Stanford Advocate March 24, 1939 “Twenty Thousand German

Children” cited in Congressional Record, vol. 84, part 4, 3866. Green argued that the German Jewish and non-

Aryan children would function as consumers of American products and services and benefit the economy and

creation of jobs. They were “an economic asset, not a burden.” He was also satisfied with the stated guarantees of

the bill that protected Americans from potential “disadvantage,” particularly in view of the exceedingly small

number of children under consideration.

303 The A.F.L. was on record for its opposition to immigration. The union had, for example, called for a two-year

limitation in 1920. Frank Moore Colby, ed., New International Yearbook: A Compendium of he World’s Progress

for the Year 1919 (NY: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1920), 375. The A.F.L. also took a position against expansion of

the annual quota and the utilization of “unused” slots. The Labor League for Human Rights was established in 1938

to aid German refugees and Green assumed the honorary chairmanship and A.F.L. Secretary George Meany became

honorary secretary. However, the president and the labor organization remained opposed to any breach of the

allotted quota. Their Washington, D.C. office declared that “whatever immigrants come here should come as

immigrants and not as refugees.” W.C. Roberts, “Memorandum on Immigration Bill,” April 13, 1938, AFL-CIO

Legislative Papers, Meany Memorial Archives cited in Brian Burgoon, Janice Fine, Wade Jacoby and Daniel

Tichenor, “Immigration and the Transformation of American Unionism,” International Migration Review 44, no. 4

(Winter 2010): 943.

92

hearings. While Green indicated that he viewed the project with compassion, he carefully noted

that he was speaking as an individual and not as the president of the A.F.L. since the

organization as a whole had not taken an affirmative stance on the bill. He was certain, however,

that its leadership and rank and file shared his sympathy and favorable mindset, particularly

since the immigration system remained intact.304

Recalling Roosevelt’s April 1938 announcement of his call for an international refugee

conference, Green asserted that America was acting in harmony with its historic role as an

asylum for the victims of political and religious persecution. He had long been engaged with the

Jewish Question and was a member of 125 leading American signatories to an April petition that

urged foreign nations to participate in the nascent Evian conclave.305 The labor leader also

endorsed the application of pressure upon Great Britain to satisfy the terms of the 1917 Balfour

Declaration that called for the establishment of a Jewish National Homeland within the Palestine

Mandate.306 The closure of the Golden Gates to German and Austrian refugees was antithetical

to time-honored principles, but he agreed with Cordell Hull that the country was unable to accept

more aliens than provided for by existing immigration statutes.307 Thus, his personal position on

the issue of refugee children was consistent with his view of America’s role in the world, but his

304 Statement of Joseph A. Padway, Washington, D.C., Counsel for American Federation of Labor and a Letter

from William Green to Senator Robert Wagner in April 20, 1939, Joint Hearings, 81-82.Mrs. Benjamin Franklin

Soffee, a witness testifying for the Michigan chapter of the Civil Rights Federation, a body comprised of 325 state

organizations with a combined membership of 500,000 had endorsed the Wagner-Rogers Bill, along with state

locals of the A.F.L. and C.I.O. “Statement of Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Soffee” in April 20, 1939, Joint Hearings, 86.

305 Tampa Tribune, “Americans Urge Nations to Join in Refugee Plan,” April 11, 1938, 5.

306 New York Times, “Palestine Open Door Urged: Federation Cables Advocate Policy at Evian,” July 11, 1938,

7.

307 United States News, April 4, 1938.

93

official position as the president of a major labor union opposed any adjustments of the current

quota system.

The extremity of the situation was illustrated by the events of Kristallnacht, which

evoked within Green a profound feeling of horror and abomination. He offered, on behalf of the

A.F.L. membership, an emphatic protest against Nazi savagery.308 Green appealed to all

“national and international unions, State Federations of Labor, central labor unions and directly

affiliated local unions”309 to conjoin protest with meaningful action by reinvigorating the

Federation’s five-year economic boycott against the Reich; an act that articulated American

workers’ rejection of its inhumane treatment of the Jewish minority.310 He affirmed the support

of the A.F.L. for any practicable project of refugee resettlement, not as a form of largesse but as

practical sign of social conscience.311

Green’s assumption of the role of an individual testifying before the Joint Hearings, and

not as the president of one of the preeminent labor unions, diminished the power and impact of

his promulgations on Germany, Roosevelt, Congress, and the American public. This polarity of

identities undermined the affirmations of various witnesses that the American Federation of

Labor had, as a unified body, expressed its advocacy for the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The economic

boycott of Nazi Germany was the unambiguous sanction employed by organized labor against

308 New York Times,” November 14, 1938, 6.


310 Ibid. Green also conflated the oppression of Jews with the treatment of German workers who faced “a reign of

terror” that resulted in compulsory labor and “virtual slavery.” Only a “strong, free and independent organized labor

movement,” he declared, offered the greatest defense of national “freedom and civil liberties.” A united labor force

must not function as a mere bystander in the face of totalitarianism but was required to employ its intrinsic power

against the crimes of the Hitlerian regime.

311 Tampa Tribune “Green Urges Boycott of German Goods: Appeals to Nation to Make Protest Effective,” 4;

Washington Post, November 22, 1939, “D.C. Meeting to Plan Fight for Minorities: 500 Leaders Called Various

Sects,” 7.

94

persecution of minorities. Labor unions had finite influence upon dictatorial regimes, but the

embargo against German goods was regarded as a legitimate and potentially compelling form of

protest. More importantly, it did not impinge upon the collective interests of labor in a

compromised American economy. The union leadership had to remain cognizant that the

organization was not only a special interest group, but also one composed of individuals who

could be condemnatory of German inhumane practices while simultaneously harboring personal

anti-Semitic beliefs.

Despite President Green’s individual opinion regarding the Wagner-Rogers Bill, the

A.F.L. conventions, witnesses testifying before Congressional committees, and its official paper,

the American Federationist, spoke with unanimity against modification of the quota system,

irrespective of the degree to which the union identified with Hitler’s victims. These sentiments

conformed to the unions’ traditional resistance to the importation of competing foreign labor and

its support of the National Origins Act. A resolution was submitted during the 1935 Illinois

Federation of Labor convention that reaffirmed the traditional American role of providing

sanctuary. However, the resolutions committee voted it down. Similarly, from February 1936

through November 1938 various labor representatives testified in Congress in favor of marked

reductions or complete cessation of immigration. The high level of domestic unemployment

provided justification for this stance.312

312 Sidney Kelman, “Limits of Consensus: Unions and the Holocaust,” American Jewish History 79, no. 3 (Spring

1990): 315-317; Joseph G. Rayhack, A History of American Labor (NY: 1966), 278-279; Illinois Sate Federation of

Labor, Proceedings of the 53rd Convention, September 9-14, 1935, 107; 74th Cong., 2nd sess., Hearings before the

Senate Committee on Immigration (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936), 144-149, 149-157; 76th

Cong., 2d and 3d sessions, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Immigration (Washington:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940), 130-131; American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceedings of the 59th

Annual Convention, October 2-13, 1939, 416, 523-524, 679. Calls for immigration restriction were heard among

members of the A.F.L. following the Evian Conference and Kristallnacht. Economic boycott was not synonymous

with rescue.

95

John Brophy, Director of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, on the other hand,

announced before the Joint Hearing that the union’s four million strong membership collectively

endorsed Senate Joint Resolution 64 and House Joint Resolution 168 as a symbol of a shared

humanity and collective protest against Nazi policies. He read a statement from President John L.

Lewis that called upon the United States to do its share in accepting German refugee children

and indicated that he was enthusiastically in favor of any reasonable project that accomplished

this goal.313 He linked attacks on Jews and non-Aryans with assaults on German free labor,

supported the economic boycott, and upheld the privilege of asylum.314

Mrs. Gertrude Foltz Zimand, a spokesperson for the Executive Committee of the National

Child Labor Committee, challenged the arguments of the bill’s opponents that a singular

adjustment of the immigration quota adversely impacted domestic employment. She noted that

the refugee children ranged in age from 6 to 14 years of age. Properly selected and accredited

child-welfare agencies were charged with their close supervision until they reached the age of

majority or, if the situation within Germany permitted, returned to their country of origin. Each

minor was to be placed in school as long as necessary.

313 Statement of John Brophy, Director of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in April 20, 1939, Joint

Hearings, 78; CIO News, April 24, 1939, 7 in Kelman, “Limits of Consensus,” 319. The first president of the

U.A.W. supported the boycott and was critical of German policies but opposed immigration and the rescue of

refugees. United Automobile Worker, October 15, 1938, 1, 5; UAW-CIO, Proceedings of the 5th Convention, July

29-August 6, 1940, 648-649, and UAW-CIO, Proceedings of the 6th Convention, August 4-10, 1941 cited in Kelman,

“Limits of Consensus,” 319-320; Robert A. Divine, American Immigration Policy, 1924-1952 (New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 1957),” 101.

314 CIO News, September 17, 1938, 5 in Kelman, “Limits of Consensus,” 318; CIO News, November 21, 1938, 6;

November 28, 1938, 3; December 1, 1939, 2. John Brophy, National Director of the C.I.O. repeated his April

statements that the union was unconcerned about potential competition for jobs and its support reflected the union’s

core opposition to any form of religious or racial persecution and its belief in America’s traditional role as a haven,

particularly for “victims of Nazi savagery.” John L. Lewis declared that “America should do its part.” He “heartily

approve[d] of any practical action necessary for the accomplishment of this purpose.” Friedman, No Haven, 99-100.

96

Under accepted guidelines a child was excluded from the labor pool until eighteen years

of age. Enrollment in college, trade, or technical schools delayed this process until ages 20-21.

Consequently, a minimum of four years elapsed before any refugee child could seek

employment. If age range was factored into this labor equation a period of 15 years, from 1943

to 1958, would transpire before the entirety of the group entered the work force. This translated

into an average of 1,500 per year. She cited the Unemployment Census of 1937, which estimated

that the number of unemployed 16-24 years olds was approximately 6.5 million. This figure

included both genders and those that were completely or partially unemployed or engaged in

emergency projects but seeking permanent positions. The accession of 1,500 refugee children

into the labor pool represented “only one additional youth per year for every 4,500-unemployed

youth—an almost negligible increase.”315

Reed Lewis, Director of the Foreign Language Information Service, highlighted one of

the prime but more covert arguments of the opposition: The inordinate admission of excessive

numbers of Jews that surpassed other nationalities, and that the nation must place limits on

Jewish immigration. He admitted that this allegation resonated widely, influenced many

considering the virtues of the legislation, and infused the discourse with emotions rather than

rationale reasoning. As a result, it became increasingly difficult to provide an adequate response.

He noted that Jewish-Americans represented approximately 3.4-4.0 million people of the entire

national population and argued that even if the vast majority of the 20,000 German refugee

children were Jewish it would have minimal impact upon the Christian majority. The number of

Jews in the United States had increased by only 282,000 over the previous 10 years. Lewis

315 “Statement of Mrs. Gertrude Foltz Zimand” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 105-106.

97

observed that “most of us cannot tell who is a Jew and who is not…”316 despite the opinions of

the unenlightened. Overtime, he believed, some of these refugee children would provide a major

contribution to the country that benefited all citizens. Antipathy to this immigration bill based on

the number of Jews admitted, he insisted, was un-American and ran contrary to the core of the

nation’s value system.317

Former Wisconsin Governor Philip LaFollette argued that the controversy of offering

refuge to German refugee children transcended religious persuasions. He was asked by Senator

William H. King (Dem., Utah) if the “reported horrors in Europe were overestimated.”318

LaFollette insisted, based on his recent travels within the Reich, that the magnitude of these

stories was grossly underrated. It was erroneous to conceive of this problem simply as an issue

affecting Jews and Christians. Rather, its impact and implications afflicted the population as a

whole.319

Helen Taft Manning, the Dean of Byrn Mawr College and the daughter of former

President William Howard Taft, was one of the more pre-eminent figures selected by Pickett to

appear before the Joint Hearings. She presented two contrasting views of immigration. While

speaking before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on the issue of amending the Neutrality

Act, Manning described herself as a vehement isolationist who accused the Roosevelt

administration of pursuing an “unneutral national policy” of “bullying tactics”320 that risked

316 “Statement of Read Lewis, Director, Foreign Language Information Service” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings,

101.

317 “Statement of Read Lewis,” 102. The mission of the Foreign Language Information Service was to provide

“education and organization of foreign-born” American citizens.

318 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Christian Notables,” April 22, 1939.

319 Ibid.

320 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “Assails Administration,” April 21, 1939, 1.

98

dangerous entanglements within European Continental affairs. She argued that the United States

could do little to counter the abhorrent actions of dictatorial regimes and cautioned that

liberalization of the quota system threatened domestic employment. The admission of German

refugee children, however, was a different matter as it satisfied the demands of charity while

emulating the actions of the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and France. Additionally, it

supplied a pool of children who, Manning believed, would evolve into useful and productive

American citizens.321

Douglas Carroll was the Dean of the School of Commerce of the University of North

Carolina who also addressed the Joint Hearing as an individual, invested in the role of an

educator and businessman. Although he cited some of the oft-mentioned guarantees of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill he contended that the infusion of young foreign refugees into the South

represented a boon for the region that counteracted, to a degree, the diversion of earlier waves of

European immigrants from Southern states to other parts of the nation. Carroll believed, but

advanced only anecdotal comments, that Southerners ardently approved the legislation, an

opinion countered by opposition witnesses. Perhaps the most telling moment of his appearance

was the ominous question posed by Congressman Charles Kramer of California: Should the

20,000 children be deducted from the annual 27,370 allotments granted to Germany and Austria?

Carroll did not believe that such a reduction should occur, but the echoes of this inquiry

_________________________________

321 “Statement of Mrs. Helen Taft Manning, Dean, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA., April 21, 1939 Joint

Hearings, 141-142. Manning was the sister of Republican Senator Robert A. Taft and a national board member of

the U.S. division of the Women’s International League for Freedom (WIL). Its American branch was established by

Jane Addams during World War I. Manning believed that the Neutrality Act, which was designed to limit the

chances of American involvement in foreign wars, should be strengthened, particularly in regard to the ongoing

Sino-Japanese War.

99

reverberated throughout the many presentations inimical towards any modification of the

existing immigration laws.322

A number of celebrities and popular figures testified before the Joint Hearings. The

actress Helen Hayes, presenting herself Mrs. Charles MacArthur, claimed that her role as an

“American mother”323 qualified her to bear witness. Although she spoke as an individual, she

believed that her words reflected the sentiments of other mothers who had both natural and

adopted children. The Wagner-Rogers Bill served as a moral precept to her own children as she

strove to raise them free of racial bigotry. The lessons learned were fostered by actions rather

than insignificant words. Passage of the bill would demonstrate to her children that the United

States had disavowed racial bigotry, violence, and persecution. Hayes observed that the state of

affairs of German Jewish and non-Aryan children was apparent to the young members of her

family who were old enough to comprehend the newspapers. She was unable to understand how

the country could not follow the lead of European nations in rescue operations. The fact that

parents were seeking their child’s resettlement abroad, with its potentially permanent separation,

provided the “most moving evidence of the immediate need of those little children. I beg of you

to let them in.”324 Hayes commented at a meeting of the New York City Conference on the

Émigré and the Community that she had received numerous acrimonious letters challenging the

plan following her Congressional testimony. She attributed this attitude to an arrogant sense of

322 “Statement of Douglas Carroll, Dean of the University of North Carolina” in the April 22, 1939 Joint

Hearings, 152-155.

323 “Statement of Mrs. Charles MacArthur (Miss Helen Hayes), Nyack, N.Y” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings,

70.

324 Ibid., 71.

100

self-righteousness coupled with a “willful misunderstanding of realities that disturb[ed] their

peace of mind.”325

The proponents of the Wagner-Rogers Bill concluded their testimonies before the Joint

Hearing on April 22. Clarence E. Pickett, returned as the penultimate witness before the

committee and reiterated, via the insertion into the Congressional Record of letters received from

notables across the country, the litany of rationales for the adoption of the immigration measure,

and its inherent guarantees. Review of these correspondences demonstrated broad and

unanimous support from labor unions such as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union

(ILGWU) and the Charleston, South Carolina chapter of the United Miners Union.326

Individual espousals of support were submitted as well but in the overall scheme these

letters were, perhaps, counterproductive, in that they indirectly highlighted the absence of the

backing of larger groups or organizations to which the writers belonged. The President of the

Northampton, Massachusetts-based Smith College, W.C. Nelson; Robert M. Hutchins, the

President of the University of Chicago, and Ray Lyman Wilbur, President of Stanford

University, collectively praised the goals and mechanisms of the Wagner-Rogers Bill but did not

acknowledge any support from their Boards of Trustees, Faculty, or Alumni Associations.

Almon R. Pepper, the Executive Secretary of the Department of Christian Social Relations of the

National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, offered his singular and unofficial

endorsement. Finally, James E. West, Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America,

325 Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, “Helen Hayes Continues Plea for Child Refugees,” May 19, 1939, 3.

326 The ILGWU attempted to minimize the Jewish identity of a large percentage of its membership and directors

by highlighting Nazi persecution of Catholics and Lutherans. The union supported the entry of refugees fleeing

Germany. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue, 34-36. Political conditions and ever-present anti-Semitism led the

ILGWU to temper its call for immigration. Although it supported the Wagner-Rogers Bill it endorsed the admission

of a “reasonable number of refugees from persecution.” ILGWU, Report and Record, 24th Convention, May 27-June

8, 1940, 343, 614, 619 in Kelner, “Limits of Consensus,” 322.

101

similarly attested to his advocacy of the Wagner-Rogers Bill, but carefully indicated that his

organization had not adopted a positive stance. He claimed that his personal motivation stemmed

from the 1909 White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children and as an orphan he

felt a special accountability and connection to the German refugee children.

On a higher plane, however, Pickett declared that the lives and vitality of Americans were

deeply intertwined with the fate of the refugee bill. Communal failure to confront such suffering,

he admonished, stripped the country of “one of the richest and greatest privileges”327 endowed to

the people of an independent nation: the right to religious and racial freedom. Pickett argued that

the admission of German refugee children was a reaffirmation of that principle and the long-

standing practice of offering haven, rescue, and the chance for a new life.328

Senator Wagner opened and now closed the pro-bill presentations. He emphasized, the

involvement of Clarence E. Pickett, the American Friends Service Committee, and the

membership of the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, who engaged with

Dr. Marion Kenworthy and other notable experts in the field of child-welfare and care. This

relationship provided the construct with increased credibility. In addition, children were

positioned not as competitors for jobs, but as consumers who could stimulate the economy and

employment. Wagner also inserted into the Congressional Record a last-minute flurry of letters

that represented a cross-section of pro-bill advocates. The majority of these communications

expressed personal endorsements of the bill but few provided collective approval. Various

clergymen from Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal Churches offered their

individual support but did not speak in the name of their respective denominations. The faculty

327 “Further Statement of Clarence E. Pickett, Executive Secretary, Non-Sectarian Committee for German

Refugee Children” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 174.

328 Ibid., 169-175.

102

of Wellesley College regarded the young émigrés as the bearers of a “rich cultural heritage”329

that would augment the intellectual and social milieu of subsequent generations. Lewis Merrill,

General President of the 46,000-member United Office and Professional Workers of America,

declared his union’s support for the Wagner-Rogers Bill; a beneficent act that adhered to the best

of established American values. Samuel Levine, the Manager of the Chicago Joint Board of the

thirty thousand member Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, proclaimed its approval of

a charitable deed that emulated the Kindertransport. The Jewish profile among these letter

writers was negligible to non-existent. This omission may have represented a purposeful strategy

to minimize the Jewish background of the majority of the refugee children and to lower the

Jewish community’s profile in the campaign to win passage of the immigration legislation.330

Analysis of these witnesses’ testimonies demonstrates a uniform adherence to the tenets

and terms of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The text of S.J. Res. 64 and the H.J. Joint Resolution

placed stipulations on the age-range and number of children to be admitted, imposed financial

and child-care guarantees, and work restrictions. Assurances were given that existing

immigration laws were to remain unchanged outside of this one-time exception. and strict

adherence to entry physical and mental standards would be maintained. Continued under filling

of the yearly quota coupled with a net loss of immigrants countered the charges that the country

was being flooded with refugees. The ultimate power to grant admission remained within the

purview of American consuls. It was repeatedly recognized that the fracturing families was

accelerating and that an increasing number of natural parents pursued the potentially permanent

evacuation of their offspring. The bill was not promoted as a Jewish rescue plan, but one that

329 Letters of support introduced into the Congressional Record by Senator Robert Wagner in April 22, 1939

Joint Hearings, 175.

330 Ibid., 174-182.

103

benefited both Jews and non-Aryans. Wagner framed the legislation as a moral response to the

events of Kristallnacht that was consonant with American traditional values, its longstanding

role as sanctuary, and as a concrete expression that the United States was attempting to do its

share in abetting a growing problem. The children selected for admission were regarded as

highly desirable for a nation whose birth rate was declining and in need of future productive and

loyal citizens. Supporters noted that foster homes were readily available and did not detract from

domestic adoptions due to the disparity between demand and supply. The requirements of the

nation’s needy children were not to be diminished.

The discourse between the adherents of the legislation and their Congressional

interrogators revealed undercurrents that threatened the approval of the Wagner-Rogers Bill.

Rep. Charles Kramer repeatedly returned to a critical question: should ten thousand refugee

children per year be deducted from the annual quota? Although discounted by members of the

committee, Representative Rogers, co-sponsor of the bill, readily stated that any refugee child

who was disruptive or unappreciative of their admission into the United States should and would

be deported. The nationally influential Rabbi Stephen S. Wise offered conflicted declarations to

the Joint Hearing that reflected the dilemma faced by many Jews in the United States: the

imperative to avoid any appearance of split loyalties and the need to be considered as an

American citizen rather than as an American Jew. Consequently, the verbal footprint of the

purported Jewish leadership within the country and its diverse Jewish community remained

conspicuously small. By design the case for rescuing German refugee children essentially

remained within the hands of its Gentile promulgators. British Jewish were compelled to follow

a similar strategy during the Kindertransport campaign. Although they had played a key role in

the initiation and development of this plan, it was recognized that Christian Britons harboring

104

anti-Semitic sentiments would reject the immigration program if it was perceived as primarily

benefiting Jews. Therefore, it became necessary for Anglo-Jewry to assume an inconspicuous

presence.

The anti-Wagner-Rogers Bill constituency called for benevolence at home and asserted

the primacy of American citizenship. Their arguments were arrayed across a landscape that was

marked by a belief in a particular form of Americanism, burgeoning isolationism, fear of aliens

and foreign ideologies, and anti-Jewish prejudice. The oppositional speakers presented

arguments that were, in many cases, the direct antithesis of those offered by the legislation’s

proponents, but were further shaped by new arenas of contention. The warning signs of failure

that were becoming apparent during the initial phase of the hearings gained increasing

momentum and greater form as time passed.

105

CHAPTER 6:

OPPONENTS

“The poorer and therefore more burdensome the immigrating Jews is to the country absorbing

him, the stronger the country will react.”331

“The influx of Jews in all parts of the world invokes the opposition of the native population and

thereby forms the best propaganda for the German Jewish policy”332

The adversarial phase of the Joint Hearings in many respects mirrored the arguments

presented by those that favored its enactment. Observers of the proceedings and readers of the

transcripts reported by the press witnessed two opposing sides that viewed the same details while

reaching diametrically opposite interpretations. Assurances provided by child-welfare experts

and the reputation of prominent supporters did little to assuage the fears of those who regarded

aliens and any modification of the quota system as a threat to the nation. This stage of the

committee’s work was also invested with more overt taints of prejudice towards immigrants in

general and Jews in particular. Unlike Wilbur LaRoe who functioned as floor manager for the

NSCGRC’s carefully selected presentations, there was an apparent absence of an overriding

authority that was selecting adversarial witnesses. As a result, some of the counter-arguments

seemed haphazard, although highly organized immigration restrictionist and nationalist

331 Message of German Foreign Ministries to officials serving abroad following Kristallnacht,” Nazi Conspiracy

and Aggression, VI (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946), 87 ff.

332 Ibid., “The Jewish Question as a Factor in German Foreign Policy in the Year 1938, Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, Berlin 25th January 1939, 83-26 19/1,” 93.

106

coalitions operated within a more regularized landscape.333 Nevertheless, their collective

criticisms resonated with diverse members of Congress and the public at large and significantly

reduced the likelihood of passage of the German Children’s Refugee Bill.

Mrs. (Sara Hawks) Edward B. Huling of Larchmont, NY, who described herself as the

representative of the Manhattan-based Board of Directors of the Allied Patriotic Societies (APS),

unofficially initiated the anti-bill phase of the Joint Hearings.334 She appeared to be a rather

impromptu and self-selected witness who interjected herself into the midst of proponent

presentations, and claimed to have only recently heard of the convening of the committee.

Huling admitted that she was unaware of the bill’s guarantees. She quoted the President’s

declaration that one-third of the nation’s children were “ill-fed, ill-clothed, [and] ill-housed”335

and insisted that America was incapable of functioning in the role of “Santa Clause when our

own people are starving.”336 She predicted that refugee children would aggravate unemployment,

strain social services and resources that rightfully belonged to underprivileged American

children, lessen the prospects of adoption, and further inundate the country with undesirable

European immigrants.337 Huling doubted members of Congress were cognizant of the total

333 A number of individuals, from the American Legion, Allied Patriotic Societies, and American Coalition of

Patriotic Societies, were well known on Capitol Hill, and had been heavily engaged in the debates surrounding and

the formulation of a number of restrictive immigration bills.

334 The APS was an amalgamation of 42 organizations subsumed under the rubric of the American Coalition of

Patriotic Societies (ACPS), directed by John Trevor, who later argued against the measure. See Appendix H for list

of APS leadership and member societies.

335 “Statement of Mrs. Edward B. Huling, Larchmont, N.Y., Representing the Allied Patriotic Societies” in April

20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 82.

336 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 21, 1939, “Wagner-Rogers Refugee Bill Backed at Hearing; 1,400

Adoption Offers Reported.”

337 “Statement of Mrs. Edward B. Huling,” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 82-85. This section lists the multiple

organizations of which she claimed membership, particularly those connected to the early years of the Republic such

as the Mayflower Descendants. Washington Post, Christine Sadler, “United States is Failing Its Children, President

Says—Democracy’s Future Rests on Them, White House Conferees Told,” April 27, 1939 in Congressional Record

107

number of foreigners that had entered the country to date, and cited the claim of John Cissel, the

chairman of the National Committee on Immigration, who declared that every passenger ship

arriving in the Port of New York City was transporting 550 refugees.338

This purported spokesperson for the APC suggested the admission of German refugee

children, separated from parents, subjected them to great adversity; an argument that resonated

throughout this phase of the hearings. When pressed by Representative Caroline O’Day, who

observed that many had been involuntarily parted from fathers and mothers who may already be

dead, imprisoned or exiled, Hurling harkened back to the unemployment thesis, particularly

emphasizing the joblessness of American youth. Michigan Democratic Congressman John

Lesinski alleged that the Patriotic Societies were seeking a singular goal: an absolute and

irremediable resistance to any modification of existing immigration law, no matter how limited

its scope. Huling attempted to temper this allegation of ideological rigidity by insisting that the

“100 per cent Americans”339 of these associations were unanimous in their animus towards any

bill that did not benefit the United States.340

_________________________________ Appendix, April 27, 1939, “Admission of Refugee Children,” 76th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 84, part 12, 1722-1723. The

phrase “ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed,” was frequently employed by FDR and reported in a number of news stories,

such as Dorothy Thompson’s November 2, 1937 column, “On the Record,” in which she referred to the President’s

comments during a press conference held on October 29, 1937. It also was a favored slogan utilized by a variety of

politicians, members of the public, and media writers.

338 The National Committee on Immigration had long supported immigration restriction. The Committee was

connected to the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, a nationalist patriotic society that came to favor a

total ban on immigration due to the “great danger” that the nation faced due to “unrestricted immigration.” The

Wilmington Journal (Wilmington, OH), December 13, 1905, 5; The Baltimore Sun, February 7, 1907, 7.

339 “Statement of Mrs. Edward B. Huling” cited in April 20, 1939, Joint Hearings, 85.

340 Ibid., 82-85.

108

Read Lewis, Director of the Foreign Language Service, disputed, although not by name,

the claims made by Huling regarding the numbers of immigrants entering the United States.341

He had, according to Pickett’s assistant, Agnes King Inglis, canvassed every member of the

House and Senate but was disheartened by the plethora of unfavorable responses.342 Lewis

emphatically argued that it was the adverse economic and social conditions precipitated by the

1931-1938 years of the Depression that provoked a net loss of immigrants. 374,767 had entered

but 411,626 permanently departed, resulting in a deficit of 36,859. The German refugees

totaling 45,952 admitted during July 1, 1932 to June 30, 1938, compensated for the number

leaving the country. He also challenged Huling’s assertion that 550 refugees arrived on every

passenger ship docking in the port of New York City. The annual combined quota for Germany

and Austria, if completely filled, amounted to 27,370, which translated to 500 arriving each

week. The entire yearly quota of 150,000, he insisted, was under filled, with only 15 percent of

the slots having been granted.343

Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Soffee, the official advocate of Michigan-based proponents of

the legislation, also impugned Huling’s opinions regarding the effects of familial separation. The

dangers of remaining within the Reich clearly outweighed the vicissitudes engendered by the

parting of the ways. She quoted a letter from a German mother that was paradigmatic of the

primal dilemma confronting persecuted parents: “Conditions are so dreadful” that only

341 “Statement of Read Lewis” cited in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 98-101.

342 Letter from Agnes King Inglis to Marion Sanders, NSCGRC, Correspondence, Marion K. Sanders (Box 1,

Folder 28), 2.

343 “Statement of Read Lewis” in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 98-101.

109

resettlement in a democratic land offered the possibility of a future life. “As for ourselves,” the

beleaguered mother somberly observed, only one avenue lay open: “suicide.”344

Francis H. Kinnicutt was the formal opening speaker in the dissentient chapter of the

Joint Hearings. His arguments were formulaic and, with few exceptions, were reiterated by

subsequent witnesses. He identified himself as the President of the Allied Patriotic Societies and

enumerated its multifaceted goals.345 The organization’s strength was centered within New

Jersey and the City of New York and functioned as an umbrella organization and informational

clearinghouse for its membership. One representative from each constituent society served on the

conglomerate’s board of directors.346 Kinnicutt, a Harvard University educated attorney,

delivered many speeches for the APC between 1920 and 1931 that promoted stringent

immigration restrictions and adoption of the National Origins Act of 1924.347 This legislation, he

declared, expressed the right of a nation to perpetuate the uniformity of its population by

preventing mass immigration.348 His efforts accelerated in 1926 when Congress was considering

344 “Statement of Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Soffee” in April 20, 1939, Joint Hearings, 87. Soffee spoke in the name

of individuals and organizations that numbered more than 500,000 citizens.

345 “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 183; “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt”

cited in May 25, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 134. The APS, a conglomerate of like-

minded organizations sought to counter anti-democratic propaganda emanating from the Soviet Union; the

preservation of “American ideals”; enforcement of the “letter and spirit of the Constitution”; and the facilitation of

“Americanization and assimilation” of native born and naturalized citizens.

346 “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt in April 22, 1939, Joint Hearings, 188.

347 Bernardsville News, July 6, 1939, 8. An analysis of the terms of the National Origins Act was provided by

Harry E. Hull, U.S. Commissioner of Immigration in “America’s Immigration Restriction Policy: An Official

Analysis of How the Law Operates,” Congressional Digest, May 28, 1928, 149-150.

348 “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt” in May 25, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,

134-135.

110

the admission of familial relations of assimilated aliens. He assumed the presidency of the anti-

Communist national association in 1929 until his death in July 1939.349

Kinnicutt disclosed that he had been directed by his Board to present the rationale for the

groups’ objections to the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He referenced a February 15, 1939 Board

resolution that was inimical to Senate and House Joint Resolution. It declared that all social and

welfare agencies were unanimous in their conviction that the integrity of the family unit must be

protected. In addition, the bill failed to provide sufficient monetary guarantees that the LPC

clause requirements were satisfied. Refugee children were future competitors for jobs that

rightfully belonged to Americans younger than twenty-five years of age and he predicted that the

entry of these children would inevitably lead to calls for the admission of parents and siblings

outside of the quota.

The APC’s president insisted that the proposed Wagner-Rogers legislation breached a

fundamental principle by awarding an unjustified and disproportionate percentage of the annual

quota to “one European state…to the prejudice of all others.”350 He argued that such a decision

must be subjected to public debate if action on the bill appeared to be progressing in a positive

direction. Similarly, Kinnicutt argued that the measure was at its heart not a rescue plan, as it was

not exclusively applicable to German children alone. Rather, any child currently residing within

or who had once lived in the Reich over the previous six years was eligible for consideration. As

a result, the German Refugee Children’s Bill violated the public trust and a core tenet of the

quota system that apportioned a legally mandated number of visas to each nation. Abrogation of

this principle seriously breached the principle of restriction, which had garnered the majority

349 Bernardsville News, July 6, 1939, 8.

350 “Statement of Francis K. Kinnicutt” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 184.

111

support of the two leading political parties and the American people. Therefore, he concluded,

that twenty thousand children could be derived from either Jewish or National Socialist families

and from any nationality or racial group. The net result was an augmentation of the annual

combined German and Austrian quota of 27,370, although he accepted that data provided by the

Bureau of Immigration that demonstrated a chronic under filling of this yearly allowance.351

Finally, he addressed the axiological objection of the APC to the legislation: “Strictly speaking,

it is not a refugee bill at all, for by the nature of the case, most of those to be admitted would be

of the Jewish race.”352

Kinnicutt alleged that the Wagner-Rogers Bill was another in a line of immigration

legislation that sought to fling open the borders that, if successful, ensured the total collapse of

the highly selective entry system. Resistance to these attempts, he believed, challenged the long-

standing and widely accepted tenet that reception of persecuted refugees reflected American

conventions and practices. He argued that if such a paradigm were true then logic required the

country to admit millions from Europe and Asia. However, since the enactment of the

Immigration Act of 1921 there had not been any liberal immigration bills successfully signed

into law.353

Kinnicutt concluded his presentation by emphasizing the central objections of the

American Patriotic Society to the Wagner-Rogers Bill. Immigrants, whether child or adult,

351 Ibid., 183-194. Kinnicutt attributed the deficit to the strict enforcement of the Hoover era LPC clause by

consular officials. On the other hand, he echoed Huling’s assertion that Jews represented the greatest proportion of

immigrants entering the United Stated during the 1935-1938 fiscal years with 1,000 per month arriving on the

Queen Mary and 600 per month on the S.S. Manhattan and her sister ship, the S.S. Washington.

352 Morse, While Six Million Died, 259.

353 Kinnicutt cited the failure of post-Great War legislation that attempted to orchestrate the admittance of 75,000

Armenian survivors of the Genocide of 1915, 25,000 Greeks displaced from former Ottoman territory, and the

repeal the National Origins Act. The APS president asserted that such actions ran “contrary” to public social and

economic interests.

112

threatened the employment of American born and naturalized citizens. Any abrogation of the

quota system risked inundation by the unwanted of Europe. The balanced principles that guided

the allotment system were under attack by domestic and foreign sources. The nation no longer

required cheap sources of labor for the development of the country. He did not refer to the needy

children of the United States as they were not a specific concern of the APC. Rather, its primary

purpose was the promotion and enactment of stricter immigration policies; an action that was

critically needed in the country.354

Attorney John B. Trevor, Sr., one of the leading protagonists in the anti-immigration

debate, appeared frequently before Congressional Committees where he was described as the

paramount lobbyist for restriction.” Trevor, in concert with the APS and leading members of the

eugenics movement, that included Madison Grant, Charles Stewart Davidson, and Harry H.

Laughlin, rendered key roles in the formulation and passage of the National Origins Act of

1924.355 His perceived antipathy towards the admission of aliens led Louis Adamic, a prominent

Slovene-American author and advocate for greater ethnic diversity, to declare that “if a man’s

love for his country [was] measurable by his detestation of all who have had the bad taste to be

born elsewhere, [then] there probably [was] no greater patriot in America today.”356

354 “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 183-194; New York Times April 23,

1939, 1, 34.

