Henry St. George Tucker, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church and president of the Federal Council of Churches, in a statement on the observance by the Council of a "Day of Compassion" for persecuted European Jews, said that there had been found a "rising tide of concern among Christians" over their fate. <264> Dr. Tucker said it was the first time Christian churches had set aside a specific day for a "united expression of their sympathy with a suffering and persecuted Jewry". "What is happening to the Jews on the Continent of Europe is so horrible that we are in danger of assuming that it is exaggerated," he said, and cited a recent survey by the council of evidence that he said indicated that under the Nazis a policy of deliberate extermination of Jews was carried out. "The survey shows that the actual facts are probably more, rather than less, terrible than the reports," he continued. "The Christian people of America vigorously protest against this brutal and cruel persecution. But protest is not enough." Two remedial measures have been set forth by the council: First financial assistance for support of refugees reaching neutral countries from Nazi- occupied areas, and second, provision of temporary asylum to which refugees evacuated from European countries may be removed. [571] On October 20, 1943, American religious leaders denounced "the recent acts of terror in Denmark" and expressed sympathy for the Jews in that country. The Rev. Dr. P.O. Bessel, president of the Augustan Synod, Minneapolis, said that the synod was shocked at the German barbarism in Denmark, but was happy about Sweden's firm stand in offering refuge to the persecuted Jews. The Rev. Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert, general secretary of the Federal Council, said that "the American churches have been thrilled by the news that the Danish Church has refused to be cowed into silence in the face of the Nazi attack upon Jews in Denmark". [572] The following article in "The New York Herald Tribune" shows how strong anti-Semitic influences in the United States were, in 1943: BISHOP OXNAM ASSAILS BEATING OF JEWISH BOYS