Daily Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative: Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval.–Editor]

The charge that the State Department’s estimate regarding the number of immigrants that would be admitted by the Perlman-Wadsworth bill is based on “wild guessing” and is “unquestionably wrong,” is made by Henry H. Curran, Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island, in a letter to the “Herald-Tribune” (March 24), replying to an editorial in that paper expressing opposition to the Perlman-Wadsworth bill.

Mr. Curran’s letter states, in part:

“Undoubtedly you are not aware of the fact that the State Department has made three guesses. The first guess was 200,000, the second guess was 500,000, the third guess was 600,000. The very divergence of these three guesses is enough to discredit all of them. But on top of that the State Department’s representative, under questioning by Senators at the hearing that I attended in Washington last week, admitted on the record that the estimate of 600,000 was wrong, due to a misunderstanding of the terms of the bill. The State Department’s representative thereupon very frankly and commendably corrected this estimate of 600,000 and admitted that the greatest possible number would be less than 250,000. It is this sort of wild guessing that you refer to in your editorial as ‘cool calculation based on information furnished by American consuls.’

“My own figure of 40,000 is so carefully and conservatively reached that the actual number will undoubtedly be smaller. If you are interested in the details I can easily show you how I arrived at my own estimate, and I can say now that from my position at Ellis Island I am excellently qualified to make such an estimate. You will find no mistakes or changes of mind in my figures, such as have already shown up in the State Department figures. In other words, I am probably right, whereas the State Department is unquestionably wrong.”

SAYS SECRETARY DAVIS IS NOT AN ANTI-SEMITE

The suspicion entertained by some that Secretary of Labor, Davis, is an anti-Semite, is declared to be unwarranted by Charles H. Joseph in his “Random Thoughts” (Philadelphia “Jewish Times,” Mar. 19).

An editorial which appeared in the Pittsburgh “Jewish Criterion” interpreting as anti-Semitic a certain passage in Secretary Davis’ book (“The Iron Puddler”) containing a parallel between “beaver” and “rat” types in human society, is taken exception to by Mr. Joseph, who, quoting Mr. Davis’ reply to the “Jewish Criterion,” observes:

“Mr. Davis is right. He refers specifically to anarchists. And Jews who take issue with him are forcing a situation and their criticism is completely unwarranted.

“It seems that whatever Mr. Davis says is immediately pounced upon by a part of the Jewish press and some of our Jewish leaders and he is charged with being an enemy of the Jew. This is arrant nonsense. I know the Secretary and know that he has no class prejudices. We may differ with him in matters of policy, but there is no reason to accuse him of anti-Jewish feeling.”