355 Margo Conk, “The Census, Political Power, and Social Change: The Significance of Population Growth in

American History.” Social Science History 8, no. 1 (Winter: 1984): 96; John B. Trevor, “An Analysis of the

American Immigration Act of 1924, “Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Intercourse and

Education, no. 202, September 1924; http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4907177?n=1&oldpds; Internet; accessed

November 5, 2017.

356 Louis Adamic, “Aliens and Alien-Baiters,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine 173 (June/November 1936): 566.

Trevor served during the Great War and post-Armistice period in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division

(MID) gathering information on alleged Jewish Bolshevik anti-democratic conspiracies. Such beliefs reinforced the

climate of anti-Semitism that pervaded the government and military. Joseph W. Bendersky, “The Jewish Threat”:

Anti-Semitic Policies of the U.S. Army (NY: Basic Books, 2000), 121.

113

Trevor served as the director of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies (ACPS); an

umbrella association that coalesced 155 fraternal, civic, and patriotic organizations that boasted a

collective membership of 2.5 million. He submitted to the Joint Hearing a resolution, adopted

during its January 24, 1939 annual convention that called for a ten-year ban on immigration to

allow for economic recovery, a 90 percent permanent reduction of alien admissions, and the

abolishment of visitors’ visas.357 Trevor claimed that the vast majority of American citizens

opposed the transformation of the United States into an “orphan society”358 that provided care for

destitute child refugees.359

The former MID operative described a frequently cited March 1939 Fortune magazine

opinion poll that asked whether the quota system should be modified in view of contemporary

European events. Eighty-three percent were against, 8.3 percent did not have an opinion, and 8.7

percent favored admission outside of the quota. This represented a marked increase of 67.4

percent in the level of opposition compared to a July 1938 Fortune poll. The publication claimed

that the survey’s purpose was to test the validity of a commonly held belief that American

tradition favored the granting of sanctuary to the persecuted of the world. The pollsters

concluded that the majority of those questioned endorsed immigration restriction by a margin of

10:1. This degree of resistance, they deduced, signified a resolution to the question of

liberalization of immigration policies. The findings highlighted the discordance between the

357 “Statement of John B. Trevor, Representing the American Coalition” in April 24, 1939 Joint Hearings, 215;

Wyman, Paper Walls, 85-86.

358 Washington Post April 25, 1939, 7.

359 Ibid.

114

expression of popular benevolence and a willingness to accept distressed minorities.360

Congressman Anton Frank Maciejewski (Dem., IL) contested the Fortune magazine’s

conclusion by noting that he had received 260 letters of support during one hearing day.

Representative Charles Kramer (Dem., CA) likewise recounted similar messages and observed

that the majority of writers who opposed the Wagner-Rogers Bill complained of its preferential

treatment of German and Austrian children. Representative Noah M. Mason responded that

supporters of the measure recognized the move as a one-time exception to a quota system that

was otherwise inviolable. Trevor agreed that the question of immigration remained unresolved as

measured by the activities of supporting organizations and statements of certain members of

Congress. Nevertheless, he believed that the matter of German refugee children was subsumed

within the broader issue of the admission of all refugees.361

The dissidence between professions of compassion and the disposition to provide refuge

was further illustrated by an earlier Gallup poll, which noted that while 94 percent and 97

percent criticized the Nazi treatment of Jews and Catholics respectively, moral condemnation did

not translate into a readiness to accept the victims of increasingly violent discrimination.362 A

Gallup Poll taken during January 1939 observed that 61 percent of American voters favored

360 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Poll Reveals Majority Here Would Bar Doors to Refugees: View on Jews Held

Static,” March 27, 1939. A Fortune poll was conducted in April 1939 to assess the degree of domestic anti-Semitism

and public opinions of Jews. It concluded that a multiplicity of forms of anti-Jewish hatred existed in the United

States. The New Republic, April 19, 1939, 293-294. Fortune magazine, a publication of Henry Luce and an offshoot

of the business section of Time, employed the pollster Elmo Roper to conduct the “Fortune Survey” that sought to

challenge the dominance of the Gallup Poll. Fortune expanded its reporting horizon from the realm of business and

finance to international affairs, particularly dealing with the rise of Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese imperialism.

Kevin S. Reilly, “Fortune Magazine,” in Robert E. Weir, ed., Class in America: An Encyclopedia, 3 volumes,

(Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 272.

361 “Statement of John Trevor,” Joint Hearings, 215.

362 “Voyage to Doom” Arthur D. Morse Heritage Vision, http://paperpen.com/heritage/350/look/look2.htm;

Internet; accessed February 17, 2008.

115

imposition of an economic boycott of Nazi Germany as a form of protest. A majority had

adopted a dispassionate stance towards the Reich until the dramatic events of the Anschluss on

March 12, 1938 when 62 percent believed that war with Germany was an inevitability. However,

despite feelings of sympathy or antipathy a majority of the public remained resistant towards any

modification of the quota system.363

The collection of polling data, subjected to detailed statistical analysis, was a relatively

new science during the 1930s. George Gallup established the American Institute of Public

Opinion in 1935 (Gallup Poll), which were published on the date data was disseminated to

subscribing papers. Elmo Roper founded Elmo Roper, Inc. in the same year, and conducted

surveys for Fortune Magazine. The polling information became available when a particular issue

of the periodical was printed.364 Both companies sought to obtain a representative sampling of

the voting public based upon a variety of variables: economic status, employment, membership

in the A.F.L. and C.I.O., educational level, age, political party affiliation, size of towns or cities,

rural or urban areas, region of the country, and timing in relation to specific events. Questions

posed were frequently repeated with alternative language. Panels, constructed of smaller sizes,

periodically would re-interview the same individuals and were regarded as being as statistically

reliable as large cohort sizes.365

363 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 12, 1939, “61 Per Cent of U.S. Voters Favor Boycott of Germany.”

364 “Gallup and Fortune Polls,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 4, no. 4 (December 1940): 704.

365 “Analysis of Poll Results,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 4, no. 4 (March 1940), 119-120; “Panel Studies,”

The Public Opinion Quarterly 4, no. 1 (March 1940), 122-128; “Analysis of Poll Results,” The Public Opinion

Quarterly 4, no. 2 (June 1940), 327-330. Economic status based on income was categorized as low, middle, upper,

and on the dole. Persons possessing a higher level of education were felt to be more likely to comprehend complex

issues and events. An age over forty years was labeled as “old” and affected by differences in educational attainment

and economic position. Individuals who were alive during the Great War were thought to harbor continuing hatreds

of prior enemies and disgruntlement with failure of the Wilsonian peace, whereas, those younger than forty were

viewed as more idealistic in outlook. Political Party Preferences were listed as Democratic, Republican, Socialist,

116

However, it was noted that the polling process was imbued with intrinsic problems that

potentially impacted the interviews and analysis: the wording of questions and its interpretation;

the inquisitor and subject’s knowledge and understanding of the topic under consideration; the

bias and political views of those conducting the encounter; potential of pressuring the

interviewee for answers; the tone and inflection of the questioner, and if the conversations were

held in private or in the presence of onlookers. Nonetheless, it was believed that the process

possessed sufficient authority to reflect broad and meaningful popular opinions.366

Trevor warned that the native-borne child must inevitably submit to the foreign-born due to

the power of their “race affinity.”367 The Nation concluded that Trevor tapped into domestic anti-

Semitic currents. While overt expressions of such rhetoric had not arisen during the course of the

Joint Hearings there was a nuanced and effectual argument being made that the Bill was at its

heart a Jewish measure designed to benefit Jewish children who would represent the bulk, or the

entirety of the German refugees admitted outside of the quota.368

Margaret Hopkins Worrell, the National Legislative Chairman of the Ladies of the Grand

Army of the Republic, expanded upon this belief. After acknowledging the usual objections, she

declared that these alien Jewish children viewed life and the world differently than the typical

American. Rep. Kramer reminded her that the bill included both Jews and non-Aryan Christians.

Worrell insisted that German Jews were the only group that was subjected to persecution within

the Reich but was again corrected by Kramer who replied that Catholics as well as Lutherans

_________________________________ and Independent. Employment was broken down into executives, factory labor, unemployed and “prosperous” and

“poor.”

366James Wechsler, “Interviews and Interviewers,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 4, no. 2 (June 1940): 258-260.

367 “Statement of John Trevor,” Joint Hearings, 223.

368 The Nation, “Wagner-Rogers Bill: Editorial,” July 1, 1939, 148, 3.

117

were targeted as well. She admitted that she may have misspoken but insisted that the lower age

limit be reduced to four years in order to ease their Americanization.369

John Thomas Taylor, a long-time lobbyist for the American Legion, recounted a resolution

adopted by the organization that opposed any immigration adjustments or the acceptance of

religious and political refugees. The Legion asserted that admission of these aliens posed an

internal threat to the nation and existing entrance barriers. Although the American public, and

particularly the clergy and the bill’s proponents, expressed sympathy for the sufferers of

oppression, it was alleged that such sentiments violated their primary duty towards the needy

American child. The Legion felt morally bound to aid the unemployed by seeking a ten-year

moratorium on immigration. Taylor raised the oft-repeated objections regarding entry of German

refugee children but significantly he introduced two new rationales for the group’s

obstructiveness: If conditions within the Reich were so dire then these immigrants must be

prioritized within the annual quota. He also anticipated that children received by the United

Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Belgium were ultimately to be transferred to the United States

with guarantees of permanent residency.370

A letter from J.E. Nieman, Educational Director of the Regular Veterans Association, to

Senator King, was introduced into the Congressional Record. The Regulars were, according to

Nieman, obstinately and fiercely opposed to the Wagner-Rogers Bill or any similar pieces of

369 Statement of Margaret Hopkins Worrell, National Legislative Chairman, Ladies of the G.A.R.” cited in April

24, 1939 Joint Hearings, 224-226.

370 “Statement of John Thomas Taylor, Washington, D.C., Representing the American Legion”

in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 194-197. A national campaign against immigration was mounted by the Legion in

1919 and continued over the subsequent decades. Aided by the American Legion Weekly, Annual Reports, and

articles within the press, it endeavored to persuade the public and Congress to defend “100 percent Americanism…

against alien influences.” Their efforts facilitated the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924. Bendersky,

Jewish Threat, 164.

118

legislation. Their resistance stemmed from two major sources. First, the granting of permanent

residency was regarded as a frontal assault upon America’s national-defense. The refugees were,

he argued, proponents of anti-democratic ideologies that would be disseminated across the

country via schools, churches, mass media, and transportation. Feelings of abandonment by the

government they had once served on the battlefield provided a second line of disaffection. The

Regular veterans denounced Roosevelt and the Congress for the appropriation of billions of

dollars to rebuild the nation’s military and infrastructure while continuing to pay the armed

forces low wages. Nieman claimed that FDR opposed military pay raises because it diverted

funds from unemployment relief. He noted that disabled veterans were paid meager pensions far

below the amount authorized by Congress, threatening themselves and their families with

poverty. Governmental support of aliens and their offspring through welfare and employment in

the Works Progress, Public Works, and Youth Administration, and other official bodies, was

regarded as a form of administrative discrimination against loyal Americans. Fears were

widespread among the active duty community that upon discharge from military service they

would enter the ranks of the unemployed and be unable to provide for their families. Although

the Association was sympathetic to the plight of beleaguered foreigners, Nieman argued that five

million Regulars believed that the needs of America and of Americans took precedence. The

issue of twenty thousand refugee children was merely a small side issue to the group’s

membership.371

Herman A. Miller, the National Secretary of the Patriotic Order of the Sons of America,

presented counter-arguments against the bill. Representative Noah Mason asked if Miller’s

371 Letter from J.D. Nieman, Educational Director, Regular Veterans Associations, Washington, D.C., April 19,

1939 to Senator King in April 24, 1939 Joint Hearings, 279-280. The Regular Veterans Association represented all

branches of military service.

119

organization was willing to charge the German refugee children against unused quota slots from

previous years. Immigration Commissioner Houghteling stated that for the previous six to eight

years approximately 80 percent of the total European quota remained unused. Consequently,

Mason asserted that if the refugee children were deducted from the German quota for a two-year

period then it represented only a small fraction of the total visa allotment. Miller was against

such a solution as he staunchly believed that the Wagner-Rogers Bill compromised the intent of

the National Origins Act and established a moral precedent that obligated the United States to

accept persecuted children from around the world. Although Miller was for “America, first, last,

and forever,”372 he stated that the Sons of America could accept a plan that prioritized German

refugee children within the established quota.373

Elizabeth Dilling, a “militant crusader,”374 became the primary figure of the women’s far

right movement during the 1930s. She actively campaigned against Communism, which she

believed was the result of an international Jewish world conspiracy that had ensnared Franklin

Roosevelt, his administration, and created the New Deal.375 Agnes Waters was a protégé of

Dilling and had been described as the most incendiary speaker among women’s activist groups

during the pre- and intra war years. She regularly appeared before Congressional committees and

became known for her disruptions and harangues of members of Congress. She habitually

accused the British and Jews of seeking to embroil the United States in European affairs, with

372 “Statement of Herman A. Miller, Easton, PA., National Secretary, Patriotic Order, Sons of America,” cited in

April 24, 1939 Joint Hearings, 233.

373 Ibid., 230-234.

374 Jeansonne, Women of the Far Right, 10.

375 Ibid., 10.

120

Roosevelt serving as the tool of the Jewish cabal that had been outlined in the infamous and

fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion.376

Waters described herself as a descendant of patriotic ancestors, the widow of a Great War

veteran, and the mother of two children. Her goal was to safeguard the sanctity of the “fruits of

our Constitution”377 for the current and subsequent generations. She dedicated her life to the

protection of the nation and the preservation of the people’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness; a goal endangered by the influx of masses of European persecuted minorities. Waters

insisted that German refugee children, cleaved from the “tender, gentle love of a mother,”378

were forever tainted by a legacy of malignity that obviated the necessary evolution into loyal

American citizens. The experience of persecution had shaped “seasoned veterans [and] the shock

troops of the revolution of tomorrow”379 that imperiled American democracy and she foresaw the

eruption of anarchy within five years of the bill’s passage. Ultimately, the preferential admission

of German refugee children granted a gateway to budding Stalinists and she denounced every

supporter of the bill as a de facto Communist. Prominent clergy who called for passage of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill were, in her view, functioning as a vanguard for a Red infiltration of the

nation. The committee did not ask Waters any questions.380

376 Ibid., 138, 142. Waters also described her membership in such organizations as the Mothers of America, the

National Blue Star Mothers, Mothers of the U.S.A., and We the Mothers Mobilize for America.

377 “Statement of Mrs. Agnes Waters” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 197.

378 Ibid.

379 Ibid., 197-198.

380 “Statement of Mrs. Agnes Waters,” 197-199; April 24, 1939 Joint Hearings, 272-272; The Courier-Journal,

June 2, 1939, 1; Washington Post April 23, 1939, 2.

121

An editorialist of a Danville, VA, paper took umbrage with Water’s comments as a

demonstration of “how blind some people may be to the immediacy of a great racial tragedy.”381

The writer warned that unless a carefully designed and executed project was undertaken for the

rescue of German Jews they faced destruction from physical violence or spiritual affliction. The

opinion piece included a poem written by a young Jewish woman, who having been “driven from

pillar to post,”382 denounced the United States for its failure to act:

This was one country you could get a visa for

This country of the gold.

The one unguarded frontier of them all;

The only one that had an open door.

The only one with quota still unfilled.

Where race and credo matter not at all.

Now, you’ve equal franchise with the dead.

To rot and fertilize for future days

Another culture man may use to breed

New variants on these their old injustices.383

Mrs. (Blanche) Charles Fuller Winter, a Detroit-based co-traveler of Waters, represented

the Young Americans, Inc., and claimed to have studied laws pertaining to children and child-

care over the previous twenty years. The child-care system, she argued, was inordinately

deficient and required widespread reform. The admission of German refugee children, Winter

believed, degraded the care of needy American children who deserved, by nature of their

nationality, priority. She postulated that these refugee children might become “communistic

children”384 who could potentially infect foster homes and American children. If the United

381 The Bee, Editorial, “From Pillar to Post,” June 3, 1939, 4.

382 Ibid.

383 Ibid.

384 “Statement of Mrs. Charles Fuller Winter of Detroit, Michigan” in April 22, 1939 Joint Hearings, 199.

122

States was to remain a republic, and if the citizenry were to retain their Constitutionally protected

rights, then “we have got to keep not only these children out of it but the whole damned

Europe.”385

James L. Wilmeth represented the Junior Order United American Mechanics (JOUAM),

an anti-immigration association that a vaunted a total membership of two hundred thousand,

including five Congressmen.386 Serving as the National Secretary of its governing council he

testified that the Order had supported immigration restriction since its inception, but denied that

it was opposed to the influx of Jews or Catholics. The organization was “purely an American

society”387 long engaged in the arena of child-care and education; concerns of which he

described himself as extremely knowledgeable. Nonetheless, Wilmeth could not understand the

decision of the Wagner-Rogers Bill’s sponsors to focus solely upon the distress and suffering of

specific racial and religious minorities, namely German Jewish and non-Aryan children. The bill

was, he concluded, a form of “class legislation”388 that unjustly privileged a particular group to

the exclusion of equally victimized Spanish and Chinese children as well as the entirety of

German children. The measure was an extraordinary example of governmental overreach in

which special legislative advantage was awarded to a unique assemblage; an act that was not

grounded in earlier rules or practices. Senator William Howell Smathers (Dem., NJ) accused

_________________________________

385 Ibid.

386 Robert Slayton, “Children in Europe are Europe’s Problem,” Commentary138, Issue 3 (October 2014): 46.The

JUOAM was founded in 1852 and was particularly strong in northern labor states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.

387 “Statement of J.L. Wilmeth, Representing the Junior Order of Unite American Mechanics” in April 24, 1939

Joint Hearings, 205.

388 Ibid., 207.

123

Wilmeth and the JOUAM of doublespeak and inconsistency in view of their long-standing

promotion of wholesale bans on immigration.389

When asked by the Senator if the patriotic society was willing to accept an amended

German Refugee Act if it became more inclusive, Wilmeth replied that “It would not [as] we

think this measure is unwise at the present time.”390 Rep. Kramer similarly criticized this

contradiction to which the Junior Order leader declared that misfortune could not serve as a

criterion for granting entry to one national group to the exclusion of others.

Wilmeth enunciated the rationale of his organization’s resistance to this exception to the

quota system. His fixed opposition to the admission of German Lutherans and Catholics as well

as Poles confirmed the obduracy of the group’s position against immigration. The Junior Order,

he insisted, ardently stood for the preservation of the 1917 and 1924 immigration laws,

legislation enacted at a time when jobs were more plentiful. Current economic conditions and

high levels of unemployment mandated such controls as protection for the American worker.

Representative John Lesinski enunciated again the yearly under filling of the German and

Austrian quotas. Wilmeth suggested that his national group could become more amenable to the

bill if the refugee children were deducted from the annual quota. If such a revision were

accepted, the society would cease its opposition and return to its usual activities.

Despite his avowed willingness to accept the admission of prioritized refugee children,

Wilmeth raised the oft-repeated fear that the Wagner-Rogers Bill contained a hidden agenda that

included the reunification of children with parents and siblings and the liberalization of

immigration laws, acts that could exacerbate domestic unemployment. He asserted that a crucial

389 New York Times, September 2, 1938. Smathers had sent his secretary, Harry Irwin Finley, to visit the Reich

and report back on the status of the relatives of Jewish constituents. He was informed that German Jews faced a

desperate situation.

390 “Statement of J.L. Wilmeth,” Joint Hearings, 206.

124

underpinning of the legislation was the attempt to prevent the dissolution of German refugee

families. Wilmeth did not believe that such a practice was inherently misguided but argued that

the “great bugaboo”391 in the implementation of existing immigration restrictions was the image

of the broken family; an emotional response that facilitated the entry of illegal aliens.392 The Bill

represented a potentially irrevocable breach in the Golden Gate. It marked an abandonment of

Congressional responsibilities owed the American people and he feared that once it began no one

knew where and how it would end.393

The American Immigration Conference Board, a non-partisan, nonsectarian, and non-

profit organization espousing nativism and restrictive immigration, released a flyer declaring that

“America’s Children are America’s Problem! Refugee Children in Europe are Europe’s

Problem!”394 John Cecil, the President and director of the Board, testified that the needs of

children in the United States superceded those of foreigners. “Americanism”395 demanded that

offers to provide foster care to German refugee children be consigned to the nation’s

impoverished progeny. The admission of foreign children, coupled with the diversion of critical

resources, must result in an upsurge in lawlessness, beggary, and despondency among America’s

youth. Cecil, as did other opponents, argued for the inclusion of the word refugee in the enabling

clause to block the entry of Nazi and other non-persecuted children.

391 Ibid., 208.

392 Ibid., 205-213.

393 Tampa Daily Times April 24, 1939, 2l. Jeremiah Cross, the chairman of the National Americanism

Commission asserted that American values dictated the maintenance and integrity of an intact home life and that his

organization was ardently opposed to the breaking up of families that must in undue sorrow. Wyman, Paper Walls,

89.

394 Slayton, “Children in Europe,” Commentary, 46.

395 “Statement of John Cecil, President, and Representing the American Immigration Conference Board, 92

Liberty Street, New York City” in April 24, 1939 Joint Hearings, 277.

125

Despite such textual modifications he predicted that if the Wagner-Rogers Bill was

subjected to a popular vote it would be decisively defeated. He claimed to have received more

than ten thousand letters over the previous four weeks that advocated an end to permanent

residency and inferred by extension the presence of widespread resistance to the German

Refugee Bill. The measure was also criticized for its focus on German refugee children alone.

Cecil also argued that the “sob-sisters”396 who supported the legislation on behalf of

humanitarianism were the same individuals and groups whose sentiments drew the United States

into the Great War for the sake of mankind. He emphasized the failures of the Treaty of

Versailles that threatened to involve the United States, once again, in complex European affairs:

preservation of democracy; self-determination for minorities, and the rehabilitation of Europe.

Instead, Communism, Fascism, and Nazism cast their shadow across the Continent and posed a

direct challenge to American democracy and ideals. Inter-ethnic conflict had generated the

greatest migration of refugees in recorded history but, Cecil insisted, America had met its

obligations. If German refugee children were to be admitted, then must be given precedence

within the quota. Comparing the calamity to that of a sinking ship, it was “children first. Let

adults stand beside.”397 As for the nation itself, the clarion call had to remain charity begins at

home.398

396 “Statement of John Cecil,” Joint Hearings, 278.

397 Congressional Record Appendix May 26, 1939 76th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 84, part 13, 2253-2254.

398 “Statement of John Cecil, President,” Joint Hearing, 276-278. Cecil also called for the admission of Spanish,

Chinese, and Ethiopian children but placed particular importance upon the “white children” of Ukraine who were

victims of widespread famine resulting from Soviet collectivization of private farms. Republican Senator William E.

Borah offered similar objections to the elevation of one nation over another when distress encompassed diverse

countries and peoples. St. Louis Star and Times, “Mr. Borah Opposes,” June 26, 1939, 14; Tampa Daily Times,

“Borah Opposes Refugee Bill,” June 21, 1939, 14.

126

The introduction of the Wagner-Rogers Bill set off a cascade of anti-immigration and

nativist legislation and discourse. Outspoken North Carolina Senator Reynolds regarded the bill

as impolitic because it breached the nation’s restrictive immigration laws but asserted “My heart

beats in sympathy for those unfortunate children across the seas, but my love and duty belongs

firstly to our children here at home.”399 Invited by a local chapter of the Daughters of the

American Revolution, he delivered a radio address that attacked Senate Joint Resolution 64. He

claimed that twelve million Americans were unemployed at that time with one-third younger

than twenty-five years.400 Six hundred thousand were entering the marketplace per year.

Joblessness, Reynolds claimed, was particularly affecting Eastern white women and African-

Americans who were paid 15-20 cents per hour. The children of eight million Southern

sharecroppers, the Senator asserted, were living in shanties, lacking proper nutrition, clothing,

medical care and education. He predicted that unemployment generated disaffection and crime

and charged that one-third of domestic lawlessness was committed by idle youth. The Wagner-

Rogers Bill must not be passed as America’s cardinal obligation was to provide for “her own

millions of ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed American children, the sons and daughters of

American fathers and mothers.”401 [Italics added] German refugee children would, in a matter of

five years, be entering the work force competing with the nation’s youth. He offered this pledge

399 Harold Ivan Smith, Eleanor: A Spiritual Biography; The Faith of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Woman

(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2017), 124.

400 Linda Levine, June 19, 2009, “The Labor Market during the Great Depression and the Current Recession,”

Congressional Research Service, 1-29; Irving Bernstein, United States Department of Labor, Chapter 5, “Americans

in Depression and War,” https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/chapter5.htm; Internet; accessed November

22, 2017; Robert A. Margo, “Employment and Unemployment, in the 1930s,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 7,

no. 2 (Spring 1993): 41-59.

401 Congressional Record Appendix, March 16, 1939, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 11, 1011-1012.

127

to the nation: “Our citizens, our country, first!”402 Although Reynolds professed his compassion

for the world’s orphans, he steadfastly declared that his commitment remained with those of

America.403

The United Daughters of 1812, composed of thirty-nine national chapters, adopted a

resolution committee report during its three-day annual convention that called for a five-year ban

on immigration and opposition to passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. National President Mrs.

Arthur J. O’Neill of Chicago noted, despite the efforts of the bill’s Gentile sponsors, that Jews

would be the primary beneficiaries of the legislation. She denied any personal animus towards

Jews, but claimed that the United States was at its heart a Christian country. Therefore, the

nation was duty bound to care for its own.404 P. Fioretti, the publisher of a New York City Italian

newspaper, warned that Jews were agitators who posed an immigration threat by seeking to

establish dominion over the majority Christians. The Jews were disloyal citizens who had

despoiled their native lands and plotted against their own governments; actions that cast them

into the role of refugee.405 Laura Delano Houghteling, the wife of the U.S. Commissioner of

Immigration and a cousin of FDR, remarked at a Washington cocktail party that “20,000

charming children would all too soon grow into 20,000 ugly adults.”406

402 Ibid.

403 Asheville Citizen-Times, “Reynolds Will Oppose Entry of Alien Orphans,” May 7, 1939, 10.

404 The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, April 28, 1939, “Daughters of 1812 Would Ban Immigration,” 9; Joint

Hearings cited in Paper Walls, 85-86. Many of these organizations that advocated for the needy children of America

engaged in generalities while avoiding specifics. Child-welfare experts had testified that the overall situation was

improving and asserted that the acceptance of refugee children could stimulate more attention to the wants at homes.

They also emphasized the discordance between the desire to adopt and the availability of children for adoption. The

Daughters of the American Revolution held similar views. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “D.A.R. Asks Rigid

Enforcement of Entry Laws,” April 21, 1939.

405 Grido Dell Stirpe (NYC), March 25, 1939 in Congressional Record, Vol. 84, part 4, 4546.

406 Moffat Diary, May 25, 1939 in Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 150.

128

The battle over the passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill was played out within a variety of

spheres. Multi-denominational members of the clergy served a crucial role in the conception,

initiation, and support of the German Children’s Refugee Bill. However, with few exceptions,

Christian churches as a whole did not exert their ecclesiastical influence to promote its adoption.

Many churchmen who signed the initial petition to the President calling for the admission of

persecuted Jewish and non-Aryan children clearly indicated in their testimonies before the Joint

Hearings that they spoke as individuals and not in any official capacity, a stance adopted by

many secular notables who testified before the Joint Hearing. Clearly, the passage of a one-time

exception to the quota system had to traverse a complicated and arduous path, on a plethora of

levels, if it were to be adopted. Subsequent events would test the formula that public intolerance

of Nazi persecutory policies would evolve into a willingness to accept refugee children or

challenge the veracity of long-held American traditions towards the helpless.

129

CHAPTER 7:

RECONSIDERATION: RETURN TO THE FINAL ROADBLOCK

THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION

The May 1939 decision of the Joint Committee to release the Wagner-Rogers Bill to both

Chambers for deliberation and voting was not the end of the story. Avra M. Warren, the Chief of

the Visa Division of the Department of State, advised Pickett that changes in the original text of

the legislation were necessary for its adoption. Significantly, he predicted that the bill’s final

amended version would grant German refugee children preference within and not an exception to

the existing quota; a fundamental change in the measure’s intent. Pickett believed that Warren’s

views reflected the recommendation of the Department and did not mirror the opinion of the

Congressional immigration committee.407 The National Executive Committee of the American

Legion reacted to the pronouncement of the Joint Hearing by urging its 58 national departments

and 11,580 local posts to voice their objections to their Congressional representatives.

The rising tide of opposition and its political ramifications prompted the House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization to hold a second inquest for further deliberations

on the issue.408 Indeed, the tenor of the new hearing was more confrontational, and earlier

407 Letter from A.W. Warren, Chief, Visa Division, Department of State to Pickett, May 5, 1939, Non-Sectarian

Committee, Correspondence, AFSC (Box 1, File 14), 24.

408 The Senate Immigration Committee conducted its own hearings, but the pubic spotlight focused upon the

House Committee. However, the decisions of both bodies determined the fate of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. See

Appendix I for list of members of House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization.

130

arguments for and against passage were revisited, expanded upon, and conjoined with fresh

allegations and stratagems. Chairman Samuel Dickstein, a Jewish New York Democratic

Congressman, who had previously promised Under Secretary of State George Messersmith to

block any new immigration bills, attempted to maintain order and focus. He accomplished these

tasks with varying degrees of success. The Immigration Committee’s sessions were marked by

repetition and redundancy, as many of the original speakers returned with the same messaging.

However, additional voices appeared that channeled the discourse into different directions.409

Joseph A. Padway, the legal counsel for the A.F.L., returned as the personal

representative of President William Green. The union leader reaffirmed his belief in the

humanitarian intent of the legislation, its stated guarantees, and in an April 30 letter to Senator

Wagner, his personal affirmation of its passage. He notably admitted that the leadership and rank

and file. had not taken positive action on the proposal, but he was certain that they were in favor

of its enactment. This lack of definitive unanimity set off a contentious debate between Padway

and certain members of the Committee. Rep. Henry O. Talle (Rep., IA), John Lesinski, and John

Z. Anderson (Rep., CA) questioned the extent of A.F.L. support. Although Green acknowledged

that he had offered his singular endorsement, Padway weakly argued that if he had penned his

name on the letter to Wagner as President of the labor organization then “unless there is contrary

action, you can take it as pretty definite evidence”410 that he spoke for the union as a whole.

However, Rep. William T. Schulte (Dem., IN), an A.F.L. member, declared that Green “only

_________________________________

409 Returning speakers included Rep. John. D. Dingell, Joseph A. Padway, Clarence E. Pickett, John Brophy,

Quentin Reynolds, Read Lewis, Francis H. Kinnicutt, John T. Taylor, Agnes Waters, John Cecil, and Rep. Edith

Rogers.

410 “Statement of Joseph A Padway, Counsel for the American Federation of Labor” in May 24 1939 House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 13-14.

131

represent[ed] us in a certain capacity”411 and could just proffer his personal judgment. He

reported that he had received hundreds of letters from union members that supported both sides

of the question. He admonished the leader to be more circumspect and not employ the name of

the union in his comments. Padway responded that although an official position had not been

assumed on the legislation Green had discussed the matter with its leadership. He suggested that

this purported discussion provided evidence of organizational affirmation, but Schulte

disagreed.412 Thus, the controversy over the standing of the union president and the strength or

weakness of his advocacy, challenged the oft-repeated assertion that the A.F.L. was staunchly

behind the German Children’s Refugee Bill. Such acrimony did not swirl around the positioning

of its rival, the C.I.O, which publicly acknowledged its endorsement.413

Rep. Charles Kramer inaccurately claimed that the Joint Committee had decided to

deduct the refugee children from the annual quota for Germany and Austria. Padway indicated

that the A.F.L. opposed such a step, but if adopted the union would be supportive. However, he

doubted that such a contingency would arise. Rep. A. Leonard Allen (Dem., LA) recounted the

union’s history of animosity towards immigration; an assertion confirmed by Padway who

admitted the A.F.L. had long favored exclusionary policies. He reiterated Green’s opinion that

the legislation was a routine immigration act and declared it was not organizational malfeasance

to campaign for its passage. Allen acknowledged the right of the labor group to make its own

determination but he for one was going to stand for America. Padway retorted that the union was

as loyal to the nation as the Congressman or anyone else. The critical difference that separated

411 Ibid., 14.

412 Ibid., 3-14.

413 “Statement of John Brophy, National Director of the Congress of Industrial Relations” in May 25, 1939 House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 91-96. Friedman, No Haven, 99-100.

132

the two, he insisted, was that the A.F.L. stood for charity and kindness whereas Allen did not. Its

national meeting was scheduled to convene in October 1939 and during the interim it would

continue to maintain the position that the German Children’s Refugee Bill was not an

immigration measure but a simple expression of humanity.

Rep. William R. Poage (Dem., TX) declared that any Congressional legislation, including

the Wagner-Rogers Bill, was laden with potentially unforeseen long-term consequences. For

example, public pressure could intensity to admit the parents and extended families of German

refugee children. Poage insisted that such a move would exacerbate unemployment and strain

domestic resources. Therefore, he argued the nation had the right to know the union’s position on

this potentiality. Padway replied that Congress was dealing only with a one-time specific bill and

if this question arose in the future then its members must confront it. Dickstein commented that

this action was currently not under discussion on Capitol Hill.414

Clarence E. Pickett, Chairman of the NSCGRC, returned to provide additional

clarification of the Wagner-Rogers bill and re-emphasized the deteriorating situation of Jewish

and non-Aryan children. He described the legislation as a “permissive bill only,”415 limited to a

very small number of refugees, which required the cooperation and agreement of American

consuls within Germany. The Quaker leader acknowledged the figure of twenty thousand

children was not a scientifically derived number but represented a manageable size that did not

necessitate the creation of additional supportive organizations. In addition, it reflected, he

believed, the absorptive capacity of the nation.416 He also referenced rescue operations then

414 “Statement of Joseph A. Padway,” House Committee, 3-14.

415 “Statement of Clarence E. Pickett,” House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, May 24, 1939, 16.

416 Ibid.

133

underway within certain European nations.417

Pickett asserted that concerns over the welfare of these German minority children had

spawned the creation of the NSCGRC. Failure of the nation to act made it a complicit participant

in their abandonment and conveyed a poor moral example to American youth. Significantly, he

noted that many domestic child-welfare agencies were underutilized. The Committee had not

solicited foster homes, but press coverage had generated approximately 2,500 letters offering

shelter and care. Public support, Pickett believed, resounded from shore to shore. The LPC

clause, he reaffirmed, had been satisfied through financial commitments, and taxpayer monies

remained well protected.

Representatives Poage and Kramer focused upon the vagaries of the term “satisfactory

guarantee [of] financial security.”418 The Congressmen sought clear and unambiguous language

that ameliorated such concerns. Pickett agreed and suggested the substitution of “assurance

satisfactory”419 to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, whose department would review the

validity of any monetary pledge of support. He noted that February 5, 1917, (e) 29.Sec. 3 (m), 39

Stat. 875 endowed her with discretionary power to permit entry of unaccompanied minors

younger than sixteen years if all statutory requirements were met. Individual attestations of

financial backing facilitated admission. The sponsor was obligated to provide the American

consul with proof of pecuniary responsibility, such as income tax returns and bank account

information. Details of organizational guarantees were yet to be completely formulated because

417 Ibid., 16-17. Numbers admitted: The Netherlands, 2,000; U.K. 1,500 with 150 arriving per week; Belgium,

1,500; Switzerland and France, 15,000-20,000; Sweden and Denmark had agreed to accept some children and

negotiations were being conducted between the NSCGRC and Norway.

418 Ibid., 20-21.

419 Ibid., 22.

134

it was a unique situation for the Federal Government, but it had to be sufficient to convince

Perkins that the LPC clause was fulfilled.420

Representative Lesinski injected the issue of Czechoslovakian children into the equation.

