Roosevelt Hopes for Rapid Progress on Refugee Problem; Official Warn Against Impatience

President Roosevelt, receiving a delegation of refugee-aid officials and Jewish leaders for a review of the work of the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, yesterday voiced great satisfaction with the work done in the face of difficulties and expressed the hope that rapid progress would be made.

After the interview, Myron C. Taylor, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee, and James G. MacDonald, chairman of the President’s Advisory Committee on Refugees, warned against impatience, declaring that to ensure ultimate success short periods of experimentation were necessary before great mass settlements were made.

They said they were happy that the results would soon be known the splendid work done by the several commissions sent out of explore possibilities of settlement of refugees in British Guiana, the Dominican Republic and the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Immediate consideration is being given to plans for implementation by private individuals and organizations of financing and the execution of settlement projects, they said.

In the interview with the President, after a general discussion of the question, Mr. Taylor gave a review of the work of the Intergovernmental Committee, giving credit to the 32 governments on the committee for helping to accomplish some of the objectives of the Evian conference, which was called by Mr. Roosevelt.

Those present besides Messrs. Taylor and MacDonald were Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, former Justice Joseph M. Proskauer, Lewis L. Strauss, Henry Ittleson, Sol Stroock, Paul Baerwald, Nathan Straus, George L. Warren and Dr. Stephen S. Wise.

That refugees make more jobs than they take was asserted yesterday at the convention of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom by Dr. Clarence Pickett, of the American Friends (Quakers) Service Committee, who is among supporters of the Wagner-Rogers bill for admission to the United States of 20,000 German refugee children. Dr. Pickett said refugees had already started about 25 industries in the United States, one of which was employing 3,000 persons. He declared he knew personally one German refugee who was employing twelve Americans.

“What is happening,” he asserted, “is a moving to this country of some sections of the industries of Great Germany, such as the Czech glass industry and the Austrian and Czech handmade jewelry, needlepoint, woodworking and high grade tooled leather industries.

Refugees are bringing the last industry here almost bodily. It always bought its raw materials here and sold from 60 to 70 per cent of the product in this country. Of course these people usually come with little but their skills, but they are establishing themselves and becoming an asset to the nation.”

Dr. Pickett cited immigration statistics to refute charges at recent Congressional hearings that the country was being overrun by foreigners, showing that in the past seven years there was an outgo of nearly 5,000 persons above the influx. He also denied that there was any relation between population and unemployment, pointing out that “scantily populated Canada has large unemployment; densely populated Japan has none.”