President Hoover and Secretary of Labor Doak are scored for injecting a spirit of hostility into the immigration question in editorials which appear in the “Detroit Jewish Chronicle” and in “Opinion.”
President Hoover is criticized for the dishertening emphasis he placed on further rigid restriction of immigration in his speech accepting renomination for President.
Secretary of Labor Doak’s report on the figures of immigration and emigration in which the latter shows a great increase over the former is the subject of criticism in “Opinion.”
The “Detroit Jewish Chronicle” writes:
“President Herbert Hoover speaking, at Washington, D. C., in the course of his speech accepting the Republican re-nomination for the Presidency:
“‘I favor rigidly restricted immigration. I have by executive direction, in order to relieve us of added unemployment, already reduced the inward movement to less than the outward movement. I shall adhere to that policy.’
“While it was not necessary for the President thus to emphasize the fact that his administration is definitely pledged to the severest curtailment of immigration, this statement serves further to dishearten those friends of the immigrant elements who are anxiously hoping for a word of comfort in behalf of those from whom they are separated and with whom they hope to be reunited.
“All parties now appear to be united on a similar platform calling not only for the curtailment of immigration, but for the practical shutting of the doors of this country tight to all newcomers. Granting even that there is unquestioned wisdom to such a policy, a word might be said by those in power in behalf of close relatives who seek reunion with those in this country. Something might have been said about knitting closer the ties of friendship and kinship between the newcomers in this country and the natives; a word of encouragement might have been spoken to those among the 15,000,000 foreign-born who have not yet been naturalized. Instead, the spirit is one of hostility.
“By this time, the foreign-born are reconciled to the fact that their battle for an open-door policy is a hopeless one. But this spirit of constant emphasis upon restriction might have been toned down to eliminate the element of hostility.”
“Opinion” declares:
“The patriots have triumphed. The terrible alien menace to America and
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.
