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clearly demonstrated to the American public that the “good neighbor policy [was]
responded to wholeheartedly by our neighbors,” warned Under-Secretary of State Welles,
it would be doubtful that the nation would “favor indefinitely a continuation…of any
policy which prove[d] to be one-sided.” 78 Thus, it could be argued that the mere
convocation of an international committee to deal with a humanitarian crisis met
America’s moral obligation. The burden would clearly have to be shared on a global
basis.
Roosevelt, according to Barbara McDonald Stewart, argued that the German
refugee crisis meant that “America could never return to the passive role she had been
playing.” 79 Sidney Feingold believed that FDR was influenced by charitable ideals,
especially for those “prominent refugees whose caliber impressed him and whose
personal misfortunes aroused his sympathy.” 80
This, of course, was more of a rhetorical
question, since Roosevelt was well aware of the difficulties and risks inherent in any
attempt to manipulate U.S. immigration laws.
Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, who had promoted the idea of the
conference to the President and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, envisaged the meeting as
an opportunity “to get out in front” of liberal opinion, especially from such influential
humanity in order that an atmosphere of close understanding and cooperation may be cultivated. It
involves mutual obligations and responsibilities, for it only by sympathetic respect for the rights of others
and a scrupulous fulfillment of the corresponding obligations by each member of the community that a true
fraternity can be maintained.” “Address before the Pan American Union”, April 12, 1933 available from
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/7-2-188/188-01.html ; Internet; accessed August 24, 2010.
78 Welles Address to the Herald-Tribune Forum, October 26, 1938, The Public Papers and Address of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 7, 411-413.
79 Stewart. United States Policy, 267.
80 Feingold, Politics, 23.
85