In a speech to the House today, Rep. Arthur G. Klein, Democrat, of New York, pointed out that there is “apparently a conspiracy of distortion and misrepresentation” now under way to confuse the public and Congress on the subject of displaced persons.
Speaking in support of the Stratton Bill, recently introduced in the House, which would permit the use of wartime quota numbers for the entry of 400,000 displaced persons within the next four years, Klein labelled “false propaganda” reports that great numbers of refugees are entering the country illegally every day. He cited Immigration and Naturalization Commissioner Ugo Carusi to the effect that illegal entries from the European area are less than 100 a month and that practically every stowaway is apprehended and usually returned from whence he came.
Another “false charge being disseminated,” he said, was that most of the DP’s are Jewish, while actually only 20 percent of them are Jews. The other 80 percent are of Catholic and Protestant faiths. Among the 20 percent who are Jewish, he said, an overwhelming majority desire to emigrate to Palestine and not to the United States.
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.
