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

elieved that the current quota allotments were “sufficient” to meet the needs of a
“substantial number” of involuntary refugees. William Green, President of the American
Federation of Labor, believed that the United States “should take the lead” in the refugee
resettlement issue and cited America’s custom of offering succor to victims of political
and religious persecution. It would be “cruel [and] illogical” and out of step with time
honored “principles” if immigration was closed off entirely. However, current domestic
economic conditions mandated that the nation continue to follow the existing quota
limitations. Dr. Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan, opposed any scheme to encourage additional immigration believing that the
available openings would “most likely…be filled” by those refugees who met the
mandated entry requirements. 24
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Committee and Roosevelt
confidante, did not believe Congress “should or would” change the existing quotas. He
would accept the admission of a “rather limited number of children” but if there should
develop a “conflict between our duty to those children and our duty to our country,
speaking for myself as a citizen, I should say, of course, that our country comes
first.” 25 Wise predicted in an address to a Detroit meeting of the Zionist Organization of
America (ZOA) that the conference would result in a “dismal failure” unless Britain
altered its Palestine immigration policy. 26 Privately, he labeled Roosevelt's plan as a
“gesture which meant little…One might have expected more from an administration that
24 “Question of the Week,” The United States News April 4, 1938.
25 Ibid.
26 “Urge American Aid to Open Palestine,” New York Times, July 4, 1938, 13
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