He recognized that the under filling of the 1931-1938 German and Austrian annual quotas had

created a deficit of 159,000 unused visas. Similarly, the Czech quota, with a total allowance

during this period of 30,244, had admitted only 8,060. Lesinski noted that a large percentage of

Czech children were non-Jews and suggested an expansion of the annual German-Austrian-

Czech quota to this limit per year. The Congressman opposed exceptions to the annual allowance

as long as it was underutilized. Conflation of Czech children with those from the Reich, he

believed, would accrue broader support for the Wagner-Rogers Bill, perhaps by diminishing the

perceived Jewishness of the legislation. Pickett responded that the situation of Czech children

was a complicated issue due to the Federal Government’s refusal to recognize German

occupation and annexation of Czech territory. However, the United Kingdom had accepted one

thousand Czech adults and children of whom 95 percent were Jews.421

Following Lesinski, Rep. Kramer again recommended that the twenty thousand German

and Austrian children be deducted from the authorized allotment. However, Pickett opposed both

proposals on the grounds that the premise of the Wagner-Rogers Bill “would be completely

obviated”422 if the refugee children were subsumed into the mandated quota. He believed that

420 Ibid., 20-24.

421 Ibid., 24-25. Pickett dealt with the issue of incorporating other nationalities into the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He

reminded the Committee members of the terms of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the need for a Congressional

amendment to modify the National Origins Act and other restrictive immigration legislation. He argued that the

situation confronting Spanish Civil War refugees was not as extreme as that of German Jewish and non-Aryan

children. Furthermore, he noted, that the situation was ameliorating for displaced Spaniards who were beginning to

return to the Iberian Peninsula.

422 Ibid., 25.

135

that the stark situation enveloping these children provided enough humanitarian justification for

the Congress and public to demand their admittance into the United States. Notably, Pickett

warned that the NSCGRC opposed adoption of the German Children’s Refugee Bill unless it

permitted the one-time increase in the 1939 and 1940 quotas. Otherwise, the plan was denuded

of its fundamental rationale. He concluded by admonishing that the tragedy unfolding within

Central Europe “threaten[ed] not only death, but a living death, to thousands and thousands of

children”423 of whom 40 percent were non-Jews. Rescue, he declared, represented a

reaffirmation of the future, a representation of American faith, and a concrete expression of

traditional national beliefs. The Quakers were, Pickett advised, “practical idealists,”424 who had

joined together with others to formulate a judicious and well thought out immigration plan that

did not pose any threat to the country.

Pickett confronted the issue of incorporating other groups of foreign children into the

refugee bill. He reminded the members of the Committee that U.S. immigration laws had barred

the entry of Chinese. Any modification of the National Origins Act and other restrictive

immigration legislation required a Congressional amendment. Pickett contended that religious

and racial persecution was not a problem in China and he did not believe that Chinese parents

sought the evacuation of their children. In regard to Spanish Civil War refugees the NSCGRC

director observed that 450,000 had entered France and 5,000-6,000 had been relocated to North

Africa. Mexico had agreed to accept 20,000 and 1,800 were then at sea en route to that country.

The AFSC had been providing aid to both sides of the conflict and to refugees housed in France.

The Society ascertained that local conditions in the Iberian Peninsula had become amenable to a

423 Ibid.

424 Ibid., 28.

136

slow infusion of refugees back into Spain. Overall, Pickett believed that the Wagner-Rogers Bill

was not a Jewish bill as it encompassed many Christians as well.425

Cheny Jones, a Yale-educated attorney with thirty-years experience working in the field

of social service and child-welfare, testified as an individual; “a voter and a father, and even as a

grandfather, and as the foster father of 550 New England children”426 and not as a representative

of the many organizations and associations to which he had belonged or currently served.

Although he lacked first hand experience inside Germany he was motivated to act by his

relationship with a young academician who had fled Vienna three days prior to his arrest by Nazi

authorities. Jones addressed the issue of the ability of the United States to absorb refugee

children: 1. Approximately 100,000 Americans suffered accidental deaths each year, of which 10

percent were children. 2. A large volume of letters had been received from people seeking a

foster child or one for adoption. 3. Demand for adoption of American children exceeded supply

and not all children were of the proper temperament suitable for placement. 4. Two hundred fifty

thousand children were currently under the care of foster parents and other agencies and

institutions. 5. Two thousand interconnected child-welfare organizations were able to expand

their operations by 10 percent. In addition, the Federal Children’s Bureau and the Child Welfare

League of America had an extensive footprint that spanned the nation.427

425 Ibid., 37-38. Pickett testified that 800,000 Jews and non-Aryans were in danger within the Reich. Children

younger than 14 years represented 100,000 of this group with non-Aryans accounting for 20-25 percent.

426 “Statement of Cheney Jones, Little Wanderers’ Home, Boston, Mass.” in May 24, 1939 House Committee on

Immigration and Naturalization,” 55.

427 Ibid., 54-71. Jones had served as President of the Child Welfare League of America, Massachusetts

Conference of Social Work, Division director of civilian relief in the American Red Cross, Member of the White

House Conference on Child Health and Protection in 1929-1930, and Mass. representative to an upcoming White

House Conference on Children in a Democracy; Chipman, “What Do You Think?”, 5.

137

The appearance of Katharine F. Lenroot, Chief of the Federal Children’s Bureau housed

within the Department of Labor, represented the first and sole appearance of a Government

witness during the dual Wagner-Rogers Bill hearings. Importantly, she testified as an individual

and not as a representative of the Roosevelt Administration. This led to a remonstration by

Representative Poage who asked the obvious question: How could the House Committee, and by

extension all members of Congress, expect to understand the official views of the Executive

Branch towards this immigration legislation? Lenroot deferred her answer to the purview of the

“usual channels”428 whose existence was denied by Poage. This silence of the White House was

consistent with its positioning during the July 1938 meeting of the Evian Conference, the

question of refugee immigration as a whole, and FDR’s unwillingness to expend political capital

for potentially little gain.

Lenroot agreed with Jones that the child-welfare system and the nation possessed the

capacity to absorb and maintain twenty thousand refugee children while meeting the needs of

Americans. She presented a Children’s Bureau report, “Protection of Children Accepted for Care

by Agencies,”429 which summarized state policies towards foster care and adoption. The services

offered were standardized with the exception of Nevada which lacked governmental agencies for

child-care. If admitted, Lenroot observed, the German refugee children represented a miniscule

fraction of 1 percent of all children under the age of 15 years, according to the 1930 census. The

“Report of the National Resources Committee on the Problems of a Changing Population”430

also stated that the percentage of children relative to adults within the total population was

428 “Statement of Katharine F. Lenroot, Chief, Children’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor” in May

24, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 71.

429 Ibid., 75.

430 Ibid., 76.

138

declining: 1900: 44 percent younger than twenty years; 1935: 37 percent; projection for 1980: 25

percent or less. Therefore, infusion of these refugee children benefited the country’s

demographics and expanded the pool housed in foster care by only 8 percent.431

The President of the University of North Carolina, Frank Porter Graham, was selected by

Pickett to appear as a witness for a cause that Graham readily supported. Offering praise of the

past and current relief work of the AFSC he suggested that passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill

served as a symbolic expression of America’s tradition of offering sanctuary for the

downtrodden. Chairman Dickstein took issue with this belief by arguing that the United States

had “never done the things we preach.”432 He noted that during 1938 only 42,000 immigrants

were admitted out of a total quota of 160,000. Each alien was granted entry only after being

subjected to multiple admission barriers. The nation, he believed, had not done its share in

confronting the European refugee crisis since the advent of Hitler to power in 1933. Graham

challenged the Congressman’s claim by citing the waves of immigrants that had come to

America throughout its history. The university president extolled the advocacy of the A.F.L. and

prominent clerics, but acknowledged that they functioned as individuals speaking without the

authority of their respective organizations.433

The Right Reverend John A. Ryan of the Catholic University had been a member of the

multi-denominational delegation that had gone to the White House to attempt to engage the

President in the German refugee problem. He anticipated little opposition to this project as it was

431 “Ibid., 71-77; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 23, 1939, “Christian Notables Back Wagner-Rogers Bill;

Approval by Subcommittee Held Certain”; http://www.jta.org/1939/04/23/archive/christian-notables-back-wagner-

rogers-bill-approval-by-subcommittee-held-certain; Internet; accessed September 21, 2016.

432 “Statement of Frank Porter Graham, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.” in May 24, 1939 House

Committee on Naturalization and Immigration, 43.

433 Ibid., 42-50.

139

an inherently humane act that entailed minimal cost to the country. He soon realized, however,

that a significant amount of resistance had arisen against the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He discounted

the argument that these children could worsen the unemployment situation as it would be four to

five years before the oldest came of age to enter the work force. In view of such a limited impact

he did not consider this issue to be a serious matter worthy of consideration. Ryan argued that

many who opposed this legislation desired an end to immigration and the expulsion of all aliens.

He reminded the Committee that every American was descended from foreigners who had

entered the country throughout its history. The number of children under consideration was very

small in relation to the total number of refugees allowable under the quota. Consequently, the

nation was morally obligated to provide beneficence and empathy. Of note, Ryan came to

Congress as an individual and not as a clerical representative of the organized Catholic

Church.434

Gaynell Hawkins, President of the Texas Social Welfare Association and Director of the

Civic Federation of Dallas, challenged the argument that benevolence was solely a domestic

affair. She criticized her home state for being extremely “niggardly in taking care of its own

children,”435 particularly poverty stricken sharecropping families. However, she admitted that

there were individuals and groups that strove to provide aid to needy Texas and persecuted

German and Austrian children. Hawkins cited a number of Dallas families willing to provide

foster homes; an act that compensated in a modest way, for a falling birth rate. Representative

Cliff Clevenger (Rep., OH) theorized that the decline was primarily affecting the more desirable

upper and middle classes due to strains of the Depression and birth control. On the other hand, a

434 “Statement of Right Reverend John A. Ryan, Catholic University, Washington, D.C.” in May 25, 1939 House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 87-88.

435 “Statement of Miss Gaynell Hawkins, President, Texas Social Welfare Association” in May 25, 1939 House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 89.

140

positive gain was evident within the lower class and those on the dole. This divergence of social

class birth rates was one of the variables that framed his vote on the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He

ignored the assurances provided by the NSCGRC that only the finest material for potential

citizenship was to be selected.436

Quentin Reynolds was an experienced reporter for Collier’s Weekly who returned to

Germany in the aftermath of Kristallnacht. He met, over the course of two months, with German

Jews and non-Aryans and reported upon his personal observations. Ominously, Reynolds

observed that Jewish and Christian children targeted by the National Socialist regime were

facing both starvation and disease. He was absolutely convinced that an unlimited pogrom

against the Jews was imminent. Chairman Dickstein inquired whether calamitous descriptors,

such as “a new slaughter [and] annihilation”437 were applicable. He affirmatively replied and

became the first witness in the entire Wagner-Rogers Bill proceedings to espouse, by employing

this particular language, such a dire warning. The journalist also predicted that many Lutherans

and Catholics, who were resistant to the governmental appropriation of their churches, would fall

victim to eradicative actions. Therefore, increasing numbers of Christian parents, he discerned,

sought the evacuation of their children. However, he anticipated that the majority of their

offspring would have become orphaned by the time they had left the Reich, obviating any

American concerns about the fragmentation of families, a need for parental consent to emigrate,

or future calls to preferentially admit their fathers or mothers. Reynolds projected that Jews

would represent 60 percent of the young émigrés with Gentiles comprising the remainder.

436 Ibid., 88-91. Hawkins referenced a Census Bureau report that the annual national birth rate had declined by

700,000 each year since 1931.

437 “Statement of Quentin Reynolds, Collier’s Weekly, New York City” in May 25, 1939 House Committee on

Immigration and Naturalization, 104.

141

Despite these portentous signs, the United States, he believed, could only accept as many refugee

children as were readily assimilable.438

The hearings of the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee provided

opponents of the Wagner-Rogers Bill with a second opportunity to restate their objections.

Clarence W. Brinser served as the salaried State Secretary of the one hundred fifty thousand

Fraternal Patriotic Americans and spoke in the name of the executive board of the JOUAM of

New York, New Jersey, and Virginia, as well as the Fraternal Patriotic Associations of

Pennsylvania and Maryland. Delegates and representatives met in convention on May 13, 1939

and accepted a resolution contesting the immigration measure. However, the declaration was not

subjected to a general vote of all members; similar to criticisms leveled against Green of the

A.F.L. Although sympathetic, it opposed any justification for an increase in the German quota

out of fear of intensifying joblessness. Brinser admitted that his organization had always been

inimical towards immigration, but significantly, it was willing to accept the entry of German

refugee children if they were given preference within the quota system. Although he agreed that

visas were under utilized and that there was a net loss of aliens, Brinser maintained that the board

remained antagonistic towards any expansion of the German immigration allotment.439

JOUAM National Secretary, James L. Wilmeth, had appeared before the Joint Hearings

Committee in April. He reiterated in May that his organization commiserated with the ill-treated

children of Germany, Spain, China, and other countries. Nonetheless, the group did not believe

that religious, racial, or political persecution justified passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He

438 ibid., 102-107; Kurt F. Stone, The Jews of Capitol Hill: A Compendium of Jewish Congressional Members.

(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011), 122.

439 “Statement of Clarence W. Brinser, Representing Certain Organizations,” in May 25, 1939 House Committee

on Immigration and Naturalization, 113-119.

142

theorized that if “suffering”440 functioned as the primary determinant for granting entry to

German Jewish and non-Aryan children then it should be equally applicable to other national

groups who, he believed, were subjected to greater degrees of torment. Colored by its long

history of advocating for restrictive immigration legislation, it remained averse towards any

liberalization of the quota system. His willingness to endorse their admission, however, was

contingent upon their deduction from the annual combined quota, although later comments

challenged this limited altruism.

Wilmeth cited press and other accounts emanating from Germany that only specific racial

and religious minorities were subjected to maltreatment as proof of the Jewish essence of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill. The National Secretary argued that Hitler employed the “manifest

oppression of a[n unwanted] minority”441 as a tactic to hasten forced emigration; a gambit that

could be emulated by Eastern European countries. He insisted that German Jews represented the

group that benefited the most from the legislation although they served as pawns in the Reich’s

quest for ransom, increased trade or other financial inducements. Wilmeth concluded that the

refugee problem was at its heart a Jewish issue and warned that foreign Jews could not be

successfully assimilated due to differences in language, culture, background, ideology and anti-

alien sentiments. Despite his admonitions and concerns about the breakup of families, Wilmeth

reaffirmed the JOUAM’s call for the complete cessation of immigration until the economic and

employment issues of the Depression had significantly improved.442

440 “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt, National Secretary, National Council, Junior Order of United American

Mechanics” in May 25, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 121.

441 Ibid., 123.

442 “Statement of James L. Wilmeth, National Secretary, National Council, Junior Order of United American

Mechanics” in May 25, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 119-134.

143

Francis H. Kinnicutt returned to the stage and repeated the bulk of his earlier objections.

While expressing empathy for German refugee children he asserted the United States was unable

to resolve the problem alone or violate its existing immigration laws. He noted the failure of the

Evian Conference to achieve its goal. Kinnicutt claimed that the country had admitted more than

100,000 refugees since the accession of Hitler to power in 1933 and that the rate was rising to

47,000 per year. Representative Lesinski questioned these figures by noting that only 17,868

German refugees had entered in 1938 and 59,664 during 1931-1938. Nevertheless, the APC

President appealed for a dramatic reduction, or preferably, a total suspension of immigration

until domestic unemployment had significantly abated. However, his organization was willing to

accept the German refugee children on the condition they were granted partiality within the

existing quota.443

The Director of the National Legislative Committee of the American Legion, Colonel

John Thomas Taylor, made his second appearance in the debate. He repeated his standard

arguments against the bill, but now declared that the veterans’ organization would terminate its

resistance if the German refugee children were given priority acceptance within the annual quota.

Paradoxically, however, he called for a complete cessation of all immigration for a minimum of

ten years. Rep. Kramer posited the idea of mortgaging future allotments as a means of avoiding

an overall increase in the number of immigrants, but the Legion leader surmised that this

maneuver established a dangerous precedent. He predicted that appeals to compassion must

inevitably result in the admission of the children’s parents.

443 “Statement of Francis H. Kinnicutt” in May 25, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,

138, 142. The spokesman for the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies similarly called for the preferential

granting of visas that would be subtracted from the annual quota. “Statement of R.J.C. Dorsey, Attorney at Law,

Washington, D.C., Representing John Trevor, President, American Coalition” in June 1, 1939 House Committee on

Immigration and Naturalization, 210-224, 244, 247.

144

Representative Poage introduced an amendment to the Wagner-Rogers Bill in which

refugee children were granted temporary visitors’ visas that remained in force until six months

beyond their twenty-first birthday when they became eligible to apply for permanent residency

and citizenship within the annual quota. Poage stressed that his plan did not expand the number

of visitors’ visas allowable per year nor the total number of aliens seeking entry. Children were

excluded from the work force and in due course would become acculturated in the nature of

American democratic dogma and culture. Current immigration law prohibited the admission of

parents until their children reached this age of majority. Poage held membership in the Legion

and disapproved of any alterations to the quota system. He intended to vote against the

legislation as written but was open to amending its terms in order to achieve its humanitarian

goals.444

Representative Allen, became increasingly exasperated by the seemingly endless debate,

and came to the crux of the matter: “We are either going to maintain the quota system or we are

not going to maintain it…[E]ither vote or not vote.”445 He personally believed that whether they

were admitted or excluded such action must be carried out within the quota structure.446

Inauspiciously, Dickstein cited a rumor that the decision to vote against the Wagner-

Rogers Bill had already been made: “[This] committee was pretty well controlled to kill this

legislation”447 and Congressional opponents already held “eleven votes in their pockets.”448 The

444 “Statement of Col. Thomas Taylor, Director, National Legislative Committee, The American Legion” in May

31, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 193-206.

445 Representative Allen, June 1, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 231.

446 Ibid.

447 Congressman Samuel Dickstein in May 31, 1939, House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 205.

448 Ibid.

145

Congressman observed that Taylor had not questioned the views of committee members who

belonged to the Legion. Dickstein claimed that he had discussed the issue with a number of the

organization’s members who endorsed the bill. He observed that those who resisted the measure

formullaically prefaced their objections by insisting it was not the result of prejudice or absence

of compassion. He proposed that the children be permitted to enter as students who were barred

from employment. After five years if they desired to remain in the United States they could

apply for citizenship via the quota. Otherwise, they were obligated to leave the country. The

Legion National Director objected to this approach as well and then expressed his core belief. He

remained highly confident that the bill was destined to fail and that the American Legion was

and remained opposed to the Wagner-Rogers Bill regardless of any modifications or

reformulations.449

J. H. Patten, representing the State Council of the JOUAM of the State of New York and

other societies, adopted a different tack in his objections to the Wagner-Rogers Bill. He accused

the legislation’s supporters of exploiting refugee children as a propaganda tool that endeavored

to destroy the quota system. Letters of support submitted into evidence constituted the “most

fraudulent propaganda.”450 Patten argued that any failure to amend the language of the bill to

specifically denote these children as members of persecuted religious, racial, or political

minorities permitted entry of Nazi offspring into the country and cast proponents of the measure

as “mere anti-restrictionists.”451 He carefully repeated Roosevelt’s comment, made during the

449 “Statement of Col. Thomas Taylor” in May 31, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,

193-206.

450 “Statement of J. H. Patten, Representing the State Council, JOUAM of the State of New York, and other

Organizations” in June 1, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 246.

451 “Statement of J.H. Patten, Representing the State Council, JOUAM of the State of New York, and Other

Organizations” in June 1, 1939 House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 232, 237. Rep. Caroline

146

April 26, 1939 Fourth White House Children’s Conference that the nation was ignoring its

underprivileged youth. Notably, he underscored the dearth of endorsement of the Wagner-Rogers

Bill by FDR, the Departments of State and Labor, the Inter-Governmental Committee on

Political Refugees, and by George Rublee, its executive director.

The Junior Order spokesman then reinforced one of the key provisions of the Evian

Conference’s invitation and concluding statement: “No country would be expected or asked to

receive a greater number of immigrants than is permitted by its existing legislation.”452 Patten

opposed Congressman Poage’s plan to mortgage future quotas via the issuance of visitors’ visas.

He interpreted the 1938 and 1939 Fortune magazine polls as confirmation that the public

sanctioned immigration restriction and predicted that if an exclusionary bill was submitted to the

House and the Senate it would be defeated by a 5:1 margin. Patten remained at odds with the

legislation despite its host of guarantees and the agreement to clearly define the term “refugee

children.”453

As other opponents had indicated, he regarded the bill as an expansion of the existing

quota by twenty thousand but conditionally offered his support if they were prioritized and

deducted from the annual quota.454 Wisconsin Republican Congressman John C. Schafer, on the

_________________________________ O’Day agreed that a corrective amendment could be written to delineate the identity of German children as

belonging to “the category of political, racial, and religious refugees, as defined by the Secretary of Labor and the

Secretary of State.”

452 Ibid., 244-246; Washington Post, December 14, 1938, 15.

453 “Statement of J.H. Patten,” House Immigration Hearing, 248.

454 Ibid., 242, 246, 249. In addition to referencing the usual set of objections Patten cited May 26 statements of

the Children’s Hospital to the House Ways and Means Committee and reports of the American Association of Social

Workers that, respectively, the Hospital, Community Chest, and local governments were unable to financially

provide for the wants of American citizens. Rep. Lesinski noted that an amendment had been introduced into the

Senate Immigration Committee that would require Czech, Polish, and Lutheran children to be included in the 20,000

children with Jews comprising 50 percent of the total.

147

other hand, viewed the focus on German refugee children as discriminatory as it neglected other

nationalities. He, like Patten, opposed the Poage amendment, but was against the breakup of

families. Schafer did not believe German refugee children deserved precedence within the quota

but “should take their place at the bottom of the waiting list”455 in order to avoid removal of an

individual who had been granted a visa.456

American Legion member Lowell M. Limpus, a political journalist, challenged Taylor’s

declaration that the organization was unanimous in its objections to the enactment of the German

Children’s Refugee Bill. He chaired a joint committee of members drawn from the Unknown

Soldier’s Post and the Ocha Memorial Post, N.Y. and was sent to Washington to counter a host

of fabrications made in the name of the Legion. He disputed Taylor’s earlier assertion that the

Bill had been assiduously discussed throughout all of the posts and that unanimity had been

reached. Limpus denied any personal role in national affairs and described himself as a mere

private “chosen by the gang to come down here and talk to our Congressmen.”457 He

acknowledged the decision of the two posts to establish a committee that was empowered to

clarify the “record about the Legion’s real position”458 on the issue; both decided to support the

Wagner-Rogers Bill. A combined meeting was convened that demanded Jeremiah C. Cross,

Chairman of the National Americanism Committee, personally explain why the Legion

proclaimed its organization had undividedly opposed the legislation when there were posts in

455 “Statement of John C. Schafer, A Representative in Congress from the State of Wisconsin” in June 1, 1939

House Immigration and Naturalization Committee, 265.

456 Ibid., 257-271. He believed the Wagner-Rogers Bill was unfair to Great War veterans who sought the

admission of foreign family members. He also called for refining definition of what constituted a child refugee.

457 “Statement of Lowell M. Limpus, Representing Unknown Soldier’s Post, No. 1124 and the OCHS Memorial

Post” in June 13, 1939 House Immigration and Naturalization Committee, 274.

458 Ibid.

148

favor of its passage. Cross admitted that neither he nor the National Executive Committee had

read the text of the Wagner-Rogers Bill and had not heard any testimony about it, but he insisted

that “for the sake of the Legion we have got to be quiet.”459 Limpus concluded that it was a “little

group of brass hats, taking care of one another,”460 who had made the decision to challenge a

legislative proposal that they knew little about.

Limpus and a Committee of Ten canvassed other Legion posts in his area and determined

that the majority responded affirmatively. They advised the Executive Committee that its

obstructionism ran contrary to the sentiments of the general membership and called upon

Congress to enact the legislation. He reported that many Legion members who belonged to labor

organizations, trades, and churches endorsed the measure. Limpus accepted the Poage

amendment and believed that the United States possessed the resources to take care of German

refugee children enmeshed in an extraordinary situation.461

Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers was one of two individuals who closed the House hearings

with a final pitch for the passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. She reiterated her reasons for

accepting co-sponsorship of the immigration legislation and provided supplementary information

and opinions. The legislator recognized that more could be done for needy American children,

but believed that efforts and the overall situation was improving. Rogers noted that, unlike

German parents who sought the emigration of their children, American parents were resistant to

459 “Statement of Limpus,” 280. R.J.C. Dorsey of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies had made a

similar admission that he had not read the terms of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. “Statement of R.J.C. Dorsey, Attorney

at Law, Washington, D.C., Representing John Trevor, President, American Coalition” in June 1, 1939 House

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 221.

460 “Statement of Limpus,” 280.

461 Ibid., 271-289. Limpus included in his presentation letters and telegrams from other posts affirming their

objection to the National Executive Committee for making false statements in their name coupled with support for

the passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill.

149

separations. She was hopeful that Hitler would fall from power, enabling the reunification of

German Jewish and non-Aryan families. The Congresswoman endorsed the Poage amendment

and believed the concept of mortgaging the quota facilitated its adoption, although the deduction

of children from the annual quota was inherently unfair to those who had been patiently waiting

for years to be granted a visa. Poage’s plan, however, affected only a few on the list as Rogers

and Rep. Noah M. Mason noted that these displacements were deferred from 7 to 18 years,

depending upon the initial age of the child.462

Howard A. Seitz, a Catholic legal counsel for the NSCGRC completed the public phase

of the immigration hearings. His goal was to summarize the case for and against the Wagner-

Rogers Bill. He stated that the avowed purpose of the National Origins Act of 1924 was to

dramatically restrict immigration, but Congress possessed the legislative power to make an

exception. This exemption reflected the time-honored tradition of generosity, tenderness, and

acceptance. Proponents claimed that the situation then existing within the Reich was singular in

its transformation of children into “victims of a planned program of extermination.”463 Public

pressure was mounting, he believed, for the United States to accept these Jewish and non-Aryan

children.

The bill would admit 10,000 children in 1939 and an additional 10,000 in 1940, under the

age of 14 years. The details and guarantees built into the resolution assured satisfaction of the

LPC clause, the mental and health requirements of immigration law, and the child-care standards

of state and local communities. The Departments of State and Labor were empowered to enforce

the terms of the bill. The reputation and actions of the AFSC garnered support from many

462 “Statement of Hon. Edith Nourse Rogers, A Representative in Congress from the State of Massachusetts” in

June 13, 1939 House Immigration and Naturalization Committee, 289-297.

463 “Statement of Howard A. Seitz, Brooklyn, N.Y., Assistant Counsel for the Nonsectarian Committee” in June

13, 1939 House Immigration and Naturalization Committee, 298.

150

Americans who shared their ideals. The NSCGRC arose out of this humanitarian milieu and

sponsored and guided the presentation of the bill with the collaboration of multiple individuals,

groups, and organizations. It received multi-denominational religious support and the advocacy

of a host of labor leaders, educators, business and professional associations, and opinion makers.

Newspaper editorials had been almost universally supportive across the nation.

Opponents of the bill offered a variety of reasons to vote against it. The legislation

supplied the means for the dissolution of the quota system and the later admission of refugee

parents and siblings. The bill unfairly focused upon Germany while ignoring other nationalities

at risk. Admission was detrimental to domestic employment and entailed the dissolution of the

family unit. America’s prime responsibility lay in the care of its needy children. Alien youth did

not embody a desirable group due to differences in language, culture, and potentially ideology

and religion.

Seitz attempted to respond point by point to these objections. The Wagner-Rogers Bill

functioned as an emergency measure; a one-time enactment that did not alter immigration law.

Children could, upon receiving citizenship, seek the admission of their parents and other family

members. This step did not increase the number of visa allocations but merely altered the

sequence of admission. The situation within Germany was extraordinary. Spanish children, who

had fled the Civil War, were expected to eventually return to Spain or seek haven in Mexico. At

least seven years were to pass before refugee children reached an age at which they could enter

the work force and during the interim they functioned as consumers of American goods and

services. The parents of needy American children were resistant to placement within the foster

care system. Leading child-welfare experts testified that passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill

would function as a stimulant to the provision of aid to the nation’s underprivileged children.

151

The Nazi regime was responsible for the splintering of family groups. German parental approval,

if available, was essential for selection of a child for resettlement.

Seitz concluded by expressing his unshakeable resistance to prioritizing young refugees.

He argued that it was inherently unfair and immoral to remove displace persecuted adults who

had been awaiting their opportunity to be admitted. This action transformed the intent of the bill

from a “humanitarian proposal into an act of needless cruelty.”464 He did, however, state that the

Poage amendment was regarded as a workable solution. The attorney asserted that the Wagner-

Rogers Bill was an uncomplicated and merciful expression that was consonant with “America’s

best.”465 The NSCGRC requested that the House Committee adopt a favorable position on the

bill.466

The Congressional public hearings had come to a close. The major debate had occurred

within the purview of the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee and continued

behind closed doors. Senate Immigration Committee deliberations received a lesser degree of

attention, but its impact proved to be critical. Opinions for and against the legislation flowed

through the pages of the press, but the fate of the Wagner-Rogers Bill lay within the hands of a

few individuals within the halls of Congress.

464 Ibid., 302.

465 Ibid.

466 Ibid., 297-303.

152

CHAPTER 8:

FAILURE OF THE WAGNER-ROGERS BILL

Overall, the Wagner-Rogers bill met an insurmountable wall of political and public

opposition to immigration as a whole. Four public opinion polls conducted during 1938

demonstrated that 71-85 percent of all voting Americans opposed any increase in the annual

quotas and 67 percent favored a complete cessation. Following Kristallnacht a National Opinion

Research Center (Gallup) Poll revealed that 94 percent of Americans were critical of the Nazi

treatment of Jews. However, sympathy was not transposable into humanitarian action: 72

percent were resistant to the entry of large numbers of Jews and 66 percent were ill-disposed

towards the one-time exception to the National Origins Act.467 A May 1939 Greater Cincinnati

“Jury of Public Opinion Poll” asked one thousand women, primarily housewives, the question:

“Do you favor the opening of the doors of the United States to a considerable number of

European refugee children who cannot now be admitted because of our immigration laws?”468

The essence of the legislation, the admission of twenty thousand German refugee children

outside of the annual quota, was not incorporated into the exchange. 77.3 percent expressed their

antipathy towards the plan, 21.4 percent sanctioned the bill, and 1.3 percent did not provide any

467 “Open Knowledge—Americans Did Not Like Immigrant Jews” June 16, 2006

http://crasch.livejournal.com/429343.html; Internet; accessed February 17, 2008. An October 1939 Gallup Poll

determined that in December 1938, 94 percent “disapproved” of the treatment of Jews within Germany and 97

percent were critical of the persecution of Catholics. “American Institute of Public Opinion—Surveys, 1938-1939,

The Public Opinion Quarterly 3, no. 4 (October 1939): 589.

468 Cincinnati Post in Congressional Record Appendix, 76th Cong., 1st sess., July 14, 1939, vol. 84, part 14, 3237.

153

answer. The pollsters concluded that the preferences of the jury members mirrored the general

public’s attitudes towards this issue. Clearly, the majority believed the implementation of the bill

opened the door for unbridled immigration and “for the American public no argument, even the

suffering of little children, justified such a change.”469

Nonetheless, Wagner remained optimistic that the legislation would be presented to the

entire Senate, albeit with a possible amendment that allowed inclusion of children from other

nations.470 However, the 76th Congressional Session of January 3, 1939-January 3, 1941 was

marked by a myriad of bills that sought to limit, temporarily halt or end immigration altogether.

Senator Robert Reynolds, an ardent nativist, called for a minimum of a ten-year cessation of the

admission of aliens until every American worker was assured of employment. He also proposed

the urgent and sweeping expulsion of a minimum of thirty thousand jobless aliens.471 The

Wagner-Rogers Bill, despite its guarantees that barred the refugee children from the domestic

work force, had to be defeated. America’s primary responsibility, Reynolds emphasized, was to

take care of its own citizens. The foreign children, Reynolds warned, were future competitors of

the urban poor for employment, potentially condemning “slum children to crime, poverty, and

hopelessness…”472 The Senator joined with other opponents of the legislation who predicted that

the Bill would ultimately lead to the admittance of parents, extended family, and thousands of

additional refugees outside of the immigration quota system.473

469 Ibid.

470 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 29, 1939, “Wagner Confident Refugee Children’s Bill Will Pass.”

471 Washington Post, “Reynolds to Seek Prompt Expulsion of 30,000,” March 6, 1939, 2.

472 Congressional Record Appendix, March 16, 1939, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 11, “Refugee Children,” Senator

Robert R. Reynolds, NC, Radio Broadcast, 1011-1012.

473 Washington Post, February 24, 1939, “Reynolds Denounces Child Refugee Plan,” 2.

154

A private poll of U.S. Senators conducted on March 24, 1939, asked the question: “Do

you favor passage of the Wagner resolution (S.J. Res. 64) permitting twenty thousand refugee

children under fourteen years to enter the United States in the next two years?”474 The results

demonstrated that for a significant portion of the Senate the immigration issue was politically too

risky to support.475 Out of 45 Senators willing to state their position 24 were against, 21 were

supportive, and 51 were undecided. Regionally, only 15 percent of Southern Senators, 25 percent

from the Far West and Northeastern States, and one-third of Midwest Senators endorsed its

enactment.476 Many refused to openly state their position, but admitted they were averse to

“letting down the immigration bars in any degree.”477 The NSCGRC interpreted these unofficial

remarks as prognostic indicators of the destiny of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The hesitant

politicians advanced a variety of rationales for their reluctance: domestic unemployment, the

economic burden that the nation might be forced to bear, the belief that other European countries

were contemplating forced expulsion of their Jewish populations, and the failure of the Evian

Conference to achieve any meaningful solution.478 Only 10 percent of Republicans and 25

percent of Democrats supported the legislation. Prophetically, the pollster concluded that the bill

had little chance of passage in the Senate.479

474 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, Congressional Poll (Box 2, Folder 23), 1.

475 Ibid. It was carefully noted that the editors of the Congressional Intelligence were entirely responsible for the

interpretation of the polling data. The Senators were classified as “Republicans, Progressives, Farm Laborites,

Independents, and Democrats.”

476 Wyman, Paper Walls, 82-83.

477 Non-Sectarian Committee, Congressional Poll (Box 2, Folder 23), 1. Appendix F: List of Senators, for ,

uncertain, or against the Wagner-Rogers Bill.

478 Ibid.


155

James Kepecs, a member of the NSCGRC, advised Clarence Pickett of a story penned by

the preeminent educator, author, and poet Henry Goddard Leach of the Daily News, which

reported that the Wagner-Rogers Bill had been purposefully “sidetracked”480 by the Senate

Immigration Committee and was essentially “deceased.”481 Kepecs noted that an influential

Chicagoan engaged in local politics had conferred with the two Illinois Senators, who, although

sympathetic and supportive, did not believe it was likely to be passed. Consequently, he advised

the Committee to consider alternative approaches, such as soliciting the government to grant

unused entry visas to the refugee children.482 The wife of former Supreme Court Justice Brandeis

asked Myron C. Taylor, the former chief U.S. delegate to and Chairman of the Evian

Conference, to publicly announce his support for the bill. He declined on the grounds that it

would detract from his efforts to raise funding for the resettlement of German Jewish refugees

abroad.483

Senator Robert A. Taft (Rep., OH) revealed his rationale for voting against the Wagner-

Rogers Bill in a letter written on June 28, 1939 to an adherent of the legislation. His reasoning

paralleled that of many of his Congressional colleagues who were against its adoption. He

viewed the situation of the German children with the “utmost sympathy; words that were

reminiscent of those expressed by diplomats at the meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee

480 Letter from Jacob Kepecs to Clarence Pickett, May 10, 1939, Non-Sectarian Committee, Correspondence,

AFSC (Box 1, File 14), 26-27.

481 Ibid.

482 Ibid.

483 Memorandum of conversation, April 19, 1939 and Messersmith to Moffat, April 14, 1939, RG 59, entry 702,

150.01, Bills 101/102 NARA in Breitman, American Refugee Policy, 150.

156

for Political Refugees held in July 1938.”484 Taft acknowledged that the humane desire to

provide aid to persecuted children was hard to ignore. However, political realities and national

concerns compelled him to repudiate any adjustment of current immigration laws.

