Major responsibility for the country’s loss of the wide lead it once enjoyed in scientific attainment was placed upon bigoted immigration laws by former Senator Herbert H. Lehman tonight.
“Bigoted immigration laws enacted during the past generation, climaxed by the McCarran -Walter Act of 1952, has contributed as much as any other single factor to the deadly danger in which the cause of freedom stands now, “Lehman told 200 community, resettlement and philanthropic leaders at the 10th anniversary dinner of the New York Association for New Americans. NYANA, since its inception in 1949, aided 70,000 Jewish newcomers to establish themselves in the Greater New York area. It is a constituent agency of the United Jewish Appeal.
Sen. Lehman cited the contributions to nuclear physics of Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller and in the field of missiles, Dr. Werner von Braun, all of whom were admitted to the United States before the passage of the McCarran Walter Act. “What would be the future of the cause of freedom,” he asked, “if the totalitarians rather than the free world had the primary benefit of the contributions of these geniuses?
“I do not suggest that even before the McCarran-Walter Act our immigration laws were generous and liberal,” he continued. “Who can say how far ahead in science we would be today if Congress had not created so many immigration barriers and kept out of our country so many individuals of ability and promise?” He called upon Congress and the Administration to work together in a non-partisan manner to eliminate the national-origins-quota system and discrimination measures against naturalized American citizens contained in the McCarran- Walter Act.
Sen. Lehman and Mrs. David M. Levy, the first president of NYANA, received inscribed silver-covered Bibles in “appreciation of their outstanding contributions in the fields of immigration and the integration of newcomers into the American scene.” Lester Ginsburg, president of NYANA, reported that the agency last year aided more than 4, 500 individuals. He estimated that during the current year the agency will aid a similar number of Jewish newcomers arriving in New York.
Summarizing the activities of NYANA during the past decade, Mr. Ginsburg reported that 35, 000 families were aided by the agency’s family service department, while its vocational service department found jobs for 17, 000 and helped 2,400 to receive vocational training.
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.
