Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau and his Secret Report to the President

One of the greatest crimes in history, the slaughter of the Jewish people in Europe, is continuing unabated. 

This Government has for a long time maintained that its policy is to work out programs to save those Jews and other persecuted minorities of Europe who could be saved. 

You are probably not as familiar as I with the utter failure of certain officials in our State Department, who are charged with actually carrying out this policy, to take any effective action to prevent the extermination of the Jews in German-controlled Europe. 

It is well known that since the time when it became clear that Hitler was determined to carry out a policy of exterminating the Jews in Europe, the State Department officials have failed to take any positive steps reasonably calculated to save any of these people. State Department officials have not only failed to use the Governmental machinery at their disposal to rescue the Jews from Hitler, but have even gone so far as to use this Governmental machinery to prevent the rescue of these Jews. 

Frankly, Breckinridge Long, in my humble opinion, is least sympathetic to refugees in all the State Department.  I attribute to him the tragic bottleneck in the granting of visas…and the issuance of false and misleading statements concerning the “action” which they have taken to date. He stated before the Committee on Foreign Affairs: 

"We have taken into this country since the beginning of the Hitler regime and the persecution of the Jews, until today, approximately 580,000 refugees. Then whole thing has been under the quota, during the period of 10 years—all under the quota—except the generous gesture we made with visitors’ and transit visas during an awful period.” 

The State Department has turned its back on the time-honored principle of granting haven to refugees. The tempest-tossed get little comfort from men like Breckenridge Long. Long says the door to the oppressed is open but that it "has been carefully screened." What he should have said is "locked and bolted."... If men of the temperament and philosophy of Long continue in control of immigration administration, we may as well take down that plaque from the Statue of Liberty and black out the 'lamp beside the golden door. 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum online exhibit, "Holocaust Sources in Context: Treasury Report to the President"