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

attitude” the American Government had displayed towards granting visas (combining and
more completely filling the annual German and Austrian quotas) and the resettlement of
refugees on U.S. soil would “serve as an example and incentive” to motivate other
nations to follow a similar path. 72
Various motives have been offered to explain the presidential decision to convene
the Intergovernmental Committee for Political Refugees, also known as the Evian
Conference. FDR asked his Cabinet during a meeting on March 18: “America was a
place of refuge for so many fine Germans in the period of 1848. Why couldn’t we offer
them again a place of refuge at this time?” 73 The President would later assert that
America had long served as the “traditional haven of refugee” for those facing
persecution in foreign lands. Therefore, he believed, it was both appropriate and proper
for the Administration to resume its “traditional role and take the lead in calling and
conducting the Evian meeting.” 74 However, Roosevelt knew that the Depression had
worsened during 1937-38 with higher levels of unemployment, estimated by the
American Federation of Labor in 1938 to have reached a level of 11 million or roughly
twenty percent of the available workforce. A 1938 Roper Poll revealed that only 4.9%
favored liberalization of the annual quotas, 18.2% called for removal of all limits on
72 Ibid., 71-72. Messersmith had been appointed Consul-General in Berlin in 1930 but had been serving
in the Foreign Service since 1914.
73 Ibid., 70.
74 Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers and Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt 1938. vol. 7, “The
Continuing Struggle for Liberalism” (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941), 170.
83