The “crusty formalism of the State Department” is barring the entry of great numbers of refugees ruthlessly ejected from Germany, Professor Raymond Moley writes in an editorial published in the magazine Today, of which he is editor.
“Non-Jewish as well as Jewish professional men, scholars, teachers and artists,” said Professor Moley, who is one of the original members of the “Brain Trust”, “ruthlessly ejected from positions earned by genuine merit and labor, have been denied not only the opportunity to make a creative contribution to their nation and to humanity, but the very right to earn a living. As a result, some thousands of Jews have found themselves wanderers on the face of the earth. This is not a theory. It is a bitter fact.”
Stating that the United States is committed to the principle of asylum for those who flee from religious and political persecution, Professor Moley attacked the technicalities which have prevented free entry for these exiles.
“The Secretary of State,” he declared, “who is fortunately free form hampering diplomatic inhibitions, can well make this task of recasting and renovating his department a major objective of his policy. He will have the hearty support of plain Americans of all parties in an attempt to teach our foreign service, both abroad and in Washington, the human implications of the New Deal.”
The former Assistant Secretary of State mentioned specifically the obstacles put in the way of unrestricted immigration of these political exiles, as well as acceptance of applicants for citizenship. “That was bureaucracy in its most tragic form,” he said. “Some of it still lives.”
Even after new instructions were sent out to American consuls abroad, “the situation practically unchanged. Thus the cause of the German refugees found itself in a dead-end street of diplomatic bafflement.”
Aid was sought of the Department of Labor. “The Jews in America,” said Professor Moley, “proposed that they be permitted to guarantee by bonds that their co-religionists would not become public charges if admitted to the United States.”
The American principle of asylum for those who flee from religious and political persecution must be restored, he said. “An overwhelming majority of Americans will, I believe, insist upon the application in fact of what we expound in principle.”
Professor Moley, an original member of President Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust”, was Assistant Secretary of State in the Roosevlt administration until he resigned to assume the edtorship of the magazine.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
