A resolution urging the United States to "use its good offices and take appropriate measures" to open the douse of Palestine for the "free entry" of Jews, was introduced in the Senate today by Robert F. Wagner (N.Y.Dem.) and Robert Taft (Ohio Rep.) The resolution was endorsed by Sen. Alben W. Barkley, majority leader, and by Sen. Wallace H. White, minority leader. It was referred to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. An identical resolution was introduced in the House last week. The resolution also urged establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth.
"This resolution," Sen. Wagner told the Senate "reaffirms the historic policy of the Government of the United States, formulated by the Congress in June, 1922, when it unanimously passed a joint resolution sponsored by the late Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, then chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations."
Senator Wagner pointed out that "from 1933 to 1939, Palestine welcomed more refugees from Hitler terror than were absorbed by all the rest of the world." He added that "when the war ends, Palestine has the capacity to absorb the uprooted and the destitute Jews who will survive Hitler’s vengeance. The need will then be greater than ever before."
"Our Government has done and is doing its utmost to alleviate the conditions of European refugees during the war." Sen. Wagner continued. "Every President of the United States since Woodrow Wilson has looked with favor upon the Jewish Homeland as the permanent solution of a vexing problem. This resolution will help uphold the hand of our Government in support of its traditional policy — a policy that is in furtherance of the ideals of all the United Nations.
Sen. Taft, in addressing the Senate said: "Until a place is found where the unhappy Jews of Europe can go and get a new start in life, free of unreasonable economic sanctions and a blind religious and racial hatred, the fundamental causes for anti-Semitism will continue in Europe."
Sen. Barkley in his speech on the Senate floor, said: "I am glad to join with my colleagues in an expression of sympathetic interest with the objective to be attained by the resolution just presented. There is a perfectly natural link that binds the Jews to Palestine, which we can all understand." He emphasized that in light of the reports from the Philippines concerning Japanese atrocities against American war prisoners, the people of the United States can more readily appreciate what the Germans have been doing to the Jews of Europe.
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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.
