Senators Cable Bevin Protesting Against “anti-semitic Utterance” About New York

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin’s statement that New York did not want “too many Jews” was called an “anti-Semitic utterance,” an “echo from Nazi dogma” and a “gratuitous insult” to the American people, in a cable sent him on Saturday by Senators Robert F. Wagner and James M. Mead of New York. The cable read:

“As United States Senators elected by the people of the State of New York, we are shocked by your recent published statement that agitation in the United States for the entry of 100,000 Jews arose because “they did not want too many of them’ in New York. We are amazed that this false and anti-Semitic utterance should come from a leader of the British Labor Party whose policies we have always admired. This echo from Nazi dogma is a mockery of the decent principles for which our two peoples waged war.

“Such a gratuitous insult will not be excused or forgotten by the fair-minded people of our state and of every state–man and women of every creed, race and color who have shed their blood and participated in generous and comradely aid to Britain in the common cause of winning the war and the peace. Nor can they square your repudiation of the unanimous recommendation of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, itself established at Britain’s suggestion, with your own earlier declaration to the committee in London that a unanimous report would result in the immediate implementation of its recommendation.

“The American people overwhelmingly believe that lame excuses and new conditions, inconsistent with the pledges of the Mandate as well as the recent committee report, are especially unbecoming to those spokesmen like yourself who justly emphasize the integrity of international undertakings and the sanctity of human rights at the bar of international law and opinion. We submit that your statement was hardly compatible with the friendly understanding that should exist between our two peoples.”