The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

proposal out of “purely partisan objectives.” 4 Lehman lauded the Chief Executive for his
efforts and declared him to be the spokesman and moral voice for “those who are
oppressed [and] deprived of freedom.”
The Presidential action, Lehman believed,
followed in the wake of time-honored American values and would “rouse the conscience
of humanity [and] restore sanity to a world gone [mad]…As an American and as a Jew I
want to say, ‘Thank you.’” 5 The President responded that he believed the conference
would engender “far-reaching consequences” for “political refugees” but he regretted the
inability of the United States to accept “more than a small proportion.” 6
The formation of the meeting carried on a “firmly fixed American tradition”
dating back to the days of the Pilgrims, Puritans, Huguenots and Catholics. The “new
world has been and is a haven for the politically oppressed.” 7 New York City Mayor
Fiorello LaGuardia was convinced that the clarion call of the President had “made a
profound impression on the chancelleries of Europe. At least there [was] one land that
says ‘shame, shame, on your outrageous conduct!’” Women’s rights advocate, Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt, appealed to the Administration to dispatch naval vessels to Europe
to transport involuntary émigrés to the United States while carrying, in the opposite
direction, pro-Nazi sympathizers residing within America. 8
4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library (FDRL)/OF 3186, FDR to Lehman, March 28, 1938 cited in
Feingold, Politics of Rescue, 23.
5 Irving Lehman to FDR, March 28, 1938, FDRL, Official File 3186, Box 1, Political Refugees,
January-May 1938 cited in Breitman, Refugees and Rescue, 123.
6 Ibid., FDR to Irving Lehman, March 30, 1938.
7 Tampa Tribune, March 28, 1938, 3.
8 The Sentinel, April 7, 1938, 34. Catt added: “Let the bands play and the flags fly when the battleships
come and go on this errand of mercy. The ships need not go empty across the Atlantic. Advertise widely
and smartly from ocean to ocean to find those Germans who, according to Adolf Hitler, ‘have been
120