Unemployment, he posited, was the consequence of pre-Great War European immigration that

secured a source of inexpensive labor for American industries. The throes of the ongoing

Depression mandated a restrictive immigration policy. America’s first and foremost duty was to

care for its own children, many of whom were suffering from the pangs and deprivations of

impoverishment. Foster homes earmarked for refugee children should instead minister to the

wants of the country’s needy offspring. Taft argued that there were not any assurances that jobs

were to become available for refugee children when they came of age, and if they were, then

twenty thousand young Americans would be bereft of employment. He denied that the United

States was failing to do its fair share to ameliorate the humanitarian conundrum within Germany.

America could not solve the problem by acceding to mass immigration due to the enormity of the

numbers involved and the unwillingness of other nations to accept more than token amounts.

Resolution of the situation, Taft argued, necessitated consideration of colonization within Africa

and Asia. He concluded his response by citing his belief in the preservation of the family unit but

ignored the reality that the demise of familial bonds within the Reich was escalating. He believed

that the pangs of separation from parents far outweighed the dangers of remaining together as a

persecuted and unwanted minority. After assiduously considering all the arguments for and

against the Wagner-Rogers Bill he decided that he would cast a vote against the legislation.485

484 Letter from Senator Robert A. Taft to Dorothy Fulton, June 28, 1938, Washington, D.C. in The Papers of

Robert A. Taft: 1939-1944, Robert Alphonso Taft and Clarence E. Wunderlin, eds. (Kent, OH: Kent State University

Press, 2001), 53.

485 Ibid. The idea of colonization of German Jews within Africa, Asia, Central and South America was widely

held by Roosevelt and the British Government. The regions selected were typically undeveloped and required the

157

Washington Democratic Senator Lewis Schwellenbach summarized the political benefits

of opposing immigration during a conversation in 1940: It served as the “best vote-getting

argument in present day politics.”486 The office holder “can beat his breast and proclaim his

loyalty to America”487 while explaining to the unemployed citizen “that he is out of work

because some alien has his job.”488

However, it was the Senate sub-committee’s amendment of the bill (although the original

measure had been passed out of the Joint House and Senate Sub-committee with the majority of

its members in favor of its adoption) that effectively killed the legislation. The revision that was

introduced by Senator Reynolds and Georgia Democratic Senator Richard Russell, the chairman

of the Senate Immigration Committee, called for the inclusion of five anti-alien plans that

mandated a five-year moratorium on immigration, the registration and fingerprinting of all

aliens, and the deduction of the twenty thousand refugee children from the annual quota for

Germany and Austria. Reynolds had earlier sought to introduce more stringent immigration

restrictions: a total ban on immigration for ten or more years, until employment was assured for

all jobless Americans.489 Russell declared that an “increasingly strong sentiment”490 to halt all

_________________________________ creation of costly (subsidized by private resources) and long-term projects that could only accommodate small

numbers of refugees.

486 Philip Perlmutter, Legacy of Hate: A Short History of Ethnic, Religious, and Racial Prejudice in America.

(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), 188.

487 Ibid.

488 Ibid.

489 Friedman, No Haven, 32-35.

490 New York Times, “Bill to Shut Out Aliens is Reported,” July 1, 1939, 3.

158

immigration due to economic conditions had been progressively evolving within popular

opinion. This proscription, he argued, was reflective of a global movement of similar attitudes.491

The Senate sub-committee contended that the Reynolds-Russell amendment represented

“a humanitarian gesture of sympathy [that enabled] these 20,000 children…living in Germany

under tragic conditions to find a home.”492 Its report also stated that the decision to admit these

refugees was a response to a dire emergency but, while acknowledging the persistent under

filling of the combined German and Austrian allotment, it declared its intransigence to any

amelioration or erosion of the quota system.493

The Wagner-Rogers bill was favorably reported out of the House Committee on

Immigration and Naturalization on June 23 and the Senate Immigration Committee on June 26,

1939 in an altered form that deducted the refugee children from the annual quota, a change that

fundamentally altered the intent of the legislation. Subsequently, on June 30 Wagner withdrew

the bill, declaring that the amendment was entirely deplorable to him and the countless

supporters of the compassionate scheme that lay at the core of the measure. The Senator reported

that Clarence Pickett had informed him that the members of the Non-Sectarian Committee

ardently rejected this modification and preferred having “no bill at all”494 than accept a markedly

revised version.

491 Ibid.

492 “Temporary Prohibition of Immigration of Aliens,” Senate Report, 76 Cong., 1 sess., no. 757 (July 11, 1939)

cited in Wyman, Paper Walls, 92.

493 Chicago Sentinel, “Senate Committee Backing Refugee Bill Cites ‘Emergency,’” July 20, 1939,” 27.

494 “Statement of Senator Robert F. Wagner of N.Y. on Senate Immigration Committee Action Concerning

Wagner-Rogers Resolution,” July 3, 1939, Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children,

Correspondence, Senator Robert F. Wagner, (Box 2, Folder 2), 16.

159

The Senator shared this sense of moral outrage because the deduction effectively

converted a charitable endeavor that sought to provide aid to children in extremis into a

“proposal with needlessly cruel consequences”495 for persecuted adults who had successfully

secured entry visas. Wagner declared that the Senate subcommittee’s final vote had been

deliberately convened when a portion of its membership was absent. The New York Senator

futilely called a for a re-vote when a full quorum was present, but admitted that he was willing to

accept a variation of the Poage plan that mortgaged temporary visas against the annual quota

when the refugee child reached the age of twenty-one. This action, he affirmed, did not breach

the quota limitations but did satisfy the acute exigencies of an urgent situation. Wagner noted

ironically, that the reformulated version of the bill permitted the entrance of children

unaccompanied by their parents, despite the oppositions’ claims regarding the sanctity of the

family unit.496

Representative Caroline O’Day observed that in spite of expressions of a staggering

amount of sympathy within the public arena, few in the Senate and House supported the bill. She

criticized those members of Congress who allowed the issue of unemployment to dissuade them

from providing assistance to the suffering children of the Reich.497 Newsweek’s columnist

Raymond Moley chastised Congress for its “groveling before the prospect of a peaceful invasion

by 20,000 children.”498 He criticized the Senate for changing the terms of the Wagner-Rogers

495 New York Times, “Congress Wind-Up on or Near July 15 is again Predicted,” July 3, 1939, 1, 4.

496 “Statement of Senator Robert F. Wagner,” July 3, 1939, Non-Sectarian Committee, 16. for German Refugee

Children, Correspondence, Senator Robert F. Wagner, (Box 2, Folder 2), 16. See Appendix I for list of Senators who

voted for, against, or were undecided.

497 Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, “See Little Hope for Passage of Wagner-Rogers Bill This Session,” July 21,

1939, 3.

498 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Raymond Moley, “Let the Child Refugees In,” 20.

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Bill and the inertia of the House Committee on Immigration; actions that ran counter to the

emotive pleas of the measure’s supporters. Moley challenged the assertions of the legislation’s

opponents: risk of the children becoming public charges, a threat to American employment and

the need to take care of America’s own first. The writer asserted that the situation of the German

refugee children was unparalleled in the desire of their own government, as a matter of national

and ideological priorities, to actively pursue their expulsion from the country of their birth.

Moley, however, laid the bulk of the blame at the feet of specific Congressmen and Senators who

were “itching to burn verbal fiery crosses.”499 The proponents of the bill, he argued, needed to

ignore demagoguery and focus upon the irreproachable nature of their campaign and place trust

in the common sense and integrity of the American people. He pressed for passage of the non-

amended form of the bill as it reflected the country’s generosity and innate humanity.500

An editorialist from the St. Louis Star and Times took issue with Congress for failure to

pass the Children’s Refugee Bill and declared that the Senate amendment “destroy[ed the bill’s]

significance.”501 The writer noted that if the American public was stunned by the melodrama of

the S.S. St. Louis “aimlessly sailing the Caribbean while search for a place of rest,”502 then the

United States was morally obligated to provide in a limited fashion the asylum offered by the

United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, and Belgium to a smattering of unfortunate German

children.503 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch derided Russell, and the Senate Immigration Committee

499 Ibid.

500 Ibid.

501 St. Louis Star and Times, July 17, 1939, Editorial, “Pass the Wagner-Rogers Bill,” 14.

502 Ibid. The S.S. St. Louis was a Hamburg-Amerika passenger liner carrying more than nine hundred Jewish

refugees to Cuba who were denied the right to land, sending them and the ship on an odyssey through the Caribbean

and the East Coast of the U.S. Roosevelt refused to allow entry.

503 Ibid.

161

he chaired, for unfavorably altering the bill; an act that was reprehensible to its sponsors. The

paper argued that peril faced by these German children superceded the general immigration

question. The Iowa Williamsburg Journal Tribune maintained that the majority of Americans

were undeterred by the polling data and ascribed its failure to Congressional “quibbles and

quabbles and hesita[tion].”504 Actress Helen Hayes, a member of the National Non-Sectarian

Committee for Refugee Children, addressed a group of Hollywood celebrity advocates of the bill

and asserted that the “adjournment of Congress was the only reason for lack of favorable

action…”505

The collapse of the emergency legislation was the product of many detractors. Politicians

opposed to the act were driven by myriad concerns: re-election, popular opinion, unemployment,

the introduction of anti-democratic ideologies, national security, nativism, isolationism, latent

and overt anti-Semitism, and fear of the Other.506 The witnesses selected by the Clarence E.

Pickett and the NSCGRC were carefully chosen for their prominence, expertise, and experience.

However, many of them spoke not in the name of an organization but as individuals; a move that

diminished the power of their supportive arguments. This was particularly true of respected

members of the clergy, especially of the Catholic faith.

The institution of the American Catholic Hierarchy (ACH) and its National Catholic

Welfare Conference (N.C.W.C.) did not, despite personal professions of support from leading

_________________________________

504 Williamsburg Journal Tribune, September 7, 1939, “Interesting News from Here and There,” 8.

505 Los Angeles Times, “Film Workers to Support Bill Admitting Refugee Children,” August 4, 1939, A.

506 George F. Lewis, Jr., “The Congressmen Look at the Polls,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 4, no. 2 (June

1940): 229-231. The author set out to determine if public opinion polls, a relatively new technology for its time,

influenced the voting decisions of Congressmen and Senators. The data suggested that a considerable percentage of

legislators were influenced by the polls or believed that it affected the judgment of their peers.

162

members of its clergy, officially endorse the rescue legislation.507 Neither did they provide

authoritative witnesses to testify before the Joint House and Senate hearings. The N.C.W. C.

began to confront the issue of forced emigration from the Reich in 1933. However, its response

was framed by two fundamental principles, which, in the context of the German Children’s

Refugee Bill, appeared to be incompatible. The first was the commitment to provide charitable

aid and comfort to those in need. The second was the preservation of the integrity of the family;

the font from which, it was believed, flowed the country’s political, social and economic unity.

The pursuit of these goals was tempered by the necessity to proceed carefully to avoid resistance

from anti-immigrationists, both within and outside the halls of Congress.508

Various Catholic and Protestant clergymen and lay activists intermittently raised the issue

of involuntary expatriation from the Reich. For example, Father Raymond McGowan of the

N.C.W.C.’s Social Action Department, Professor Carlton Hayes of Columbia University,

Michael Williams and George Shuster, the founders of Commonweal magazine, established the

Christian Committee for German Refugees during 1936. Their intent was to spotlight the

precarious situation of Christian and political refugees from Germany.509 The Bureau of

Immigration of the N.C.W.C. attempted to facilitate the entry of Catholic refugees via the annual

507 Prominent Catholic Clergy who were involved with the delivery of a petition to Roosevelt calling for

admission of refugees and later testified as individuals before the Joint Hearing were Bishop Bernard Sheil, Rev.

Maurice Sheey, Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, and Right Rev. John A. Ryan. The ACH, comprised of Cardinals,

Archbishops, and Bishops, “constituted [a spiritual] elite for whom there is no parallel in other American religions

and few parallels in the structure of business and government.” The N.C.W.C. provided the administrative apparatus

for the Hierarchy that was composed of various departments and committees. John D. Donovan, “The American

Catholic Hierarchy: A Social Profile,” The American Catholic Sociological Review 19, no 2 (June: 1958): 98-112.

508 Bruce Mohler, Director of the Bureau of Immigration, N.C.W.C, “To the Honorable Chairman and Members

of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives;

https://cuomeka.wrlc.org/files/original/d2c761610c0db21e82b9584a47815c1d.pdf; Internet; accessed March 3,

2018.

509 America, “The German Refugees,” June 23, 1934, 243-244; America, February 22, 1936, “German

Refugees,” 464-465.

163

quota system.510 Calls for mutual cooperation and assistance from Catholic relief organizations

within the Reich and The Netherlands led the American church leadership to establish the

Episcopal Committee for Catholic Refugees from Germany (C.C.R.) during November 1936.511

Following the establishment of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees

(P.A.C.P.R.), the State Department requested that the N.C.W.C. select two Catholic

representatives to serve on its board. Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel of New Orleans and Louis

Kennedy, the President of the National Council for Catholic Men, were chosen for this

position.512 Ultimately, the C.C.R. successfully resettled seven thousand Catholic refugees in the

United States between 1936-1946.513

The Hierarchy and members of the N.C.W.C. were cognizant of the bounds placed upon

any refugee rescue project. The Roosevelt Administration and Congress apparently were not

disposed to permit significant numbers of coerced émigrés to enter the United States. Any efforts

to promote such a scheme risked enactment of more stringent anti-immigration legislation. Louis

Kennedy recorded that FDR, during the opening session of the P.A.C.P.R., informed its members

that his Administration was constrained by the terms of the existing quota system and refused to

510 Memorandum from Bruce Mohler to Monsignor Michael Joseph Ready, General Secretary, N.C.W.C.,

November 16, 1936, Folder 8, Box 64, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Executive Department/Office

of the General Secretary (OGS), American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives (CUA).

511 Correspondence between Father Hans Anscar Reinhold, a German priest opposed to Nazis and right-wing

Catholicism, and Boston Cardinal William O’Connell, September 10, 1936, and J. Schmutzer of Katholick Comite

Voor Vluchtelingen, October 12, 1936, Folder 2. Box 63, Minutes of N.C.W.C. Administrative Board Meeting,

November 16, 1936, Folder 8, Box 64, Folder 8, OGS, CUA; “German Refugee Aid,” The Commonweal, July 30,

1937, 336; Jay P. Corrin, “H.A. Reingold: Liturgical Pioneer and Anti-Fascist,” Catholic Historical Review 82, no. 3

(July 1996): 436-458.

512 Letter from Ready to Rummel, April 2, 1938; Ready to Sec. State Cordell Hull, April 5, 1938; and Rummel to

Ready, April 12, 1938, Folder 7, Box 83, OGS, CUA,

513 Haim Genizi, America’s Fair Share: The Admission and Resettlement of Displaced Persons, 1945-1952

(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993), 11-12.

164

seek any Congressional modification of the allowable limits; sentiments expressed during the

formulation of the Evian Conference.514

The centrality of family unity in the social, political, and economic arenas significantly

impacted Catholic Hierarchical responses to the problems of immigration and refugees. The

National Origins Act, with its fixed allotment of entry visas, proscribed the abilities of families

to enter the United States as a collective body. Consequently, during the 1920s and 1930s

Catholic social activists and staff members of the N.C.W.C.’s Legal and Immigration Bureaus

unsuccessfully argued before Congress for legislation that amended the visa system in a manner

that enabled the restoration of separated families.515 Its sanctity was, according to Cleveland

Bishop Joseph Schrembs in 1927, the symbol of the “natural and sacred union between husband

and wife and children.”516

This principle colored the official Catholic response to the perplexing German children

refugee issue. Rummel advised Bishop Bernard Sheil that the Wagner-Rogers Bill lacked

Congressional support; an opinion shared by members of the P.A.C.P.R. He cited comments of

British Lord Rothschild before the Presidential Committee that the United Kingdom had received

five thousand children, but was hesitant to accept more due to concerns over finances,

socialization and assimilation. Most of the children were housed in camps or hostels and not

within private homes. The prospect of an absolute and irrefutable separation from parents and

other family members, coupled with the increasing unlikelihood of a future reunion, complicated

514 Memorandum from Louis Kennedy, April 13, 1939, 2.

515 E.P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American immigration Policy, 1798-1963. (Philadelphia: University

of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 201, 203.

516 Letter from Bishop Joseph Schrembs to the Senate and House delegations from Ohio, February 24, 1927,

Folder 10, Box 121, OGS, CUA.

165

problems of adjustment. Nonetheless, although Rummel expressed constrained support for the

Wagner-Rogers Bill he pledged his continued engagement with this enterprise.517

Wilbur LaRoe submitted a letter from Sheil to the Joint Hearings in which the Bishop

identified himself as a representative of the Chicago Archdiocese, George Cardinal Mundelein,

but not as a spokesman for the official Catholic Church. His statement was succinct and mirrored

the supportive comments of other witnesses. The bill served both practical and symbolic

functions: the provision of a safe haven in which the ideals of the “ways of peace”518 and the

“paths of righteousness”519 could be instilled. Importantly, Sheil noted that the proposal did not

mandate the acceptance of twenty thousand children. Ten thousand per year was merely a

maximum. Parental consent was required but he acknowledged that the schism of the family by

Nazi policies obviated such permission. He declared the United States was obligated to fulfill its

share to preserve the inviolability of the lives of innocent children.520

Marion Kenworthy of the New York School of Social Work, frustrated by Rummel’s

apparent reticence to promote the Bill, contacted Ben V. Cohen, a Jewish Presidential advisor

working for the Department of the Interior. She asked was it possible, “for the love of God,”521

for Cohen to identify someone who possessed enough influence to motivate the leadership of the

517 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, March 13, 1939, Wagner-Rogers Correspondence,

Clergy (Box 2, Folder 34), 37-38.

518 Letter from Bishop Sheil in name of Cardinal Mundelein read before House Committee cited in May 25,

1939, House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 86.

519 Ibid.

520 “Statement of Bishop Bernard J. Sheil, Member of the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee

Children,” letter read by Wilbur LaRoe, cited in April 21, 1939 Joint Hearings, 108-109.

521 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, March 28, 1939, Wagner-Rogers Bill,

Correspondence, Clergy, (Box 2, Folder 34), 14.

166

N.C.W.C. to publicly express unconditional support?522 Archbishop Rummel demonstrated his

ardent belief in the consecration of the family unit, a potentially significant hindrance to the

resettlement enterprise, in a letter sent on April 11, 1939, to Clarence Pickett in which he made

two incongruous statements. On the one hand, he reaffirmed his signature on documents that

certified his support. On the other, he reiterated the Catholic Church’s fundamental opposition to

the separation, perhaps on a permanent basis, of refugee children from their parents, siblings,

grandp7arents, and others; the core components of the basic family entity.523

Monsignor Michael Ready, the General Secretary of the N.C.W.C and a member of the

P.A.C.P.R., was approached by Pickett to support the bill. The cleric disputed assertions that the

level of Jewish persecution within Germany warranted admission of refugee children.524 Justine

Wise Polier recalled that she and her father, Rabbi Stephan Wise, believed that Cardinal Francis

Spellman of New York, a member of the P.A.C.P.R., “had no feeling for helping or lifting his

finger due to his own prejudices.”525

Alternatively, Reverend Maurice Sheehy, Head of the Department of Religious Education

of the Catholic University, downplayed the importance of preserving familial cohesion by

accentuating the immediate needs of the persecuted child. While restating some of the common

522 Peter Arrupe, “Mexico Plays Host to Spain’s Kidnapped Children: Tragic fate of the five hundred ‘saved’ by

the Communists,” America, May 21, 1938, 150-153. Reports of the emotional trauma suffered by Spanish Catholic

children evacuated to Mexico because of the ongoing Civil War may have reinforced Rummel’s belief in the

necessity of maintaining the integrity of the family. The fundamental difference between the two situations,

however, is that Spanish immigrants would be able to return to their homeland. German Jews, stripped of

citizenship, forcibly expelled, and facing physical harm and death could not return to Germany as long as the Nazi

regime remained in power.

523 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, April 11, 1939, Wagner-Rogers Bill,

Correspondence, Clergy (Box 2, Folder 34), 15, Letter from Archbishop Rummel to Pickett.


525 Jason Berger, A New Deal for the World: Eleanor Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy (NY: Social

Science Monographs, 1981), 24.

167

arguments in favor of the Wagner-Rogers Bill, he insisted that the moral concerns of

humanitarianism sufficed as a stand-alone rationale for supporting the legislation. Essentially

Sheey believed that Nazism was a transient phenomenon, a “temporary insanity,”526 that would

collapse of its own accord, leading Germany to make the proper expiations to its victims.

However, unlike other speakers, he warned that repudiation of the measure reified Nazi ideology

and emboldened the Reich to pursue broader and harsher measures.527

Many Catholics were critical of the attention given to the Jews of Germany while

ignoring other examples of inhumanity. An opinion columnist in the Catholic journal America

argued that the United States and Europe were afflicted by a “moral and spiritual crisis of the

first order”528 that stemmed from the religious and political persecution of minorities. The writer

asserted that over the previous three months at least a dozen news reports castigated the

maltreatment of Jews by Hitler while briefly commenting upon Nazi abuse of German Catholics.

However, the persecution of Catholics within Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union was met with

silence. The editorialist alleged that after a protest meeting had drafted and accepted resolutions

condemning the oppression of Jews in the Reich a motion was introduced to adopt a similar

statement of sympathy with beleaguered Christians in Russia. However, this call was answered

by a fury of protest and the issue was dropped. Significantly, the author concluded that a nation

526 “Statement of Rev. Maurice Sheehy” in April 21, 1939, Joint Hearings, 110.

527 Ibid., 109-113. Catholic and other denominations of Christianity anti-Semitism also played a role in attitudes

towards the Wagner-Rogers Bill. Father Coughlin, the Radio Priest, began broadcasting in 1926, became a dominant

anti-Jewish voice throughout the 1930s, and was ultimately taken off the air in 1942. Mary Christine Athans, “A

New Perspective on Father Charles E. Coughlin,” Church History 56, no. 2 (June: 1987): 224-235. “American

Institute of Public Opinion—Surveys. 1939-1939,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 601. A January 1939 Gallup Poll

estimated a listening audience of 15,000,000 defined as “one or more broadcasts.” “Regular” listeners numbered

3,500,000. 67 percent of regular listeners and 51 percent of occasional listeners “approved” of what he said.

528 “Persecution and False Liberalism,” editorial, America, December 31, 1938, 300-301.

168

which castigates persecution “except when Catholics are the sole victims, is neither ‘liberal,’

Christian, nor American…”529

Another critique blamed the Communists and Socialists for the exile of approximately ten

thousand Basque children to the United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and the Soviet Union.530 One

America columnist argued that national meetings held to protest Nazi anti-German policies were

designed to involve the United States in a war with Germany, while simultaneously “religious

groups, reputedly Christian”531 were calling for the shipment of arms and munitions to the

Loyalist faction in the Spanish Civil War. The writer accused the press of suppressing or

minimizing the crimes committed against Catholics by the anti-religious and socialist

governments of Spain and Mexico.532

The further conflation of Jews with socialism, Communism, and Roosevelt’s New Deal

added to the negative imagery of Jews and the belief in a Jewish world conspiracy, and fueled

the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Father Charles E. Coughlin, the Radio Priest of Royal Oak, Michigan

and others.533 Followers of Coughlin organized the Christian Front,534 a group laden with Fascist

529 Ibid.

530 “The Tragic Plight of the Basque Children,” America, June 5, 1937, 198; Paul McGuire, “Basque Children

Exiled While Basque Mothers Weep: Saddest tragedy and greatest crime of Spain,” America, April 9, 1938, 4-5.

The editorial and article raised the issue of the effects of the fragmentation of the family.

531 Paul L. Blakely, S.J. “Nazi Atrocities and the American War Fever: Are we preparing for war with

Germany?” America, December 3, 1938, 202-203.

532 Ibid.

533 Athans, “A New Perspective,” Church History, 224-235.

534 Leonard Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism in America (NY: Oxford University Press, 1994), 120. The Front was

established in November 1938 as a reaction to an edition of Coughlin’s paper, Social Justice, in which he called for

a “crusade against the anti-Christian forces of the Red Revolution.”

169

overtones, that physically assaulted Jews, boycotted Jewish businesses, and labeled them as

“’warmongers”’ who sought to draw the United States into war with Germany.535

Other prominent Christians, (or those who claimed to be members of this faith) espoused

anti-Semitism in America. The Protestant fundamentalist evangelist Gerald B. Winrod, the

“Jayhawk Nazi”536 and head of the Defenders of the Christian Faith promoted a “conservative

[and] patriotic”537 brand of anti-Semitism during the 1930s that employed the Protocols of the

Elders of Zion. His magazine, The Defender, had 110,000 subscribers and many of his supporters

voted for his unsuccessful 1938 Senatorial campaign in Kansas. William Dudley Pelley was the

national leader of the Silver Shirts, an avowedly Christian group that endorsed his conception of

“’Liberation Theology,”538 an amalgam of “Christianity and mysticism,” that raged against the

Jews for their supposed domination of the United States. 539 Gerald L. K. Smith was the

535 Ralph L. Kolodny, “Catholics and Father Coughlin: Misremembering the Past,” Patterns of Prejudice 19, no.

4 (1985): 15-25. Tampa Tribune, November 30, 1938, 6. An editorial labeled Coughlin as a “peril and danger” due

to his radio broadcasts.; Time, January 9, 1939, 34. Article drew comparison between Coughlin and Joseph

Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment and accused the priest of plagiarizing one of

Goebbel’s speeches for a radio broadcast; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 26, 1939, “2 Anti-Semitic

Agitators Get 75-day Jail Terms Here.” Two members of the Christian Front were indicted and sentenced for

inciting violence against Jews. An anti-Semitic flyer was dropped over Los Angeles claimed that Henry

Morgenthau, Jr., the Jewish Secretary of the Treasury was using government money for his own and Jewish foreign

interests; Jews manipulated the price of gold, and controlled the Federal Reserve Banking System, Hollywood and

the entertainment industry, production of liquor, wholesale and retail business; Jews were linked to the armaments

industry and were behind the arms race; non-Jews were enslaved by Jews; FDR and his administration were

Communist supporters controlled by too many Jews in government. Letter and anti-Semitic flyer sent by Helene F.

Glaser to FDR, April 8, 1938, FDRL, OF76, Church Matters 76c Jewish, Box 6 1938, No. 5-8,

www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/hol/hol00013.pdf; Internet; accessed July 17, 2016

536 Jeansonne, Women of the Right, 39.

537 Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred (NY: Schocken Books, 1991), 115.

538 Richard S. Levy, Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, vol. 1, A-K (Santa

Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 541.

539 “William Dudley Pelley (1885-1965),” The North Carolina History Project,

http://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/william-dudley-pelley-1885-1965/; Internet, accessed November 15,

2017; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 22, 1939, “Records Linking Pelley with Reich Officials Seized, Dies

Reveals.” Rep. Martin Dies, head of the House Committee on Un-American Activities accused Pelley of engaging in

foreign propaganda. Pelley was ultimately charged with and convicted of racketeering and sent to prison for 15

170

publisher of the Protestant extremist paper, Cross and the Flag that regularly attacked organized

Jewry as the enemy of the country.540

As many scholars have illustrated, the anti-Semitic ideologies of these and other

individuals and groups helped to shape public attitudes towards the admission of refugee German

Jewish children and contributed to the defeat of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The sponsors of the

legislation mistakenly conflated popular criticisms of Nazi policies with a willingness to admit a

very small number of young Jews.

Roosevelt’s primary focus during this period clearly was on economic recovery and the

strengthening of the military. Cognizant of the direction of the political winds, he was unwilling

to expend critical capital that could be employed for the support of his favored projects. The

influence of the purported Jewish leadership and of the Jewish community at large upon

presidential decision-making was limited due to internal divisions, inabilities to adopt uniform

policies and fears of stimulating domestic anti-Semitism. Consequently, the brunt of the efforts

to formulate and present the structure and mechanisms of the Wagner-Rogers Bill to a hesitant

Congress devolved primarily upon Christian supporters.

British Jews, however, were better positioned to influence official policy regarding the

entry of German Jewish and non-Aryan children, although the number that would be accepted

was capped at ten thousand; a figure accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Government

acquiescence was influenced by criticism directed towards its attempts to appease Germany at

the expense of Czechoslovakia, the placation of negative American popular opinion towards the

_________________________________ years. The Protocols was an infamous creation of the Czarist secret police that was employed to create the idea of an

international Jewish conspiracy. It was printed in 1927 in serial form as The International Jew in a newspaper, the

Dearborn Independent, owned by Henry Ford, until a Jewish boycott of his company forced him to disavow its

veracity. Albert Lee, Henry Ford and the Jews (NY: Stein and Day, 1980), 29-31, 46-51, 69.

540 The New Republic, “The American Fascists,” March 8, 1939, 117-118.This article provided a window on the

Fascist anti-Semitic groups that were active at the time.

171

United Kingdom and preserving support of the U.S., and its policy towards Jewish immigration

into the Palestine Mandate. The White Paper of 1939 was issued by HMG under the leadership

of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. It served two strategic purposes: to put an end to the

Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 and to maintain cordial foreign relations with Muslim nations as the

threat of war with Germany loomed closer. Nonetheless, British Jewry, similar to its American

counterpart, came to believe that success in promoting limited acceptance of refugee children

was dependent upon diminishing Jewish visibility within the rescue project due to latent and

overt anti-Semitism.

The Jewish footprint inherent in the conception of the Wagner-Rogers Bill was

deliberately downplayed for a host of reasons. There was great apprehension that the legislation

was likely to be regarded as a “Jewish” bill; a perception that risked the support of many in the

Christian community and the expansion of domestic anti-Semitism. The conundrum faced by

Sidney Hollander and Rabbi Stephen Wise during their Joint Hearing testimony, the only two

Jewish witnesses, gave proof to the incommensurable position of American Jewry. Their

attempts to minimize the ethnic connotations of the Wagner-Rogers Bill by emphasizing its non-

sectarian nature were essentially futile. No matter how much “they professed their unqualified

Americanism”541 it was not possible to dispel their Jewish identity from popular

consciousness.542 A limited Jewish profile was a calculated stratagem but was also representative

of divisions and dissensions among members of the collective Jewish community. American

Jewry failed, as it and international Jewry had done during the Evian Conference, to present a

unified narrative that enunciated its own interests.

541 Gulie Ne’eman Arad, America, Its Jews, and the Rise of Nazism. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

2000), 204.

542 Ibid.

172

Predominantly Jewish labor unions and their rank and file did publicly speak out, but

overall the Jewish voice was muted.543 Often bitterly divided by religion, class, and politics, and

faced with the extent of current anti-Semitism, the collective Jewish community did not actively

seek the mass immigration of their co-religionists from Germany into the United States.

Constrained by political realities and State Department warnings that any attempt could

precipitate more restrictive immigration policies the leadership was content to seek nominal

revisions of the quota system.544 Little protest was to be found in Jewish print media between the

critical years of 1938 and 1942, when the Final Solution was well under way. Editorially, the

B’nai B’rith Magazine had long supported open borders, but after 1938 it remained silent as did

the Congress Bulletin of Wise’s American Jewish Congress and the Annual Reports of the more

conservative American Jewish Committee. The Jewish Labor Committee, a non-Zionist

organization, was the sole exception to this reticence as it had consistently focused upon the

“’fight for the right of free immigration in all countries.”545 The implications of the defeat of the

legislation were not lost on the Jewish leadership. Increasing numbers of Americans were wary

of potential involvement in a looming continental European war, a conflict in which the United

States was ill prepared to engage. Presidential endorsement of a measure to rescue German

Jewish children might have created the “image that the war was a Jewish war.”546 Congress and

543 Henry L. Feingold, “Crisis and Response: American Jewish Leadership during the Roosevelt Years,” Modern

Judaism 8, no. 2 (May 1988): 101-118; Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd, Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness

and Modern Art (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001), 169.

544 A. J. Sherman quoted in Michael R. Marrus, ed., The Nazi Holocaust—Historical Articles on the Destruction

of European Jews. Part 8: Bystanders to the Holocaust, vol. 2. (London: Meckler, 1989), 979.

545 Jeffrey Gurock, American Jewish History, 231. The Jewish Labor Committee, founded in 1934, included the

Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, United Hebrew

Trades, Workmen’s Circle and other unions and groups.

546 Henry L. Feingold, American Jewish Political Culture and the Liberal Persuasion (NY: Syracuse University

Press, 2013), 54.

173

the majority of the American public remained resolute in their determination to closely guard the

Golden Gates, regardless of human need or the gathering of storm clouds in Europe. This

obstinacy, however, was not absolute, as early wartime events demonstrated that some refugees

were more desirable than others.

174

CHAPTER 9:

THE HENNINGS BILL: VOYAGE TO NOWHERE

The public debate concerning the admission of refugee children continued into the latter

half of 1940, even as Europe was again enveloped in war. As the Kindertransport served as a

potential roadmap for the Wagner-Rogers Bill, so did the German Refugee Children’s Bill

provide a guide for the Mercy Ship Bill.547 It represented an attempt to rescue young British

children from the perils of aerial warfare. Many of the individuals and groups who were invested

with the 1939 legislation became ardent supporters of the 1940 measure. Similar employment of

compassionate rhetoric and moral platitudes were expressed, but fundamental and distinctive

differences existed between the two resettlement schemes. Their contradistinctions highlighted a

critical point: the security and lives of one national and ethnic group was awarded greater

priority over the other.

These measures, which on the surface seemed to seek similar goals, were marked by

dramatic contrasts. Passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill did not serve the interests of the

President, his Administration, nor Congress, and lacked sufficient popular, organizational, and

religious support. Arguments against the bill were wide ranging: aggravation of unemployment,

the prioritization of domestic social needs, antipathy towards aliens (particularly Jews),

547 The Mercy Ship Bill, also known more commonly as the Hennings Bill, was, as will be discussed, contingent

upon two important requirements: the amending of the Neutrality Act of 1939 that would enable American civilian

vessels to sail into war zones to extricate British children, and the guarantee of free passage from attack.

175

introduction of anti-democratic ideologies, ability of immigrants to acculturate and assimilate,

trauma of separation of children from parents, fears of promoting American anti-Semitism,

desire for more limited admission policies, and concerns about breaching the Golden Gate that

enabled parents and extended family members to enter the country. Roosevelt, unwilling to risk

losing support of restrictionist Senators and Congressmen for an issue that lacked political gain,

and aware of growing voter resistance to a third term in office, rigorously maintained his silence.

The State Department was obstructionist and erected a host of bureaucratic obstacles. The

endorsement of the print media and of a mixture of prominent lay and clerical Americans was

incommensurable with public opinion that, while denouncing German anti-Semitic policies and

violence, remained opposed to the admission of these specific groups of children. Concerns were

also expressed about the potential involvement of the United States in the problems of Central

and Western Europe.

The Hennings Bill, on the other hand, was widely endorsed by members of Congress and

the American people. Eleanor Roosevelt, unlike her subdued actions during the Wagner=Rogers

Bill campaign, was an active proponent of the Mercy Ship Bill, maintaining a much higher

profile. British Christian children, who were not envisaged as undesirable aliens, were to be

admitted for indefinite periods of time and without numerical limits. Diplomatic bureaucratic

hurdles were rapidly removed. The fear of potential armed conflict with Germany was

downplayed and the Neutrality Act was readily amended. The objections raised against the 1939

measure, particularly employment and familial separation, were regarded as irrelevant. Roosevelt

spoke in favor of the legislation, but with the proviso that safe passage had to be guaranteed by

176

all belligerents.548 Whereas, the Wagner-Rogers Bill played out over the course of four months,

from its inception and through multiple Congressional hearings, the Mercy Ship Bill was rapidly

enacted by unanimous voice vote and quickly signed into law.

I believe that Roosevelt’s approach to the Mercy Ship Bill was commensurate with his

overall approach and attitude towards the immigration of German Jews and non-Aryans. The

Intergovernmental Committee of July 1939 was constructed in such a manner that assured its

nonsuccess. His silence on the Wagner-Rogers Bill, and the absence of any attempt to sway

popular attitudes, helped to ensure its defeat in Congress. The Hennings Bill, however,

represented a highly significant and calculated exception, but it was clear from its conception

that it would never come to fruition, despite enactment into law. This “moral” act, like Evian,

engendered little political cost, and may have strengthened the President in the upcoming

November 1940 national election.

