Denying that his government is anti-Semitic, President Lazaro Cardenas has announced that he is inviting technicians, scholars and scientists from Germany, Austria and Spain, the first 21 of whom are already on their way. The statement was made in an interview with Anita Brenner for the North American Newspaper Alliance in Jalapa, Veracruz.
“Mexico needs technicians, not only in the oil industry, but in all our industry and culture,” he said. “We want them so much that we are now taking measures to open our immigration doors wide to them. We are inviting technicians, scholars, and scientists from Germany, Austria and Spain. We are going to make it easy for them to enter the country for permanent residence, and also, because our laws require citizenship for most such positions, we are going to grant it quickly. We want them to stay with us and help us build.
“The first group of scholars, twenty-one of them, is already on the way. We will bring in more as fast as we or they can afford it. We are quite sure that all Mexico will appreciate their value and will make them welcome.
Discussing government policy, he said: “We as a government are not anti-foreign. We are not anti-American and we are not anti-Semitic. It is not true that we are trying to force foreigners out systematically. Any foreigner who lives among us decently, and obeys our laws, has nothing to fear from this government.
At another point President Cardenas declared: “Is this a proletarian dictatorship? No, it is not a dictatorship of any kind. What we are trying to do here is to build a democracy, to raise our people economically and culturally, and to teach them the exercise of citizenship. We think the best defense against dictatorship is the exercise of democracy in every possible way, within the labor and peasant organizations especially.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
