[Editorial from the Capital Times, June 5, 1947]

THE DAR DOESN'T SPEAK FOR AMERICA ON THE PROBLEM OF DISPLACED PERSONS

At its recent national convention, the Daughters of the American Revolution took a stand against allowing the wretched, homeless displaced persons of Europe into America. This was to be expected of the old fuddy-duddies who seem to think that immigration into America should have been stopped with the Mayflower. Thank heavens they don't speak for real Americans. The true sentiment of America on this issue is best exemplified in a letter in today's Voice of the People from Rosamond E. Rice, secretary of the Madison Committee on Displaced Persons. This committee is headed by Attorney William H. Spohn and has the support of many Madison citizens from all walks of life.

We urge you to read Mrs. Rice's letter and to do everything you can to cooperate with the group she represents. We especially urge you to write or wire the Immigration Subcommittee of the House of Representatives in support of H. R. 2910.

Can we as a Nation which professes to follow the principles of Christianity, which owes its present preeminence among the nations of the world to the immigrants of other lands, refuse to accept our share of those who gave so much in the fight against the totalitarians?

America is not a nation of DAR members and here's a chance to prove it.

(NOTE.-The Wisconsin State Journal has long indulged in the practice of inviting some person which its editorial and management staff deem worthy to write an editorial for the Sunday issue of the paper. The guest writer is always well known in the community and his views are held in respect; otherwise he would not be asked to assume the editorial chair. On Sunday, May 4, 1947, Harold M. Groves, an outstanding economist, a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, who was formerly an administrative officer in Wisconsin, and an outstanding authority in the field of taxation, wrote the editorial which follows:)

WILLIAM H. SPOHN.

[Guest editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal, May 4, 1947]

SETTLING AN OLD DEBT

(By Harold M. Groves, member of Madison Citizens Committee on Displaced Persons)

Nearly a century ago Wisconsin welcomed to its shelter a German refugee by the name of Carl Schurz.

By "careful planning and wonderful luck" he had made a hairbreadth escape from his persecutors in Europe. Settled on a farm near Watertown, before long he had started a newspaper, became an alderman, a notary, and an inovator of the first kindergarten in the country. During the campaign for Lincoln in 1860 he acquired a reputation as "the tremendous Dutchman."

He went on to a distinguished career as statesman, editor, and champion of freedom. We are proud to claim him as one of our outstanding pioneers.

Less distinguished but equally memorable is the contribution made by thousands of other refugees in this State. Having found a haven here, they seem to have cherished a feeling of special obligation toward their foster country. We owe them a great debt-one that can be paid now by opening slightly the doors of our immigration laws. This would allow admission of our share of displaced persons in Europe, now in the refugee camps of that unhappy continent.

More specifically, a bill-No. H. R. 2910-would allow some 400,000 of these displaced persons to come here over a period of 4 years. This is temporary legislation and would cease to operate after a 4-year period. It would not alter the basic quota law regulating normal immigration. For those admitted, the present standards regarding health, morals, economic status, and specified political beliefs would apply. Displaced persons would also be subject to the rule which requires sponsors' affidavits that these immigrants will not become public charges.

National and local committees-our own headed by William H. Spohn-are moblizing sentiment for the passage of this bill. They are urging supporters of the proposed measure to indicate their sentiments to our representatives in both Houses of Congress.

We rarely have an opportunity to pay a debt to our forbears and at the same time to win a present economic and ethnological advantage for our own country and State.

As to the economic side, we are facing a critical shortage of labor especially on our farms. Many farmers are finding it quite impossible to hire the help so desperately needed to maintain and enlarge farm output. Increased agricultural production is of crucial importance not only to feed the world but to combat high prices at home. A very substantial proportion of the refugees are qualified farmers.

There are those who fear any increase in population on the ground that there is not enough work to go around in this country. Unemployment is a scourge with many causes, most of them associated with the ups and downs of business known as the business cycle. No one has made a plausible case for the proposition that unemployment here is due to overpopulation. Indeed, an important group of economists believes that unemployment has been caused or at least aggravated by the decline in the rate of population increase. Every person coming to this country means an additional consumer as well as an additional producer; he brings a stomach to be filled and a back to be clothed as well as two hands to work.

Even more persuasive on the economic side is the fact that we are and shall continue to be committed to the maintenance of these people-after a fashionin Europe. We may as well give them an opportunity to earn their keep.

