Franklin D. Roosevelt 1938 Typed Letter Signed as President – Mentioning Ellis Island

32nd President. Typed letter signed (TLS) “Franklin D. Roosevelt” AS PRESIDENT, October 26, 1938, The White House stationery, 7×8.75, to “Honorable Norman Thomas” in New York, in full:

Mr. Strachey’s visa was cancelled by the consul who issued it in London and for this reason he was barred, by the Special Board of Inquiry at Ellis Island, on the grounds that he was inadmissible because he did not have a proper visa. The Board of Review of the Immigration Service has upheld this decision after thoroughly considering the points at issue under the law.

As you know there is practically no discretionary power under the immigration laws. Mr. Strachey’s counsel has appealed to the courts from the decision of the immigration authorities and there the matter now rests.

A most intriguing letter from FDR with a very uncommon reference to Ellis Island.

According to Time Magazine, October 24, 1938:

“Author of a Communist tract called The Coming Struggle for Power, baldish, fattish, 37-year-old British Evelyn John St. Loe Strachey says he is no Communist. Having barely escaped deportation proceedings during a U.S. lecture tour in 1935, young Mr. Strachey this year set out on another with the proofs of a new book, Hope in America, under his arm. Last week he sat cooling his heels, along with a Hungarian pianist and two Montenegrin stowaways, in the flag-draped detention room at Ellis Island.

Mr. Strachey was wrathful because the Department of State had canceled his visa while he was on the high seas. The State Department maintained that it had canceled the visa on evidence of fraud: after swearing to the U.S. Consulate-General in London that he did not advocate the overthrow of the U.S. Government by force or violence, John Strachey had become an official of the British Communist Party. Mr. Strachey denounced this charge as false, demanded a hearing from the State Department. The Department frostily agreed to grant one in London. But the American Civil Liberties Union and other outraged liberals began wiring Franklin Roosevelt and the Department of Labor, which straightway granted Writer Strachey a hearing on a technicality having nothing to do with Communism. As he repaired there at week’s end, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear an appeal on the Strecker deportation case. This case may establish that membership in the Communist Party is not in itself grounds for deportation.”

Norman Thomas was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. He was one of the founders of the National Civil Liberties Bureau, the precursor of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Strachey case was covered by all the major publications of the day. The NY Times wrote, on October 21, 1938: “John Strachey’s new book is published today. And, of course, the fact that Mr. Strachey is by now about the most celebrated guest Ellis Island has entertained in decades has given the event an importance the book could scarcely have expected in any other time”

In very good condition, mailing fold, slight soiling mostly in text block and not impacting signature.