President Eisenhower declared today, in his State of the Union message to the Congress, that “pioneering work in civil rights must go on not only because discrimination is morally wrong but also because its impact is more than national-it is worldwide.”
Declaring that it was “imperative” that United States immigration policy “be in the finest American tradition of providing a haven for oppressed peoples and fully in accord with our obligation as a leader of the free world, ” the President said that his Administration had made legislative recommendations “to liberalize existing restrictions while still safeguarding the national interest.”
Reviewing measures to admit refugees to the United States, he reported that more than 32,000 “victims of Communist tyranny in Hungary were brought to our shores.” He added that since 1953, the “waiting period for naturalization applicants has been reduced from 18 months to 45 days.”
In another part of his message, the President listed United States intervention on behalf of the United Arab Republic in the 1956 Suez crisis as an achievement for peace, He said that during that crisis, “the United States Government strongly supported United Nations action-resulting in the ending of hostilities in Egypt.” He credited his Administration with having preserved peace in the Middle East.
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.
