811.5245/43: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Governor of California (Warren)

I desire to thank you for your letter of June 4 and your telegram of June 5, 1943, in which you set forth the purport and intention of Senate Bill No. 140. While I fully appreciate the circumstances occasioning passage of this Bill by the California Legislature, I should like again to emphasize that there is reason to believe that as British Indians and Chinese will be adversely affected, repercussions inimical to the interests of the United Nations may be expected through the exploitation of what will in the Orient be deemed racial discrimination contrary to the professed ideals of this Government. I should therefore greatly appreciate further consideration on your part of the possibility and desirability of having included in the Bill a phrase exempting from its provisions the nationals of members of the United Nations. As nationals of our Allies would be relieved thereby of any additional hardship there would be greatly diminished such opportunity [Page 316] as would otherwise exist for unfavorable propaganda on the part of those unfriendly to or suspicious of the aims of the United Nations.

Cordell Hull