Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does indicate approval.–Editor.]

That the framers of the new immigration law, based upon “national origin,” to go into effect July, 1927, have not succeeded in their purpose of giving exclusive preference to the so-called Nordic type of immigrants, is the statement contained in the New York “Evening World” of May 6.

Pointing out that more than half the immigrants eligible to admission next year will come from Great Britain and Ulster, giving nationals of those countries an increase over the present law of almost 150 per cent and that the quota from the Irish Free State will be heavily reduced, the paper writes:

“The alleged purpose of the new law is ‘to preserve the old Colonial stock’, most of which came from Great Britain and Northern or Protestant Ireland, and to accomplish this end, basing immigrant quotas upon ‘national origin’, the framers of the law have gone to the censuses of 1890 and 1910.

“Even so, the table prepared by John B. Trevor, an expert on population, contains surprises that may astonish even the framers of the bill. Thus Italy will have an increase Sweden a decrease of almost 66 2/3%. Germany will have a reduction of 60% and Russia will have an increase of almost 100%.This can hardly contribute much to the happiness of Mr. Johnson, the Chairman of the Committee on Immigration.

“The law is deliberately intended for discrimination, and, despite the extraordinary recourse to the censuses of 1890 and 1910, it does not appear according to Mr. Trevor’s table, to have worked out as hoped. The Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, Belgium, the Irish Free State and Switzerland are reduced, and Great Britain, Ulster, Austria, Russia and Italy are increased.”

THE LATE OSCAR STRAUS AND THE AMERICAN PRESS

The manner in which the newspapers of America are writing about the late Oscar S. Straus, shows, we are told by Jacob Fishman, in the “Jewish Morning Journal” (May 6), that there is no feeling of anti-Semitism in the American press.

“It is a source of deep gratification for American Jewry,” Mr. Fishman writes, “especially since nearly all the newspapers did not forget to emphasize that Straus started his career as a poor Jewish boy. Such observations must have their effect on the wide American masses. They indicate, at any rate, that the great American press is far removed from anti-Semitic tendencies, and it is a comfort against the barking of Ford’s ‘Dearborn Independent’.”