About 50,000 of the 200,000 displaced persons who would be admitted to the United States under the terns of the Fellows Bill, approved last week by the House Judiciary Committee, would be Jewish, it was indicated in a report filed with the House today by the Committee.
The report pointed out that the bill was approved “for broad humanitarian reasons” and because the maintenance in camps of the 835,000 DP’s would involve considerable expense for the taxpayers, many difficulties for the U.S. Amy in Europe and a heavy burden for the devastated countries of Western Europe. It voiced the hope that “our readiness to admit what amounts to about 24 percent of the displaced persons to be resettled should be regarded by other immigrant-receiving countries as an inducement rather than a discharge from their obligations to accept a proportionate share of the homes less victims of Nazi and Communist persecution.”
The report emphasized that the “occupational skills of the refugees represent a rich source of labor supply” and that the DP’s “have other characteristics which should be of help in making them valuable citizens of the country of their resettlement.” Describing the DP problem as an “emergency problem,” the Committee said the measure should be completely divorced from the general subject of immigration.
In a separate statement, Rep. Emanuel Celler of New York called the bill” obviously a compromise” measure. He declared that he did not believe that it offered as good a solution as the Stratton Bill which would have set the figure at 400,000 DP’s.
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.
