AEMI

56 AEMI JOURNAL 2015
of the Basque or Spanish Republican
governments, and the State Department
would have to issue certificates to organizations
that wanted to solicit funds
and make contributions within the limitations
of the law. 13 Six days later, on
May 6, 1937, the State Department
reported to the American Embassy in
Paris that the Red Cross could collect
up to $5,000 to help the Basque refugee
population in France but that the group
could not provide direct contributions
to the French government, only to the
French Red Cross. 14 The funding was
delivered by May 1937. Spanish Foreign
Minister Julio Álvarez del Vayo thanked
Bullitt for having helped the refugees in
the besieged city of Bilbao. 15
The American Board of Guardians
for Basque Refugee Children, created in
May 1937, undertook the first attempt
to bring Basque children to the United
States 16 . The group hoped to transport
500 children to New York by the end of
June. The refugees would be shipped by
sea from Bilbao to Donibane Lohitzune,
the location of the U.S. Embassy to the
Spanish Republic, and then by train to
Paris to embark for the United States
within a month.
The children would be hosted either
by Basque families or by a nursery
school in New York under the care of
Basque priests, nurses and teachers, as
done in the Basque colonies of Great
Britain and France. The children would
remain in New York during the war
and, if necessary, after the war if their
parents were dead, missing or in prison.
If they had to remain in Spain, children
whose parents had been involved in politics
or who had fought for the Republic
would have to be “re-educated” in special
schools. They would also suffer from
the lack of basic food and medicine as
a result of the region’s devastated economy.
All the families were asked by the
Basque government to sign a form requesting
and consenting that their children
be sent abroad.
There were no Basques among the
members of the organization. The executive
committee included Dr. Frank
Bohn, general secretary; William E.
Dodd Jr., treasurer; Gardner Jackson,
Washington representative; Dr. Algernon
D. Black, Pauline Emmet and
Katherine Meredith, associate secretaries.
The board also included an advisory
committee of Virginia C. Gildersleeve,
Albert Einstein, William Brown Meloney,
Caroline O’Day, Laura de los Ríos,
James T. Shotwell, Dorothy Thompson
(1893-1961) and Mary E. Woolley. Finally,
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
agreed to become the board’s honorary
president.
On May 22, 1937, the board sent a
request to the U.S. secretary of state asking
for permission to bring 500 Basque
refugee children to New York. 17 The
first step for the board was to apply for
visitor visas for the children. The State
Department had no reason to deny the
visas. Thus, on May 23, 1937, the U.S.
Navy sent a communiqué to the U.S.S.
Kane reporting that between 500 and
5,000 Basque children would be issued
visas to be sent to the United States. 18
In response to the Spanish Embassy
in Washington, the State Department
pointed out that, “as to the question of
their obtaining passport visas, the decision
is placed by law upon the appropriate
American consular officers, who
must be guided by the provisions of ex-