News of Santo Domingo Refugee Plan Hit As “premature”

A tentative plan for settlement of 1,000,000 Jews in Santo Domingo, divulged by Dr. Howard Blake, a New York Jewish dentist, who said he represented Dr. Stephen S. Wise in negotiations with President Rafael Leonardes Trujillo, today drew from Dr. Wise a statement deploring the “premature” and ” unauthorized” disclosure as perhaps jeopardizing whatever immigration possibilities might exist there.

Dr. Wise, denying that Dr. Blake represented the American Jewish Congress or World Jewish Congress, said he had gone to the West Indian island in a “private capacity” and was to report to Dr. Wise privately on whether colonization possibilities merited a full investigation. He declared also that announcement of the plan might divert public attention from oppression of Jews in Germany, Poland and elsewhere.

The plan, announced by Dr. Blake, who returned with a letter from President Trujillo to Dr. Wise inviting Jewish settlement, foresees settlement of 1,000,000 Jews from Germany, Poland and Rumania on large tracts of rich land in 25 years, each settler to receive 30 acres tax-free for five years with the World Jewish Congress to support them until they become self-supporting. Emigration of 1,000 settlers in the near future is envisioned, for whose transportation about $1,000,000 would be required, to be raised in the United States.

“When the communication from President Trujillo is received,” Dr. Wise said, “the American Jewish Congress will be glad to submit it for careful consideration to the World Jewish Congress, which is committed by resolutions adopted in Geneva to seek possibilities for Jewish migration and settlement.”

He added, however, that “the efforts of the Jews of the world should be directed to bringing about such moral and political pressure upon Poland and other European countries as to prevent outlawry of Jews from lands where they have been settled for centuries.”

President Trujillo’s letter, as quoted by Dr. Blake, expressed sympathy with a proposal for immigration of Jewish agriculturists “to dedicate themselves to the land and development of industrial enterprises” and said the Government was ready to receive as soon as possible a special commission to study “the most satisfactory plan for carrying out that project.”

At Dr. Blake’s office it was stated that he was expecting to see Dr. Wise tomorrow.

“I feel especially deeply about the matter,” Dr. Wise said in his statement, “because I have for some time been gravely concerned with reports from Cuba which indicate that the publication of Congressman Sirovich’s scheme for Jewish settlement in Cuba has availed chiefly to evoke bitter anti-Semitic outbursts on the part of certain groups in Cuba, possibly under Nazi inspiration.”