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialist derided Congress for having turned a “cold

shoulder”549 against the Wagner-Rogers Bill, but added that the cataclysm that enshrouded the

children of Great Britain, following the occupation of France and the Low Countries, was of a far

greater magnitude than that confronted by a mere twenty thousand German refugee children. The

defeated legislation needed to be resurrected, reformulated and enacted; a move that would

548 Baumel-Tydor, Unfilled Promise, 31-32; United States Committee for the Care of European Children

(USCOM), We Are Standing By: A Report of the United States Committee’s Program Accomplishments and Present

Status, May 1941 (NY: The United States Committee for the Care of European Children, 1941), 10-11; Doris

Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 100-101. Undersecretary of State Breckinridge Long had been an ardent

opponent of immigration in both the Wagner-Rogers and Hennings Bills. He asserted that “the surest way to get

America into the war would be to send an American ship to England, and put 2,00 babies on it and then have it sunk

by a German torpedo.” It appeared that FDR held similar concerns but was forced to bow to popular pressure.

549 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 16, 1940, “For the Refugees,” 2C.

177

demonstrate that, although the United States was determined to remain a nonbelligerent, it

retained its commitment to traditional humanistic values.550

Initial discussions within private and governmental circles regarding the evacuation of

thousands of children from the United Kingdom began to take place during June 1940.

Motivated by the specter of famine, disease, and aerial bombing, many of the individuals and

groups that had supported the unsuccessful German Children’s Refugee Bill reunited in an

attempt to champion the evacuation of British children to the United States. Selected children

were to enter via the under-utilized British quota provided the mandatory immigration

requirements for admission were satisfied.551

A June 1940 Gallup poll revealed that 58 percent of respondents sanctioned such

measures for the duration of the war and 25 percent, corresponding to five to seven million

families, offered to be foster parents.552 Rep. Harry Sandager (Rep., RI) declared that such an

enterprise was crucial for “the sake of humanity and Christianity.”553

Unlike the negative arguments posed by opponents of the previous immigration

legislation, many members of the public believed that neither the unemployment rate nor the care

of America’s needy children were jeopardized by the entry of British youth.554 If these innocent

550 Ibid.

551 New York Times, “U.S. Studies Haven for Young Briton,” June 19, 1940, 14. The Department of Labor

reported that only 2,738 out of a total annual British quota of 65,721 had entered the United States during the fiscal

year that ended on June 30, 1939.

552 Ibid., June 26, 1940, 2.

553 Congressional Record Appendix, July 11, 1940, vol. 86, part 16, 4433.

554 Christian Century, LVII (July 3, 1940), 846-847 in Wyman, Paper Walls, 118. Government unemployment

figure listed for January of following years: 1938 16.88 percent; 1939 17.61 percent; 1940 15.3 percent; 1941 10.49

percent. “Unemployment Rates for United States,” https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M0892AUSM156SNBR;

Internet; accessed January 17, 2018.

178

lives were to be extricated from the “charnel-house that Hitler hopes to make of Great Britain,

there is not an hour to lose.”555 The Ohio parents of an American soldier killed during the Great

War professed that if his sacrifice was to have any meaning, the nation must serve as a “haven

for the children of all lands” while “we…follow our Lord in saying: ‘Suffer little children to

come unto me.”556 Objections to the separation of families did not become a significant issue of

contention as it had during the earlier debates.557

Consequently, the United States Committee for the Care of European Children

(USCCEC) was born with the First Lady serving as the honorary administrative chairman, and

the Chicago-based entrepreneur Marshall Field III acting as operational chairman, supported by a

host of prominent lay and clerical personages.558 The Committee, aided by the American Friends

Service Committee and the International Migration Service, stressed that it was “in the truest

sense a nonsectarian, nonpartisan movement inspired by the desire to rescue children—whoever

they may be and wherever they may be—from disaster by all practicable means at our

disposal.”559

Although the subsequent hearings on the adjustment of the Neutrality Act of 1939 to

enable the employment of American rescue shipping met a degree of political resistance, the

open-mindedness of the members of Congress was remarkable in view of the rancorous attitudes

displayed during multiple hearings on the Wagner-Rogers Bill. Warning “death from the air may

555 New York Times, July 24, 1940, 18.

556 Ibid., August 5, 1940, 15.

557 Congressional Record Appendix, August 1, 1940, vol. 86, part 16, 4700.

558 New York Times, “U.S. Group Formed to Aid Canada in Care of British Child,” June 21, 1940, 1.

559 Ibid.

179

strike at any time, anywhere,”560 the Committee called upon Americans to offer foster homes as

asylum to prevent the far-reaching calamity that imperiled the children of Britain.561

This new organization, aided unofficially by Katherine Lenroot, Director of the

Washington based Federal Children’s Bureau, set out to systematize American efforts to

facilitate the “care of child victims of the war in Europe,”562 while actively collaborating with the

Canadian Government. Unlike the German Refugee Children’s Bill other members of the

Roosevelt Administration spoke out in favor of the plan. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes,

for example, proclaimed that the honor of the nation “demand[ed] that it take in refugee and

indicate to the world…that we still retain the status of asylum for the oppressed of which we

used to be proud.”563

The Committee planned to secure the necessary funding for the relief and maintenance of

refugee children and the legal satisfaction of the LPC clause. The extrication plan was

characterized as a dire attempt to secure young lives. The group’s mission statement gave

assurances that its efforts to shield European children from the “fearful fate of bombs and shell

fire”564 did not jeopardize official and private commitments to the ministration of the country’s

needy children. Echoing sentiments expressed during the Wagner-Rogers’ hearings, the

560 New York Times, “200,000 Children See Haven, Drive Here Asks for Funds for them,” August 2, 1040, 1.

561 Ibid. Although some Congressmen delivered cogent arguments against the move to amend the Neutrality Act,

review of the Congressional Record transcript demonstrated that in the end, they supported the legislation.

562 New York Times, “U.S. Group Formed to Aid Canada in Care of British Child,” June 21, 1940, 1.

563 Carlton Jackson, Who Shall Take Our Children? (London: Methuen, 1985), 72-73.

564 Ibid.

180

USCCEC was certain that these humanitarian efforts would inculcate in American children the

tenets of democracy and productive citizenship.565

The decision of His Majesty’s Government to consider the removal of children from

potential war zones was driven in part by civilian experiences during the recent Spanish Civil

War in which cities and towns fell victim to air assaults.566 An evacuation plan had already been

developed before the outbreak of the European war. Infants, children, their mothers, expectant

women, and those with disabilities were to be dispersed from urban areas expected to be targeted

by the Luftwaffe. The scheme took two forms: 1. Internal movement to rural areas and 2.

External relocation to the Dominions and the United States.

The Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB), the official British counterpart to the

USCCEC, was established on June 7, 1940 under the directorship of Undersecretary of the

Dominions Geoffrey Shakespeare and charged with the selection of children for expatriation.

Overall, two hundred thousand applications for emigration were received by the Government.567

565 New York Times, “U.S. Groups Formed to Aid Canada in Care of British Child Refugees,” June 21, 1940, 1.;

New York Times August 2, 1940, 1; New York Times July 6, 1940, 2. It was anticipated that Canada could not accept

more than sixty thousand children. Members of the founding committee included prominent lay and clerical figures

that had comprised the NSCGRC, and included a variety of Christian, Jewish, and non-religious charitable and relief

groups.

566 The bombing of cities during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, China, Warsaw in 1939, and Rotterdam in 1940

highlighted in the popular imagination the dangers faced by innocent civilian populations to modern-day air power,

in which they were considered legitimate targets. The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was marked by indiscriminant

Nationalist air raids on Loyalist cities and towns but it was the destruction of Guernica on April 27, 1937, that seized

the world’s attention and shaped contemporary views of warfare. Maria Louise Stig Sørensen and Dacia Viejo-Rose,

War and Cultural Heritage: Biographies of Place (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 69.

567 New York Times, July 11, 1940, 9. British children were also sent to other foreign locales. Seventy-nine

children, for example, arrived in Rio de Janeiro on August 11, 1940. Los Angeles Times, “Refugees Reach Rio,”

August 11, 1940, 12. The British Foreign Office, however, decided that significant relocations were to be restricted

to English-speaking nations. Carlton Jackson, Who Will Take Our Children? The British Evacuation Program of

World War II (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008), 68. It appeared highly unlikely during mid-June that British

parents were willing accede to overseas evacuation, but resistance diminished as the conflict escalated. New York

Times, “Sailing of Children to Canada Arranged,” June 16, 1940, 26; New York Times, Robert P. Post, “Refugee

Problem Entangles Europe,” June 23, 1940, E4.

181

Importantly, the British Government announced, with the commencement of the Battle of

Britain, that twenty thousand school children were to be sent abroad. Clement R. Atlee, the Lord

Privy Seal, informed the House of Commons that the operation was urgent, and noted that

requests were increasingly received from east coast regions within range of German bombers.

The War Cabinet limited the children’s age range to 5-16 years, drawn across the span of the

British population. They were to be unaccompanied by parents unless their father had been a

casualty of the war. It was anticipated that the bulk of the financial support would be derived

from American sources. HMG officials hoped that the U.S. Government was willing to provide

flagged vessels to ensure the children a safer passage; a move that did not compromise essential

maritime efforts to transport critical war supplies to the island nation.568

Undersecretary Shakespeare reported that U.S. Ambassador to London Joseph P.

Kennedy was actively seeking means to slash bureaucratic obstacles.569 This goal was met when

the State Department adopted a streamlined approach, not considered for the German Refugee

Children’s Bill, that allowed the admittance of children at risk “in whatever numbers shipping

facilities and private assurance of support will permit.”570 Individual affidavits of support could

be wired to the Embassy in London by Western Union. USCCEC corporate guarantees of

568 New York Times, James B. Reston, “Britain Will Send Children Overseas,” June 20, 1940, 1, 4. Canada

agreed to accept 10,000; Australia 5,000; New Zealand 2,500; South Africa, ‘several thousands.” The American Red

Cross had pledged its support and anticipated the movement of large numbers to America. A limited number of

Dutch, Norwegian, and Danish vessels were available, but the plan was highly dependent upon the provision of

American shipping. The overseas program had an unsettling effect upon the British population as the realization

grew that the entire country was in harm’s way.

569New York Times, June 23, 1940, “Refugee Problem,” E4; New York Times, June 22, 1940, Letters to the Editor,

“Children Tied in Red Tape,” 22. Similar to the situation facing prospective foster parents of German refugee

children, the Department of State required submission of affidavits denoting occupation, salary, yearly income and

tax returns, bank accounts, real estate holdings, amount of the mortgage, insurance, stocks and bonds and the

provision of a $500 bond.

570 New York Times, “Red Tape Untangled,” Letters to the Editor, July 2, 1940, 17; Congressional Record August

7, 1940, vol. 86, part 9, 10014-10015.

182

responsibility for the child’s financial maintenance, sustenance and supervision, coupled with

fulfillment of the LPC clause, were accepted by the State Department and resulted in the

issuance of immigration visas.571

In response, FDR announced through his executive secretary that the U.S. Government

was collaborating fully in the evacuation plan, but the inadequacy of available British shipping

presented the major hindrance. This rate limiting step necessitated the usage of American flagged

vessels.572 Kennedy declared that the government had eliminated all bureaucratic encumbrances.

As a result, “no visa has been refused for any qualified child in England” and 13,000 were

cleared for departure.573

Facing this, the American Embassy and consulates received thousands of requests for

evacuation and an average of one hundred entry visas were issued daily.574 Canada served as the

first embarkation point as U.S. immigration law barred admittance of aliens whose fares had

been paid by a foreign government. The majority of the children were British due to the larger

size of an underutilized yearly quota, but also included smaller numbers of Czechs, Poles, Dutch,

and French children. German refugee children were excluded as American immigration law

required that aliens who had been granted visas must have the ability to return to their country of

571 New York Times, July 2, 1940, 17. The State Department changed its immigration processes by accepting

corporate guarantees if the LPC clause was guaranteed. This transition from an individual to a collective affidavit

process shortened the time from application to the granting of a visa and expanded the number of children that could

be admitted. New York Times, “Refugees Face Difficulties,” July 7, 1949, 13.

572 The Times, May 14, 1940, 9; New York Times, “Roosevelt Denies Refugee Red Tape,” July 10, 1940, 9.

Presidential Secretary Stephen Early did state that westbound British ships were transporting German and Italian

POW’s to camps in Canada, utilizing shipboard space that could be employed for refugee children. However, he

recognized that the Royal Navy was encumbered by a deficiency of escort vessels. Military needs trumped civilian

maritime traffic.

573 New York Times July 12, 1940, 7. Enforcement of physical and mental standards and satisfaction of the LPC

clause remained in force.

574 New York Times, “Refuge Sought Here,” July 4, 1940, 3; New York Times, “Immigration Law Not Waived,”

July 6, 1940, 2.

183

emigration. However, the 1935 Nuremberg Racial Laws had rendered German Jews and non-

Aryans stateless.

In spite of British Governmental support, official endorsement of the evacuation project

waned as the need for military transports, merchant vessels, and naval escorts intensified. Prime

Minister Winston Churchill warned that any decampment of women and children from the

United Kingdom risked the dissemination of “alarmist and depressing rumors… detrimental” to

the war effort but was willing to allow their exodus aboard American vessels.575 The U-boat

sinking of the Arandora Star carrying German and Italian prisoners of war and internees to

Canada and its attendant loss of life, raised fundamental questions about the feasibility of

wholesale evacuation and prompted the government to disavow responsibility for overseas

emigration.576 The London authorities announced that the evacuation program was on the brink

of collapse due to its inability to provide protective convoys. Unless the United States furnished

fast liners, a move that conflicted with the terms of the Neutrality Act of 1939, the Cabinet was

prepared to end the scheme or declare that it was a “go at your own risk” program.577

Ultimately, the USCCEC was officially notified by London of the suspension of the

evacuation plan, owing to inadequate protection of transport shipping.578 Shortly thereafter,

575 New York Times, “Churchill Frowns on Refugee Plans,” July 19, 1940, 24; New York Times July 22, 1940, 16.

576 New York Times, July 22, 1940, 16. Approximately seven hundred Italians and Germans died following the

torpedoing of the SS Arandora Star. The losses included German Jewish and political refugees. David Caesarani

and Tony Kushner, eds., The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain (London: Frank Cass and Company,

1993), 45; New York Times, “British Delay Plan on Child Refugees,” July 17, 1940, 19.

577 New York Times, “London Debates Problem,” July 11, 1940, 9.

578New York Times, “British Delay on Child Refugees,” July 17, 1940, 19; Carlton Jackson, Who Will Take Our

Children? 70; New York Times, “Celler Proposes Safe Conduct,” July 23, 1940, 15.

184

Jewish Representative Emanuel Celler announced Congressional plans to reshape the Neutrality

Act to allow the deployment of United States passenger liners to evacuate British children.579

Consequently, a group of twenty-five prominent women established the American

Women’s Committee for the Release of Mercy Ships for European Children (AWCRMS). Their

goal was to launch a nationwide petition campaign calling for the amendment of Section 4 of the

Neutrality Act to authorize American shipping to traverse through and remove children from

declared war zones.580 The Committee released a letter from a British mother that was

paradigmatic of parents confronting the dangers facing themselves, family, and the reality of

separation:

I shall be glad when I see…my little boys…going, because, like the majority of

people in England now, I have begun to wonder each time I put my head on the

pillow, whether there will be a morning for me or not. I’m going to fight, and 10

times as efficiently for the knowledge that children are safe.581

The group acknowledged that the “course we recommend might lead to war,”582 but they

doubted that “it would mean war.”583 However, they insisted that its motivation was entirely

humanitarian, devoid of any other meaning than responding to the mothers of Britain who were

579 New York Times, “Celler Proposes Safe Conduct,” July 23, 1940. He stated that the more modern SS America,

Manhattan, and Washington were available for use.

580New York Times August 9, 1940, 13. The group was later known as the Women’s Mercy Ship Committee. New

York Times, “Ships for Children,” July 11, 1940, 18. The Neutrality Act had been earlier amended to exclude

“officers and members of any American vessel proceeding into or through a combat area under charter or other

direction and control of the American Red Cross and under safe conduct by belligerent states.” “Regulations

Relating to Travel in Combat Areas and On Belligerent Vessels, Departmental Order, No. 827 17, 1939,” Federal

Register, November 22, 1939, vol. 4, no. 226, 4640; Department of State Bulletin, November 18, 1939, 553 cited in

“Neutrality Act of 1939,” The American Journal of International Law 34, no. 1, Supplement: Official Documents

(January 1940): 65.

581 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “U.S. Boats Urged for British Tots: Pittsburghers Asked to Petition President to Take

Action,” July 23, 1940, 11.

582 New York Times, “Crusade Launched for Mercy Ships,” July 18, 1940, 23.

583 Ibid.

185

seeking American protection for their children; inspirations shared by members of the NSCGRC.

The group was very clear in its intent. It did not encourage British parents to send their children

overseas as it remained the parents’ responsibility to make the risk: benefit calculations. The

group merely sought to provide the necessary transportation.584

As a result, Representatives Emanuel Celler and Thomas J. Hennings, Jr. (Dem., MO),

members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation that called for the

revamping of the Neutrality Act to authorize American flagged mercy ships, “well marked, and

lighted by night and day,”585 to enter disputed waters and withdraw British children. Hennings

argued that morality mandated American recognition of the existential perils confronting the

United Kingdom and render all available assistance to its children, dependent upon parental and

official British Governmental consent. He did not believe America risked being drawn into the

conflagration as it was a declared neutral power engaged in charitable actions.586

Significantly, the Hennings Bill did not call for any change in current immigration law.

The children were to be admitted under the chronically under filled British quota, which

amounted to 65,721 per year or a maximum of 6,572 per month. All costs were to be borne by

private groups and organizations. American ships were to “proceed into a combat area under

584 New York Times, “Flight ‘at Own Risk,’” July 18, 1940, 23; New York Times, “Churchill Frowns on Refugee

Plan,” July 19, 1940, 24. The USCCEC asked the British Ambassador Lord Lothian to ensure that his government

determined, before the issuance of exit permits that parents and guardians of each child recognized their personal

responsibility for the inherent risks of the venture. For a list of committee members see New York Times, July 18,

1940, 23.

585 New York Times, “House Gets Bill for ‘Mercy Ships,” July 23, 1940, 15.

586 New York Times, “House Gets Bill for ‘Mercy Ships,” July 23, 1940, 15; Chicago Daily Tribune, “Urges U.S.

Ships for Evacuating British Children: Congressman Asks Quick Neutrality Act Change,” July 23, 1940, 5.

Hennings noted that large numbers of French and Belgian children had come to the United Kingdom, exacerbating

an already perilous situation. Similar bills proffered by Celler and members of the Senate, along with that of

Hennings, became collectively known as the Hennings Bill.

186

ballast,”587 under the condition that they were provided guarantees of free passage. Mercy ships

were not to be convoyed or armed eliminating any justification for a belligerent power to attack

the vessel.588 The AWCRMS wired Rep. Sol Bloom (Dem., NY), Jewish chairman of the House

Foreign Affairs Committee, calling for prompt hearings on the proposed legislation.589

Perhaps of greater import, particularly in comparison with the Wagner-Rogers bill, was

the decision of the Departments of State and Justice to release unlimited numbers of open ended

visitors’ visas. The issuance of such documents had been bitterly resisted by opponents of the

German Refugee Children’s Bill. The National Origins Act required anyone granted such a

permit to demonstrate they possessed the financial means and authorization to return to their

country of origin. This assurance, provided by HMG, was strictly limited to British children.590

Hennings recognized that the predominant benefactors of the program were British and admitted

that this plan was not “a move… to aid England, but [one] of Christian deliverance…”591 The

future world, he believed, gained from the preservation of the British child, infused with

democratic ideals, who would be of great value in reestablishing a post-war world.592 These

sentiments paralleled the earlier conviction of supporters of the Wagner-Rogers Bill that

587 New York Times August 3, 1940, 10.

588 Ibid. See Appendix J for Text of Hennings Bill following its amending and adoption.

589 New York Times, “Celler Proposes Safe Conduct,” July 23, 1940, 15; Pittsburgh Press, July 24, 1940, 8.

However, Bloom characterized the scheme as inordinately dangerous that, even with declarations of safe passage,

could ensnare the nation in an unwanted war. Nonetheless, he cast his vote in favor of the bill.

590 New York Times, September 25, 1940, 21. The stateless status of German Jewish and non-Aryan children

excluded the provision of visitors’ visas, but the British Government did agree in late September 1940 to grant

return visas to non-British refugee children as well; expanding the pool of potential émigrés.

591 Congressional Record, August 7, 1940, vol. 86, part 9, 10014-10015.

592 Ibid.

187

carefully selected and indoctrinated German Jewish and non-Aryan children could serve as a font

for useful and loyal American citizens.

The political and public criticism of the Hennings bill was, with few exceptions, minimal

when compared to that faced by the Wagner-Rogers bill. The Washington Post predicted

nominal opposition from Congress, including those with an isolationist bent, due to the nearly

unopposed public support of the justness and decency of rescuing children from the repugnance

and hazards of war.”593 Syndicated columnist Raymond Clapper described the plan as a project

of international selflessness and downplayed the hazards of U-boats by asserting Hitler was not

foolish enough to risk drawing America into war. In addition, Clapper claimed that confidential

sources within HMG were optimistic that guarantees of safe transit would be given by the

German regime if it was assured that the mercy ships were not transporting contraband.

Therefore, he asked: “Why not try it?”594

Washington-based columnist Ray Tucker observed that Roosevelt was hesitant to back

the evacuation project in a “big, diplomatic way”595 as he was reluctant to seek German

assurances; an official request risked an embarrassing refusal. Roosevelt was leaving the

mechanics of the operation to the British, but lack of convoy protection could force the U.S. to

commit its ships and risk conflict with Germany in the absence of adequate safeguards.596

593 Washington Post, “Save the Children,” August 7, 1940, cited in Hennings Hearings, August 7, 1940, 10012.

594 Pittsburgh Press, “Liner’s Maiden Trip Should be in Mercy: ‘Magnificent America, Nation’s New Luxury

Liner Could Rescue British Children,” August 7, 1940, 1.

595 Altoona Tribune, Ray Tucker, “’National Whirligig’ Difficulties Found in Evacuation Children,” July 30,

1940, 6

596Lansing State Journal, Editorial, “Nazi Children Welcome,” July 30, 1940, 4.

188

Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization on H.R. 10323: “A

Bill to Provide a Temporary Haven from the Dangers or Effects of War for European Children

Under the Age of Sixteen” officially commenced on August 7, 1940.597 Contrary to the course of

the Wagner-Rogers Bill, only ten days elapsed from the introduction of the bill to its final vote in

the House of Representatives. The German Refugee Children’s Bill, on the other hand, was sent

to Congress in February 1939 and entailed three separate hearings that ended with a final vote

four months later. In addition, Hennings reported that the financial surety bond required by the

State Department had been reduced from $500 to $50 per child. He argued that the Neutrality

Act had been conceived as a means of lessening the possibility of American involvement in the

European war and cited the executive power of the President to define war zones that excluded

U.S. shipping and personnel. As noted earlier, the American Red Cross had been granted an

exemption to this rule.598

Rep. Hamilton Fish, Jr. (Rep., NY), the Minority Leader of the House Foreign Affairs

Committee, stressed the key requirement of guarantees of safe passage from all combatants and

ardently believed that the warring powers were likely to accept such a stipulation. Fish noted that

British children were able to enter the United States via one of two pathways: within the annual

and under utilized quota or with a visitors’ visa. He shared the British Ambassador’s doubts that

597 “Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Seventy-Sixth

Congress, Third Session on H.R. 8497, H.R. 8502, H.R. 10083, H.R. 10150, H.J. Res. 580, H.JU. Res. 581

superseded by H.R. 10323: A Bill to Provide a Temporary Haven from the Dangers or Effects of War for European

Children Under the Age of Sixteen, August 8 and 9, 1940,” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1940),

10003-10033. Hear after referred to that the Hennings Bill Hearing.

598 Hennings Bill Hearing, 10003, 10011-10012. The required bond was reduced by the State Department from

$500 to $50 dollars per child. The Congressman argued that the Neutrality Act of 1939 had been formulated to

diminish the chances of American involvement in a European war. He noted that the President possessed executive

power that defined “combat areas” that excluded American shipping and personnel. 10013.

189

the total number of children was likely to exceed fifty thousand due to the inherent expenses

involved in procuring shipping.

Fish’s support was contingent upon acceptance of non-British refugee children as he

would oppose the bill if it was limited to only one nation. Significantly, he believed that if

promises of unimpeded transit were given to German and Italian children then their respective

governments would be incentivized to reciprocate in kind. However, he asserted that of all the

children under consideration it was the British child who was “at the moment…in the greatest

danger” and comprised the bulk of the refugees.599 This comment harkened back to the

hypocritical insistence of opponents to the Wagner-Rogers Bill who insisted upon the acceptance

of children from other beleaguered nations.

Congressman Celler asserted that the Hennings Bill merely provided an exemption to

Section 4 of the Neutrality Act. He believed that neither Hitler nor Mussolini would be foolish

enough to deny safe conduct. The willingness of the United States to employ its fast ships

currently lying at anchor personified “an act of sheer mercy, the nth degree of humanity”600

designed to safeguard defenseless children from the throes of a “Nazi holocaust.”601 Abnegation

of this moral accountability, Celler affirmed, would create an everlasting “blot upon [the]

national escutcheon.”602 He acknowledged that it was hard to qualify the degree of jeopardy: sail

or stay. However, he contended the vessels should be sent regardless of formal assurances

599 Hennings Bill Hearings, 10006. Fish envisioned rescue of children from Denmark, Norway, Holland,

Belgium, France, Poland, China, Germany and Italy. Current immigration law, however, barred any Chinese from

entering the country. However, at that time of the war there were not any Axis refugee children that required

evacuation. He was supportive of placing a one hundred thousand cap on the number of children that could be

accepted.

600 Hennings Bill Hearings, 10007-10008.

601 Ibid.

602 Ibid.

190

because he was deeply convinced that neither Germany nor Italy desired a military confrontation

with the United States.603

Representative A. Leonard Allen challenged Celler, expressing his unwillingness to

endanger the lives of children or the loss of a vessel based solely on German pledges. Celler

admitted that he was willing to take that risk and averred that the Fuehrer dared “not risk

condemnation in the world court of public opinion.”604

FDR, who had spoken minimally about the Evian Conference and not publicly about the

Wagner-Rogers Bill, stated that the assistance of United States ships was contingent “upon the

validity of assurance of safe conduct.”605 The nation did not want to make this commitment

without such guarantees. A Gallup Poll conducted during August 1940 asked whether the public

agreed with or opposed the dispatching of U.S. passenger ships to the United Kingdom to

evacuate British children, provided Germany and Italy insured they would not be attacked.

Uniform responses were obtained across the nation with 63 percent supportive and 37 percent

against the plan. The number in favor of the amendment, however, diminished to 45 percent if

secure passage was not secured.606

Congressman William M. Colmer (Dem., MS) argued that the Neutrality Act had kept the

country out of the conflict and warned that its modification warranted careful deliberation. He

was concerned that an accidental or intentional sinking of an American mercy ship, with its

603 Ibid. Celler reported that at least two hundred thousand British families had registered for evacuation.

604 Ibid., 10007. Allen recognized the penchant of Hitler to renege on German commitments to international

guarantees.

605 Ibid., 10027.

606 “Gallup and Fortune Polls,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 4, no. 4 (December: 1940): 716; Baltimore Sun,

“Gallup Poll on Refugees,” August 17, 1940, 9.

191

resultant loss of life, could propel the nation into the war. Nevertheless, he supported the

amendment.607 Michigan Republican Congressman Earl C. Michener highlighted the danger of

an unintentional foundering by mines lain in war zones despite belligerent affirmations. Adverse

American opinions stimulated by heightened emotions, he admonished, threatened United States

involvement.608

Representative John M. Robison (Rep., KY), one of the very small number of

Congressional members who opposed the amendment, offered some of the most vociferous

objections to the Hennings Bill. His line of argument varied widely from the criticisms of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill, although it retained some of the same assertions. He insisted that the

House Immigration and Naturalization committee had provided insufficient information

regarding the terms of the legislation and its implications. Decision making, he believed must be

based on rational thought rather than emotions. He observed that, unlike the 1939 measure, a

numerical cap had not been placed on the number of British children that could be admitted. This

deficiency, he predicted would lead to a breach of the quota system. Robison declared that the

bill’s sponsors were not concerned with the lives and security of these children, but were more

interested in their propaganda value as a means of further aligning the U.S. with the United

Kingdom. Significantly, he described the plan as devoid of substance, as he highly doubted that

Germany or Italy would provided the desired guarantees. He warned that a fortuitous sinking by

mines or submarines must draw America into the war; a conflict whose effects would reverberate

for years throughout the population. He also noted that European children were already

victimized by the Royal Navy blockade of the European coast. Fears of involvement in a second

607 Hennings Bill Hearings, 10006.

608 Ibid., 10013.

192

Continental war, however, were insufficient to dissuade supporters of the Hennings Bill, as they

had with the Wagner-Rogers Bill.609

The Hennings bill was reported out of the House on August 7 with minimal opposition.

Several amendments were added by the Senate, which voted unanimously on August 19 for its

adoption.610 The bill was sent back to the House three days later for a vote on Senatorial changes,

adopted, and sent on to the White House where Roosevelt signed it into law; six weeks from the

beginning of the Women’s Committee’s petition campaign.

Thereafter, the Treasury Department announced that it granted a tax exemption of $400

to the head of any household that accepted and supported a European child refugee. However,

this credit was not applicable to British children who came from families with sufficient means

to provide for their care. A similar monetary incentive and liberal allocation of visitors’ visas had

not been included in the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The House Committee on Immigration and

Naturalization agreed to provide 200,000 British youth younger than 16 years of these children

with two-year renewable, visitors’ visas; a dramatically larger number of immigrants than called

for by the German Refugee Children’s Bill who were denied such papers. However, other

nationalities were obligated to enter via the quota system as it was uncertain whether they could

return to their country of origin following the war’s conclusion. Although not formally declared,

609 Henning Bill Hearing, 10021. Robison quoted the Bible to give added strength to his argument: “’He that

provideth not first for his own household denyeth them and is worse than an infidel.’ “He said the United States

‘should take care of the hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans in America’ before providing for Europe’s

refugees.” Reading Eagle, “House Votes to Carry Children” Would Permit U.S. Vessels to Transport Refugees,”

August 8, 1940, 1, 19.

610 Congressional Record, 76th Congress., 3rd sess., vol. 86, part 10, 10471-10472. One amendment added to the

bill required affidavits of financial support to be submitted prior to sailing from Britain. See Appendix J for text of

amendment to Neutrality Act permitting sailing of mercy ships.

193

both the Departments of State and Justice indicated that it was a certainty that children removed

from the island nation would be British.611

The bill, however, was nonetheless probably destined for frustration, since the German

government refused to grant secure passage for mercy ships traversing war zones and labeled the

humanitarian impulses as fanciful owing to the heavy mining of enemy waters. The Reich

refused to accept any liability for the “impracticality of the plan.”612 The Women’s Mercy Ship

Committee also had significant difficulties in the procurement of adequate shipping. However, it

was the submarine sinking of the transport, S.S. City of Benares, on September 17, 1940 with the

loss of 256 lives of which 77 out of 90 children died, that led to the British government’s

termination of the official program of overseas evacuation.613

When nationally syndicated columnist Ludwell Denny, in a series of articles dealing with

the issue of refugee children, attempted to explain the failure of the Wagner-Rogers Bill in the

context of the Hennings legislation. The National Origins Act, with its eugenic underpinnings,

gave preferential treatment to the more desirable children from Northern Europe at the expense

of Jewish and non-Jewish children refugees from Germany and Southern and Eastern Europe.

611 Los Angeles Times, “Homes Taking Child Refugees Get Tax Cuts,” August 9, 1940, 4; New York Times

“Unlimited Visitors’ Visas in Addition to Quota,” July 27, 1940; New York Times, “200,000 Children Seek Haven:

Drive Here Asks for Funds for Them,” August 2, 1940, 1; The Pittsburgh Press, “House Backs Mercy Voyages:

Senate Gets Bill on Ships to Evacuate Child Refugees,” August 8, 1940, 1, 7; Cincinnati Enquirer, “Refugee

Children May Enter; Liner Washington Arrives,” July 14, 1940, 1, 11.

612 Detroit Free Press, Clifford A. Prevost, “Germans Shy of Mercy-Ship Safety Pledge,” August 20, 1940, 1;

The Morning News, “Berlin Refuses to Pledge Safe Passage for Children,” August 22, 1940, 1. Information

regarding the German refusal was released following Senate ratification on August 19. Germany declared that it was

acting altruistically in its disavowal of any guarantee that prompted ships carrying children to sail through a mine

rich war zone. Any such pledge, it asserted, represented a criminal act to which the Reich would not become an

accessory. German authorities also warned of the risks posed to cordial relations with the U.S.

613 Peter N. Risbey, “Overseas Evacuation,” http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/homefront/evac/evac5.html; Internet;

accessed February 25, 2008. Overall, the CORB successfully resettled 2,644 children: 1,532 to Canada, 576 to

Australia, 353 to South Africa, and 203 to New Zealand. Approximately, 11,000 children were removed by private

means with more than 6,000 entering Canada, and 5,000 admitted into the United States. Thereafter, the United

Kingdom employed a system of internal relocation away from probable and likely targets.

194

The rejection of the earlier Wagner-Rogers Bill, he insisted, was largely the direct consequence

of anti-Semitism. In addition, with the German occupation of Western Europe and the threats

facing the British population, German Jews and political refugees appeared less significant.

Consequently, popular and political resistance to the admission of select alien children refugees

diminished.614 His answer, however, is incomplete and rather simplistic as divisions within the

American Jewish community and strong reluctance to engage in any action that could stimulate

domestic anti-Semitism placed stringent constraints on Jewish activism for their German

counterparts.

Greater press coverage and publicity was devoted to the plight of the British children in

1940 than to the Jewish and non-Aryan subjects of the Wagner-Rogers bill. This was similar to

the paucity of public attention Roosevelt gave to German and European Jews during the pre- and

early years of the conflict. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the Jewish publisher of the New York Times,

has been described as an “unabashed Anglophile.”615 Leff observed that Sulzberger was

concerned about accusations of “dual loyalties”616 and regarded Judaism “solely [as] a religious

[and not as] a racial or ethnic orientation”617 that was infused with a “special obligation to help

fellow Jews.”618 He asserted that attempts of American Jewry to aid their German co-religionists

eroded their identity as Americans first and foremost. His paper published during 1940 “nine

impassioned editorials with impatient headlines such as ‘No Time to Lose” and ‘They Must be

614 Pittsburgh Press, August 1, 1940, Ludwell Denny, “America and the Refugees: U.S. Will Demand Proper

Care for War Orphans,” 13.

615 Laurel Leff, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper Cambridge

University Press (NY: 2005), 64-65.

616 Ibid., 194.

617 Ibid., 13.

618 Ibid.

195

Saved,’”619 pleading with Congress to make the requisite changes to the Neutrality Act. The

daily printed three page one stories and five photo spreads emphasizing primarily small and

blond haired children as well as a magazine article containing many photos of British children.

Conversely, it had only published a single editorial supporting the Wagner-Rogers bill followed

by a total of eight dealing with the Continental refugee problem throughout the entire course of

the World War II.620

619 Ibid., 65.

620 Ibid.

196

CHAPTER 10:

APPRAISALS OF OPPORTUNITIES LOST

“Oh, haven’t you heard the news?

“We’re at war to save the Jews,

For a hundred years they press our pants,

Now we must die for them in France,

So we sing the Doughboy Blues.

“It’s a hellova fate to choose,

To die to save the Jews,

But the New-Deal busted and left us flat,

So this war was hatched by the Democrat

To end our New-Deal Blues.

“They say that we mustn’t lose,

If we lose, we lose the Jews,

So shout it into a thousand mikes,

Though we lose our lives we must save the kikes!

And Sing the Doughboy Blues.”621

Conflicting assessments of the response of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his

Administration, Congress, and the Gentile and Jewish American public to the great Central

European immigration crises of 1933-1940 were evoked in contemporary debates and have been

analyzed within the historiography of the Holocaust era. Essentially, two diametrically opposed

schools of thought have evolved, but with some writers adopting a middle ground. Academic and

non-academic historians, journalists, attorneys, and former government officials have produced

621 Harold Lavine and James Wechsler, War Propaganda and the United States (New Haven CT: Yale University

Press, 1940), 138.

