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National Affairs: Refugee Committee

4 minute read
TIME

Ever since being reluctantly forced to recognize Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Austria last fortnight, the State Department has been pressed by liberal and racial groups to think up a practical way to express the U. S. Government’s disapproval. Last week. Secretary Cordell Hull thought he had found one, gave out a statement describing it:

“This Government has become so impressed with the urgency of the problem of political refugees that it has inquired of a number of governments in Europe and in this hemisphere whether they would be willing to cooperate in setting up a special committee for the purpose of facilitating the emigration from Austria and presumably from Germany of political refugees. Our idea is that, whereas such representatives would be designated by the Governments concerned, any financing of the emergency emigration referred to would be undertaken by private organizations within the respective countries.” The statement added that the committee would in no way interfere with work on the same problem currently being done by existing agencies; and that no country would be asked to receive more immigrants than its current quota laws permit. Invitations to help set up the committee went to Great Britain, France. Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and 20 South American republics.

Whether or not Secretary Hull’s idea of a refugee committee amounts to much more than a grandiose gesture, its reception last week was magnificent. In the U. S., it was unanimously praised by Jewish welfare groups, the Federal Council of Churches and the nation’s press. Abroad it was indicated that prompt official acceptances would be forwarded from Great Britain, France, The Netherlands and Belgium. Meanwhile, before details of the plan had been worked out and before the State Department had explained precisely what the committee would be expected to accomplish, Franklin Roosevelt told a Warm Springs, Ga. press conference that he hoped the U. S. would maintain its 150-year-old tradition by becoming an asylum for political refugees not only from Germany and Austria but from Russia, Italy and Spain as well. Whether or not his invitation included such refugees as Leon Trotsky, currently exiled in Mexico, the President did not say.

Operating problems of turning the U. S. into a haven for the oppressed consist of 1) getting them out of where they are and 2) getting them into the U. S. On the first, Adolf Hitler last week was surprisingly polite. Said he in a speech at Konigsberg: ‘I can only hope and expect that the other world, which has such deep sympathy for these criminals, will at least be generous enough to convert this sympathy into practical aid. We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships.” Rudest German comment on the plan came from the Schwarze Korps, official organ of the Secret Police: “We still offer in free Hamburg a well-assorted stock of Jewish lawyers, well-preserved and well-rested women doctors, specialists for skin and social diseases, also Jewish business heads and raw material wholesalers and Jewish salesmen, the last item with considerable rebate.”

Speaking practically, there is not much chance of any of the modern European despotisms releasing their political prisoners or punching bags. If there were any chance, the maximum number of refugees entitled to enter the U. S. under present quotas would be 26,000 each year from Germany, 1,400 from Austria, 2,700 from Russia, 5,800 from Italy.

Not to be outdone by Secretary Hull, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes last week also found means to rebuke Nazi Germany, also presumably with Presidential approval. Last month, the State Department approved shipment of 2,000,000 cu. ft. of helium gas, on which the U. S. has a virtual monopoly, for commercial use in German Zeppelins. In Washington, Secretary Ickes, charged with exacting a German guarantee that the gas would be used only for peaceful purposes, let it be known that he was holding up shipment because he could find no way of drawing up a sufficiently watertight contract.

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