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arguing that it violated the “spirit of the [immigration] law [which stated] visitors’
permits are granted for temporary purposes.” 94
The President was seeking, according to Robert Dallek, to improve America’s
defenses and create a united front against the threat of Nazism. Consequently, “a fight on
the later Wagner-Rogers bill [and Jewish immigration in general] would have crippled his
main objective.” 95
His strongest supporters in Congress were Southern Democrats who
opposed any liberalization of the immigration laws. They had voted 127:0 for the 1924
Immigration Act and 106:3 to revise the Neutrality Act in 1939. After the German
invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt called on the President to
“raise the immigration quotas and persuade the State Department to relax the restrictions
on admitting Jews.” He cautioned that any attempt to admit refugees, especially Jews,
would cost him the support of Southern Democrats who chaired many important Senate
and House committees. They would “bolt the party” and block every piece of legislation
needed to keep this country from collapsing.” The President concluded that “preparation
for war is my ‘must’ legislation and I would lose that ability if the party were
split...Ultimately, we must be prepared to mobilize if we are to survive.” Edwin “Pa”
Watson, the Presidential Press Secretary, recollected that FDR’s lack of support for the
1939 Wagner-Rogers bill “doomed the bill and it died in committee.” However, the
children under consideration in the 1940 Henning bill were “English and Christians, not
94 Tampa Daily Times, November 19, 1938, 1, 10;
95 Verne W. Newton, ed., FDR and the Holocaust (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 17.
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