Thousands of Jews, aliens and citizens alike, will find their job problems eased, Jewish circles here said today, as a result of President Roosevelt’s statement yesterday that “persons should not hereafter be refused employment, or persons at present employed discharged, solely on the basis of the fact that they are aliens or that they were formerly nationals of any particular country. A general condemnation of any group or class of persons is unfair and dangerous to the war effort,” the President said.
The statement referred complaints to the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, which expects a barrage of them in addition to the large number it is already working on. The President pointed out that aliens are barred by law only from jobs involving the handling of plans, specifications and testing of particular confidential war products. Even in these cases, special permits can be obtained.
The statement told how to apply for these permits through the United States Employment Service, and added that applications would be acted on within 48 hours. Preference in granting the permits will be given to veterans, immediate relatives of soldiers and sailors, husbands and wives of citizens, and aliens of long-term residence, or those who applied for citizenship before Pearl Harbor. These preferences will also apply to so-called enemy aliens.
The Committee on Fair Employment Practice had asked that procedure be simplified even further for the members of the preferred groups, many of them Jewish refugees, so that permits would be granted to them almost automatically. But no such procedure was mentioned in the President’s statement.
A committee official said that many aliens from the United Nations had suffered because employers with war contracts had followed a cautious policy of not hiring anyone to whom the War or Navy Departments could possibly object. “Enemy aliens” have been especially discriminated against, as well as citizens with German, Italian or just “foreign-sounding” names. Now the committee will have a more authoritative position in dealing with such employers, and in urging the army and navy to make the facts clear to them.
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