On the score of our racial stock, admitting refugees has always involved a selective process that works in our favor. Those who have had the moral and physical stamina to resist political and religious persecution are the sort that can contribute mightily to our future. People who have withstood totalitarian pressures abroad will provide excellent material for strengthening our democratic way of life.

These people are not Anglo-Saxons; they are Poles, Yugoslavs, Finns. About 20 percent are Jews. No one people has a monopoly on all the virtues.

But, of course, more important than any of these considerations is our moral obligation to these people. This is not only a matter of Good Samaritanismalthough that alone should suffice. Our country took the lead in the international councils which established the right of these people to avoid returning to their former homes—and persecution. H. R. 2910 is required to follow through on a commitment.

The case for the pending legislation is so strong and has attracted so many worthy proponents that one is tempted to conclude that its speedy passage is insured. But this unfortunately is far from true. In addition to some honest and decent skepticism the bill has a mountain of bigotry to defeat.

Those who believe as I do-that this legislation represents a minimum of tardy action toward a solution of Europe's refugee problem need to act now. Such action will be a fitting memorial to men like Carl Schurz and others who contributed so richly in the building of this State.

Mr. FELLOWS. The Honorable Mitchell Jenkins, a Member of Congress from Pennsylvania.

Mr. JENKINS. I am here.

STATEMENT OF HON. MITCHELL JENKINS, REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE ELEVENTH DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Mr. JENKINS. Mr. Chairman, due to the lateness of the hour, I have a very short statement here which I would like to read into the record, and it will take a very short time.

Then I will yield back any other time which I might otherwise have. Mr. Chairman, I have asked for permission to appear before this committee today to urge you to take favorable action on the so-called Stratton bill, H. R. 2910, providing for admission into the United States during the next 4 years of 400,000 of the displaced persons in Europe by utilizing the unused immigration quotas of the war years. It seems to me that there are so many reasons why this bill should be passed and why the committee should make a favorable report on it so

as to bring it on the floor of the House, that I find myself in somewhat of a quandary, in the short time at my disposal, in selecting those points that should be stressed, lest I seem to neglect others equally important.

So much can be said in support of the bill, from every angle, that it would require much more time than I have available adequately to discuss it.

From the economic, the political, using that word in its broad and not in its narrow, partisan sense, and the humanitarian points of view, it is the wise, just, and proper step to take.

In his original statement before the committee, the author of the bill set forth eight reasons why this legislation should be passed. Without repeating those reasons here, I desire to call the attention of the committee to them again and to second what he has said. It seems to me that they present cogent and compelling reasons for favorable action by this committee.

From the economic standpoint this bill, supported as it is by the two great labor organizations of America, will bring into our economy people whose variegated skills we need and can use. Already those who have come have made significant contributions to American life. There is no reason to believe that those to come will not do the same. This country became great and strong through its immigrants, for they have been and are the raw material from which our national stature comes.

In my own home country, the people of middle European ancestry, the Poles, the Slovaks, the Lithuanians have, by their sturdy qualities, made themselves a valuable asset to the community.

Ideologically, they are our kind of people. They hate communism and all that it implies as only those who have suffered from it can. Their first-hand statements of what they have endured, as they permeate through our society, will do more to awaken our people to the danger we face in the world today than all the speeches you and I can make. These people love liberty, freedom, and democracy so much that they have been willing to lose everything, including their lives, to preserve it and to avoid submitting to the tyranny of Stalin. We can use people like that, people whose only fault is that they believe passionately in the things in which we believe and for which this Nation has stood.

Today, we are, here in Congress, spending millions of dollars to attempt to stop this engulfment of democratic institutions by the rising tide of communism. Dollars will not do the job alone. It needs the whole-souled cooperation of liberty-loving peoples everywhere.

Only as we put hope into the hearts of those millions of people who want freedom, who want to throw off the Russian yoke; hope that America really meant what it said in the Atlantic Charter; hope that if they keep alight, and even faintly flickering, the torch of liberty in their lands, they or their children may some day see it turn into a blaze that will burn away all Communist domination; can we have any chance of success in the policy on which we have embarked. Otherwise our dollars are futile.

This bill gives us a chance to prove that we mean what we say, to show that our deeds match our words and that it has not all been only empty protestation.

As a veteran of this last war, with almost 5 years of service, part of it on overseas duty, I have had an opportunity to see what America means to the peoples of the world, how they look to us for leadership. Either we assume that leadership, or we yield the field to Communist Russia, with all that that implies. We cannot assume it without assuming likewise the responsibilities inherent in that position. To help solve the problem posed by these people is one of those responsibilities.

