Headline

A Humane Project

Publication Date
Monday, December 24, 1945
Historical Event
President Truman Orders Quota Preference for Displaced Persons
This database includes 609 articles about this event
Tags
Refugees and Immigration
Article Type
Editorial or Opinion Piece
Newspaper
The Wichita Eagle
Location
Wichita, Kansas
Page Section and Number
4
Author/Byline
--
Image Text
A HUMANE PROJECT President Truman's directive allowing European war refugees to come to the United States at 1 the rate of 39,000 per year is in response to humanitarian considerations. The situation in Europe is desperate. There are hundreds of thousands who are homeless, and totalitarian political systems are organized against them ever finding much opportunity. Room must be made for them somewhere. The United States is setting an example of liberality regarding their reception. This special quota allows more immigration from Europe alone than occurred from all countries in of the past three years. The any largest influx during that span was 29.000 in 1942. But in 1939 and 1940, when the seaways to the United States were still open, more than 150,000 came in. There is virtually ne limit to the number of people who would come to the United States if they could. This is the land of promise. A man coming from Europe to this country is, in his own estimation, coming to a better world. From 1905 to 1915 America received on an average upwards of a million immigrants annually. After World War I the influx ranged form 300,000 yearly to nearly a million. The depression made America aware' that it had more people than opportunities and immigration slumped below 100,000 annually. Now that the economic times are better, a more liberal view prevails. There will be many doubts about liberalizing immigration quotas, but President Truman's nope that the majority of the refugees will be children puts the project entirely on the side of humanity. America scarcely can decline to open its doors to a few of the many hundreds of thousands of- the homeless.
History Unfolded Contributor
Patricia P.
Location of Research
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Learn More about this Historical Event: President Truman Orders Quota Preference for Displaced Persons

Bibliography

Breitman, Richard, and Alan Kraut. American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Feingold, Henry L. Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

Gurock, Jeffrey S., ed. America, American Jews, and the Holocaust. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Hamerow, Theodor. While We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust. New York: Norton, 2008.

Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945. New York: The New Press, 1998.

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