1. Samuel Miller Breckinridge Long was an American diplomat and politician who served in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
24 Facts About Breckinridge Long
1. 2.
An extreme nativist, Long is largely remembered by Holocaust historians for making it difficult for European Jews to enter the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.
3.
Breckinridge Long was born on May 16,1881, to Margaret Miller Breckinridge and William Strudwick Long in St Louis, Missouri.
4.
In 1906, Breckinridge Long was admitted to the bar in Missouri and opened an office in St Louis in 1907.
5.
From 1914 to 1915, Breckinridge Long was a member of the Missouri Code Commission on Revision of Judicial Procedure.
6.
Breckinridge Long then worked to establish the League of Nations and supported Wilsonian Democracy.
7.
Breckinridge Long was credited with drafting Woodrow Wilson's "Breckinridge Long kept us out of war" slogan, which helped secure Wilson's reelection as President in 1916.
8.
Breckinridge Long lost a second bid for the Senate in 1922.
9.
Breckinridge Long was a personal friend of future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom he had known as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Wilson Administration, and generously contributed to his 1932 Presidential campaign.
10.
Breckinridge Long "somewhat admired European fascism", according to diplomat and historian David McKean.
11.
Breckinridge Long was a member of a special mission to Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in 1938.
12.
Until February 1941, Breckinridge Long was responsible for overseeing 23 of the 42 divisions in the department, before a revision of the workload among the other assistant secretaries.
13.
Ultimately, the effect of the immigration policies as enacted by Breckinridge Long's department was that, during American involvement in the war, ninety percent of the quota places available to immigrants from countries under German and Italian control were never filled.
14.
In November 1943, when the House was considering two bills that would have established a separate government agency charged with assisting the rescue of Jewish refugees, Breckinridge Long gave secret testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the majority of 580,000 refugees admitted from Europe were Jewish, and that such legislation would be a rebuke of the State Department in wartime.
15.
Breckinridge Long noted in his diary that day that he erred by speaking without notes, but historians have noted his testimony was misleading because he implied that all of the refugees were Jews.
16.
An extreme nativist, Breckinridge Long is largely remembered for his obstructionist role as the official responsible for granting refugee visas during World War II.
17.
Breckinridge Long obstructed rescue attempts, drastically restricted immigration, and falsified figures of refugees admitted.
18.
Breckinridge Long says the door to the oppressed is open but that it 'has been carefully screened.
19.
Breckinridge Long resigned from the State Department in November 1944 and went into retirement.
20.
Breckinridge Long justified his actions in his diary by referring to the laws in the United States imposing strict quotas on the number of immigrants from particular countries, and his great concern about the possibility that Germany and the Soviet Union would infiltrate spies or subversive agents into the United States amidst the large numbers of refugees.
21.
Breckinridge Long married Christine Alexander Graham, a granddaughter of former US Senator Francis Preston Blair Jr.
22.
Breckinridge Long maintained a stable of thoroughbred race horses and was a director of the Laurel Park Racecourse in Laurel, Maryland.
23.
Breckinridge Long's widow died in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1959, aged 71.
24.
Breckinridge Long was portrayed by Eddie Albert in the 1988 miniseries adaptation of Wouk's novel.