Beyond Belief Read online

  Most of the press recognized that the willingness of some European countries to accept a few refugees would “scarcely make a dent in the evacuation program.” Relatively unpopulated areas of the world were cited as offering the most feasible alternative. By suggesting that “colonial” areas be found, the press was able to avoid the question of whether America should admit these souls. The Springfield Republican argued that “since the best parts of our globe are already pre-empted, it would be necessary, in the main, to fall back upon ‘marginal’ lands, which are available precisely because they are not very desirable.” Although some recognized that trying to settle a highly educated urban population in an area populated primarily by cacti, jungles, and wild animals was an impractical solution, they contended that the situation was so desperate that measures that “heretofore may have seemed visionary” now had to be discussed seriously.111 In general, however, most of the press shied away from discussing the merits of specific areas and simply stressed the need to provide refuge somewhere—other than here. The most frequent suggestion was that Britain, anxious to win support for its rearmament program and foreign policy and responsible for Kristallnacht because of its timidity at Munich, should find an isle of refuge in its vast empire.112

  * * *

  The events of 1938 hardened America’s feelings about Germany and its program of persecution. As Ambassador Dieckhoff noted shortly before returning to Germany, even those who had been “restrained” were now “violent and bitter.” But no sooner had editorial boards passionately condemned Germany and voiced their horror than they also urged caution and restraint.

  Reporters on the scene now were cautioning more strongly than ever against dismissing as rhetoric any Nazi threat against the Jews no matter how extreme. Otto Tolischus warned readers in a front-page New York Times story against ignoring the “seriousness” of “lurid” Nazi predictions such as those contained in the official Gestapo paper, Das Schwarze Korps, that if the Jews were not evacuated from Germany at once, they would be “starved into crime” and “exterminate[d] with ‘fire and sword.’ ”113 Although Tolischus was not predicting the Final Solution, he, along with a few others, did recognize that organized Jewish life in Germany was at an end. Though the editorial boards and policy makers now recognized more than they had before the seriousness of Nazi threats, they did not recommend dramatic changes in American policy. In fact they cautioned against them because the most efficacious and speedy solution would have necessitated ignoring two prevailing American sentiments: the necessity to maintain strict neutrality and even stricter bars to increased immigration.

  The press’s attitude fit squarely within the political climate of this country. It is best described by the phrase used to characterize the mood at Evian: “yes but.” Yes, the American press was outraged at Germany’s behavior, but nonetheless it was convinced that it must remain out of European affairs. Yes, the refugees’ situation was distressing, but there was little America could do. It certainly could not throw open the gates of this land. The American press extended its heart but not its hands.

  5

  Barring the Gates to Children and Refugee Ships

  Suffer the Little Children: The Wagner-Rogers Bill

  The one significant break in American editorial opposition to alteration of existing refugee legislation occurred in 1939, when Senator Robert Wagner of New York and Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bipartisan bill to permit the entry of 20,000 German children under fourteen years of age. The children, who would enter over two years time, would be admitted in addition to the German quota.

  This was not the first immigration bill introduced in 1939. Senator Robert Reynolds of North Carolina and Representative Joe Starnes of Alabama proposed a cluster of bills which would have limited immigrants to 10 percent of the quota and halted immigration for a decade or until unemployment fell to 3 million. At the other, more liberal end of the spectrum was a resolution introduced by Representative Emanuel Celler of New York proposing that those who were refugees “because of race or religious beliefs, or liable on that account to criminal persecution, summary or arbitrary treatment, social or economic discrimination,” be admitted outside the quota.1 All these proposals died in committee.

  When Wagner and Rogers introduced their proposal to admit the children, they won immediate overwhelming editorial support. More than eighty-five newspapers from thirty-six states supported it, among them twenty-six from the south, a region that ardently favored immigration restriction. The bill’s sponsors placed over ninety editorials in favor of the measure in the Congressional Record. 2 There was no question but that the suffering of little children touched the hearts of editors and publishers in a manner that their parents’ suffering had not. However, widespread editorial support of the bill was not a sign of a weakening of America’s resolutely anti-immigration stance. If anything, it reflected the inflexibility of that resolve. Supporters of the bill generally agreed that the United States could not and should not “be asked to succor all the victims of race prejudice . . . . But the children are a special case.”3

  It is impossible to offer sanctuary in this country to all refugees, however urgent their need. It would dishonor our traditions of humanity and freedom, however, to refuse the small measure of help contemplated by the Wagner resolution.4

  The wisdom of existing policy was not questioned; the bill was perceived of by the press as a one-time exception to the rule. Readers were assured that Wagner-Rogers was not a “precedent for breaking down the immigration laws.”5 As was the case each time this topic came up, the economic repercussions of immigration were debated. Many editorials stressed that while there were legitimate economic grounds to bar refugees, the children would not enter the job market for a number of years and only a small number would enter in any one year.

