Smiling Plot

World War II has increased the world's previous refugee problems by many times. Out of Germany, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia keep streaming thousands of helpless, penniless Jews and Gentiles seeking safer, happier homes. Refugee committees have been swamped.

Into this sea of misery there recently fell a drop of help from an odd quarter. At Ciudad Trujillo, the Dominican Republic's capital, the Dominican Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture and international refugee workers signed a contract providing for the immediate settlement of 500 refugee families in the Republic and the ultimate admission of 100,000 persons. Moreover, the Dominican Government agreed that the exiles:

> Can enter without paying the usual immigration fee of $500.

> Can bring in equipment and agricultural tools free of duty, can own and erect their own schools, hospitals, churches.

> Will enjoy "full opportunity to continue their lives and occupations free from molestation, discrimination or persecution, with full freedom of religion and religious ceremonies, with equality of opportunities and of civil, legal and economic rights, as well as all other rights inherent in human beings."

First batch of 200 picked Jewish and non-Jewish families, with equipment and sufficient capital to get them started, will arrive in Santo Domingo this spring. They will be settled on a smiling plot of 26,685 acres near Sosua, in the north, which has already been improved to the extent of 24 dwellings, a reservoir, 4,950 acres of cultivated pasture land and abundant timber. All this was donated by none other than General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, former President of the Dominican Republic, now dubbed "Benefactor of the Fatherland." Benefactor Trujillo, whose word is still law in the Republic, personally guaranteed the contract; and in a letter to President James N. Rosenberg of the Dominican Republic Settlement Association he maintained that the immigrants would "stimulate the progress of our country," suggested an agricultural bank to help the refugees market their crops, and expressed his all-round interest in cooperating with the "humanitarian plans of President Roosevelt." Last week the project was made official by the Dominican Senate and Chamber.

Considering the fact that General Trujillo's local record has not always been regarded as that of a humanitarian, many a refugee official raised a skeptical eyebrow when the Benefactor first offered to take the refugees in. But the contract he agreed to was a model of liberality.

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