Back to McCarran

The bill to revise the Displaced Persons law is having a rough time. After passing the House by an overwhelming voice vote on June 2, it was submerged in Senator Pat McCarran's Judiciary Committee until a fortnight ago, when it was exhumed while McCarran was off visiting his pal, Generalissimo Franco. Once on the Senate floor, it ran into a filibuster by Senator Cain, which broke up only when a motion for recommittal was passed by 36 to 30 with 30 absentees. The bill was sent back to languish under McCarran's loving care, at least until next January.

The present DP law is so discriminatory that the man who administers it reported to Congress that only a fraction of the 205,000 DP's provided for could be processed in the appointed time. For instance, the law specifies that 30 per cent of the immigrants must be agricultural workers, and that 40 per cent must come from the three small Baltic countries. Further, only people who arrived in DP camps during certain periods of time can be admitted, which conveniently cuts down the number eligible in certain ethnic and religious groups.

Proposed revisions would remove many of the discriminatory provisions and increase the total number admittable to 339,000. This would bring the United States' share of DP's in closer proportion with the quotas of other smaller countries, such as Great Britain.

These proposals make good sense economically, politically, and morally. The DP's being kept in camps in Western Germany are a great financial liability, and further complicate the political situation in that nascent country. If we accept our fair share of these victims of changing boundaries, as our government has repeatedly promised, they will become self-supporting; they will not, as various veterans' groups have complained, push vets out of jobs, since each DP must have a position waiting before he arrives.

When President Truman signed the present law in 1948, he specifically condemned its inadequacy and obvious bias, and urged Congress to revise it at the first opportunity. A bloc of Republicans and Southern Democrats has just thrown one opportunity down the drain. Perhaps in January, with a larger number of Senators interested enough to attend, this mistake can be rectified.