In our own interest, to say nothing of the humanitarian appeal, we cannot permit this cancerous growth to remain and fester in the heart of Europe.

This bill provides a method whereby we can help solve that problem, and I urge the committee to act favorably upon it so that the Congress may have a chance to pass upon it at this present session. That is all I have to say, unless you care to ask some questions. Mr. FELLOWS. We thank you very much.

Are there any questions?

(No response.)

Mr. FELLOWS. Mr. Williams, how much time will you need?
Mr. WILLIAMS. That somewhat depends on the committee.

I intend to discuss the matter under about 10 heads, but that, of course, sounds more ominous that it really is, because about five of them will take very few words.

Mr. FELLOWS. Will you proceed now, Mr. Williams? I think we can give you more time than we could on Friday, and perhaps all that you need.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS, PRESIDENT, MARYLAND SOCIETY, WAR OF 1812

Mr. WILLIAMS. My full name is George Washington Williams. I appear here as president of, and representing, the Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland.

It is with a good deal of diffidence that we appear in opposition to this bill, because we dislike very much to be put in the position, in the eyes of some people, of being callous to human suffering and indifferent to inhumane treatment.

However, somewhat to paraphrase Mark Antony, not that we love them less, but that we love our country and own people more.

I should like, as far as time will permit, to discuss this bill under 10 heads.

The first one is not very material, but it has to do with what I call a rather false name for the bill.

Secondly, what we owe Europe; thirdly, the unemployment problem; fourthly, the housing problem; fifthly, the natural resources problem; sixthly, assimilation; seventhly, the political effects; eighthly, the pressure groups; ninthly, the refugees subsequent to the beginning of World War II; and, tenthly, if I may be so bold, and can do it without offense, I would like to make some observations on what we regard to be the duties of Members of the Congress.

The name of the bill, I rather suspect, would be misunderstood by a good many people if they did not have the opportunity to read the

65536-47-ser. 11- -19

body of the bill. As you see, it is called the Emergency Temporary Displaced Persons Admission Act.

Most people would have in mind the Oswego case, and by using those words, "emergency" and "temporary," and so forth, would feel that these people were coming in here somewhat on the basis of the Oswego people.

I make no further comment on that.

Secondly, we hear a great deal about what we owe Europe. I am not so sure about what we owe Europe. I think by being mixed up with Europe, we have gotten ourselves into a mess that I am afraid we will not be able to extricate ourselves from without repercussions within our borders which would be very detrimental to our future generations.

Europe has been in wars for thousands of years or more. European nations have impoverished themselves by the continuous wars that they have had.

George Washington and others had warned us against getting mixed up in the broils of Europe, because of those very facts. There are complicated situations in racial, religious, and other problems that are foreign to us at the present time and that are bases for many of the troubles that develop there and the wars that ensue.

We are getting mixed up in them, and I am afraid sometimes we are not going to help them very much to extricate themselves from the conditions in which they have gotten themselves because of our lack of equipment, and, I am afraid, appreciation of what causes the conflicts in Europe.

So I say, therefore, we have contributed greatly to the European situation in the last two wars which they think, I suppose, with their benefit. As a result of that, we have gotten into a colossal debt in this country, expressed in astronomical figures as far as most of us are concerned.

I see in your record that we are obligated directly and indirectly something like $600,000,000,000. We commonly see in the papers the amount of something like $260,000,000,000, of which people hold evidences in their hands throughout the country. But there are other obligations which will fall due on us whenever we have a crash.

I noted in the Record the other day a statement made by Congressman Wigglesworth, and he adds it up to only $432,000,000,000. But that still is a colossal figure. And that came on us because of our involvement in European affairs. And now we are still running into large figures in helping the people throughout the world.

So I think that when we talk about owing Europe, and what we owe Europe, we owe them really nothing, except what charity dictates. And I am willing, and my folks are willing, to extend charitable considerations to them where they are, as most of us would do in our household affairs. We would help them on the outside, but would ont displace our own people and put them at a considerable inconvenience in order to help others.

Mr. FELLOWS. What is the membership of your organization?

Mr. WILLIAMS. It is relatively small, about, 100. sir. But they are people of deep interest in this country, and we, of course, I hope, have influence beyond our numbers.

Mr. CELLER. Do they all live in Maryland?