EVEN NORWAY!
Sevareid, Eric
Even Norway! By Eric Sevareid THE NEW United States ambassador to Norway will confront a problem no other American there has had to face in recent memory—a growing anti-Americanism among...
...The ship is now heading for the Far East, its captain paying for the extra crew and also violating security rules on lifeboat space...
...In Norway the merchant marine directly involves every other family...
...The reason for this is the Mc-Carran Immigration Act, designed to keep subversives and other undesirables out of the country, and what it is doing to the Norwegian merchant marine and Norwegian seamen...
...It has now become a popular byword with them that life in an American port is like their life under the German occupation of Norway...
...The Scandinavian shipping authority sent eleven men to Boston to replace them...
...Meanwhile, stories about the humiliations suffered by their seamen have spread throughout Norway...
...then immigration officials refused to allow nine of the original eleven to get off...
...They are fighting a losing battle for the good will of my people...
...There was a strong protest and they left...
...Those nine men may not see their families for another two years...
...The complications and humiliations have reached the point where some Scandinavian maritime officials believe that American trade with that part of the world will be seriously affected...
...A few weeks ago, eleven crewmen asked to sign off the merchant ship Pleasantville when it reached Boston...
...Enforcement of the McCarran Act in American ports has resulted in startling experiences for these sailors, the stories of which are now spreading through every farm and hamlet in Norway...
...this a familiar and respectable career in Norway...
...Not long ago immigration police tried to search the Norwegian Seamen's Home in Baltimore...
...there may be some Reds among them, but the real Communists, of course, simply deny it...
...Merchant sailing is an old and honorable way of life...
...When they reach America, these women are asked if they have ever engaged in prostitution...
...One Norwegian official put it this way, "You may as well close down your American information services in Norway, as long as this goes on...
...If a seaman gets sick and overstays the 29 days, he can be put into Ellis Island to await deportation...
...No reasons were given...
...men are asked when they last visited a brothel, if they intend to commit bigamy in this country, and so on...
...these are proud and respectable men, largely family men, quite unlike the riff-raff found in some of the waterfronts of the world...
...They had been at sea two years and were ready to fly home to Norway...
...Interrogations under the new law have not yet discovered one Communist among Norwegian seamen...
...These eleven boarded the ship...
...More recently, police stopped and cross-examined the worshipers as they walked out of the Norwegian's Lutheran Church in Baltimore...
...By Eric Sevareid THE NEW United States ambassador to Norway will confront a problem no other American there has had to face in recent memory—a growing anti-Americanism among Norwegians, who have always regarded America almost as their second home...
...There are about a dozen Norwegian sailors imprisoned on the island now because they were unable to get on a ship within that time...
...For example, there are women serving on Norwegian ships as mess stewards or radio operators...
...Many American immigration officials detest what they must do under this law as much as do the victims...
...Under the act, no foreign seaman can remain here more than 29 days...
Vol. 17 • April 1953 • No. 4