  We can no longer offer refuge to the oppressed of all nations and all ages . . . . But the objections to letting down the bars to men and women of working age do not apply to children.6

  The Miami Herald adopted a unique and revealingly honest position. An opponent of “too much” immigration, it dismissed the economic objections to immigration as “extraordinary foolishness,” noting that immigrants did not take jobs but, because they were consumers, created them and therefore were an economic asset, not a burden. The Herald admitted that the real roots of anti-immigration sentiment were “social and political.”

  America is right in admitting no more immigrants than can be adjusted to their new environment and to our ways of thinking and carrying on.

  Despite these objections, the Herald supported the bill because the children were “young enough, given the right chance, to be ‘Americanized’ with quickness and ease.” Although this particular editorial did not explicitly cite Jewish immigrants as incapable of adjusting to the new environment, its position was noticeably parallel to that of The Christian Century which had reverted to its practice of blaming Jews when it argued after Kristallnacht that admitting Jewish immigrants would only “exacerbate America’s Jewish problem.”7

  Although few papers or magazines were as explicit as The Christian Century in explaining their objections to increased immigration, the fact that Jewish children would be the ones admitted proved to be a significant obstacle. Though most opponents of the bill did not rely on overtly antisemitic arguments, The Nation observed that “a subtle and effective argument is the sotto voce contention that this is a Jewish bill.” Despite Wagner’s and Rogers’s assurances to the contrary, the opponents claimed that all the children who were to be admitted were Jewish. The press was obviously aware of this charge, and numerous editorials justified their support of the measure by assuring readers that the children would include Jews and “Aryans.”8

  When the bill was first introduced, the press was confident that “general approval” was bound to come.9

  There is a rumor that the plan will be opposed. We don’t believe it. This is a land which professes admiration a
nd even reverence for the source of the saying: “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”10

  Despite overwhelming editorial support, the rumor proved correct. Opponents amassed a broad-based coalition which argued that American children were in need and therefore charity must “begin at home.”11 Ultimately they succeeded in having the bill amended so that, instead of providing 20,000 additional places for children, it reserved 20,000 existing places for them, resulting in a stiffening and not a relaxation of the quota system. Its sponsors prudently allowed it to die in committee.

  The opponents prevailed because Americans still wanted to bar the gates of this country. A January 1939 Gallup poll found 66 percent opposed to the plan to allow “10,000 refugee children from Germany to be brought into this country and taken care of in American homes.”12 The poll did not even suggest that the children were to be allowed to enter outside the quota restrictions. Had this been mentioned in the question, the opposition of those polled might have been even stronger. In late May 1939 the Cincinnati Post polled 1,000 women, mainly housewives, and found 77 percent were against the entry of children outside the quota limits while only 21.4 percent approved.13 A Fortune magazine survey taken in April 1939 found that nearly 85 percent of the non-Jews polled were adamantly against any change in immigration quotas.14

  Even though the bill was supported by a substantial segment of the national press, its supporters were unable to counter the opponents’ charge that it was a step toward liberalization of the immigration system. For the American public no argument, even the suffering of little children, could justify such a change. The press’s fight for the passage of the bill marked one of the few times that it vigorously moved out “ahead” of the public. The bill failed because the most eloquently worded and compelling arguments could not surmount the strength of public opinion, which remained firmly fixed against the admission of refugees to this land.

  The Saddest Ship Afloat: The Saga of the St Louis

  In June 1939, as America prepared an elaborate welcome for the King and Queen of England, another group of transatlantic passengers found a very different greeting extended to them. During the first two weeks in June the saga of the passengers on the Hamburg-American Line’s SS St. Louis was the subject of much press attention. It was prominently featured in many American papers. On six different occasions during the first eight days of June articles regarding the ship appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Other papers accorded it similar attention.15

  The ship’s passengers, who all held official Cuban landing certificates which they had bought from the Hamburg-American Line, won the press’s sympathy. Most were on waiting lists for entry into the United States and planned to remain in Cuba until they could be included in the quota allocation. Some of the passengers would probably have been allowed to enter within a few months, while others would have had to wait a few years. Shortly before the ship sailed from Hamburg, Cuban President Federico Laredo Bru had signed a decree invalidating the type of landing certificates held by the passengers. The certificates for which the passengers had paid approximately 150 dollars were now useless. When the ship reached Havana, the passengers were not allowed off the ship. The Cuban government claimed that the certificates had been obtained illegally and that it was not obligated to honor them. The ship remained docked in the Havana harbor as the most trying part of its voyage commenced.

  Predictably all the editorials which discussed the voyage decried the “sickening spectacle” Germany had created and blamed it for ridding itself “of thousands . . . whose only offense is racial.”16 But Germany was not alone in being condemned by the press. Major publications including the Philadelphia Record, the New York Herald Tribune, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette all held Cuba responsible.17 These papers believed that since the passengers had obtained entry permits issued by Cuban officials, the “blame for their present plight . . . seems to rest squarely on the shoulders of the Cuban government” and it was “under a moral obligation to undo the blunder by letting these innocent victims land.”18 The Richmond Times Dispatch considered this a case not of error, but of “graft.” It cited Walter Winchell, who argued that the plight of the passengers was not the result of a failure to touch Cuban hearts—it was “a failure of touching Cuban palms. And we don’t mean trees.”19

  But there were papers which demurred and justified the Cuban decision. They argued that Cuba’s fear of a deluge of refugees and its economic problems rendered its decision to turn away the vessel “understandable.”20 A few papers not only exonerated Cuba but blamed the passengers. Once again, Jews were held responsible for having brought these troubles on themselves. The Seattle Times was emphatic about this.

