When Noguès complained that Jews in Morocco and Algeria were demanding restored sufferage, Roosevelt jauntily replied, “The answer to that is very simple, namely, that there just aren’t going to be any elections, so the Jews need not worry about the privilege of voting.” The president also proposed restricting Jewish participation in law, medicine, and other professions to reflect Jewish percentages in “the whole of the North African population.” This, he told Noguès, would “eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany” for
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