Letters requesting them to agitate against the passage of alien registration bills now pending in Congress have been sent to the 200 Corporate Members of the American Jewish Committee, resident in all parts of the United States, according to a statement of Morris D. Waldman, Secretary of the Committee. The letters were accompanied by two pamphlets edited by Max J. Kohler, Chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, as well as a memorandum which had been prepared by the Foreign Language Information Service, outlining the terms of the three registration bills now before Congress and the basic objections to them. The Committee has also communicated with the officers of the seventeen national Jewish organizations affiliated with it, suggesting that they take similar action.
“Those who have closely studied the registration proposal,” the Committee’s letter states “express the conviction that it is bound to lead to the oppression of aliens and even of naturalized and native-born citizens, because, inherent in such laws is the danger that, once the registration principle is embodied in law, the compulsory registration of all inhabitants of the United States, citizens as well as aliens, may follow—a condition which is the very negation of the American principle of personal liberty.”
The American Jewish Committee is cooperating with a number of non-sectarian organizations which have come out strongly against the proposed legislation in its various forms.
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