[Enclosure]
Text of Statement by Members of the United States
Senate and House of Representatives
Twenty-five years ago the British Government issued the Balfour
Declaration pledging itself to facilitate the establishment of a
National Home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The Declaration
was published to the world with the approval of the other Powers
allied with Great Britain in the World War, and with the
encouragement and support of the Government of the United States. It
was written into the Peace Treaty21a with the aid
and approval of President Wilson who publicly expressed his
confidence that the purposes of the Declaration would be fulfilled.
A few years later, the House of Representatives and the Senate of
the United States, by unanimous vote, adopted a joint resolution
favoring the establishment of the Jewish National Home, and on
September 21, 1922, the resolution was duly signed by President
Harding.22
Since then, this policy has been reaffirmed by every succeeding
Administration, including the present. It has thus become the
declared and traditional policy of the United States to favor the
restoration of the Jewish National Home.
The Balfour Declaration was justly hailed throughout the world as an
act of historic reparation and as a charter of freedom for the
Jewish people. It was designed to open the gates of Palestine to
homeless and harassed multitudes and to pave the way for the
establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth.
The reasons which, twenty-five years ago, led the American people and
the Government of the United States to favor the cause of Jewish
national restoration in Palestine are still valid today. In fact,
the case for a Jewish Homeland is overwhelmingly stronger and the
need [Page 550] more urgent now than
ever before. In Palestine the resettlement has advanced from the
status of a hopeful experiment to that of a heartening reality,
while in Europe the position of the Jews has deteriorated to an
appalling degree. Millions of uprooted and homeless Jews will strive
to reconstruct their lives anew in their ancestral home when the
hour of deliverance will come.
We, therefore, take this occasion, the twenty-fifth anniversary of
the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, to record our continued
interest in and support of the purposes and principles which it
embodies. We wish to send a message of hope and cheer to those in
Palestine who are confronting the common enemy with courage and
fortitude and are contributing unstintingly of their manpower and
effort to the democratic cause.
Faced as we are by the fact that the Nazi government, in its Jewish
policy, is attempting to exterminate a whole people, we declare
that, when the war is over, it shall be the common purpose of
civilized mankind to right this cruel wrong insofar as may lie in
our power, and, above all, to enable large numbers of the survivors
to reconstruct their lives in Palestine where the Jewish people may
once more assume a position of dignity and equality among the
peoples of the earth.
Our Government may be assured that in continuing the traditional
American policy in favor of so just a cause, it can rely upon our
individual support and the approbation of the American people.
