Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror

5. Mindanao: A Plan for Jewish Settlement

✦ 5 Mindanao: A Plan for Jewish Settlement the radiogram from the State Department requesting the views of the Philippine government regarding how many refugees from Germany could be absorbed in the Islands was sent on December 5,1938.1 High Commissioner McNutt responded immediately with a cable: “President Quezon has indicated his willingness to set aside virgin lands in Mindanao for larger groups of Jewish refugees who wish to engage in agricultural enterprises or related activities in the development of community life in undeveloped and practically uninhabited areas.”2 Mindanao, with its spectrum of cultures and religions —Catholics,Muslims, and non-Christian tribes—was the second largest , and southernmost, island in the Philippines.3 The State Department replied cautiously to McNutt’s cable a few days later .There was no objection “on policy grounds” for colonization in Mindanao; however,Acting Secretary of State SumnerWelles stated,given the restrictions of the 1917 immigration act, it might well be necessary for the Philippine Assembly to pass specific legislation.Welles telephoned McNutt on December 16, 1938, who told him that Quezon was prepared to accept two thousand Jewish refugee families for settlement in Mindanao in 1939 and five thousand families yearly thereafter until thirty thousand families had been landed.4 By the next day Francis B. Sayre, an assistant secretary of state, summarized his views in a note to Welles, saying the plan was “utterly impractical.”5 44 escape to manila Joseph E. Jacobs, the director of the State Department’s Office of Philippine Affairs, had also written a four-page demarche, pointing out that tropical jungles would have to be cleared and that “this is work which people from the temperate zones, especially those unaccustomed to hard labor, are not likely to perform in the tropics.” Jacobs went on to say that in these primitive conditions, “it seems a bit unreasonable to think of placing 2,000 hardy white men in such a region in one year, not to mention their wives and children .” And he questioned whether white labor could cultivate profitable products in competition with cheap native labor. Jacobs also pointed to foreign policy issues: “For forty years the United States has been pursuing a policy of making the Philippines independent. In view of the growing power of Japan in the Orient,these 30,000 colonists,if settled in Mindanao,would be appealing to their co-religionists in the United States to exert their efforts to have our historic policy changed.Do we want to add another troublesome group to our stay-in-the-Philippines advocates?” He was also concerned that if the settlement failed, “we would have to allow and fund their entry into the United States.”6 Clearly, both State Department officials did not support the proposed program, considering it far too extensive, but they were willing to discuss a more moderate settlement level. Such a plan, endorsed by President Quezon, was ready several days later. It set a ceiling for admitting one thousand refugees a year for a total of ten thousand, depending on many factors and conditions. Settlers were limited to subsistence farming and were committed to becoming Filipino citizens. Their entry would also be subject to existing immigration laws.7 The State Department was now poised to deliver the Philippine colonization proposal to the ICPR on February 13,1939,which Myron C.Taylor read to delegates from thirty-two countries.8 In New York, meanwhile, the Refugee Economic Corporation (REC) turned to Dr. Isiah Bowman, president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore , to direct a study of the proposed Mindanao colonization project. Bowman assembled five experts, with Dr. Stanton Youngberg in the post of executive secretary, into a team that would become known as the Mindanao Exploration Commission. Youngberg was a veterinarian who had left the Philippines in 1934, where his twenty-seven-year career included being director of the Bureau of Agriculture. The commission was to gather in Manila by the first week of April, 1939.9 Dr. Youngberg arrived in Manila aboard the Pan American California Clipper and was greeted by Alex Frieder and two members of the Manila Jewish Refugee Committee. The next day Youngberg met with High Commis- Mindanao 45 sioner McNutt and told newsmen that he “was greatly impressed by Mr. McNutt’s sympathetic attitude toward the refugee problem and readiness to assist the mission in every way.”10 But now another voice weighed...