Clearing House Needed to Investigate Breaches of Jewish “minorities Rights,” Says Judge Mack

“There is an absolute need of some central Jewish bureau at which complaints could be registered – through which these complaints could be investigated and the necessary steps taken for their disposal, – a sort of clearing-house, particularly for the investigation and righting of alleged wrongs committed in connection with the Minority Rights Treaties”, was the burden of Judge Mack’s remarks in reporting to the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Congress his observations of the last sessions of the Committee of Jewish Delegations held in Carlsbad.

Judge Mack further asked that the American Jewish Congress obligate itself in addition to moral support and co-operation, to a subvention of at least $15,000 a year.

Preceding Judge Mack’s report. Dr. Stephen S. Wise, President of the American Jewish Congress, who presided over the meeting, submitted a report of the Congress’s activities during the past six months. Dr. Wise summarized his report by saying, “Our work in aiding in the securing of an asylum in Canada for five thousand of our homeless wandering brethren; our fight against the Klan which is finally beginning to bear fruit; our intervention with Prince Bibesco, the Roumanian Ambassador, against the Jewish excesses in that country; our efforts in ameliorating the Salonica Sunday discriminatory law; the placing on the preference quota list of the immigrants now stranded in the various European ports and concentration camps due to the enactment of the Johnson Bill; and, finally, our contribution towards initiating the call for the creation of the Emergency Committee on Jewish Refugees, that has set as its task the solving of the whole tragic problem of Jewish immigration – present a record of accomplishments to which we can point with just pride.”

Mr. William Topkis of Deleware, added his plea to that of Judge Mack’s that the Congress adopt a more harmonious and more helpful policy towards the Committee of Jewish Delegations.

The Committee then listened to an extended report prepared by Dr. A. J. Rongy, a member of the Administrative Committee, who attended as a Congress delegate the Carlsbad Relief Conference. Dr. Rongy stated that the economic conditions of the Jews in Russia is unbearable.

Hundreds of thousands of them would be willing to leave the country if they had only the means to do so. The poverty and misery that exists there is indescribable and unless some measures of relief are adopted quickly, millions of our people are doomed to extinction. The people over there cannot understand how American Jewry permitted the relief work to cease “American Jewry”, he asserted. “must have been misled or deliberately fooled otherwise, it is incomprehensible how they could have allowed the relief work to stop at such a critical period.”

The reports submitted aroused a very earnest and serious discussion on the part of the members present. At the suggestion, therefore, of Mr. Joseph Barondess, it was decided to convene a special meeting of the Executive Committee some time in November for the express purpose of discussing and taking action on these reports.

During the course of the meeting. Mr. Nathan Straus. Honorary President of the Congress, arose to remark that the closing of the Joint Distribution Committee was an inadvisable and unwarranted act.