Sen. Herbert H. Lehman yesterday asked Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, Jr., for an explanation of an order issued by the Army to bar American Jewish workers from employment on bases in French Morocco.
“As a matter of principle I must object to discrimination against individuals in recruitment of this kind. We are spending the money of American tax payers for the common defense of freedom. We cannot begin by discriminating against our own citizens on religious grounds,” Sen. Lehman wrote to Secretary Pace.
(Major Gen. G. L. Nold, Deputy Chief of Army Engineers, told the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee on February 1 that the Army had asked state employment services to eliminate Jews from employment on construction work at a project in French Morocco because there might be a “racial” problem involving Jews and Arabs. New York State refused to cooperate with the Army and declined the request for the separation of workers on a religious basis. The Army, as a result, by-passed 20,000 eligible New Yorkers, including Jews and non-Jews.)
The New York Senator said he could ” readily understand the considerations mentioned by Gen. Nold, “but could not “permit to pass unchallenged this discrimination against the State of New York in the face of the critical unemployment situation.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
