"Happy Augury"

The Evian Conference of 32 nations answered the question "What shall the World do to aid Jewish and other refugees?" by adopting, before adjournment last week, a resolution which sets up in London a permanent Refugee Organization expected to be headed by a U. S. citizen nominated by President Roosevelt. U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James Joseph P. Kennedy reflected Franklin Roosevelt's continuing interest in the conference he called by declaring, "Our hearts are with our delegates at Evian in their difficult but humane task!" The Nazi press of Germany churlishly accused the President of currying Jewish favor and votes. At Evian, U. S. and British delegates were extremely vexed at French Senator Henry Berenger for making a speech which they thought distinctly indiscreet.

"Perhaps I ought to whisper it," said genial Senator Berenger, "but it is a fact that, for the first time, the United States of America has agreed to participate in intergovernmental action for a work which reaches beyond the confines of its own country.* I see in this a happy augury for the future!''

August 3 was set as the date for the Refugee Organization to begin work in London, with Ambassador Kennedy as vice chairman. Mentioned most prominently for chairman was the President's friend, Lawyer George Rublee, 70, of Washington, who constituted in 1886 the entire graduating class of Groton School --the school from which the President graduated in 1900 (see p. 34).

At Evian last week the British slammed the door of Palestine against any larger admissions of Jewish refugees, intimated cautiously that a few might be welcomed in Kenya, "but no mass migration." Definitely the Evian Conference failed to discover any lands willing at this moment to accept the bulk of Europe's frantic, hard-pressed political refugees, although Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Canada opened the door to refugee agricultural workers. The face-saving Refugee Organization created last week seemed destined to engage in endless bickering with Germany, chiefly on the issue of whether or not expelled Jews ought to be permitted to take most of their property with them when forced to emigrate. At present, under various pretexts, they are plucked practically as clean as a dressed fowl before they are let out of the Reich.

* Far from true. The U. S. called the Washington Disarmament Conference (1921), was a signatory of the Kellogg Pact to outlaw war, has long been a South American negotiator and arbitrator and for many years has participated officially in the workings of the International Red Cross and International Labor Organization.

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