Strong support for the Wagner-Rogers bill to admit 20,000 German refugee children to the United States was given yesterday before the House Immig ration Committee.
The hearing was featured by reading of a letter from President William Green of the American Federation of Labor urging passage of the measure. Joseph A. Padway, A.F.L. counsel who read the message, declared it was personal as the organization itself had taken no official action on the issue. In his letter, however, Mr. Green expressed confidence that the A.F.L. would back him in supporting the bill. Asked by Representative Leonard Allen (Dem.,La.) whether the Federation, usually restrictionist, was not doing “an about face,” Mr. Padway replied that “this is a humanitarian issue.”
Other witnesses endorsing the bill included actor Joe E. Brown, who flew from Hollywood to testify; Frank Graham, president of North Carolina University; Clarence E. Pickett, executive secretary of the Non Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, and Miss Katherine Lenroot, chief of the Children’s Bureau of the Labor Department.
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.
