Handwritten note by Judge Micheal J. Roche

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STATEMENT OF OpoundWALD GARRISON VILLARD

`ON CHINESE EXCLUSION BEFORE THE H"Re COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALI Ze

TION

ON MAY 2, 1943.

GENTLIMEN OF THE comm ITE, I appear before you on behalf of the Post

War World Council of New York City and the National Peace Conference. The latter is

the clearing house for 37 organizations, some of them with a membership running into

millionse Among the most important of these organizations are the League of Nations

Association, the Nationai Council of Jewish Women, the National Council of the Ye:

CeAe, Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, and the Federation of Business and Profess-

ional Women's Clubs. For both organizations, which seck the abolition of all racial

discrimination in immigration legislation, I am here to request the immediate re-

moval of all imnigration restrictions upon the Chinese and their being given the

same place under the quota law which non-Asiatic nations are now receiving.

For myself personally, and the Post War World Council, I am also here to

record our belief that all restrictions should be renoved from other peoples of

color similarly. We voice an especial plea for the admission of the Filipinos to

this country and to citizenship. If they have not carned this by their support of

our country since Pearl Harbor, who else could be worthy of it? But the Council and

I myself realize fully that the first ohjective in our program is the clearing of

the way for the Chinesc. We consider this issue of altogether extraordinary importe

ances

It is no longer merely a question as to whether we shall permit members of

a race whose color is different from that of the bulk of our citizens to enter this

country, It is no longer a domestic issue concerning only ourselves and China, It is

of profound moment to all the United Nations, yes, to the winning of the war itself.

It is an acid test of the sincerity of ourselves and our allies for, if the exclus-

ion of the Chinese from this country is not modified now and forthrightly, then the

whole avowed moral structure of the United Nations collapses. Our whole protense

that we are fighting for democracy and the Four Freedoms will crash to the ground,

If we do not admit the Chinese to the sane standing on our immigration

quota list as is extended to all the white peoples, then we must not expect any

Chinese to believe in the sincerity of any statoment we may make as to our purposes

in this global ware Already, there is the gravest doubt in China as to whether the

beneficencies of the Atlantic Charter are to be applied to the peoples of all colors

and whether the Four Freedoms are not restricted to those who, by reason of the whites

ness of their skins, have so long arrogated to themselves racial aristocracy. How

can we Americans continue to denounce the abominable racial doctrines of Hitler, those

uttantywounaniontific presumptions of Arvan suneriorityv. if we continue to say to the