President Truman today asked Congress to allocate an additional $2,000,000 for the administration of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, under which 205,000 DP’s would enter the U.S. during the next two years.The sum, if granted, would make a total of $4,000,000 set aside for the DP immigration program since an initial $2,000,000 was appropriated when the measure became law.
At the same time the President submitted for the Senate is confirmation the names of three persons to administer the refugee immigrant legislation. They are: Ugo Carusi, Edward M. 0’Conner and Harry N. Rosenfield. The terms of the DP commissioners would expire June 30, 1951.
Under the terms of the law, the three commissioners would be charged with “formulating and issuing regulations” and reporting at stated intervals to the President and Congress “on the situation regarding eligible displaced orphans, eligible displaced persons and displaced persons.”
The three commissioners will also direct the operation of the over-all program, coordinating the related activities of the State Department’s visa division, the Maritime Commission (transportation), the Army (screening) and the U.S. Employment Service (job placements.)
Harry N. Rosonfeld, the Jewish member of the trio named by the President to administer the program, is a Now York City attorney. He served as a legal assistant to the late Mayor Fiorello Laguerdia of New York and is at present a member of the board of directors of the Conference on Jewish Relations. He is the son-in-law of the late Prof. Morris Raphael Cohen, the noted philosopher.Rosenfeld, an assistant to Federal Security Administrator Oscar Ewing, is at present in Geneva where he is serving as a member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Economic and Social Council.
Meanwhile, State Department officials reported over the week-end that Jobs are already waiting for all the 100,000 displaced persons who may be brought to the United States during the next 12 months.Employment offers have been pouring in from industrialists, farmers, commercial firms and public groups, the Department said.
Senator Chapman Revercomb, chairman of the Senate Immigration sub-committee, said today that his group would meet soon to study President Truman’s recommendation for an amended DP law, providing for the admission of 400,000 DP’s over a four-year period and the removal of certain anti-Jewish features from the present law. He declined, however, to comment on what he thought such a bill’s chances for adoption were at this time.
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.
