Speech #810076321

Many of you know of my many visits to foreign countries. the recent one last year at the request of the Committee on Appropriations. the Secretary of State. and the Secretary of Defense. I had the opportunity then not only to visit DP camps. many of them. but also the socalled expellee camps. I had the opportunity to see the implementation of your appropriations for GARIOA. the beginning of the work of ECA. or.the Marshall plan. the work of the International Childrens Fund. which I am very sorry to report was not implemented with appropriations in the last European relief appropriation bill. the work of CARE. which operates the American remittances to Europe. the operations of the International Refugee Organization. for which we appropriate the largest percentage of the expense. I also saw the work of our great church organizations and all of this relief resulted in saving many human lives. Of course. there are Communists among the people in the displacedpersons camps and among the refugees.That is why we do so much screening. Of course. countries behind the iron curtain endeavor to infiltrate people among refugee groups. Every precaution is being taken to eliminate the undesirable individual from the benefit of this legislation. Those of you who have said so much about your visits to the displacedpersons camps and the refugee camps. of course. realize that a human being is a human being no matter where he lives or where he or she comes from. We are all created alike. Racial prejudice has no place in this kind of legislation. We pay annually over $70.000.000 toward the expense of the International Refugee Organization. which has control of displaced persons only. of whom I understand we still have about 700.000 in and out of the camps. That organizgtion should be liquidated as soon as possible. This bill will help do that. I am afraid that the International Refugee Organization administration is endeavoring in some instances to institutionalize many of the occupants of the displacedpersons camps. It is high time that these camps be closed and part of these people brought to the United States and the others sent to other countries which indicate they want them. The decrease in the numbers of DPs is too slow.