197

frequently cited works, which has fueled the ongoing controversy. David Wyman, Henry L.

Feingold and additional authors articulate the position that the Roosevelt Administration acted to

maintain the level of Jewish immigration below legally mandated levels. The Department of

State and its consulates, they declared, were influenced by anti-Semitism, isolationism, and

nativism, and actively engaged in a policy to deny visas to refugee applicants. FDR, it was

believed, deliberately remained detached from or was obstructive to the refugee issue for

political and personal reasons. Richard D. Breitman and Alan M. Kraut assert that it was the

machinery and indifference of governmental bureaucracy that represented the primary

impediment to immigration. Others such as Robert Rosen and William J. vanden Heuvel argue

that FDR employed every possible means within legal, political, social, and security constraints

to afford rescue.

The interpretation of decisions made or avoided regarding the admission of stateless

refugees, and who was entitled to or should be denied citizenship, must be viewed within the

context of the Great Depression, influenced by diverse political interests, priorities, and

ideologies, rooted in nationalism, isolationism, nativism, religion, and anti-Semitism. FDR

remains the central figure within this debate as varied opinions have evolved over his ability or

willingness to engage in rescue while accepting its attendant political risks.

During the first major wave of scholarship Arthur Morse,622 David Wyman, Henry

Feingold, and Saul Friedman623 argued that America, influenced by prejudice, fear of foreign

dogma, isolationism stemming from the failed outcomes of the Great War, and economic

depression, offered little more than public expressions of sympathy to the victims of Nazi

622 Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook

Press, 1968).


198

persecution while preserving immigration barriers. The collective response was, they declared,

muted, ineffectual and contradictory. Although the Final Solution was unforeseeable at the time,

it was evident to many that Jews and non-Aryans could no longer survive within the Reich. The

“need for rescue was painfully clear,”624 but any chance for deliverance was forfeited by October

1941.625 Roosevelt functioned as the crucial link that connected the three major refugee projects

of this time: the Evian Conference, the Wagner-Rogers Bill, and the Hennings Bill. His notorious

unwillingness significantly impacted the outcome of these schemes that collectively failed.

FDR advised his first Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, that the treatment of the

Jewish minority was purely a German concern. Dodd noted in his diary on June 16, 1933 that the

President said, “This is not [a United States] governmental affair. We can do nothing except for

citizens who happen to be made victims… and do whatever we can to moderate the general

persecution by unofficial and personal influence.”626 Secretary of State Hull reinforced this

policy when he instructed the Berlin Embassy to inform Reich officials that the United States

Government was not going to “interfere in any way in matters which are essentially the domestic

concern of Germany.”627 U.S. diplomatic intervention was limited to the FDR’s recall of Dodd’s

successor, Hugh Wilson, as a reaction to Kristallnacht. However, Hull did not support this

action.628 Under-Secretary Sumner Welles, as late as April 1939, opposed the unrestricted

admission of aliens who claimed to be suffering from religious, political or racial persecution.

624 Wyman, Paper Wall, vii-viii.

625 Ibid.

626 William E. Dodd, Jr. and Martha Dodd, eds. Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 1933-1938 (NY: Harcourt, Brace,

and Company, 1941), 5, 21.

627 Zucker, “In Search,” 71. Hull to Gordon, Chargé d’affaires, Berlin, March 30, 1933, 862.4016/283a.

628 Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, Vol. 1 (NY: Macmillan, 1948), 599.

199

Entry, he asserted, risked provoking detrimental “delicate and hazardous diplomatic

situations.”629 Therefore, an application for immigration, an onerous task in itself, would remain

the only means of gaining access into America.

Many German Jewish and non-Aryan aliens attempting to enter the United States faced a

bureaucratic labyrinth of governmental, and particularly, State Department red tape;

requirements that waxed and waned dependent upon the particular ethnic group under

consideration—onerous to some and facile for others. Although not considered a special class

within the context of immigration laws and denied such categorization, refugees from the Reich

faced multiple hurdles: the provision to an American consul of proof of an unexpired passport,

certification from local police authorities of personal good conduct, and financial assurances and

affidavits that satisfied the Likely to Become a Public Charge clause.630

Loss of citizenship under the 1935 Nuremberg Racial Laws and progressive

impoverishment from Aryanization and confiscation created burdensome and potentially

insurmountable obstacles for the would-be émigré. Failure to satisfactorily complete an official

document that could reach 50-60 pages in length resulted in rejection and the necessity of

repeating the paperwork odyssey.631 Still, the American Jewish Committee, comprised of more

affluent Jews, opposed any increase in the annual German quota, but favored a loosening of

entry requirements. They did manage to obtain a modicum of positive changes in State and

629 Zucker, “In Search,” 79.

630 Ibid., 46. Welles to Brentano, April 8, 1939, 150.626J/369 ½.

631 William S. Bernard, American Immigration Policy: A Reappraisal (NY: Harper, 1950), 33; Morse, Six

Million, 195-198.

200

Labor Department procedures that had minimal impact on the refugee problem as a whole.632

One Jewish writer derided the time honored “sha-sha philosophy (“quiet diplomacy”633) of

Jewish polemics,”634 espoused by the Committee that attempted to “turn away wrath with gentle

words, to obscure the Jew from public gaze.”635

FDR ordered officials abroad to treat refugees applying for entry visas with

understanding and sympathy; instructions ignored by the State Department.636 Undersecretary of

State William Phillips gave assurances in 1934 to the Committee that consuls had been instructed

to employ the greatest latitude when considering applications. However, in reality they continued

their restrictive practices out of concern that entrants might possess a significant criminal

history.637

632 Frederick Lazin, “The Response of the American Jewish Committee to the Crisis of Germany Jewry, 1933-

1939,” American Jewish History 68, no. 3 (March 1979): 297. The Committee convinced the Departments in 1933

to waive the necessity of a refugee obtaining a “certificate of character” from the local German police. Fiduciary

bonds posted before a visa application was filed also became acceptable.

633 Lazin, “The Response,” 284-285. “Quiet diplomacy” was a strategy that was based upon the belief that a

backdoor approach to Roosevelt, the State Department and the administration by Jews and Christians could result in

positive actions to ameliorate the refugee crisis. This strategy attempted to employ the influence of “close, personal,

professional and political ties” to Washington while avoiding public censure of government policies. Lavin, in this

detailed analysis of the workings of the AJC concluded that it was markedly ineffective and resulted in few

perceptible results.

634 H.C. Engelbrecht, Joshua Tractenberg, et a, “How to Combat Anti-Semitism in America: The Six Prize

Winning Essays in the Contest Conducted by Opinion—A Journal of Life and Letters” (NY: Jewish Opinion Pub.

Corp., 1937), 33; American Jewish Year Book, vol. 39, September 6, 1937-September 24, 1938, 76-78. This

competition was sponsored by the American Jewish Congress, comprised predominantly of members of the

professional and middle classes, and was a frequent adversary of the American Jewish Committee, which opposed

public protests and the economic boycott of Nazi Germany.

635 Engelbrecht, “How to Combat,” 33.

636 Robert Beir, Roosevelt and the Holocaust: A Rooseveltian Examines the Policies and Remembers the Times.

(Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade, 2006), 261.

637 Consul Geist to Secretary Hull, March 5, 1934, 150.626J/74 in Bat-Ami Zucker, In Search of Refuge: Jews

and US Consuls in Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2001), 42.

201

It was not until the latter months of 1940 that the State Department, in accordance with

the recommendations of the President’s Advisory Committee for Political Refugees, categorized

German Jewish and non-Aryan refugees as political refugees who no longer required exit

permits. This new classification was sharply defined as:

Persons of outstanding character and reputation with intellectual accomplishment

in the learned profession…who are either in physical danger or in danger of being

so circumscribed and hindered in the practice of their profession that it would be

for the welfare of civilization that they be removed to the United States as a haven

of safety.638

However, the LPC clause, first enacted in 1882, remained in force and continued to present a

formidable barrier to admission.639

American Jewish historian David Brody noted official concessions stifled “discernable

agitation”640 from many Jewish organizations for the subsequent four years as maintenance of

the status quo was the desired aim. The number of émigrés admitted increased slightly but

historians Barbara McDonald Stewart, the daughter of James G. McDonald, and David Wyman

observed that American foreign officers continued their capricious practices of intolerance,

abnegation, and conscious under filling of the yearly allotment. It was also noted that the consuls

frequently denied entry visas to applicants despite provision of the required documents.641 While

638 Zucker, “In Search, 54. Long to Sumner Welles, November 8, 1940, Long Papers, Library of Congress,

Manuscript Division, File 211: Visa Division, Folder: Visa Division, General 1940-41.

639 Undersecretary of State Breckinridge Long, “Instructions to American Consuls,” October 3, 1940; Long to

Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles, November 8, 1940, Long Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript

Division, file 211, Visa Division, General, 1940-41 in Zucker, “In Search,” 42, 78-97. This form of liberalization,

however, was significantly compromised by the fact that Western Europe had come under German occupation by

this time and the means to reach the United States were severely limited.

640 Brody, “American Jewry,” 222.

641 Udo Bayer, “Laemmle’s List: Carl Laemmle’s Affidavits for Jewish Refugees,” Film History 10, no. 4,

Centennial of Cinema Literature (1998): 501-521. Carl Laemmle, a German immigrant and founder of a major

Hollywood studio, provided the State Department with financial guarantees for more than three hundred children

from his hometown, Lauphaim. However, the U.S. Consul in Stuttgart refused to issue the visas, that the mogul’s

202

the quota’s entire pool of admissible immigrants numbered 2,616,000 during 1930-1946, only

560,000 landed on American shores.642

Raymond H. Geist, the long-serving Consul and First Secretary of the U.S. Embassy in

Berlin, declared that Jews were gradually being “condemned to death”643 but the overall process

was proceeding far too quickly for the global community to intervene effectively. However, in

spite of such a dire view, he theorized that if an agreement could be reached with the Nazi

authorities to facilitate mass emigration, Germany, in return, was likely to temper its

exclusionary policies. This approach, Geist concluded, would have enabled the Reich to achieve

its judenrein goal. His conjecture, however, was fatally flawed due to the unwillingness of

nations to liberalize immigration; resistance that was well illuminated during the Evian

Conference. Indeed, the Nazi regime had repeatedly expressed intent to eliminate their Jewish

population. Moderation was incommensurate with such a worldview.644 Assistant Secretary of

State Messersmith adduced that the prevention of further anti-Jewish actions was unachievable.

The resolution of the Jewish refugee problem was, in his opinion, insoluble without “the

reestablishment of decent governments…and decent treatment of people at home.”645 War

_________________________________ age of seventy-one years with its shorter life expectancy, precluded his ability to provide long-term support to these

refugees. Lazin, “The Response of the American Jewish Committee,” 297; American Jewish Year Book, 1937-1938,

vol. 39, 67. Zucker, “In Search,” 53. When the European War commenced in September 1939 consuls became more

resistant to issue visas to those whose approval for entry had been granted by the government.

642 Friedman, No Haven, 22-23.

643 Geist to Messersmith, December 5, 1938, Messersmith Papers, 1938, box 1, folder E.

644 Ibid.

645 Messersmith to Geist, December 20, 1938, Messersmith Papers, 1938, box 1, folder E. He reasoned that the

“outside world” would not acquiesce to any form of extortion in which Germany employed “Jews as pawns” for

political and material advantage. He also asserted that “no action, international or private” could resolve the refugee

dilemma.

203

provided the only means to consummate such an end; a battle to be conducted not for

humanitarian reasons but for the safeguarding of American interests.646

In contrast, historian Daniel Tichenor commented that the 1940 enactment of the

Hennings Bill demonstrated that an “ethnic and racial hierarchy” guided the quota system and its

allocation of visitors’ visas. Once the preferred national group was selected impediments were

rapidly extirpated.647 On the other hand, following Kristallnacht Roosevelt authorized the release

of 12,000-15,000 visitors’ visas to German Jews within the United States. They were granted

permission to remain for six months in renewable blocks. Despite this presidential action the

State Department Visa Division director Avra Warren instructed consuls to avoid complacency

in the dispensation of these visas.648 Commissioner of Immigration James L. Houghteling,

however, noted in early 1939 that the actual number of visitors’ visas granted to German Jewish

refugees did not exceed 5,000.649

Meanwhile, Assistant Undersecretary of State Breckinridge Long actively contrived to

bar entry of German and other European Jews into the United States. The dispensation of visas,

he stated, could be interminably delayed by consular obstruction and administrative obstacles

that would “postpone and postpone and postpone.” These personal reservations, however, did not

significantly apply to British Christian children refugees.650

646 Ibid.

647 Daniel Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2002), 165.

648 Zucker, “In Search,” 127. Messersmith to Geist, November 30, 1938, Messersmith Papers, Item 1084,

University of Delaware.

649 Ibid. Houghteling Address at Rotary Club, Washington, D.C., January 11, 1939.

650 Norman H. Finkelstein, American Jewish History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2007), 136.

204

Contemporary observers and later historians believed that Roosevelt had demonstrated,

particularly from 1938-1945, “a pattern of decreasing sensitivity towards the plight of the

European Jews”651 due to prioritization of American domestic and foreign concerns and personal

beliefs.652 Various attendees and observers of the Evian Conference, for example, were highly

skeptical of the enterprise’s success. FDR had initiated the conference with a modicum of

preparedness and inadequate planning and rarely spoke of it afterwards. Consequently, most

representatives went hesitantly without confidence in the endeavor. George Rublee concluded

that the President was not personally engaged with his own proposition.653 The absence of

comprehensive forethought and creation of the necessary groundwork, he argued, ensured

failure. If the United States had presented concrete proposals, rather than accentuating its

consolidation of two quotas, some form of positive action might have been achievable.

However, economic concerns and anxieties of provoking anti-Jewish backlashes among their

respective populations led foreign delegations and their governments to equivocate while seeking

the “absolute minimum of practical measures.”654

Roosevelt was careful not to commit personal thoughts and opinions to paper but

intermittently voiced his attitude towards Jews and Catholics. He recounted his endorsement of

establishing religious quotas for Harvard University. While serving on the university’s Board of

651 Wyman, Paper Walls, vii-viii.

652 Ibid.

653 George Rublee to Hand, August 29, 1938, HLS-Hand, box 107, folder 6; Rublee, “Reminiscences of George

Rublee,” (NY: Columbia University Oral History Research Office, 1972), 284 in Marc Eric McClure, Earnest

Endeavors (Praeger: Westport, CT, 2003), 254; Foreign Relations of the United States, vol.11, 796-798.

654 London, Whitehall, 90; Solomon Adler-Rudel, “The Evian Conference on the Refugee Question,” The Leo

Baeck Institute Yearbook 3, no. 1 (1968), 255; Dennis R Laffer, “Evian Conference,” History in Dispute: The

Holocaust 1933-1945, vol. 11 (Farmington Hills, MI: St. James Press, 2003), 56; The Proceedings of the

Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees, July 6, 1938, 11, 32-35; New York Times, “Concern for Jews in

Germany Held Insincere,” November 22, 1938, 4.

205

Overseers in 1923 he called for a reduction in the percentage of Jewish and Catholic students

admitted per year. He believed it was essential to avoid a “disproportionate amount of any

religion.”655 FDR also claimed that Polish anti-Semitism stemmed from Jewish control of the

nation’s economy.656 Leo Crowley, the Alien Property Custodian, related to Treasury Secretary

Henry Morgenthau, Jr., on January 21, 1942 that the President had reminded him that the United

States was a “Protestant country, and the Catholics and Jews [were] here on sufferance…”657

Following the successful occupation of North Africa, Roosevelt stated that it was important to

establish limits on occupations available for Jews as a means of “eliminat[ing] the specific and

understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany.”658 FDR

explained to Winston Churchill during the Casablanca Conference of 1943 that resolution of the

Jewish Question necessitated “spread[ing] them thin”659 across the globe in less populated areas.

Vice President Wallace recounted a conversation between Roosevelt and Churchill

during a White House visit on May 22, 1943. They were discussing the topic of post-war

planning and FDR related his long-standing pre-war engagement of Isaiah Bowman, a noted

geographer and current president of Johns Hopkins, to determine the best means of resolving the

Jewish Question. The scholar, according to Wallace, recommended dispersing the Jews in small

655 Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), 295-296.

656 Rafael Medoff, “American Responses to the Holocaust: New Research, New Controversies,” American

Jewish History 100, no. 3 (July 2016), 385.

657 MD, January 27, 1942, 1061, FDRL in Medoff, FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith (Washington,

D.C.: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies), Kindle, location 423.

658 Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers 1942, Vol. III, Europe (Washington, D.C.: United

States Government Printing Office, 1968), 570-577.

659 John M. Blum, The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 211.

206

groups around the world.660 Bowman had a reputation of being an anti-Semite and had

established an admittance quota system at his university. He commented that Jews did not seek

entrance into Hopkins as a means of improving the world but “to make money and to marry non-

Jewish women.”661

Raphael Medoff and others suggest that FDR’s relationship with Bowman reveal a

connection between the President’s personal attitudes towards Jews and schemes of overseas

resettlement.662 Roosevelt running as the 1920 Democratic Party Vice Presidential candidate

stated that aliens tended to congregate within large urban areas generating overcrowding and

racial bigotry that interfered with the process of assimilation. The only solution to this

progressive ghettoization was dispersal in small numbers across the country.663

The New York Times concluded it was no longer possible for the United States to

continue to serve as the sanctuary for the oppressed. The nation’s economic calamity that crossed

all social, religious, ethnic, and political boundaries could not support an infusion of alien

refugees. Rather, colonization into remote and underdeveloped regions of the world provided a

potential viable option.664 Roosevelt did provide assurances to James G. McDonald and George

Warren, advisor to Myron C. Taylor, that given the proper opportunity, he would seek a

$150,000,000 Congressional appropriation to subsidize the resettlement of German Jews.

660 Ibid., 210-211. Bowman had had served as the principal consultant to President Woodrow Wilson on

geographical matters at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919.

661 Neil Smith, American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 2003), 242, 246-247, 309.

662 Medoff, “American Responses,” 386.

663 Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 2003), 236.

664 New York Times, “The Refugees,” November 16, 1938, 22.

207

Breitman et al regard this pledge, which was described as the “reverse side of FDR’s subsequent

unwillingness to endorse the Wagner-Rogers Bill”665 as a token, not a resolution of a massive

refugee crisis.

Political concerns also influenced FDR’s attitudes towards the admission of foreigners.

The First Lady, following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, called on her

husband to increase the immigration quotas and pressure the State Department to mitigate its

impediments to Jewish immigration. He cautioned that such action would cost him the support of

the powerful chairmen of important Senate and House Committees; politicians who would desert

the party and obstruct every legislative proposal required to prevent the country from foundering.

The President concluded that a divided Democratic Party jeopardized the nation’s preparation for

war, which was his highest priority.666 Southern Democrats, who opposed any liberalization of

immigration laws, represented his strongest bloc of Congressional supporters. They voted 127:0

for the 1924 Immigration Act and 106:3 to revise the Neutrality Act of 1939. The Chief

Executive’s advocacy for Jewish refugees risked political confrontations, erosion of support, and

retaliation from Capitol Hill anti-immigrationists.

Congressional representatives, in general, who expressed support for changes to the quota

system faced potential political retribution. A mid-1939 Fortune poll asked the public to

consider, if they were members of Congress, would they be supportive of or against the

665 Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg, eds., Refugees and Rescue, Volume 2:

The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald 1935-1945 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009), 335.

666 Former Army intelligence analyst and Federal prosecutor Carl L. Steinhouse, Barred: The Shameful Refusal of

FDR’s State Department to Save Tens of Thousands of Europe’s Jews from Extermination (Bloomington, IN:

Author House, 2007),18-20.

208

admission of European refugees. Results indicated that 84 percent of Catholics, 85 percent of

Protestants, and 25.8 percent of Jews were resistant to any liberalization of the quota.667

Edwin “Pa” Watson, the Presidential Press Secretary, recollected that FDR’s lack of

support for the German Refugee Children’s Bill ensured the demise of the legislation. However,

he observed that children under consideration in the Henning Bill were “English and Christians,

not Jews. [Therefore,] the patriotic organizations sure won’t object to this one… mak[ing]

things a hell of a lot easier.”668 Historian William Nawyn noted that the latter legislation was

carefully worded as it was clearly designed for the benefit of British children. Various public

opinion polls demonstrated a predominance of support. FDR, always attuned to the winds of

popular sensibilities was, according to Nawyn, ready to express official support for the plan,

despite the intrinsic realities of the problem of safe passage.669

FDR, ever the consummate politician, skillfully employed the media as a means of

disseminating acclamatory news reports that overwhelmed negative editorials and dominated

front pages to the consternation of his many political foes.670 He fastidiously employed the bully

pulpit supplied by Presidential News Conferences and fireside chats to engender a news stream

that overshadowed other press stories.671 Roosevelt frequently appropriated reporters’ questions

667 Hadley Cantril, ed., Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), 1081, 1150.

668 Carl L. Steinhouse, Barred: The Shameful Refusal of FDR’s State Department to Save Tens of Thousands of

Europe’s Jews from Extermination (Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2007), 69-70.

669 William Nawyn, American Protestanism’s Response to Germany’s Jews and Refugees, 1933-1941. (Ann

Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1980), 23-27.

670 John Williams Tebell and Sarah Miles Watts, The Press and the Presidency: From George Washington to

Ronald Reagan (NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), 438, 444.

671 Graham White, FDR and the Press (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 22-24; Richard W. Steele,

Propaganda in an Open Society: The Roosevelt Administration and the Media, 1933-1941 (Westport, CT:

Greenwood Press, 1985), 37; Betty H. Winfield, FDR and the News Media (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press,

1990), 237.

209

as a means of promoting, avoiding, and framing the policies of his administration and diverting

or suppressing the reaction of the media and public to current events or governmental actions.

He was not averse to providing journalists with queries on topics he wished to discuss.672

Steven Casey, Lecturer in International History, London School of Economics, believed

that Roosevelt not only maneuvered to influence frames of mind but was in return susceptible to

the “shifting attitudes of opinion makers,”673 principally those of reporters, editors, and

columnists who opposed liberalization of quota law or immigration in general.674

A correspondent recognized that the President had the ability to quickly ascertain the

tenor of the country and the relative importance of “current events, trends, [and] problems”675

from the manner in which press questions were posed and the character of their construction.

Although the most anti-Semitic acts were occurring with disconcerting and troubling regularity,

Roosevelt maneuvered in a manner to keep his political interests aligned with popular opinion

while avoiding conflicts with an antagonistic Congress.676 FDR also established the Division of

Press Intelligence during 1933-1939 to monitor and analyze the reporting and editorializing of

approximately four hundred newspapers, providing the White House with a daily “intelligence

report”677 of media and national attitudes.678 A 1995 analysis of the themes of the President’s

_________________________________

672 Elmer Cromwell, Jr., Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,

1966), 156-157.

673 Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi

Germany (NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 69.

674 Ibid., 69.

675 White, FDR and the Press, 21.

676 Ibid., 22.

677 Laurel Leff, “News of the Holocaust: Why FDR Didn’t Tell and the Press Didn’t Ask,” Hakirah: A Journal of

Jewish and Ethnic Studies, 2006, 11, http://wymaninstitute.org/articles/News%20of%20the%20Holocaust-

210

first seven State of the Union addresses concluded that Roosevelt responded to “coverage in the

newspapers more than he influenced subsequent coverage”; a trend that continued during the

wartime years.679

FDR maintained a significant level of public silence regarding the situation confronting

Central European Jewry. Only one reporter raised the subject of minority persecutions within the

Reich during the course of eighty-two press conferences held during 1933. The journalist

inquired whether Roosevelt or other administration officials had been approached by refugee

organizations to develop policies that could abate such treatment. The President admitted the

reception of many entreaties, but all referred to the State Department for consideration. The next

reference to Jews in a Presidential news conference took place 5 years and 348 forums later on

September 2, 1938, when he was asked if he had an opinion regarding a Fascist Italian plan to

expel 22,000 foreign Jews; Roosevelt responded “no.” FDR was questioned by the press on

seven separate occasions about his response to Kristallnacht and its aftermath, but offered only

one definitive statement: the Labor Department had been instructed to extend the duration of

fifteen thousand German and Austrian tourist visas with the qualification that they were “not all

Jews by any means.”680

_________________________________ %20Why%20FDR%20Didn't%20Tell%20and%20the%20Press%20Didn't%20Ask.pdf; Internet; accessed October

3, 2010. The Office of Press Intelligence was established in August 1933.

678 Ibid.

679 Thomas J. Johnson, Wayne Wanta, John T. Byrd and Cindy Lee, “Exploring FDR’s Relationship with the

Press: A Historical Agenda-Setting Study,” Political Communication 12 (1995): 157.

680 Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt (NY: Da Capo Press, 1972), Vol. 11, 248-

9; vol. 12, 41, 69, 224, 228-9, 238-41, 247, 257, 280-1, 286; vol. 20, 52-57. Zucker, “In Search,” 50. Messersmith to

Consul-General Wiley in Vienna, June 28, 1938, Messersmith Papers, Item 1012, Delaware State University

Archives and Messersmith to Berlin Consul Geist, December 8, 1938, Messersmith Papers, Item 1093. Following

Kristallnacht the administration declared that German Jewish refugees were “a general and not a specific

responsibility” for the United States to assume. The nation was not in a position “to become a haven for all the

211

Anti-Semitism helped to shape the debate over German Jewish refugee immigration,

particularly among certain State Department officials and members of the House of

Representatives and the Senate. This was especially true during the crucial years of the 1930s

and 1940.681 Personal journals of members of the diplomatic corps provide a window into anti-

Jewish currents that flowed through this department. Assistant Secretary of State and later

Ambassador to Fascist Italy William Phillips described a Soviet official on May 23, 1923 as a

“perfect little rat of a Jew.”682 Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle recorded in his diary

during 1940 that American Jews were collectively willing to “sacrifice [United States] interests

to English interests…It is horrible to see one phase of the Nazi propaganda justifying itself a

little.”683 The majority of consuls shared similar demographic backgrounds: white Anglo-Saxon

Protestants of the mid-to-upper economic classes who frequently held anti-Semitic and anti-

immigrationist beliefs.684

The plurality of Congressional legislators who espoused such rhetoric were not,

according to American Jewish historian Edward Shapiro, “intrinsically anti-Semitic.”685

_________________________________ distressed people in the world.” Acceptance of this group, it was feared, would further exacerbate U.S.-German

tensions and worsen domestic anti-Semitism.

681 Kurt F. Stone, The Jews of Capitol Hill: A Compendium of Jewish Congressional Members (Lebanon, MD:

Scarecrow Press, 2011), 137. Stone identified legislators considered to be the leading anti-Semites in both Houses:

Congressmen John Rankin (Rep., MS); Jacob Thorkelson (Rep., MT); Louis T. McFadden (Rep., PA.), John Schafer

(Rep.; WI). Senators: Robert Reynolds; Rufus C. Holman (Rep., OR).

682 William Phillip Diary, May 18, 1923 (Boston: Houghton University Library) in Rafael Medoff, “American

Responses to the Holocaust: New Research, New Controversies,” American Jewish History 100, no. 3 (July 2016):

383.

683 Beatrice Bishop Berle and Travis Beal Jacobs, eds., Navigating the Rapids 1918-1974: From the Papers of

Adolf A. Berle (NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 342.

684 Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993), 56-57.

685 Edward S. Shapiro, “The Approach of War: Congressional Isolationism and Anti-Semitism, 1939-1941,”

American Jewish History 74, no. 1 (September 1984): 64.

212

However, the conviction that American and European Jewry were conspiring to draw the nation

into conflict with Nazi Germany on their behalf resonated among these politicians and

significant segments of the population.686 Cultural historian John Higham argued that

“ideological anti-Semitism,”687 discrimination based upon negative ethnic and social stereotypes,

represented a form of nativism or “anti-foreign spirit”688 that branded Jews as inassimilable and

unfaithful to the democratic ideals of the Republic; members of a far-flung international

conspiracy that sought financial domination, erosion of moral values, collapse of the central

government, and the creation of a “superstate.”689

Congressmen Louis T. McFadden and John C. Schafer exemplified Higham’s construct.

These men employed rising global tensions and fear of American involvement in a new

European war as an opportunity to validate their antipathy towards the broader Jewish

community. McFadden was stirred by the supposed revelations of The Protocols of the Elders of

Zion, influenced by Henry Ford’s The International Jew, and fervently supported William

Dudley Pelley, the leader of the far-right Silver Shirts.690

686 Scott-Martin Kosofsky, Jonathan B. Sarna, and Ellen Smith, The Jews of Boston (New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2005), 335. The Radio Priest, Charles E. Coughlin, drew support, for example, from white collar

Irish Catholics residing in Boston, when he claimed that Jews were attempting to entangle the United States in a war

with Germany to “save British financial and imperial interests, as well as Zionism.”

687 John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick, NJ:

Rutgers University Press, 2008), xi.

688 John Higham, Send Them to Me: Immigrants in Urban America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

1984), 11

689 Frank E. Eakin, What Price Prejudice? Christian Anti-Semitism in America (NY: New York Paulist Press,

1998), 95.

690 Shapiro, “The Approach of War,” 47; Lee J. Levinger, Anti-Semitism: Yesterday and Tomorrow (NY:

Macmillan, 1936), 140, 177; Henry Ford, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem (Dearborn, MI:

Dearborn, 1920). McFadden espoused the doctrine that an international Jewish cabal-controlled Wall Street, the

Federal Reserve, programs of the New Deal, the supply of silver, the press, the world’s banking system, and

facilitated the immigration of Communists into the United States in order to establish a socialist state.

213

Furthermore, he endorsed the Hitlerian agenda to disenfranchise and isolate German

Jewry by ending its purported monopoly over national finances, politics, media, the professions,

and universities. McFadden opposed the economic boycott of Nazi Germany and eschewed

reports of the persecution of Jews.691 The Reich, he argued, represented the decisive bulwark

against an expansionist Jewish led Soviet Union that sought the establishment of an American

Communist state.692 This theme, Shapiro believed, resonated within future Congressional anti-

Semitic discourse, particularly after the outbreak of war: Jews coveted an American military

confrontation with the Reich “so that [Jewish financiers and bankers] and their Gentile

fronts…may reap rich profits on everything an army needs.”693 Representative John C. Schafer, a

fervent acolyte of Charles Coughlin, a House committee opponent of the Wagner-Rogers Bill,

and a dedicated isolationist, was overtly anti-Semitic and had been denounced for harboring

affinities with National Socialists. He accused the collective Jewish community of radicalism

responsible for the New Deal and its policies that paralleled Soviet “socialistic [and]

691 Arnold A. Rogow, ed., The Jew in a Gentile World: An Anthology of Writings about Jews by Non-Jews (NY:

Macmillan, 1961), 317.

692 Congressional Record, 73rd Cong., 2nd Session, June 15, 1934, 11841-11843; Congressional Record, 73rd

Cong., 1st Session, June 15, 1933, 6225-6227. Gail Ann Sindell, Gerald B. Winrod and the Defender: A Case Study

of the Radical Right (Ph.D. Dissertation: Case Western Reserve University, 1973), 221. Sindell argued that

McFadden’s linkage of international Jewry with Soviet Communism, colored by the tenets of the Protocols,

empowered the anti-Semitic extremism of Gerald B. Winrod and his fellow radical travelers. Frank E. Eakin, What

Price Prejudice? Christian Antisemitism in America.

693 Shapiro, “The Approach of War,” 48; Congressional Record, 73rd Cong., 1st Session, June 15, 1933, 6225-

6227. These anti-war sentiments and accusations of financial greed replicated earlier accusations made by Senators

Charles W. Norris and Robert M. La Follette, Sr. that the United States had been maneuvered into the Great War

through the machinations of London and New York banking houses, and munitions manufacturers. George W.

Norris, Fighting Liberal: The Autobiography of George W. Norris (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press,

1973), 195; Nancy Unger, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical

Society Press, 2008), 245.

214

communistic” ideologies.694

The hesitation of Jewish members of Congress, such as Representatives Celler and

Sabath, to promote admission of German Jewry, was commensurate with the sentiments of many

of their American co-religionists. Although Jews had a long tradition of offering communal aid

and charity it was feared that a mass influx of refugees would overwhelm communal and

welfare-agency resources during a time of economic depression.695 Wealthier Jews were

indisposed to underwrite large-scale immigration. One Jewish journalist observed that the

affluent felt increasingly encumbered by “brethren…who [were] in distress”696 and derided the

admission of immigrants likely to become dependent upon the public dole.697 As the depression

worsened, many Jews also experienced economic bigotry, functioning as a “’submerged

class’”698 liable to be replaced by Christian workers, as non-Jewish Americans frequently

regarded refugees as lower paid competitors for jobs.699

Konrad Heiden, a prominent German-American journalist, reported in 1945 that many

influential Jews, national groups, and organizations endorsed immigration constraints due to

694 Congressional Record, 76th Congress, 1st Session, June 30, 1939, 8463-8464; Congressional Record, 76th

Cong., 2nd Session, October 10, 1939, 263; November 1, 1939, 1277; Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 3rd Session,

June 10, 1940, 7903-7905; The Capitol Times, May 2, 1939, 4.

695 B’nai B’rith Magazine 47 (April 1933): 217 and (November 1932), 129; Rufus Learai, The Jews in America

(NY: 1954), 28 in Brody, “American Jewry,” 225, 228.

696 B’nai B’rith Magazine 47 (March 1935): 135.

697 Ibid.

698 Ibid.

699 George Sokolsky, We Jews (NY: Doran & Company, 1935), 185; Haskel Lookstein, Were We Our Brothers’

Keepers? The Pubic Response of American Jews to the Holocaust 1938-1944 (NY: Hartmore House,1985), 95. The

American Jewish Congress reported that this policy had been accelerating. Yiddishe Welt, March 23, 1935, 12. The

paper reported that 50 percent of Jewish businesses were refusing to hire Jewish workers. Yiddishe Welt, March 12,

1937, 12. Congress Bulletin 10 and 13, 10. It was possible that such attitudes were motivated by rumors that

Christians were being discharged from Jewish owned companies in favor of German refugees.

215

concerns that Christians associated them with foreign Jews regarded as undesirable aliens. It was

believed, Heiden concludes, that the strengthening of an ethnic bond between the two countries

destabilized the social, political, and economic positioning of American Jewry, jeopardized the

gains they had made over time in a predominantly Gentile nation, and stimulated domestic anti-

Semitism. Feelings of insecurity, therefore, contributed to the acceptance of draconian

immigration laws and requirements, supporting Arthur Morse’s contention that a substantial

percentage of Jews were as unconcerned with the fate of German and Austrian Jews as many of

their Gentile countrymen.700

Joseph Billikopf, a social worker, contemporary arbitrator of labor disputes, and

philanthropist, informed immigrant activist Cecelia Razovsky of the National Refugee Service,

that Jews had approached the Departments of State and Labor to express their disapproval of the

Wagner-Rogers Bill. While he could comprehend the rationale of their objections, he regarded

their obstructiveness or “even opinion in influential Washington circles [as]

something…disgusting, to say the least.”701 Evidently, he concluded, there were segments of the

Jewish population who assessed German Jews as a threat to their established position, and

relatively stable, but tenuous relationships with Gentile Americans. They regarded intensification

700 Konrad Heiden, Voice of the Unconquered 3 (April 1945) cited in Brody, “American Jewry,” 238; Morse,

While Six Million Died, 383. David MacCormack, Immigration Commissioner in 1935, advised Jewish leaders that

any advocacy to admit German Jewish refugees risked the “promo[tion of latent racial and religious” antagonisms.”

New York Times, March 4, 1935, 4; Jewish Historical General Archives (JHGA), Jerusalem, Inv/1913 cited in Zosa

Szajkowski, “The Attitude of American Jews to Refugees from Germany in the 1930’s,” American Jewish

Historical Quarterly 61, no. 2 (December 1971): 108. The Committee on German Immigration Policy warned on

November 4, 1935 that care must be taken to avoid agitating “officials of patriotic…and labor organizations which

opposed immigration,” 107.

701National Refugee Service, 18 cited in Szajkowski, 109.

