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

admission and 67.4% of respondents called for an end to immigration entirely. Twenty
percent of American Jews, during July 1938, also favored a strict immigration policy. 75
Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes recorded in diary that during the March 18
Cabinet meeting the President suggested the Administration should “make it as easy as
possible for political refugees” to enter the country while postponing any “future
determination” as to whether or not the émigrés could remain under the existing quota
restrictions. Ickes believed that the provision of refuge, whether on a temporary or
permanent basis, represented a “fine gesture” and he anticipated that the émigrés would
become a “fine class of citizen,” similar to those who entered following the Revolution of
1848. The Vice President doubted that Congress would allow any amendments to the
immigration laws and believed that if a “secret” ballot were held, the Legislature would
ban all immigration. 76
Although the United States would take the initiative in the call and management
of the Evian Conference FDR was reluctant to have America assume the leadership role
and face the risk of having to commit the nation to receive the bulk of the stateless
refugees. Echoing his March 1933 Inaugural Address the President repeated that the
“policy of the Good Neighbor…can never be merely unilateral” but must be a part of a
larger “bilateral [and] multilateral policy” in which any actions on the part of the United
States must be met with “certain fundamental reciprocal obligations.” 77 Unless it was
75 Large, And the World Closed its Doors, 70.
125.
76 Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, March 19, 1938, II, 342-343 cited in Breitman, Refugees and Refuge,
77 Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Public Papers, 563-566. “Presidential Address in New York,” June 30,
1938. FDR expanded on this theme of the “Good Neighbor Policy” in a message to Latin America:
“Friendship among Nations, as among individuals, calls for constructive efforts to muster the forces of
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