Office of the Historian

840.48 Refugees/756: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy)

Washington, October 5, 1938—noon.

600. See telegrams Nos. 1523, September 20, 5 p.m. and 1529, September 21, 1 p.m.,31 from Paris, of which Rublee presumably has copies.

Please call urgently upon the Prime Minister and convey to him orally the following personal message from the President:32

“I fully share your hope and belief that there exists today the greatest opportunity in years for the establishment of a new order based on justice and on law. Now that you have established personal contact with Chancellor Hitler I know that you will be taking up with [Page 792] him from time to time many of the problems which must be resolved in order to bring about that new and better order. Among these is the present German policy of racial persecution, which has perhaps done more harm than any other to the estimate of Germany held by public opinion in America regardless of class, race or creed.

The Intergovernmental Committee has scrupulously avoided any emotional or critical approach to the problem and is on the contrary seeking a solution along strictly practical lines. While it may be too much to expect an early change in the basic racial policy of the German Government, nevertheless it would seem reasonable to anticipate that the German Government will assist the other Governments upon which this problem has been forced by relaxing the pressure upon these people sufficiently to permit the arrangement of orderly emigration and by permitting them to take with them a reasonable percentage of their property. The German Government, in forcing these persons to leave its territory without funds and without property, cannot be unmindful of the fact that it is thereby imposing great burdens on her friendly neighbors and on other nations throughout the world who, for humanitarian considerations, are doing what they can to alleviate the lot of these people. All other countries represented in the Intergovernmental Committee are thereby given new and serious problems to solve.

As time may be of the essence, I am sending you this message without further delay in the hope that you will be able to find an appropriate opportunity to lay these considerations before the Reich Chancellor. His acceptance in principle of these considerations would permit the Director of the Intergovernmental Committee to enter into useful conversations with the appropriate German authorities concerning details.”

Please inform Rublee.

Welles
  1. Latter not printed.↩
  2. In accordance with subsequent instructions, a written text of the President’s message was delivered to the Prime Minister on the morning of October 6, and was discussed orally with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that afternoon.↩