50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany by Steven Pressman Page B

position of these unfortunate boys and girls in the Germany of today, where they are treated as outcasts, scoffed at in public, and in many cases thrown out of orphan asylums and left on the verge of starvation. How can we, who profess to believe in democracy and human rights, sit idly by and allow such atrocities to be committed without raising a finger?”
    But many of these same editorials, while lauding the humanitarian impulse to help Jewish children, also lobbied in defense of America’s existing immigration quotas. These editorials made it clear that a special gesture to aid the children should not be viewed as an endorsement of a broader effort to liberalize the nation’s overall immigration laws. “It is impossible to offer sanctuary in this country to all refugees, however urgent their need,” maintained the Galveston News in an editorial published on February 20. “It would dishonor our traditions of humanity and freedom, however, to refuse the small measure of help” offered by the legislation.
    These sentiments were broadly echoed in public opinion polls, which reflected overwhelming opposition to any relaxing of the immigration laws, even in light of the events unfolding in Europe. A 1938 survey conducted by the Roper polling company found that fewer than 5 percent of Americans favored more liberal immigration quotas. The same survey revealed that more than 67 percent of Americans were willing to stop all further immigration into the United States. The United States still bore the scars of the Great Depression, and restricting immigration was seen as a way to protect jobs for Americans, who for years had been plagued with staggering unemployment rates. But challenging economic considerations were not the only factors at play in the immigration debate. The American public simply was not moved by the dire situation in Europe.
    Even 20 percent of American Jews said they favored a strict immigration policy. Many feared that efforts to allow more than a small trickle of Jewish refugees into the country would only add further fuel to the rising flames of anti-Semitism in the United States. Jewish leaders worried that any effort to liberalize the immigration quotas would quickly be interpreted as un-American, resulting in even more negative attitudes toward the country’s Jewish population. These fears were not unfounded. A series of public opinion polls conducted in the late 1930s found that 60 percent of Americans held a low opinion of Jews, regarding them as “greedy,” “dishonest,” and “pushy.” More than 40 percent believed that Jews held too much power in the United States—a figure that would rise to 58 percent by 1945. A Roper poll conducted in 1939 revealed that only 39 percent of Americans felt that Jews should receive the same treatment as all other citizens, while 53 percent believed that “Jews are different and should be restricted.” One out of every ten Americans felt that all Jews should be deported outright.
    The anti-Semitic rants of national figures such as Father Charles Coughlin—the so-called radio priest of the 1930s—further inflamed public attitudes against Jews during this period. Throughout the Great Depression, Coughlin frequently railed against “international bankers”—a long-recognized code phrase for powerful Jewish interests in the United States and Europe. In a national radio broadcast ten days after Kristallnacht, Coughlin offered a twisted explanation of the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany as a logical reaction to Soviet communism, which he and many others felt had been heavily influenced by Jewish leaders: “It is my opinion that Nazism . . . cannot be liquidated until the religious Jews in high places—in synagogues, in finance, in radio and in the press—attack the cause, attack forthright the errors and the spread of communism, together with their co-nationals who support it.” In the same speech, Coughlin insisted that any potential danger to