Compassion Then and Now

The St. Louis in 1939

Rahm Emmanuel, the mayor of Chicago, Illinois and a Barack Obama lite, has a plan to bring 1,000 of those immigrant children that recently crossed our southern borders from Central America to the Windy City to be placed in permanent homes.

Emmanuel, who uttered the famous phrase: "Never let a serious crisis go to waste", certainly isn't letting this current crisis go to waste, even if the crisis was largely manufactured by the president he once served under. 

When Emmanuel's plan was released to the media, he was skewered with criticism, even by some of his ardent admirers. Why was he lambasted? Because many saw his compassion as nothing more than a cheap political trick to curry favor with Hispanic voters in Chicago.

Emmanuel is running for reelection next year and his poll numbers don't look good. He's losing the African-American vote because of the high jobless rate and the escalating violence in Chicago's black wards. Emmanuel can't produce the jobs and his police department can't stop the carnage on the streets. 

African-Americans have long been some of the most loyal supporters of the Democratic Party, and when they're fed up with hot-air balloons in expensive suits such as Emmanuel, then Chicago's mayor is in trouble. Since Hispanics are also a dependable Democratic Party constituency, Emmanuel doesn't want to lose them either, or he could lose the upcoming election. 

And so, Chicago's crisis manager has decided to utilize the border crisis to spread a little love around Chicago's Hispanic community. Thus, those 1,000 children have become political props for Emmanuel's reelection campaign.  

When he was asked about the children, Emmanuel sanctimoniously blurted that his political party--the party that's produced such creatures as Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--is the party of compassion. According to Emmanuel, his party has an historical legacy of reaching out to those who are desperately in need of compassion.

Really? Emmanuel's either lying or history isn't his best subject. Those who know their history might remember the year 1939. What was so significant about 1939? That was the year the ocean-liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuba.

That voyage began on May 13, 1939. The ship carried 938 persons, most of whom were Jews who were fleeing Hitler's Holocaust that would result in the mass murder of six million Jews and four million others.

When the ship arrived at a Havana port on May 27, only 28 passengers were allowed to exit; 22 of whom were Jews who held valid U.S. visas. The ship then sailed to Miami with the remaining passengers who were hoping to gain asylum in America. 

When the St. Louis arrived in Miami a few days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's State Department decided it didn't want the refugees either, even though they faced certain death if they returned to Germany. 

Thus, the ship sailed back to Europe. Some of the Jews managed to find asylum in Belgium, Great Britain and France. But the rest were returned to Germany where they eventually perished in Hitler's death camps. 

And so, Emmanuel's party of compassion wasn't so compassionate 75 years ago when anti-Semitism was raging, even in America, the Home of the Free.

And now with anti-Semitism raging across Europe on the heels of Israel's wipe-out of the Iranian proxy Hamas in Gaza, will it be coming to America once again? 

If it does, will Emmanuel's party of compassion show the same compassion for the Jews as it does for the refugees of Central America? Or will it repeat the history lesson if 1939?