Three United States Senators, including the Senate Majority leader, tonight stressed the moral responsibility of the United States, despite its neutrality, in helping bring about the restoration of Jewish rights in Europe. Their views were echoed in messages from Cabinet members, Governors and other American leaders to the American Jewish Congress on the occasion of its dinner at the Hotel Astor, attended by 1,000 persons, marking the twenty-first anniversary of the founding of the organization.
Scheduled speakers included Senators Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, the Senate Majority leader, Claude Pepper of Florida and Robert F. Wagner of New York. Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president, Louis Lipsky, vice-president, Maurice Levin, chairman of the dinner committee, Father William C. Kernan and Dr. Joachim Prinz were among the other speakers.
The Senators emphasized in their addresses that although America was neutral, as the strongest moral force in the world today it had the obligation to assist in bringing about restoration of the rights of Jews. Such an effort, they indicated, was an obligation to civilization itself.
The speakers, as well as the messages from Government leaders, added that while that task had to await the coming of peace, there should be no delay in undertaking the immediate task of helping refugees who were the victims of racial and political oppression in Europe.
The dinner, which marked also projection of a program intended by the Congress to lay the foundations for the eventual restoration of “the human and equality rights of Jews in Europe after the peace,” heard messages supporting that aim by Interior Secretary Harold I. Ickes, Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Wallace, Commerce Secretary Harry L. Hopkins and Attorney General Frank Murphy. Similar messages were sent by 18 Governors, 20 Senators, 25 Congressmen, Mayor LaGuardia, William Green, John L. Lewis, District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, church and American Legion leaders, educators and many others.
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