216

of domestic anti-Semitism as a definite possibility and conducted their actions with an air of

irresoluteness.702

Journalist Arthur Morse, was the first to examine policies and actions of the U.S.

Government towards the Nazi enactment of the Final Solution. He declares the country could

have done more to save lives, but was limited by an unwillingness to liberalize a restrictive quota

system, refusal to participate in League of Nations immigration conferences, or to exert pressure

on Britain to open the door to Palestine. The advent of war led the government to adopt more

exclusionary barriers and ultimately, the active suppression of news reports of Nazi genocide. He

concludes that overt anti-Semitism influenced the State Department, particularly Undersecretary

of State Breckinridge Long, to obstruct entry of Jewish refugees.703

University of Massachusetts History Professor David Wyman was the first scholar to ask

why America, its political leadership, and the public, failed to enact rescue efforts that reflected

its national strength and will? His first work, Paper Walls, deals with the crucial period of 1938-

1941, and his second, Abandonment of the Jews, focuses upon the war years of 1941-1945. Both

volumes offer similar arguments, but the tenor and range of Wyman’s criticism mount in the

latter. He asserts that by 1938 it was clear that the situation of German Jewry had deteriorated to

a point that extrication was imperative for their survival. The Reich policy of forced emigration

accelerated during this period but effectively ended by October 1941. Significantly, public

sympathy towards Jews that had been widely expressed following Kristallnacht did not

702 Deborah E. Lipstadt, “Pious Sympathies and Sincere Regrets: The American News Media and the Holocaust

from Krystalnacht to Bermuda, 1938-1943,” Modern Judaism, 2, no. 1 (February 1982): 59; Lookstein, We Were,

208. Extremist right-wing and fascist-leaning anti-Semitic groups, associated with Coughlin, Pelley, and Winrod had

expressed or carried out violent acts against Jews with some calling for implementation of Nazi-like policies.

703 Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook

Press, 1968).

217

metamorphose into a willingness to accept stateless and impoverished refugees. Wyman

proposes three reasons for this discordance: rising anti-Semitism, “nativistic nationalism,”704 and

widespread unemployment. Fear of spies, threat of a Fifth Column, and saboteurs enhanced this

equation with the entrance of the United States into World War II.

Roosevelt, according to the author, played an “ambiguous role”705 in the search for a

workable solution to the refugee problem. Wyman recognizes that the United States had accepted

more refugees than any other country, but proportionately, the United Kingdom, France, The

Netherlands, and other European nations had admitted more.706 The major factor constraining

immigration into America remained the strict interpretation and enforcement of the quota

system. Congressional resistance, State Department obstructionism, public antipathy, and

Presidential risk avoidance and increasing personal detachment eliminated any chance of

significantly modifying the National Origins Act. FDR’s incertitude towards Jewish immigrants,

his penchant for colonization schemes in remote and undeveloped regions, and his delegation of

admission policies to the State Department ensured that German Jewish refugees faced

increasing levels of resistance to entry. By June 1940, Wyman notes, the Department, citing

security concerns, had reduced the number of émigrés from Germany, Central and Eastern

Europe by half.

Importantly, the writer claims that the State Department and the British Foreign Office

were never going to carry out large-scale programs of mass rescue. Both nations feared that if

Germany and its allied nations freed thousands of Jews then they would be compelled to admit

704 Wyman, Paper Walls, viii.

705 Ibid., 213.

706 Ibid., 209. 250,000 European refugees had entered the U.S. between 1933-1945, and 150,000 went to

Palestine. From early mid-1938 to mid-1941 150,000 more were admitted into America and 55,000 into Palestine.

218

them into the United States or the Palestine Mandate. Consequently, each adopted policies of

obstructionism and diversion of popular opinion. The Presidential Advisory Committee for

Political Refugees, established by Roosevelt in 1938 to formulate rescue plans, was rendered

impotent from its inception: It did not receive government funding, but was dependent upon

$15,000 per year donated by the American Joint Distribution Committee, a Jewish organization,

and it deferred decision making to the Department of State.707

Roosevelt, according to Wyman was reticent to intervene due to potential political costs,

and his general approach was driven by carefully contrived expediency. FDR was assured of

continued Jewish electoral loyalty, but he recognized that open support for German Jewish

immigration engendered unacceptable risks to his favored programs and goals. Emanuel Celler,

looking back years after the end of the war, observed the President failed to provide a “spark of

courageous leadership [while remaining] silent, indifferent, and insensitive”708 to the dangers

confronting Jewry.

Wyman ended his works by assigning responsibility for collective inertia to a variety of

hosts. He indicts society as a whole for allowing U.S. refugee policy to institutionalize

indifference. If decision-making was interpreted in the context of its era, official policy towards

refugees during 1938-1941 was “essentially what the American people wanted.”709 Roosevelt

remained laconic, focused on preparations for and the conduct of a global war. Wyman

concludes that the cataclysm that befell the Jews of Europe was a consequence of the unfortunate

occurrence of being neither American nor English, but rather aliens, who by happenstance were

707Wyman, Abandonment, x, 315.

708 Ibid., 313. Celler Speech, October 23, 1975 at the Jewish Historical Society of New York.

709 Wyman, Paper Walls, 213.

219

Jews.710 Jews, the writer argues, did not possess a “sense of unquenchable urgency,”711 but it was

the Nazis who were guilty of genocide. He recognizes the limitations of American and Allied

power to effect large-scale rescue once the Continental war began. Nonetheless, he

controversially accuses the American people of being “passive accomplices,”712 bystanders who

should have called upon the government to attempt some meaningful degree of salvation.

Wyman’s criticisms of the possibilities of the U.S. response set into motion the ongoing

rancorous and polar debate over the American response to Nazi persecution and the Final

Solution.

Saul S. Friedman, Professor of History at Youngstown State University, avers that

Roosevelt’s attitudes and policies towards German Jewish refugees were initially influenced by

economic and employment concerns, the increasing influence of nativists, Nazi sympathizers,

and later by the potential admission of Nazi espionage agents. Entry of the United States into

World War II, however, placed “military expediency”713 at the forefront of his goals and

policies. He asserts that Morse’s emphasis upon anti-Semitism as the driving force for

immigration restrictionism was an overly simplified explanation that was not based upon

sufficient study of primary source material. Friedman echoes Wyman in his claim that Roosevelt

balanced the political risks and gains and was determined to actively avoid meaningful

engagement with the unprecedented ill-treatment and murder of European Jewry during the years

710 Wyman, Abandonment, 340.

711 Ibid., ix.

712 Ibid.


220

of the Third Reich.714 He further alleges that American Jewry who “idolized”715 the President

bore a degree of responsibility due to communal failure to speak out with one voice, and their

opposition to changes in the quota system. In the end, however, Friedman concludes that the

“blame for inaction lies with the faceless mass of American citizens.”716

Professor of History Henry L. Feingold at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the

City University of New York argues that Roosevelt confronted two opposing pressures: The

New Deal promises of compassionate change that would benefit the “forgotten man”717 and the

need to admit refugees that, it was believed, potentially posed an internal threat to the security of

the nation. FDR was a polished politician who frequently kept his own counsel and could easily

move between these two paths. The dearth of a defined directive, Feingold alleges, was a

significant impediment to meaningful rescue efforts. The President remained aloof from the

problem, but if he did become involved his recommendations were marked by a “visionary

quality”718 facilitated by “being nowhere anchored to the basic facts of the case.”719

714 Ibid., 229. Friedman notes that FDR could have influenced Great Britain to alter its immigration policies

regarding Palestine and used secured regions in freed North Africa as save havens or free ports. Instead, Roosevelt

“reacted to crises rather than acted.”

715 Ibid., 226, 230. Friedman, in describing American Jewry’s response to FDR, employed such terms as

“servility” and “timidity” reflecting Jewish historical tradition in assuming a supplicant role towards sources of

political or military power during times of communal stress and threat. He believed Roosevelt possessed the “ability

to mesmerize” and manipulated Jewish leaders and organizations against each other to prevent the creation of a

united front. He was also critical of the efforts of Rabbi Stephen Wise to mute reports of mass extermination coming

out of Europe. Celler to Roosevelt, January 25, 1944, Personal Correspondence File, FDRL. Jewish Congressman,

Emanuel Celler warned FDR in 1943, following the creation of the War Refugee Board that “the nation’s security

must not be imperiled by the admission of spies and espionage agents under the guise of refugees.”

716 Ibid., 230.

717 Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 289. Many Jewish supporters of the New Deal philosophy that strove for

solutions for social and economic concerns believed that its policies were translatable into action for refugees.

718 Ibid., xii.

719 Ibid.

221

Consequently, the absence of an ardent committal to rescue and the resultant struggles between

competing authorities produced conflicting policies with little results.

The writer notes the unchanging nature of quota law presented an insurmountable barrier

to German Jewish refugees, but not for the British Christian children of the Hennings Bill. Thus,

FDR engaged in “motions of rescue”720 that posed little political risk.” The employment of the

term “political refugee”721 diminished the victimhood of Jews and the perception that rescue

schemes were primarily for the benefit of a specific refugee group. The American search for

havens, Feingold, asserts, was merely an empty gesture, but the restrictiveness of the quota and

visa system served “literally [as] an adjunct to Berlin’s murderous plan for the Jews.”722

Feingold believes FDR was pleased to place the refugee issue entirely within the purview

of the Department of State. This stratagem allowed him to avoid any political discord generated

by the immigration problem while intermittently asking a question or offering a

recommendation. Thus, Foggy Bottom absorbed “much of the pressure and ire”723 that otherwise

would have been directed against Roosevelt. Adoption of this approach enabled FDR to preserve

his magnanimous demeanor, especially among Jewish constituents.724

The author posits that the American Jewish community was not indifferent to the fate of

his German and European co-religionists but lacked sufficient political influence to effect

720 Ibid., 302.

721 Ibid., 302-303. Feingold described the American invitation to Evian as being so highly conditional that failure

was predictably guaranteed. The construction of the London-based Intergovernmental Committee for Political

Refugees, he believed, served merely as a testament to the Roosevelt Administration’s ineffectualness in confronting

the refugee crisis.

722 Ibid., 296.

723 Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 75.

724 Ibid.

222

positive change, a position shared by New York University Professor of History Hasia R.

Diner.725 The processes of “secularization,”726 “acculturation,”727 and an increasing inability to

act jointly over several generations had led to the erosion of communal leadership and

organization. Thus, many members of American Jewry had adopted, he avows, a comprehensive

world view in which there were other ethnic and religious groups experiencing persecution. It

took time for them to recognize that Nazism posed an existential threat, unique to their

collectivity. A variety of factors led to the fragmentation of the Jewish community and its

vulnerability, particularly awareness of a restrictive Congress and State Department, and the

growing threat of domestic anti-Semitism.728

Feingold concluded that the inability of Roosevelt and his administration to take action

on the refugee and rescue issues represented a “classic case of democracy at work”729 at it

reflected broad Christian and to a lesser extent, Jewish, opposition to admitting stateless émigrés.

Resistance was so entrenched, he argues, that it would have necessitated an “act of extraordinary

political courage” to counter popular opinion.730

725 Hasia R. Diner, The Jews of the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 216, 220.

Diner asserts that Jewish lay and religious leaders and organizations recognized the constraints placed on Roosevelt,

particular the State Department’s tight control of the visa process. She observes that there is little evidence that a

Jewish community, free of internal dissent, could have positively influenced FDR, the Administration, Congress, or

the predominantly Gentile public.

726 Feingold, Bearing Witness, 244.

727 Ibid.

728 Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 286-87. These factors include: ongoing discord between the longer established

“uptown” German Jews and the “downtown” Eastern European Jews; desire to be considered a non-hyphenated

American; the unwillingness of prominent American Jews to assume the mantle of international Jewish leadership;

dissension and lack of cooperation between different organizations; failure to speak with a unified voice; inability to

threaten FDR with the loss of a Jewish voting bloc; rescue was not a top priority issue for the bulk of American

Jewry; idolization of Roosevelt; conflict within and between Zionists and non-Zionists.

729 Feingold, Bearing Witness, 261.

730 Ibid.

223

Proponents of the President and his Administration’s policies insisted that everything that

could be done was carried out within the context and constraints of the time.731 Arthur

Hertzberg, Professor of Jewish Studies at New York University, offers a mixed analysis of the

response of Roosevelt, the State Department, and American Jewry to the persecution of German

Jewry and the immigration issue. Rising domestic and international anti-Semitism led many Jews

to adopt a time honored practice of supplication, seeking protection from “benevolent kings.”732

Jews regarded FDR with an unprecedented sense of adoration; a “special protector”733 for the

Jewish community, although in reality he did little. The acceptance of Jews into the inner

sanctums of government, the civil service, and the liberal programs of social and economic

reform represented by the policies of the New Deal, deepened this relationship and assured the

President of collective Jewish loyalty on election day. A Hebrew language newspaper hailed him

as the “savior of the country”734 and the guardian of European Jewry.

Roosevelt liked to assume the role of the “benevolent monarch”735 of the Jews, but the

realities of burgeoning anti-Semitism, politics, economics, and popular opinion placed

limitations on his actions. FDR and many Jews recognized the dangers of pushing for increased

immigration. Hertzberg observes that both parties, the President, and Jewish leadership sought

increased admission into Palestine. However, he fails to mention the secret arrangement made

_________________________________

731 “Open Knowledge—Americans Did Not Like Immigrant Jews,” June 16, 2006,

http://crasch.livejournal.com/429343.html; Internet; accessed February 17, 2008; “Deathly Silence Teaching Guide:

Bystander Psychology,” The Southern Institute for Education and Research,

http://www.southerninstitute.info/holocaust_education/ds9.html; Internet; accessed 0ctober 4, 2009.

732 Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America (NY: Columbia University Press, 1997), 272.

733 Ibid., 270.

734 Ibid., 273.

735 Ibid.

224

between the U.S. and British governments in the formulation of the Evian Conference to remove

the Mandate from consideration. The American Jewish Committee, the representative of German

Jewry in America, declared that Jews should speak in general terms about human rights and

avoid rhetoric regarding the persecution of Jews. Rabbi Stephen Wise of the American Jewish

Congress, on the other hand, who regarded himself as a close confidante and advisor to the

President, supported public protests against Nazi policies, but failed to sway Roosevelt as he

desired cordial American-German relations.

Hertzberg also notes that FDR was in a weaker position politically in 1936 after his failed

attempts to pack the Supreme Court and an upsurge in unemployment. He admits that following

Kristallnacht Roosevelt did little, except for the recall of the Ambassador and the granting of

extended visitors’ visas. He argues that FDR recognized the coming of war in late 1938 and was

unwilling to undertake any political risks that endangered necessary preparations for the conflict.

The saga of the S.S. St. Louis was, in Hertzberg’s opinion, the “most poignant proof”736 of

presidential unwillingness to challenge immigration restrictionists. The author believes

Roosevelt was sympathetic towards the Jewish plight, but such sentiments had to be expressed

out of the public view. Hertzberg alleges that these feelings were reflected in the increase in

Jewish immigration between 1938-1941 as compared to 1933-1937. He ascribes this change to

the State Department recognizing FDR’s desire to minimize bureaucratic obstacles; a belief that

is not justified in view of the resistance of consuls to grant visas even if all bureaucratic

requirements had been met. Hertzberg concludes that Jews recognized after the President’s death

that it is “power that really counts”; a resource that collectively they lacked. Roosevelt courted

736 Ibid., 280.

225

Jews by providing opportunity in government and New Deal policies, but in the end, they were

impotent to “make the President and Congress feel…Jewish pain.”737

American University historians Richard D. Breitman and Alan N. Kraut assert

that lower level State Department officials, such as Asst. Secretary of State Wilbur Carr, George

Messersmith, and Breckinridge Long, and others, formulated and enacted modifications of entry

requirements that decidedly impacted the possibility of immigration and rescue. Although some

officials were influenced by anti-Semitic and anti-alien prejudices, it was “bureaucratic

indifference to moral or humanitarian concerns”738 and a constricted interpretation of

immigration law that created the principal impediment to a pro-active refugee policy.739

Conflicting national priorities coupled with circumscribed latitudes of domestic political action

prohibited the administration from exceeding quota restrictions. They agree that attempts to

secure the rescue of Jews were inadequate, and admit that on a grander scale “American

inaction…represented a fundamental failure of western civilized values.”740

The authors claim that Wyman’s use of the phrase, “passive accomplices”741 in reference

to the Federal Government, the general public, and American Jewry, was drawn from the suicide

note left by Szmul Zygielbojm during the terminal phase of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of

737 Ibid., 288.

738 Richard D. Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945

(Bloomingdale, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), 9.

739 Ibid.

740 Ibid. Breitman and Kraut do admit, however, that FDR attempted to avoid political hazards by placing the

problem of refugee immigration within the hands of the Department of State. The major priorities of the

Administration, they allege, dealt with strengthening the military, bolstering the economy, and cutting

unemployment. They also affirm that the degree and influence of anti-Semitism within the Department was

markedly overstated in terms of policy formulation. However, the work of Zucker on the actions of American

Consuls and the State Department contradict this allegation.

741 Wyman, Abandonment, ix.

226

1943.742 They argue that this form of ex post facto ethical “absolutism”743 could only be found

within a simplistic universe, and they accuse Wyman of ignoring examples of humanitarian

actions undertaken by various governments and officials. In general, political, social, and

economic conditions existing within the United States, shaped by the ideology and policies of

National Socialism, determined the range and nature of responses to the refugee issue. German

and European Jewry, when viewed through contemporary lenses, represented only one of a host

of global quagmires engulfing the 1930s and 1940s. The writers comment that the annual total

immigration was chronically under filled and never exceeded 54 percent. The German and

Austrian allotment was rarely met and in 1940 Roosevelt directed the State Department to further

abridge the number of visas provided to German and Austrian Jewry, based on security and

political concerns.744

Breitman and Kraut conclude that FDR, behind the scenes, was supportive of more

liberal interpretations of immigration laws during the 1930s than the State Department

bureaucracy. However, with the advent of the 1940s he adopted their restrictionist approach due

to his determination to obtain victory in World War II, the long-held recognition of the inherent

political risks engendered by a liberal entry policy, and deference to the State Department that

was “largely unaccustomed to humanitarian initiatives.”745

742 Breitman et al., American Refugee Policy, 2, fn. 4. Zygielbojm’s letter of May 1943 stated: “By passive

observation of this murder of defenseless millions and the mal-treatment of children and women, the men of these

countries have become accomplices of criminals.” American Jewish Archives, RG-1, EXO-29, Morris D. Waldman

File, Poland 1944.

743 Ibid.

744 Ibid., 8-9, 236. The constriction should be compared with the expansion of immigration offered by the

Hennings Bill to mass entry of British Christian children.

745 Ibid., 248-249. The Hennings Bill was regarded by the Department of State as a humanitarian issue and

dramatically cut obstructive red tape. It can be argued that Breitman and Kraut underestimate the extent of long-

standing anti-Semitism that permeated this cabinet division and its personnel on all levels.

227

Doris Kearns Goodwin argued that contrary to Roper opinion polls that indicated a large

percentage of the American public rejected German anti-Jewish polices, a compelling number

remained opposed to their admission. Responding to a 1938 question, “What kind of people do

you object to?” Jews were identified by 35 percent, followed by “noisy, cheap, boisterous and

loud people” at 27 percent, and “uncultured, unrefined dumb people” at 14 percent.746 A 1939

Roper poll determined that 53 percent of Americans perceived Jews as being too different from

the majority population and this dissimilarity mandated institution of “restrictions in business

and social life...”747 Goodwin also asserted that FDR’s unwillingness to expend political capital

in a move to promote Jewish refugee immigration markedly outweighed any feelings of

sympathy. Eleanor Roosevelt shared this view by commenting that while she “often felt strongly

on various subjects, Franklin frequently refrained from causes in which he believed, because of

political realities.”748

Attorney, investment banker and former Deputy U.S. Permanent Ambassador to the

United States, and founder and President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute,

William J. vanden Heuvel, declared that American Jews “knew that they never had a better

friend [or] a more sympathetic leader in the White House.”749 However, the President had to

_________________________________

746 Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Times: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt—The Home Front in World War

II, Simon & Schuster (NY: 1994), 102.

747 Ibid.

748 Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 161.

749 William J. vanden Heuvel, “America and the Holocaust,”

http://www.feri.org/common/news/details.cfm?QID=826&clientid=11005; Internet; accessed April 20, 2008. Henry

L. Feingold, “’Courage First and Intelligence Second’: The American Jewish Secular Elite, Roosevelt and the

Failure to Rescue,” American Jewish History 72, no. 4 (June 1, 1983): 432. Feingold argued that despite the entrance

of increased numbers of Jews into the Roosevelt Administration to formulate and carry out New Deal policies, these

individuals did not regard themselves as proponents of intrinsically Jewish causes and a marked proportion would

have been extremely reluctant to take such a position.

228

contend with a divided, increasingly isolationist, and economically troubled nation, averse to any

involvement in European affairs following the Great War. FDR, he maintained, was compelled

to focus on the Hitlerian threat, while remaining cognizant that he lacked the power to order an

increase in the immigration quotas. Consequently, he supported a plethora of colonization

schemes.750

vanden Heuvel is deeply critical of Wyman and others who charged the nation and

Roosevelt with collusion in the Holocaust, particularly Wyman’s comment that “The Nazis were

the murderers,” but collectively the American people, “were the all too passive accomplices.”751

vanden Heuvel argues that in order to assess the validity of such a claim it is necessary to

comprehend the “events, values, [and] context”752 of the pre-war and World War II eras.

However, review of some of his writings demonstrated a determined effort to divert any

censuring of Roosevelt for his marked inaction and his deference to the Department of State. He

offers a number of counterclaims that lack strong historical support or border upon the

imaginary. These assertions significantly weaken his critique of those who question FDR’s

policies and accomplishments regarding the immigration issue.753

_________________________________

750 vanden Heuvel, “America and the Holocaust.” Underdeveloped and isolated sites under consideration

included the Philippine Islands, British Guiana, Alaska, Lower California, Angola, Ethiopia, Australia and the

Dominican Republic; projects that received minimal support from the majority of Jewish organizations.

751 William J. vanden Heuvel, “America, FDR, and the Holocaust,” J. Society 34, no. 6 (Sept./Oct. 1997), 54;

Wyman, Abandonment, ix.

752 vanden Heuvel, “America,” 54.

753 Ibid., 54-65. Selected examples: vanden Heuvel alleges that the President openly abhorred Hitler from the

moment of his inauguration. Roosevelt, because of his supportive attitude towards German Jewry, and his

“leader[ship] in the effort to help those fleeing Nazi persecution…greatly modified” immigration laws to permit the

admission of higher numbers of refugees despite “strong and politically damaging criticisms.” FDR “remained the

target of the hard-core anti-Semites in America [and] fought them shrewdly [and] effectively” while “equat[ing]

their anti-Semitism with treason.” The President “recogniz[ed] the inertia of the State Department” and appointed

Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles to be “his instrument of action.” Selection of Breckinridge Long as

Assistant Secretary for the Immigrant Visa Section was a mistake due to his purported anti-Semitism.

229

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Museum, a component of the Presidential Library in Hyde

Park, New York, included in its 2005 core exhibit a highly controversial panel that summarized,

and attempted to expiate, the President’s response to the Holocaust:

During the 1930s, as many European Jews were looking for a safe haven from

official anti-Semitism, members of the State Department enforced the

bloodless immigration laws with cold rigidity. Yet even Roosevelt's bitterest

critics concede that nothing he could have done [that] would have saved

significant numbers from annihilation, let alone dissuaded the Nazis from

doing what they were so intent on doing.754

David Wyman, Harvard University Professor Samantha Power, the author of ‘A Problem

from Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide and others, were among twenty-five Holocaust

historians who censure this statement as “misleading and inaccurate”755 on the grounds that it

assigns the primary responsibility for under filling the annual combined German and Austrian

immigration quota to the State Department, essentially absolving the President of any personal

accountability.756 Dr. Rafael Medoff, the Director of the Wyman Institute of Holocaust studies,

declares the museum had significantly erred to “suggest that historians believe nothing could

have been done by FDR to rescue Jews.”757 Rather, he asserts, there was an “overwhelming

consensus”758 that Presidential action, would have enabled a degree of rescue. The actions of

_________________________________

754 “Roosevelt Museum Distorts FDR’s Holocaust Record” by Rafael Medoff, April 2005,

http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2005-08-fdr.php; Internet; accessed June 12, 2010.

755 “Roosevelt Museum Distorts FDR’s Record on the Holocaust; Historians Protest,” August 9, 2005;

http://new.wymaninstitute.org/2005/07/roosevelt-museum-distorts-fdrs-record-on-the-holocaust-historians-protest/;

Internet; accessed June 12, 2009.

756 Zucker, “In Search,” 69.

757 “Roosevelt Museum Distorts FDR’s Record,” August 9, 2005.

758 Ibid.

230

Varian Fry and his associates in France (rescued 2,000 Jews in Vichy, 1940-1941), Raoul

Wallenberg (Swedish diplomat who saved thousands in Hungary 1944), and the U.S. War

Refugee Board (primarily funded by Jews and established in January 1944 to attempt to end

deportation of Hungarian Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz) and others demonstrated that

interventions to save lives, both before and after the onset of hostilities, were potentially

actionable.759 Roosevelt’s detractors insist he could have bestowed temporary shelter in the U.S.

for the duration of the war or in Allied controlled territories, pressured Britain to alter their

policies regarding Jewish immigration into Palestine, or furnished greater funding to the IGCR

and the War Refugee Board.760

Howard M. Sachar, Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington

University, asserts that Roosevelt was sympathetic towards and covertly acting to aid persecuted

Germany Jewry. He believes that FDR, during the post-Evian Conference period, was receptive

to the entreaties of Jews and liberals. As a result, Roosevelt directed Undersecretary of State

Welles to identify, along with geographer Isaiah Bowman, any potential sites of resettlement

outside of the United States. The President’s “overriding objective”761 was to avoid any

modification of the quota system. FDR was not, Sachar claims, dispassionate towards the

situation within Germany, but he always remained cognizant of political and popular opinion,

rising anti-Semitic and anti-nativist attitudes and groups, and domestic economic conditions.

759 Sheila Isenberg, A Hero of Our Own: The Secret War of Varian Fry (NY: Random House, 2001), 85. Varian

Fry, a journalist, established rescue operation within Vichy France in 1940 that saved more than two thousand

refugees, including Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt. However, following French and German protests to the State

Department Hull invalidated Fry’s passport on the grounds that he was “evading the laws of countries with which

the United States maintains friendly relations.”

760 Medoff, “Roosevelt Museum Distorts FDR’s Holocaust Record,” April 2005.

761 Howard M. Sachar, A History of Jews in the Modern World (NY: Vintage Books, 2006), 517.

231

Groups, such as Billy James Hargis’ Christian Crusade, George Deatherage’s Patriotic

Defenders, and other had “poisoned the national atmosphere against Jews.”762 Prior to 1932 only

4-5 anti-Jewish organizations existed, but dramatically increased to more than 1,000 between

1933-1940.763 “Populist”764 hatred of Jews, Sachar asserts, existed within Congress, particularly

among Representatives and Senators from southern and far western states, areas that were of

great political value to Roosevelt, his programs, and future goals.765 Judge Samuel Rosenman, a

presidential speech writer and advisor, author of the term New Deal, and a member of the

American Jewish Committee, strongly warned Roosevelt to circumvent any involvement in the

debate calling for liberalizing the immigration laws due to its political liability.766

Sachar argues that the failure of the United States to admit German Jewish refugees was

not due to presidential apathy or personal prejudice, but was the consequence of contemporary

immigration law and State Department attitudes. The Hoover Directive of 1932 altered key terms

of the Likely to Become Public Charge clause. The word “likelihood” was substituted by

“possibility” and this modification permitted consuls to more stringently control the issuance of

entry visas. Thus, a permanent under filling of the yearly quota became the norm. Congress and

the State Department would employ this alteration to block any changes by Roosevelt.767 Sachar

blamed, like Breitman and Kraut, the Department for frustrating the Chief Executive’s attempts

to interject latitude of action into the immigration process. However, a cabinet division of the

762 Ibid.

763 Ibid.

764 Ibid.

765 Ibid., 517-518.

766 Ibid., 518.

767 Ibid.

232

administration, comprised primarily of “Old American stock,”768 tainted by anti-Semitism,

actively contrived to restrict Jewish immigration. Finally, he declares that a “horrified Roosevelt

reacted decisively in behalf of the refugees” by consolidating the annual German and Austrian

immigration quotas in the wake of Kristallnacht.769 However, this action, which had marginal

effect on the numbers of German Jews allowed admission, was enacted following the Anschluss

and was the sole American contribution to the Evian Conference.

Robert Rosen asserts that, given the realities of Congressional and domestic politics,

public opinion, the economic and social concerns of the Depression, and the prospect and reality

of a new European war, Roosevelt rescued “as many Jews as could be realistically be saved.”770

He states that the United States had accepted more German Jewish refugees than other nations

but once war broke out, FDR was obligated to focus the nation’s attention and resources upon

victory. Restriction of immigration was necessary to protect the country from the importation of

spies and other external threats.771

Rosen, an attorney with an M.A. in history from Harvard, labels historians such as

Wyman, Feingold, and others who allege that the President could have done more to provide

sanctuary as “revisionists” whose “claims [could] be quickly dismissed.”772 These opposing

scholars, Rosen insists, were “guilty of the worst kind of judgment by hindsight.”773 He insists

that anti-immigration fervor, the Great Depression, and the rise of radical foreign regimes and

768 Ibid.

769 Ibid.

770 Rosen, Saving the Jews, 437.

771 Ibid.

772 Ibid., 438.

773 Ibid., 439.

233

ideologies placed strict limits on Roosevelt’s freedom of action. The convocation of the

Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees was, according to this writer, a

humanitarian plan infused with political risk that FDR was willing to take. Rosen, however,

ignores the poor planning and intrinsic deficiencies of the conference that ensured its failure, and

the limited American contribution.774

The proposal of the Wagner-Rogers Bill, as a one-time exception to the National Origins

Act, was proof, Rosen insists, of the inviolability of the quota system. He claims that German

and Austrian Jews profited from the combined annual quota of 27,370 per year, but significantly

ignores the consistent under filling of the approved allotment. The author also reports incorrectly

that Roosevelt was “vigorously pursu[ing] a ransom scheme, the Rublee plan,”775 which tied

emigration with increased German foreign trade, but which never came to fruition. The

President’s ardent support for this deal arose, Rosen avers, from FDR’s prescience in

recognizing, unlike the global community and American Jewry, “what might lay ahead if the

Jews of Germany were not ransomed.”776 If this were true then it was to be expected that

Roosevelt would employ his Executive powers to create other means of rescue than through the

quota process. His only act before involvement in the war was essentially limited to the granting

of visitors’ visas following Crystal Night. As noted, he was publicly silent throughout the debate

over the German Refugee Children’s Bill but did speak out on the Hennings Bill. Rosen ascribes

774 Ibid., 439-440.

775 Ibid., 442.

776 Ibid. The Rublee-Schacht plan was denounced by Jewish leaders as a form of extortion, trading lives for

export goods and foreign exchange.

234

the administration’s failure to attempt rescue following Pearl Harbor to fears of importing

“subversion, spies, and terrorists.”777

Rosen attacks Rafael Medoff, a protégé of Wyman, for not acknowledging American

Jews were engaged in the struggle with the Axis powers. He alleges that Medoff had written

leaders of American Jewry were “on vacation”778 or “lunching at the regular hour at their

favorite restaurant” during the conflict779 rather than speaking out for their imperiled co-

religionists. These quotations were blatantly taken out of context and wrongly ascribed to

Medoff. An October 1942 message dispatched from the Jewish defenders of Warsaw, denigrated

“Jewish leaders abroad”780 who continued the routine of their daily lives while Jews were being

murdered by Nazis. Hungarian Jews asked why international Jewry was not pressuring the Allied

forces to bomb Auschwitz and its rail lines during this phase of the Final Solution and castigated

them for seemingly being on vacation. These criticisms, unlike those of Rosen’s, highlight the

apathy or limited efforts of Jewry’s leadership.

Rosen went on to claim that the President had spoken out “eloquently and forcefully”781

against Nazi policies and persecution during the late 1930s with a particular emphasis upon

Jews. However, this defense was belied by the paucity of Roosevelt’s public comments and

references to Jews during multiple press conferences. He avows that Roosevelt endeavored to

provide the maximum amount of aid to refugees commensurate with immigration law, but the

777 Ibid.

778 Ibid., 482.

779 Ibid., 483.

780 Rafael Medoff, The Deafening Silence: American Jewish Leaders and the Holocaust (NY: Shapolsky, 1987),

154. The Warsaw message was published on May 19, 1942 in the New York daily paper, P.M. and the Jewish

Telegraphic Agency, Daily Bulletin.

781 Rosen, Saving the Jews, 450.

235

chronic under utilization of the quota contradicted this determination.782 Rosen concluded that

the President, the American public, and the Jewish community were united in the belief that only

the destruction of Hitler and his regime could save European Jews from extermination. FDR’s

adherence to this goal, he maintained, never wavered.783

Gerhard Weinberg, Professor in American diplomatic and military history at the

University of North Carolina believes that FDR’s ability to act for refugees was circumscribed

by legalities, since the institution of the quota system under the Coolidge Administration. Unless

Congress interceded, Roosevelt, was obliged to comply with its tenets. Any assessments of

blame towards the Chief Executive needs to be viewed, Weinberg asserts, within the background

of the period. It is only through the lens of retrospection that the uniqueness of National Socialist

anti-Semitism and its adoption of genocidal policies can be understood. Neither Jews nor

Gentiles could anticipate or comprehend that a program of mass murder on a continental scale

was to be carried out. Weinberg emphasizes Roosevelt’s recall of the American Ambassador to

Berlin following Kristallnacht as a sign of presidential concern over German Jewry. He does not

acknowledge that diplomatic, financial, commercial, and cultural ties continued unimpeded

between the two nations. This act, although symbolic, did not influence any change in Nazi anti-

Jewish policies, but like the words voiced at Evian, represented hollow rhetoric. Weinberg, in the

foreword to Rosen’s book, minimizes the pre-war narrative of the persecution of German Jewry,

782 Laurel Leff and Rafael Medoff, “Whitewashing FDR’s Holocaust Record: An Analysis of Robert N. Rosen’s

Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust, New Documents Shed More Light on FDR’s Holocaust

Failure,” April 2004, http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2004-04-fdrdocs.php; Internet; accessed June 12, 2010.

783 Rosen, Saving the Jews, 270, 485.

236

but focuses primarily on Roosevelt as Commander-in-Chief and as the leader of a multinational

coalition against the Reich and its allies.784

FDR was unconcerned about losing Jewish electoral support for his re-election as he was

assured of their ongoing political loyalty. Many Jews became unwavering supporters of

Roosevelt and the Democratic Party for a host of reasons: Jewish tradition of social conscience,

social work, and activism, manifested in Tikkun Olam, the repairing of the world embodied in the

programs of the New Deal; FDR’s appointment of an unprecedented number of Jewish

professionals into government positions, and Roosevelt’s antipathy towards Hitler and Nazism.

Jews also had a historical tradition of seeking the intervention of the U.S. Government in

significant foreign anti-Semitic events such as the Damascus Blood Libel (1840) and the

Kishinev Pogrom (1903).785

Louis Rapoport, a Jerusalem Post writer, commentator, and author, later chastises Rabbi

Wise and other national leaders for not lobbying for passage of the Wagner-Rogers Bill. The

legislation’s formal name, he argues, deliberately avoided the word “Jewish”786 owing to

apparent public antipathy towards Jewish immigration. He concludes that the reticence of

prominent American Jewry and dread of the divided loyalty accusation assured the measure’s

defeat when it came before Congress. Rapoport argues that Wise, confronted by the “fierce

opposition of the Jew-hating American right,”787 resolved to maintain an inconspicuous profile

784 Ibid., xiii-xvi.

785 Brecher, Reluctant Ally, 61. Brecher was served in the U.S. Senior Foreign Service.

786 Louis Rapoport, Shake Heaven and Earth: Peter Bergson and the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe,

Gefen Publishing (Jerusalem: 1999), 33-34.