  Cuba had not invited them; had not even been asked if they would be received as residents; and harsh as it may seem, Cuba’s President Bru perhaps had no alternative but to deny them admission.21

  Equally critical of the passengers was the Columbia (South Carolina) State, which wondered how the refugees could

  have been so careless about ascertaining whether and where they would be allowed to land? They had, it seems, only “provisional permits” from Cuba “to land as travelers en route to the United States, where they hoped to gain admission later.” What ground is there for such hope? And just what does the word “later” imply to Cuba?22

  Few papers were as callous as the Christian Science Monitor, which castigated Jewish refugees in general for being so selective about their destinations.

  Most Jews apparently have no taste for the pioneering necessary in remote and undeveloped areas and do not take readily to some plans made in their behalf. While this is understandable, they may remember that other races have carved homes out of wilderness to escape oppression.23

  The Christian Science Monitor ignored both the pioneering accomplishments of the Jewish settlers in Palestine and the fact that there were few, if any, “wilderness” countries which had offered Jewish refugees a place to “escape oppression.” Britain had found no suitable place in its vast empire, and countries with large undeveloped areas, such as Australia, had made it clear that they were not desirous of “importing a Jewish problem.”

  As the saga continued, most editorials turned from trying to fix the blame to disposition of the problem. The suggestions offered were no different from those made at the time of Evian and Kristallnacht: find some “uncivilized” and “unexplored” part of the world to dispose of this human cargo. Despite the fact that these suggestions had been made since the Anschluss and no suitable area had been found, most of the press continued to believe that “in a broad world 25,000 miles in diameter there is room somewhere for these people.” The places cited were the same as had been suggested during the past year: “British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, North Rhodesia, Dominican Republic, and the Philippines.” Some papers were not so specific and simply suggested “someplace in Africa.”24 Typically the St. Louis Post Dispatch, which condemned the ship’s fate as a “high crime of civilization,” believed that a site surely could be found in the British Empire or in South America, but not in the United States, which had already “done better than most.”25 Papers noted that finding an “unoccupied” territory depended on “rapid, organized action by the humanitarian governments.” It had been a year since Evian and eight months since Kristallnacht. Nothing had come of the attempt to find an alternative site, and in the interim, most nations had grown less, not more, inclined to accept those cast out of Germany.26 But the suggestions were made nonetheless.

  A few papers felt an “uneasy sense of guilt” about the attempt to affix blame on someone else by assuming, in the words of the Baltimore Sun, a “holier than thou” attitude toward Cuba.27As the ship steamed back to Germany (the European countries which eventually offered asylum had not yet announced that they would do so), the New York Times went so far as to decry the “sorry welcome” the ship had received in this hemisphere and to express discomfort with America’s behavior.
r />   Off our shores she was attended by a helpful Coast Guard vessel alert to pick up any passengers who plunged overboard and thrust them back on the St. Louis again. The refugees could even see the shimmering towers of Miami . . . the battlements of another forbidden city.

  Though the New York Times was ill at ease with the United States’ behavior, it made no suggestion that anything concrete be done. Instead it reasoned that it was “useless now to discuss what might have been done,” since the ship was on its way back.28 It ignored the fact that the passengers, who at this point were thought to be returning to Germany, could have landed in Europe and boarded another ship back to Cuba if the United States had assured Cuba that they would eventually be admitted. But American officials refused to make any accommodations in order to aid the passengers. The only action taken by the American government was the dispatch of a Coast Guard cutter when the ship was close to the shore of Miami. The cutter’s assignment was to apprehend any passengers who might jump overboard in an attempt to swim ashore and return them to the ship.

  The Greensboro (North Carolina) Press, which had previously supported the admission of refugees, also condemned the world’s response. “Humanity,” the paper sadly noted, had doomed these passengers to “continued mistreatment by the gestapo and the storm troopers.”29 But this willingness to acknowledge implicitly some degree of American complicity in the problem was the exception and not the rule.

  So too a few papers broke with the majority of dailies and argued that admitting the passengers would not set a “precedent,” but would be an ad hoc gesture.30 If the United States rejected them, then it certainly could not blame Cuba for “acting in a similar fashion in accordance with its conception of its own interests.”31 The fact that a number of papers were willing to countenance a limited change in immigration regulations appears to have been the result of the release at this time of a Quaker-sponsored report demonstrating that the imagined refugee “flood” which anti-immigrationists repeatedly claimed was inundating this country was but a trickle which had no adverse effect on the economy.32 The report was cited by the Boston Globe and some other papers as proof that “wild stories, unrelated to the facts, have been passed around regarding the supposed influx of immigrants to the United States. Cold figures do not support the theories of street corner gossips.”33