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Jewish Group Appeals to Eisenhower Against Mccarran Act

January 6, 1953
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An appeal to President-Elect Dwight Eisenhower to make consideration of the report of President Truman’s Commission on Immigration and Naturalization his “first order of business immediately after11 his inauguration, was today addressed to Gen. Eisenhower by the Anti-Defamation League of #B’nai B’rith. The Commission’s report recommends reconsideration and extended overhaul of the new Mc Car ran- Walter Immigration Law.

Reminding the President-Elect of his “statements of vigorous opposition to the McCarran Act” during the Presidential election campaign, A.D. L. national chairman Henry E. Schults, warned that “the finely wrought structure of the community of free nations which (General Eisenhower) has toiled so magnificently to build” is endangered by the provisions of the new immigration statute. Although President Truman plans to lay the Commission’s report before Congress for action, Mr. Schults pointed out that it is the incoming Republican Administration and Congress which will have to make the decision on its recommendations.

Meanwhile, former Solicitor General Philip B. Perlman, who headed the President’s Commission, has scored Sen. Pat McCarran, author of the immigration law, for having “wantonly smeared11 leaders of the three major religious faiths to his “intemperate” attack on the Commission’s report. Sen. McCarran had labelled the report “propaganda” of a leftist nature. Mr. Perlman said that “the Senator cannot make a reasoned defense of an act which embodies so much discrimination and prejudice, so he ignores the facts and makes unfounded insinuations and smears against those who disagree with him.”

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