AEMI

62 AEMI JOURNAL 2015
and Massachusetts Governor Charles
Francis Hurley (1893-1946), spoke out
against the venture. When the Labor
Department issued word that it would
not be issuing any visas, Walsh and Hurley
appeared in a photo in the Boston
Post on May 29; beneath the caption,
‘Walsh informs Hurley Basque plan is
dead,’ the picture showed Senator Walsh
taking a cigar from Hurley. 44
Out of Massachusetts’ 17 representatives
in Congress, only Rep. Joseph
E. Casey said he thought there was no
basis to the claim that the evacuation
effort was a communist conspiracy:
‘suppose Fitchburg were being shelled
by airplanes and children were being
murdered in the streets. What would
you say or do to a man who under any
pretense refused to help rescue them?
Thankfully England has raised no such
scruples against the rescue of little children
from the murderous bombs and
machine-guns of war planes.’ 45
By June, the U.S. Labor Department
had decided not to make an exception
for the Basque children in its application
of the 1917 Immigration Act (which
stated that all children under 16 years of
age, unaccompanied, and having their
tickets paid by an association, would not
be eligible for a visa, unless the secretary
of labor determined that they would not
become a public liability). On June 30,
General Queipo de Llano from Radio
Sevilla spoke of the thousands of children
who had been evacuated from
the Basque Country to other countries
and characterized the withdrawal as
‘red propaganda designed to depict the
Fascists as ruthless toward such innocent
victims of the war.’ He added that
Franco’s government would lose no time
in having these unfortunate victims returned
to their homes and their parents
as soon as possible. He emphasized that
Mrs. Roosevelt had misunderstood the
problem when she pledged her help in
transporting 500 Basque children to the
United States. 46
Several protest telegrams reached the
State Department, including one by the
Workers Fellowship of the Society for
Ethical Culture in New York47 and one
by three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and
Librarian of Congress Archibald Macleish
(1892-1982):
Rumors are being spread in New York
that your Department refuses asylum in
America to Basque children evacuated
from Bilbao stop May I respectfully urge
that you take earliest possible opportunity
to deny these rumors stop It is vital
to self-respect of United States citizens
that not even in idle talk should this
democracy be pictured as only civilized
country of western world to put itself in
so shameful a position stop I realize certain
United States organizations are not
above opposing rescue of these children
for fear appearance in America of catholic
refugees escaping from Franco guns
might expose falsehood of widely disseminated
contention that Franco and
his Nazi and Fascist allies are patriotic
engaged in protecting Spanish people
against anarchist and communists stop
But surely such organizations cannot
influence decision of a nation dedicated
to ideals of political and human freedom.
48
On June 8, the same day that 500 refugee
children were approaching Veracruz,
Mexico,49 the American Board of