787 Ibid., 34.

237

on the issue; a course he was intent on promoting to his fellow clerics.788 The Rabbi’s status and

reputation as being the leader of American Jewry was, Rapoport insists, dependent upon the

perceived acquiescence he had long cultivated with the sitting President:

Roosevelt, who Wise called ‘Boss’ or ‘Chief,’ regarded the rabbi as pompous and

a pest, and once wrote to him, ‘…you care more for personal publicity than for

good government.’ FDR delighted in teasing ‘Stevey,’ who acted like an awed

courtier whenever he visited the White House. But the results of this absurd

relationship… compound[ed] the tragedy of the Jewish of Europe. Even his

admirers concede[d] that Wise’s loyalty to Roosevelt ‘blinded his judgment,’ and

his reliance on FDR would have terrible results.’’789

The relative ambivalence of the Jewish community in embracing a concerted stance, that

transcended social class, denomination, and political orientation, contributed to failure.790

Recalling the timidity of international Jewry displayed at Evian, many American non-Jews

believed that the question of Jewish immigration lacked paramount importance, if it was unable

to garner necessary support from the population most affected. The dearth of a united Jewish

front was the harbinger of future communal defeats. Deborah Lipstadt attests that it was self-

evident that the primary beneficiaries of the Wagner-Rogers Bill were Jewish children, despite

its supporter’s declaration that it was a non-sectarian project, encompassing German Catholics

788 Ibid.

789 Ibid., 61.

790 Chaim Zhitlowsky, The Future of Our Youth in this Country and Assimilation (Pittsburgh: 1935), 90; B’nai

B’rith Magazine, vol. 47, 2; Stephen S. Wise, As I See It (NY: 1944), 67, 261 cited in Brody, “American Jewry,”

240-242. The large-scale immigration of Eastern European Jews between 1880-1914 introduced a Yiddish-based

language and more Orthodox culture into the United States. Second and third generation descendants, however,

increasingly abandoned this background in favor of “assimilation and Americanization.” A B’nai B’rith Magazine

editorial argued that there were two forms of assimilation: the abandonment of one’s Jewishness vs. identification as

an American Jew. The latter was emphasized by Rabbi Wise who declared: “We are Americans first, last, and all the

time. Nothing else that we are…qualifies our Americanism.” The Magazine and Wise disavowed the existence of a

“Jewish vote” or bloc. Internecine disagreements between Zionists and non-Zionists, and Reform, Conservative, and

Orthodox Jewry prevented the adoption of a unified voice towards the Jewish refugee problem.

238

and Protestants. This recognition fueled the opposition’s resolve against the measure and helped

to ensure its demise.791

Although an April 1939 Fortune magazine survey demonstrated that at least 85 percent

of the American public were resistant to any modification of the quota system, Lipstadt observes

there were exceptions to this animus: admission of British children under the Hennings Bill.792

Thus, there was an overt ranking of who was considered worthy of rescue and who was not.

The Hennings Bill did not suffer from intra-communal disputes or the antipathy or

potential antagonisms and prejudices of the dominant religious group. Supporters of the Wagner-

Rogers Bill and the amending of the Neutrality Act recognized the existential threats confronting

Jewish and Christian children. Backers of these measures regarded both groups as potential

assets to the nation. However, opponents of the German Refugee Children’s Bill constructed

Jewish and non-Aryan children as a multilevel danger to the security and interests of the nation.

They were seen as competitors for employment and social services that were envisaged as the

natural right of the native born or naturalized citizens. Many members of Congress were deeply

opposed to the Wagner-Rogers Bill and the State Department was complicit in employing an

irksome bureaucracy to impede passage and immigration. The Hennings Bill was not faced with

such encumbrances. Although some legislators expressed fears of American entanglement in the

European war they voted unanimously by voice vote for its passage. Concerns about job

791 Robert A. Rosenbaum, Walking to Danger: Americans and Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 (Santa Barbara, CA:

Preager, 2010), 52. Rosenbaum observes that, notwithstanding the approbations of prominent Americans,

organizations, and a nearly concordant press, it was public opinion, influenced by the similar rhetoric of veterans’

and patriotic groups that defeated the Bill. Wyman, Paper Walls, 94. He stressed that the demise of a relatively

minor one-time adjustment to the National Origins Act devolved from anti-Semitism, nativistic restrictionism, and

the uncertainties of the Depression.

792 Deborah E. Lipstadt, “In debates over immigration policies, we should remember the past,” Baltimore Sun,

April 16, 1989, 5E.

239

competition, diversion of care away from America’s needy children, religion, and ideology, were

non-issues in the public and political domains. Roosevelt articulated conditional support for the

bill, but it is likely, that he, as well as others in government and the public, recognized that the

mercy ship rescue plan could never be put into effect due to the absence of guarantees of safe

passage. The Hennings Bill did articulate one clear message: some refugee groups were valued

more than others and that the preservation of human life was conditional.

240

Conclusion:

A Common Thread

The convening of the Evian Conference to seek a global solution to the problem of

German Jewish and non-Aryan refugees, the introduction of the Wagner-Rogers Bill to rescue

twenty thousand children outside of the annual quota, and the 1940 wartime Henning’s Bill to

permit an American evacuation of British Christian children, represent significant points in the

history of the Holocaust and the general question of immigration. Although regarded as

humanitarian acts these projects were internally and fatally flawed. Roosevelt’s hasty and ill-

planned Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees fell victim to a number of strategic,

and as argued previously, intentionally planned problems of design and execution. The Evian

invitation clearly indicated the limits of American action, power, and cooperation. No country

was expected to amend or liberalize its immigration laws or to expend public monies. The sole

contribution of the United States was the consolidation of the annual German and Austrian

quotas.

George E Warren, the former Director of the International Migration Service, member of

the P.A.C.P.R., and later advisor to Myron Taylor during the Evian Conference, believed that

FDR was motivated to call for the meeting as a means of responding to the Anschluss because

“he didn’t know what else to do.”793 Faced with a potentially hostile and restrictionist Congress

793 Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 270.

241

and the realities of the quota system, the President was deeply embarrassed for having convened

the meeting. Warren concluded that the project was a “futile effort…that failed completely.”794

He offered a list of reasons for its lack of success that included economic depression and

widespread unemployment; Latin American population movements from rural to urban areas; the

insincerity of British offers for overseas territory for resettlement, and the collective decision that

Jews needed to engage in agriculture despite their middle class and urban backgrounds. Anti-

Semitism was not brought up as part of the explanation for the outcome of the Evian Conference.

Twenty-five official delegates spoke during the deliberations and, with few exceptions, each

articulated a common theme: all nations felt sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, but

domestic economic, cultural, racial, and ideological considerations constrained or prevented the

acceptance of forced emigrants. The message sent was clearly heard by the attendees and by

Nazi Germany itself.795

The Kindertranport served as the model, albeit with important differences, for the

German Refugee Children’s Bill. This plan, promoted openly by Jews and Gentiles, was an act

of utilitarianism coupled with a modicum of humanitarianism. HMG employed the operation

primarily as a means of compensating the Jewish community for Britain’s barring entry of Jews

into Palestine and to dampen American criticism over failure to employ the Mandate as a

potential haven. The British government and Jewish leaders within and without the United

Kingdom mutually accepted a limit of ten thousand but, similar to the American quota, it was

markedly under filled. In addition, following the completion of the children’s education or

vocational training, the immigrants were expected to transmigrate to other lands, a concept

794 Richard D. McKinzie, “Oral History Interview with George L. Warren,” November 10, 1972 Harry S. Truman

Library; http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/warrengl.htm; Internet; accessed March 6, 2010.

795 Ibid.

242

foreign to Americans. Likewise, it was hoped that a small number of German Jewish and non-

Aryan children would be accepted into the United States as a means of placating the government,

a fearful American Jewish community, and a doubtful and at times, hostile public. More lives

could have been saved in both projects, but political calculations trumped compassion.

The Wagner-Rogers Bill was hopelessly based upon the crucial but faulty assumption

that public and press criticism of German persecution of its Jewish and non-Aryan population

was translatable into a willingness to accept stateless and impoverished refugees. The Non-

Sectarian Committee for the Rescue of German Children clearly misread the depth of support for

the measure as many witnesses indicated that they spoke as individuals and not as official

spokespersons for the organizations or the churches to which they belonged. Senator Wagner

emphasized, during his introductory comments, the support of leading Protestant and Catholic

clerics and the A.F.L. and the C.I.O. However, it readily became apparent that with few

exceptions, such as Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert of the Federal Council of Churches in Christ in

America, local and influential church leaders articulated their personal backing and not that of

the official establishment. President William Green of the A.F.L. acknowledged his private

sympathies but noted that the union as a whole had not come out in favor of the bill, unlike the

position taken by John L. Lewis and the C.I.O.

The attempt to employ Christians as the primary face and voice of the bill did not negate

the political and popular perception that this was an attempt to aid German Jews. Presidential

silence, a biased Congress and State Department, the apparent failure of the Evian Conference,

domestic anti-Semitism, fears of foreign ideologies, aliens, and the breakdown of the quota

system, mounting radicalism, nativism, isolationism, economic depression and unemployment,

and widespread fears of involvement in a second European war, presented insurmountable

243

obstacles, particularly when Jews were accused of attempting to ensnare the United States in a

conflict that reportedly would benefit themselves financially and politically. Congress fatally

amended the bill by deducting the refugee children from the annual quota; a step that was

morally unacceptable by the legislation’s sponsors. The Golden Gates remained barred to Jews

but would swing open for other groups; not refugees fleeing persecution but from the perils and

travails of modern war.

The amending of the Neutrality Act of 1939 facilitated the Hennings or Mercy Ship bill

to evacuate British children from a theater of conflict. It was marked by the transparency of its

racial and ethnic preferences but, unlike its predecessors, a maximum limit was not firmly

established, although one hundred thousand or less was regarded as the most practical figure,

given financial and shipping constraints. The proverbial poisoned pill was written into the

legislation: the absolute necessity of obtaining guaranteed safe passage for American flagged

mercy ships traversing war zones—an assurance that Germany was unwilling to provide. None

of the ships granted approval to sail ever left the dock. The sinking of the S.S. City of Benares

demonstrated the inherent naïveté of the program and terminated the project.

The American Chief Executive remained conspicuously silent during the course of these

schemes. After promoting the idea of an international refugee conclave FDR strictly limited his

public remarks to a few rhetorical generalities. He privately recommended that the designers of

the German Refugee Children’s Bill obtain the sponsorship of a Catholic and Protestant member

of Congress to advocate for the immigration bill, but cold and pragmatic political, domestic, and

national security calculations led him to avoid public endorsement for its enactment. The need to

preserve party unity and support in Washington superceded humanitarian concerns. His remarks

regarding the Henning Bill mercy ship enterprise were restricted to the necessity of safe passage.

244

The President left little in terms of his personal thoughts or motivations regarding the refugee

issue. Thus, any attempt at discovering the real Roosevelt is fraught with difficulty, resulting in a

plethora of biographical descriptors employed by his critics and supporters alike: Machiavellian

politician; anti-Semite; indifference and savior. Most likely, FDR’s character and actions were

comprised of all of these qualities to varying degrees.

American Jewry and their leadership played an essential role in the refugee enigma

through their widespread support for FDR’s New Deal programs, his re-elections, and loyalty to

the Democratic Party. Roosevelt did not have to curry Jewish favor nor their votes. The

Americanization of immigrant Jews and their offspring led to the fragmentation of shared

cultural beliefs and values, loss of cohesiveness, and internecine secular and religious discord.

Fears of promoting domestic anti-Semitism, concerns over the financial burden of maintaining

and caring for large numbers of Jewish refugees, fallout from the Depression, ambivalence, and

the inability or unwillingness to exert pressure upon the White House dampened the collective

ethnic voice. Despite the prominence of young and professional Jews within the Roosevelt

administration and its New Deal programs, American Jews lacked sufficient influence “to mount

effective community action for the rescue of European Jews.”796

The failure of the Evian Conference and the Wagner-Rogers Bill cannot be laid solely at

the feet of anti-Semitism, but rather it reflected an interplay of deeply interconnected and

disparate factors. The inefficacy of the Henning Bill was the result of advancements in deadly

military technology that facilitated the concept and practice of total war. It did demonstrate,

however, that greater value was placed on the lives of some children as compared to others. As

796 Henry L. Feingold, A Time for Searching: Entering the Mainstream, 1920-1945 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns

Hopkins University Press, 1992), xvi. Both sides of the divide on the question of American action or inaction accept

that the presence of increased numbers of Jews within the Administration did not significantly impact immigration

policies, with the exception of Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in 1944 with creation of War Refugee Board.

245

such, the issues raised during this significant period regarding immigration, migration, and

refugees continue to haunt the 21st century. The question remains: are solutions to these

problems attainable or do they remain subject to the same concerns and forces expressed so

many decades ago?

The democracies cannot be blamed for the Holocaust. However, it was readily apparent

that failure to accept refugees or to ardently oppose policies of forced emigration engendered

drastic consequences. The November 24, 1938 issue of Das Schwarze Korps, the official

publication of the SS, described how the progressive impoverishment of German Jews would

force them into a life of crime.

If things were to develop in this way we would be faced with the harsh necessity

of having to exterminate the Jewish underground in the same manner as we are

used to exterminating criminals in our Order State: with fire and sword. The result

would be the actual and definite end of Jewry in Germany—its complete

destruction.797

Similarly, Hitler declared during a January 1939 Reichstag speech that if the “international

Jewish financiers in and outside of Europe… plung[ed] the nation once more into a world war,

then the result [would] not be the bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but

the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”798

While such warnings were clear, the rescue of Jews remained a low priority on the global

and American scene. In 1938, Myron C. Taylor asserted that involuntary migration was creating

“catastrophic human suffering”799 that threatened widespread discord. None the less, the true

sentiments or apathy of many towards Nazi persecution of Jewish and non-Aryan minorities

797 Holocaust, (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1974), 23.

798 Time, February 6, 1939, 21.

799 Myron C. Taylor, concluding comments at Evian Conference, July 15, 1938.

246

could, perhaps, be best expressed in the recollections of the Chief Concierge of the Hotel Royal,

the site of the conference in Evian:

Very important people were here, and all the delegates had a nice time. They took

pleasure cruises on the lake. They gambled at night at the casino. They took

mineral baths and massages at the Esablissement Thermal. Some of them took the

excursion to Chamonix to go summer skiing. Some went riding: we have, you

know, one of the finest stables in France. But, of course, it is difficult to sit

indoors hearing speeches when all the pleasures that Evian offers are outside.800

United States Holocaust Museum Photo Archives

800 New York Times, July 7, 1938; “When the World Passed by on the Other Side,”; Manchester Guardian

Weekly, May 7, 1978.

247

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APPENDICIES

279

Appendix A: Admissions Permissible Under Three Variations of the Annual Quota

System801

1921 Act 1924 Act National Origins

3% 1910 2% 1890 Act

TOTAL: 357,803 164,667 153,714

Asia: 492 1,424 1,423

Asia/Oceania 359 1,821 1,800

Europe 356,952 161,422 150,491

NORTHERN/WESTERN EUROPE:

Belgium 1,563 512 1,304

Denmark 5,619 2,789 1,181

France 5,729 3,954 3,086

Germany 67,607 51,277 25,957

Great Britain/N.I./ 34,007 65,721

Irish Free State 77,342 38,567 17,853

Netherlands 3,607 1,648 3,153

Norway 12,202 6,453 2,377

Sweden 20,042 9,561 3,314

Switzerland 3,752 2,081 1,707

TOTAL: 197,630 140,999 127,266

SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE:

Austria 7,342 785 1,413

Czechoslovakia 14,357 3,073 2,874

Greece 3,063 100 307

Hungary 5,747 473 869

Italy 42,057 3,845 5,802

Poland 30,977 5,982 6,524

Portugal 2,465 503 440

Romania 7,419 603 295

USSR 24,405 2,248 2,784

Turkey 2,654 100 226

Yugoslavia 6,426 671 845

TOTAL: 155,585 20,423 23,235

801 Bernard. William S., ed. American Immigration Policy, (Harper and Brothers: 1950), 27.

280

Appendix B: Total German Immigration into U.S. By Year 802

July 1, 1932-June 30, 1933: 1,919

July 1, 1933-June 30, 1934: 4,392

July 1, 1934-June 30, 1935: 5,201

July 1, 1935-June 30, 1936: 6,346

July 1, 1936-June 30, 1937: 10,895

July 1, 1937-June 30, 1938: 17,199

July 1, 1932-June 30, 1938: 45,952 from Greater Germany.

1919-1932 (pre-Hitler): 426,326 or average of 30,342/year.

802 Contemporary Jewish Record, May 1, 1939, 2,3;

http://media.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/media/ch/pao/doc/1064-1939-002-03-

000046/doc.pdf?cit%3Aauth=&cit%3Atitle=On+Admission+of+Refugee+Children+from+Editorial+in+%22Clevel

and+%28Ohio%29+Plain+Dealer%22&cit%3Apub=Contemporary+Jewish+Record&cit%3Avol=2&cit%3Aiss=3&

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281

Appendix C: Clerical Petition to President Roosevelt with List of Signatories803

The petition said:

“The American people has made clear its reaction to the oppression of all minority groups,

religious and racial, throughout Germany. It has been especially moved by the plight of the

children. Every heart has been touched, and the nation has spoken out its sorrow and dismay

through the voices of its statesmen, teachers and religious leaders. Americans have felt that

protest, however vigorous and sympathy, however deep, are not enough; and that these must

translate themselves into such action as shall justify faith.

We have been stirred by the knowledge that Holland and England have opened their doors

and homes to many of these children. We conceive it to be our duty, in the name of the

American tradition and the religious spirit common to our nation to urge the people, by its

Congress and Executive, to express sympathy through special treatment of the young, robbed of

country, home and parents. A heartening token of the mood of America is to be found in the fact

that thousands of Americans of all faiths have made known their eagerness to take these young

children into their homes, without burden or obligation to the State.

Working within and under the laws of Congress, through special enactment if necessary, the

nation can offer sanctuary to a part of these children by united expression of its will to help.

To us it seems that the duty of Americans in dealing with the youthful victims of a regime

which punishes innocent and tender children as if they were offenders, is to remember the

monition of Him who said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ And in that spirit we call on

all Americans to join together without regard to race, religion or creed in offering refuge to

children as a token of our sympathy and as a symbol of our faith in the ideals of human

brotherhood.

“The statement was indorsed also by the following:

Dr. Martin Anderson, Central Presbyterian Church, Denver, Colo.

Dr. Albert William Beaven, president of Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, N.Y.

Dr. Walter Russell Bowie, Grace Church, New York City.

Dr. Samuel Calvert, Executive Secretary, Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America,

New York City.

Dr. Allen Knight Chalmers, Broadway Tabernacle, New York City.

Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, Union Theological Seminary, New York City.

Dr. Henry Crane, Central Methodist Church, Detroit, Mich.

Bishop Ralph Cushman, Methodist Church, Denver, Colo.

The Rev. Graham Frank, First Christian Church, Dallas, Tex.

Dr. Robert Freeman, Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, Calif.

Dr. Louis Hartman, Editor, Zion’s Herald, Boston, Mass.

Bishop Ivan Lee Holt, St. Louis, Mo.

Right Rev. Edwin H. Hughes, Bishop of Washington Area, Methodist Episcopal Church.

Dr. Robert Scott Inglis, pastor emeritus of Third Presbyterian Church, Newark, N.J.

Dr. Edgar DeWitt Jones, Central Woodward Church, Detroit, Mich.

Dr. Meredith Ashby Jones, Atlanta, Ga.

Rev. McIlyar H. Lichiter, First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio.

Dr. Mark Alison Matthews, First Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Wash.

803 Washington Post, January 10, 1939, “Clerics Ask Roosevelt’s Aid to Bring Child Refugees Here,” 1.

282

Most Rev. Charles Hubert Le Blond, Bishop of St. Joseph, St. Joseph, Mo.

Rev. Oscar E. Maurer, Moderator National Council of Congregational Christian Churches, New

Haven, Conn.

Bishop Charles Mead, Methodist Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Mo.

Dr. Julius Valdemar Moldenhawer, First Presbyterian Church, New York City.

Rev. Roger T. Nooe, president, International Convention of Disciples of Christ, Nashville, Tenn.

Right Rev. John O’Grady, secretary, National Conference of Catholic Charities.

Rev. Joseph D. Ostermann, executive director, Committee for the Catholic Refugees from

Germany.

Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, Methodist Church, Omaha, Nebr.

Dr. Albert Wentworth Palmer, Chicago Theological Seminary, president, Chicago, Ill.

Rev. Daniel Alfred Poling, editor, Christian Herald and Christian Endeavor World, Baptist

Temple, Philadelphia, Pa.

Dr. George W. Richards, President, Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church, Lancaster,

Pa.

The Most Rev. Joseph Francis Rummell, S.T.D., Archbishop of New Orleans, La.

The Most Rev. James H. Ryan, S.T.D., Bishop of Omaha, Nebr.

The Right William Scarlett, Bishop of Missouri Protestant Episcopal Church, St. Louis, Mo.

Dr. Avery A. Shaw, president, Denison University, Granville, Ohio.

The Rev. Maurice S. Sheey, head of department of religious education, Catholic University of

America.

The Most Rev. Bernard James Shell, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, Ill.

Dr. Ralph W. Sockman, Christ’s Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City.

Dr. Robert Elliott Speer, president of the board of trustees, Princeton Seminary.

Dr. John Timothy Stone, president, Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Chicago, Ill.

Dr. Howard Thurman, dean of chapel, Howard University.

Dr. Ezra Allen Van Nuys, Calvary Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, Calif.

Dr. John Anderson Vance, First Presbyterian Church, Detroit, Mich.

283

Appendix D: Text of S.J. Res. 64 and H.J. Res. 165 and 168, 76th Congress, 1st Session:

JOINT RESOLUTION To authorize the admission into the United States of

a limited number of German refugee children.804

Whereas there is now in progress a world-wide effort to facilitate the emigration from Germany

of men, women, and children of every race and creed suffering from conditions, which compel

them to seek refuge in other lands; and

Whereas the most pitiful and helpless sufferers are children of tender years; and

Whereas the admission into the United States of a limited number of these children can be

accomplished without any danger of their becoming public charges, or dislocating American

industry or displacing American labor; and

Whereas such action by the United States would constitute the most immediate and practical

contribution by our liberty-loving people to the cause of human freedom, to which we are

inseverably bound by our institutions, our history, and our profoundest sentiments: Now,

therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of

America in Congress assembled, That not more than ten thousand immigration visas may be

issued during each of the calendar years 1939 and 1940, in addition to those authorized by

existing law and notwithstanding any provisions of law regarding priorities or preferences, for

the admission into the United States of children fourteen years of age or under, who reside, or at

any time since January 1, 1933, have resided, in any territory no incorporated in Germany, and

who are otherwise eligible: Provided, That satisfactory assurances are given that such children

will be supported and properly cared for through the voluntary action of responsible citizens or

responsible private organizations of the United States and consequently will not become public

charges. (4)

804 Joint Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration. U.S. Senate and a Subcommittee of the

Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 76th Congress, 1st Session on S.J. Res. 64

and H.J. Res. 168. Joint Resolutions to Authorize the Admission into the United States of a Limited Number of

German Refugee Children, April 20, 1939. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 4.

284

Appendix E: List of Contributors to Plan for the Care of German Refugee Children 805

1. Paul T. Beisser, President, Child Welfare League of America.

2. Mary Boretz, Executive Director, Home Bureau, Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society. (69)

3. C.C. Carstens, Executive Director, Child Welfare League of America.

4. Jessie P. Condit, Executive Secretary, Children’s Aid Society, Newark, N.J.

5. Gertrude M. Dubinsky, Executive Director, Juvenile Aid Society, Philadelphia.

6. Sybil Foster, Field Secretary, Child Welfare League of America.

7. Mary Godley, Executive Director, Catholic Home Bureau, New York.

8. Katherine e. Griffith, Director, Diocesan Bureau of Social Service, Hartford, Conn.

9. Byron T. Hacker, Executive Director, Children’s Center, New Haven, Conn.

10. Dr. Stephanie Herz, Committee for Catholic Refugees from Germany.

11. Sidney Hollander, Maryland Board of State Aid and Charities.

12. Dr. Marion E. Kenworthy, Director, Department of Mental Hygiene, New York School of

Social Work.

13. Jacob Kepecs, Superintendent, Jewish Children’s Bureau, Chicago.

14. Dr. Bertha Krauss, American Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia.

15. Edith L. Lauer, Executive Director, Jewish Family and Children’s Bureau, Baltimore.

16. Harry Lurie, Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.

17. Lotte Marcuse, Director of Placements, German Jewish Children’s Aid.

18. Ruth Taylor, Commissioner of Public Welfare, Westchester County, N.Y

19. Sophie Van. S. Theis, Assistant Secretary, State Charities Aid Association, N.Y.

20. Alfred w. Whitman, Executive Secretary, Children’s Aid Association, Boston.

805 “Plan for the Care of German Refugee Children in the United States, Letter from Marion E. Kenworthy, MD,

to Clarence E. Pickett,” cited in April 20, 1939 Joint Hearings, 70.

285

Appendix F: Composition of House and Senate Immigration Committees and

Subcommittees806

Composition of Committees:

United States Senate Committee on Immigration:

Richard B. Russell, GA, Chairman.

William H. King, Utah.

Francis T. Maloney, CT.

Rush B. Holt, WV.

Charles O. Andrews, Florida.

James H. Hughes, DE.

William H. Smathers, NJ

Clyde L. Herring, IA.

Tom Stewart, TN.

Hiram W. Johnson, CA.

Warren R. Austin, VT.

Rufus C. Holman, OR.

Joe B. Watson, Clerk

Subcommittee on S.J. Res. 64 and H.J. Res. 168.

William H. King, UT., Chairman.

William H. Smathers, NJ.

Arthur Capper, KS

House of Representatives Committee on Immigration and Naturalization:

Samuel Dickstein, NY, Chairman

William T. Schulte, IN.

Charles Kramer, CA.

John Lesinski, MI.

Caroline O’Day, NY.

Lex Green, FL.

W.R. Poage, TX.

Dan R. McGehee, MISS.

A. Leonard Allen, LA.

George M. Grant, AL.

John L. McMillan, SC.

Anton F. Maciejewski, IL.

E.C. Gathings, ARK.

J. Will Taylor, TN.

806 “Admission of German Refugee Children” Joint Hearings Before A Subcommittee of the Committee on

Immigration. United States Senate and a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House

of Representatives. Seventy-Sixth Congress, 1st Session on S.J. Res. 64 and H.J. Res. 168. Joint Resolutions to

Authorize the Admission into the United States of a Limited Number of German Refugee Children. United States

Government Printing Office: 1939.

286

Noah M. Mason, IL.

Edward H. Rees, KS.

Cliff Clevenger, OH.

John Z. Anderson, CA.

Henry O. Talle, IA.

Samuel W. King, HI.

John H. Kelly, Clerk.

Subcommittee on S.J. Res. 64 and H.J. Res. 168:

Charles Kramer, CA., Chairman.

John Lesinski, MI.



Noah M. Mason, IL.

287

Appendix G: List of Senators for, Uncertain or Against Wagner-Rogers Bill Based on

March 24, 1939 Polling Data807

Favor: Brown, MI.

Downey, CA. Truman, MO.

Burke, NE. Bridges, N.H.

Smathers, N.J. Tobey, N.H.

Hatch, MN. Chavez, NM.

Wagner, N.Y. Lee, OK.

King, Utah. Bone, WA.

Thomas, Utah. Opposes with Reservations:

Probably Favor: Taft, OH.

Pepper, FL. Schwellenbach, WA.

Winton, IN. Uncertain:

Capper, KS. Bankhead, AK.

Shipstead, MN. Hill, AL.

Clark, MO. Ashurst, AZ.

Morris, NE. Hayden, AZ.

Bulow, S.D. Caraway, AR.

Stewart, TN. Johnson, CA.

Gillette, IA. Adams, CO.

Favor with Reservations: Johnson, CO.

Radcliffe, MD. Maloney, CT.

Mead, NY. Danaher, CT.

Neely, WV. Townsend, DE.

Opposes: Borah, ID.

Miller, AR. Lewis, IL.

Hughes, DE. Lucas, Il.

Andres, FL. Van Nuys, IN.

Clark, ID. Reed, KS.

Overton, LA. Barkley, WY.

Ellender, LA. Logan, KY.

Lundeen, MN. White, ME.

Murray, MT. Tydings, MD.

McCarran, NV. Walsh, MA.

Reynolds, N.C. Lodge, MA.

Smith, S.C. Vandenburg, MI.

Gurney, S.D. Harrison, MS.

Probably Oppose: Bilbo, MS.

Russell, GA. Wheeler, MT.

George, GA. Pittman, NV.

Herring, IA. Barbour, NJ

807 Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, Wagner-Rogers Bill, Congressional Poll (Box 2, Folder

33), 1-4.

288

Bailey, N.C.

Frazier, N.D.

Nye, N.D.

Donahey, OH.

Thomas, OK.

McNary, OR.

Holman, Or.

Davis, PA.

Guffey, PA.

Gerry, RI.

Green, RI.

Byrnes, S.C.

McKellar, TN.

Sheppard, TX.

Connally, TX.

Austin, VT.

Glass, VA.

Byrd, VA.

LaFollette, WI.

Wiley, WI.

O’Mahoney, WY.

Absent:

Hale, ME.

Holt, WV.

“We have heard directly or indirectly from the following Senators and Representatives,

and the tenor of their replies is as indicated:”

Senators:

Non-Committal: Senators Warren R. Austin, Arthur Capper, Rush D. Holt, William H. King,

Francis Maloney, and Richard B. Russell, Jr.

Representatives:

Yes: Samuel Dickstein; Caroline O’Day.

No: Lewis K Rockefeller.

Non-Committal: William M. Colmer; Lex Green; John H. Kerr.

Delegate from Territory (not voting member):

Non-Committal: S.W. King

Summary of replies:

Senate: None favorable or unfavorable, six non-committal.

House: Two favorable, one opposed, four non-committal (including non-voting Hawaiian

delegate to House).

289

Appendix H: List of Officers of Allied Patriotic Societies: 808

a. Dwight Braman, First President; John R. Voorhis, Honorary President; Mrs. Finley J.

Shepard, Vice President.

b. Officers: Francis H. Kinnicutt, President; Andrew B. Humphrey, Alexander L. Ward, Miss

Charlotte C. Aycrigg, Vice Presidents’ George M. Bodman, treasurer; Andrew B. Humphrey,

Chairman, Executive Committee; John M. Berry, Secretary, Care of Whitehouse & Co,

Sherry-Netherland Hotel, NYC.

c. Directors, 1939: Mrs. George Howard; Dr. Harry L. Bowlby; Dr. Thomas Darlington; John

T. Mills, Jr.; Laurens M. Hamilton; John B. Trevor, Jr.; Mrs. Edward B. Huling; Mrs.

Richard W. Meade; Mrs. Livingston Rowe Schuyler; Maj. William L. Rich; Col. Henry B.

Fairbanks; and Major Lee Hagood.

Member Organizations of the Allied Patriotic Societies:

a. American Defense Society.

b. American Legion (N.Y. County organization).

d. American Women Against Communism.

e. Dames of the Loyal Legion.

f. Daughters of America (national society).

g. Daughters of American Revolution (Chapters Knickerbocker, Jacobus Roosevelt).

h. Daughters of the Revolution (National Society).

i. Daughters of the Revolution (State of New York).

j. Daughters of the Defenders of the Republic.

k. Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence (N.Y. Society).

l. Founders and Patriots (N.Y. Society)

m. Lord’s Day Alliance of the United States.

n. Military Order Foreign Wars of the United States (N.Y. Commandery)

o. Military Order of the Loyal Legion (State of New York)

p. Military Order of the World War (New York)

q. National Society Colonial Descendants of America.

r. National Society of new England Women.

s. National Society Daughters of the Union, 1861-1865, Inc.

t. Naval Order of the United States.

u. Naval and Military Order Spanish American War, New York Commandery.

v. New England Women, New York City Colony.

w. Patriotic Order Sons of America.

x. St. Nichols Society.

y. Society of Mayflower Descendants.

z. Society of Tammany or Columbian Order.

aa. Sons of the American Revolution (Empire State)

bb. Sons of Confederate Veterans (New York)

cc. United Daughters of the Confederacy (New York Division).

dd. Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.

808 Joint Hearings, 189.

290

APPENDIX I: Committee on Immigration and Naturalization - Hennings Bill809

Committee:

Samuel Dickstein, NY, Chairman.

William T. Schulte, IN.

John Lesinski, MI.


Lex Green, FL.

William R. Poage, TX.

Dan B. McGehee, MS.

A. Leonard Allen, LA.

George M. Grant, AL.

John L. McMillan, SC.


E.C. Gathings, AK.

David J. Ward, MD.

Noah M. Mason, IL.

Edward H. Rees, KS.

Lewis S. Rockefeller, NY.

Henry O. Talle, IA.

James E. Van Zandt, PA.

Carl T. Curtis, NE.

Albert E. Austin, CT.

Sub-Committee:

Bloom

Colmer

Robison

Fish

Wigglesworth

Luther Johnson

Beam

Mason

Keller

Taylor

809 Membership of House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization during hearings on Hennings Bill, ii.

291

APPENDIX J: Text of Hennings Bill:810

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America

in Congress, assembled, That section 4, as amended of the Neutrality Act of 1939 is amended by

inserting “(a)” after “Sec. 4,” and by adding at the end thereof of the following new subsection.

“(b) The provisions of section 2 (a) and 4 shall not prohibit a vessel, in ballast, unarmed,

and not under convoy, and transporting refugee children, under sixteen years of age, from war

zones, or combat areas, and shall not prohibit such vessel entering into such war zones or combat

areas for this purpose, together with such necessary America citizen adult personnel in charge as

may be approved by the Secretary of State, subject to the provisions of the immigration laws, if

such vessel is proceeding under safe conduct granted by all of the States named in the

proclamations issued under the authority of section 1 (a), and if such vessel has painted on a

large scale prominently, distinctly, and unmistakably on each side thereof and upon the

superstructure thereof plainly visible from the air an American flag and a statement to the effect

that such vessel is a refugee-child rescue ship of the United States or under United States

registry:

Provided, That every such child so brought into the United States shall, previous to departure

from the rot of embarkation, have been so sponsored by some responsible American person,

natural or corporate, that he will not become a public charge.

Approved, August 27, 1940.

810 Public Laws—CHS. 694, 866.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dennis Ross Laffer was born in Detroit, Michigan and attended Michigan State University and was

awarded a Bachelor’s in science degree with high honors in 1972. He was a member of the Honors

College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Eta Sigma and Phi Kappa Phi. He attended the

University Of Michigan School Of Medicine and received a Doctor of Medicine Degree in 1976. His

internship in General Surgery and residency in Internal Medicine was spent at William Beaumont

Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. He accepted a gastroenterology fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic

Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio and completed his specialty training in 1982 and then relocated to

Tampa, Florida where he entered private practice, married and had two daughters. He is a Fellow of

the American College of Gastroenterology, a member of the American College of Physicians and

former Chief of Gastroenterology at Tampa General Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Dr. Laffer has had a long interest in history, especially in the area of the Holocaust and genocide. He

is a founding member of the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. His interest in the

topic of the Evian Conference, the Wagner-Rogers Bill, and subsequently, the Henning Bill, was

stimulated by his involvement in the museum and resulted in the publication of an article on the

Evian topic in 2003 in History in Dispute, The Holocaust 1933-1945. An unexpected case of cancer

led to his decision to enter the Master’s of History Program at the University of South Florida, which

furthered his concentration on the Holocaust and genocide. He has had various opportunities to

address a number of academic organizations and museums concerning about the Intergovernmental

Committee for Political Refugees, the Wagner-Rogers Bill, the Hennings Bill, and the Armenian

Genocide. More recently, he delivered a paper on the Evian Conference at a Holocaust meeting in

Vienna. He also traveled the State of Florida on behalf of the American Cancer Society discussing

colon cancer screening. His illness forced him to close his solo medical practice but is now serving as

the Director of Gastrointestinal Medicine at the James A. Haley Veterans Administration Hospital in

Tampa, FL. He entered the Ph.D. program at the University of South Florida in 2011 and this

dissertation represents his significant interest in American immigration policies during the critical

years of 1938-1940. Further endeavors include a study of the 1943 Bermuda Conference and the

reactions of community synagogues to the Evian Conference, Jewish immigration, and immigration

proposals.