The Wilmington morning star., 1946-11-30
AsPeglmSees It
By pEaLER

madge, the president OF the Daughter OF the
American Revolution, who disagres with Pres
ident Tru1nan's proposal that the United States
permit the entry Of a great number o. dis
placed persons from refugee camps.
The OAR. is an intensely patriotic and ma
tienalistic organization which has suffered con-
siderable derision for its strict loyalty to the
United States with no second choice. Its mem
bers have been depicted as ashigh-busted group
Of serio-comic, middle-aged-to-elderly she Ro-
tarians who concern themselves with flower
arrangements of ~cattails and mllkwed pods,
listen to lectures and regard communism as
lie galized rapery, as why shouldn't they?
These girls are as they are and, weight fo1
age. no less toothsome than the. DANES who
lambaste them, no fatter or no less
intelligent or courageous in their conV1ctons
and second to no other group in their uncondl-
tional American patriotism. l thought | would
mention these matters by way Of establishing
their right to their opinion on immigration or
ANYTHING else, subject to no discount on the
score Of looks or their preoccupation with low
priority interests while, as it were, Rome
burns. After all, it wasn't Mrs. Talmadge
who brought a personal protegee to Washing
ton on public salary to divert the masses
from bombs bursting in the air by teaching
ballroom versions Of Turkey in the Straw
touched up with squirms Of Hollywood kootch:
or, touching on the subject of manners, who
served pink lemonade, spiked with square-face
to the British Prime Minister, knowing him to
be a brandy man.
Coming now to the matter OF the adnnittance
Of more Misplaced persons l am In a posi-
ton to say that our present immigration laws
and policy are so leaky, complex and confused
that the only desirable persons who are really
excluded are good Germans who had to sub.
NIT to the Nazi regime for the same reason
that millions Of Americans had to accept the
domination and discipline Of Mrs. Roosevelt't
friends Of the C.L.O.-to wit. in order to live.
We have been letting aliens into New York
alone at the rate Of Is, 900 a month, when ma
tive Americans can't find living quarters, as
Franklin, Jr., has been believing through the
political loud-speakers Of the American Vet.
erans' Committee, and at a time when a ma.
tive American never knows whether Mrs.
Roosevelt's political comrades will let him
earn a days pay or make him pack a placard,
throw bricks at the cops and put in for relief
to feed his family.
A few days ago, after a class Of 284 Euro.
pean displaced persons had been sworn in by
a district judge, ten Of them, described by an
attache Of the court as "bejeweled and be.
furred" types which abound in expensive no.
tells and apartments along Park and Fifth
avenues and in the region Of Central Park, in.
quired before they left the building whether
they could now get passports and 60 back to
Europe Immediately as American citizens.
The fact is plain that the selection Of the
lucky ones who receive visas permitting them
to come here is up to the American consular
employees in Europe, who are slaves Of
bureaucratic hurn-drum and not too well paid
and, presumably, no more likely to spurn graft
than others more highly placed in the political
party which sent them abroad.
The recent Carson case, which recalled an
earlier regime Of bribery and shakedown in
the immigration service, set up little red flags
OF caution in the present situation in Ameri.
can consulates abroad, which probably will be
ignored. Breckenridge Long, an assistant secre.
tary Of state, in a confidential report to a
committee Of the House of Representatives in
1913. revealed that frightened applicants eor
visas had slipped money into their papers and
otherwise tried to bride the consular Stats 10
put them ahead of others, and his description
Of this only confirmed observations in Danzig
and other Baltic and Polish cities after the
first World War, when American shysters who
knew the law and the ropes went around herd
ing their clients through the works at 50
much per head.
The immigration service now is working I'm.
der a presidential directive" one of those
ambiguous writs which mean everything and
nothing and allow crooks discretion to okay
for admittance here the sort Of individuals
who believe, and with increasingly good rea.
son, that the United States now Is as rotten
as france before the eau. Men actually en-.
gagged in the immigration service on this side
Of the water disagree 50 often on points that
should be plain that obviously the law. the
regulations and the exceptions are a mess to
be administered by intuition, by guess and by
ear.
In a recent stowaway case, Federal Judge
Murray Hubert had before him a young, edu.
Gated merchant sailor, possibly a commun-
list. although he called himself q Democrat"
who had hidden his brother aboard a freigl. .er
and tried to smuggle him into New York. The
probation report on the sailor recommended
10 years and suspended sentence and when
Judge Hubert asked a man representing the
Department of Justice whether the govern.
ment would deport him 4 he did impose and
suspend this sentence, the D.. OF ]. man said
he didn't know. because that wasn't the bust.
ness of his particular office. The Judge then
gave the sailor a year and a day, SUSPENDED,
and, as an officer Of the government, demand
ed to be advised whether the man was deport-
ed. Otherwise. apparently. he would have been
allowed to enjoy all privileges Of life in the
United States except the vote. And when Judge
Hubert asked about the stowaway brother.
the answer was that he was still on Ellis Is.
land, living on status quo avec champignons
and in no danger of early deportation either.
They just didn't know. Nobody knew and no
body gave a damn.
On top of all this. the sailor held a card in
the National Maritime Union, OF Mrs. Roose.
velt's own CLIO. which took a firm stand
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