The decision of the National Conference for Palestine to establish an American Commission for the Economic Development of Palestine to coordinate the activities of all public and private agencies engaged in rebuilding the Jewish homeland, has attracted the interest of a number of individuals and government officials here.
The idea of planning is very close to the hearts of New Dealers in Washington. When individuals in other lines of activity begin to think and talk in terms of planning, New Dealers are ready to drop whatever they may be doing in order to listen.
The Roosevelt Administration is striving to develop a planned economy which will operate under this country’s traditional form of economic democracy. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace is a strong advocate of planning and the free discussion of these plans by the people for intelligent decision.
In determining what procedure to follow in the development of a program, especially during the early stages of consideration, the commission may find it well worth while to study some of the writings of Secretary Wallace.
In many respects, the efforts to rebuild Palestine may be compared with efforts now under way to rebuild the United States. To a great degree, both endeavors involve pioneering and a particularly singular kind of leadership and a definite mental enthusiasm.
Secretary Wallace, in his recent book, “New Frontiers,” says of the American effort: “Today more and more of our people are again emigrating to a new world. But this new world I am talking about cannot be found on the maps. The pioneers to settle this new world do not cross the ocean. Some people call this new world a state of mind. To enter it calls for an adventurous spirit. All of us, even the old folks who think they can make big profits again in the good old-fashioned way, long to enter this new world. It is a rich land, but it is hard to build the vessels to take us to it because they must be built out of ‘mind stuff’ and they are not sea-worthy until by common consent we agree they are safe.”
Secretary of the Interior Ickes, who addressed the conference, took occasion to remark that the similarity of the attitudes of those who have been striving to rebuild the Holy Land and that of the people of the United States is striking.
“Each is working for a new deal,” he said. “We in the United States are struggling to improve the general welfare of our people, just as those who are striving for the advance of Palestine are doing so in order to improve the position of the Jews there. Both of us are trying to prepare the way for those who will come after us, to assure better opportunities to our children and their children, thereby contributing to our share toward making the world a better place in which to live.”
The National Conference for Palestine proved to be an attraction for several members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. At least three of the Jewish members of the House were on hand during the two-day session to shake hands and greet friends and constituents.
Senator J. Hamilton Lewis of Illinois, champion of Jewish rights during the Wilson Administration, proved to be the star performer. He happened to stroll by the banquet hall of the Mayflower Hotel just at the time Rabbi Stephen S. Wise was engaged in oratory. Senator Lewis, who is widely known as an orator, stepped into the hall to listen. The folks at the head table espied him, and soon the Senator too was sitting at the head table.
Speaker after speaker addressed the banquet. Some talked in English, others in Yiddish, and one or two in Hebrew. And the Senator listened in spite of it all. When called upon to say a few words, he asked, “I would like to ask the question, is every Jew an orator?”
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, veteran women’s leader, was Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s guest the other day when Mrs. Roosevelt was holding her press conference. Questioned as to her opinion of Hitler’s policy that the place of the German woman is in the home, Mrs. Catt said:
“There are many noble women in Germany today who are not at all in sympathy with Hitlerism, and some day they will break forth in rebellion against conditions under Hitler. Hitler is a back number in every respect. His attitude is not so strange when one recalls that Germany in modern times, has never been progressive in regard to its women.”
A new trouble spot in Europe has sprung up as a result of Nazi activities. Norman H. Davis, President Roosevelt’s Ambassador at Large, has a keen interest in this spot—the small territory of Memel, the strip of East Prussia along the Baltic which the Treaty of Versailles detached from Germany.
In 1924 the League of Nations appointed Mr. Davis chairman of a special commission to determine the status of Memel, which later was awarded to Lithuania. Reports are that German Nazis are in control of the local government there and have started agitation for a plebiscite whether its inhabitants wish to return to German jurisdiction.
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.
