The Wilmington morning star., 1946-01-02
Fair Enough
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1915, by King Features Syndicate

\NVpy ASuts 1S4Os Dy mig L 0dsu4 % CyAuAS0SSJ
NEW YORK, Jan. There seems to be
no legal objection to President Truman's de-
cision that immigration shall be resumed I'M
der the quota system, but he would have
made better impression and honesty would
have been served if he had not resorted to
the same hypocritical imposition on our SYM
pathies that was employed by his late prede-
cessor when he decided to admit the Oswego
party in June, 1914.
Mr.. Roosevelt said that group Of 1000,
whom he had arbitrarily decided to admit,
would be 'predominantly wom e n and
children They were, in fact, predominantly
adult males and not predoninantly toilers but
lawyers, doctors, musicians, writers, artists,
shop-keepers and business men. The party
numbered 981, only 200 of whom were women
and children and, on the basis of past per-
formances, it may be assumed that the new
quotas will be made up of about the same
elements The basis for individual selection
never was made known to the public and the
reasonable assumption was that pull was the
most important qualification
Within three months after these refugees
had arrived for segregation at Fort Ontario,
in safe and comfortable quarters and living
conditions incomparab1y better than those
which they had escaped, agitation began to
advertise their misery because the American
nation, who had saved them from horrors and
possible death in postwar Europe, merely in
sisted on observance of minor portion of the
bargain which they had joyously accepted It
was agreed that they should stay at their
camp and they accepted our asylum on those
terms but the harsh Americans soon heard
that they were held in something like Nazi
concentration camp, lacking, Of course the
| gas-chambers the medical experimental labo-
ratories, the brown shirts with dog-whips and
the deliberate program OF starvation, and
were pining for freedom.
| Now, MIR. Truman announces that sit would
be nhumane and wasteful to require these
people to 60 back to Europe to apply for
| immigration visas'' and that the immigration
status of those who wish to stay here will
be "adjusted' so that they may Be that as
| it may, the fact is that Mr.. Roosevelt not
only said these 981 would be predominantly
women and children as it never was intended
that they should be, but added upon termi-
nation of the war they will be sent back to
their homelands'' again as 1t never was so
intended.
So the American peoples part Of the bar
gain was kept faithfully but the parties of the
other part were not required to live up to
single article Of the deal. Prior to this, Mr.
Roosevelt had tried to persuade Congress to
abandon immigration restrictions absolutely
by giving him executive power to admit all
applicants. This, too, was masked with false
pretenses, for Mr.. Biddle, his Attorney Cen
eral of the time, was sent up to the Capitol
to plead for this power on the ground that
unless it were granted, foreign dignitaries,
Mr.. Molotov and Mr.. Churchill, for example,
would be vexed and discounted going through
the regular routine at our immigrations sta
tons and we would have to pay ourselves
head tax Of So on each prisoner of war
brought here for keeping. All this was sheer
fakery intended to Legitimate the action which,
as to the 981, Mr. Roosevelt later took arbi-
trarily and without n shred Of legal justifi-
cation
This is no discussion of the desirabiity of
these persons as immigrants. Their desirabili-
ty according to the usual standards, has not
even been considered and the adults, men
and women both, for all we know, may be
| communists, so many of whom in Europe,
| were traitors to every land but Russia and
so many of whom are lawyers, doctors, mu-
sicians, writer's and artists. For that matter,
we have no way Of protecting ourselves if
communist does manage to put his name on
list and has friends here or in our consular
service who will use their influence to ad-
vance him, as often happened in the years
just after the other war. A little graft is
helpful too.
| We can't legally examine their politics any
more than we can question them on religious
subjects although we might arbitrarily reject
Nazi or Fascist being undesirable for
having flat feet while accepting communist
with tuberculosis Or worse. The important
point here is that they were admitted on
fraudulent representations backed by fraudu-
lent promises which are now admitted to have
been no more sincere than Wendell WILKES
memorable campaign talk" in all very
bad example to them in their first dealings
with the government of their adopted land
and not very good example for us natives,
| either.
| The government should not lie to us as
did Mr.. Roosevelt and Mr. Truman shouldn't
have said that sit is hoped that the majority
OF the new immigrants will be orphaned
children when he knows it simply isn't so
and knows we knew it when he said it.
MIR. Truman suggests that the United States
Will not be in very good position to urge
other countries to admit refugees if we ad-
NIT none ourselves. In that however, he ig-
nores the hordes of refugees who were ad-
United illegally as visitors who never will be
sent back and whose number has deliberately
been concealed from the native resident citi-
zens who certainly have an interest in the
matter and should have some voice, too.
Moreover, this country's need is not for more
) writer's, artists, musicians and the like, these
being favorite occupations of the communists
everywhere, but for more workers and, mean
while, We import and export, by season,
thousands of Mexicans and Bahamians with
no thought Of letting them settle.
Still moreover Australia and Africa could
absorb literally millions of new settlers, not