Like I said the other day, blaming FDR solely for any lack of American response to the Holocaust ignores public sentiment at the time, and Congressional conflict.
Senator Harold Burton ended his career as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Though he was a Republican, he was a pretty liberal one, a friend of Harry Truman, and was selected for the court by Truman, who was looking to make a bipartisan appointment. (Can you imagine that happening today?)
Anyway, Burton was conflicted about the idea of free ports. He certainly wasn’t as violently against the idea as other Senators who contacted the WRB, but in this letter to Charles Joy, Senator Burton wrote:
“It seems to me that it is important to consider the interests of the established nations, including our own, quite as much as the interest of the refugees.”
