He was known for his expertise in monetary legislation, his efforts to aid European Jews fleeing persecution during World War II and his later advocacy related to the founding of the State of Israel.

A strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies, Somers successfully guided FDR's gold devaluation bills through the House of Representatives.

Under his leadership, the committee oversaw legislation regulating U.S. currency and coinage as well as standardization of weights and measures to ensurer fair trade and consumer protection.

[3] His committee work intersected with the Roosevelt Administration's initiatives, such as the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 which aimed to restore confidence in the banking system and recalibrate the dollar's value.

Somers' committee work included ensuring standardized measurements for interstate commerce, a critical aspect of maintaining fair and competitive markets.

[5] Somers joined the majority of the House Democrats in voting for the Social Security Act establishing a safety net of old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid for the disabled.

[7] Somers backed congressional resolutions and signed on to appeals urging the Roosevelt Administration and Allied governments to facilitate the rescue and admission of Jewish refugees.

He supported proposals related to the Wagner-Rogers Bill (1939), which sought to admit refugee children to the United States and later measures that called for the establishment of government agencies to assist victims of Nazi oppression.

In House proceedings as well as in correspondence preserved in archival holdings, Somers praised the new nation's creation as a vital step toward providing a secure refuge for survivors of the Holocaust and cementing democratic values in the Middle East.

According to Rabinowitz, Somers's grandmother and her infant son (his father), found themselves in dire straits upon arriving in the United States from Ireland and were befriended by a Jewish family.

Rattled by Somers's outspoken support for the Jewish army idea, one British Embassy official in Washington privately described the congressman as "the less happy type of Irish American Catholic demagogue."

Prime Minister Winston Churchill explained the establishment of the Jewish Brigade in these terms: "I like the idea of the Jews trying to get at the murderers of their fellow-countrymen in Europe, and I think it would give a great deal of satisfaction in the United States."

"[19] In August 1943, Somers headed a delegation of rescue advocates that left for Canada, intending to confront President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, who were meeting in Quebec.

This episode began when Bergson Group representatives met with Secretary of State Cordell Hull on August 12, 1943, and asked for permission to send delegations to Palestine, Spain, and Turkey, to press local government officials to remove hindrances to the arrival of refugees.

"I think the run-around being given us by the State Department contrasts shamefully with the courage shown recently by the governments of Denmark and Sweden in facilitating the escape of 90 percent of the Danish Jews from Nazi round-up, " the congressman said.

"[21] The State Department never did grant permission to Somers to travel to Turkey, but the publicity about the controversy helped increase pressure on the Roosevelt administration over the refugee issue.

It erupted just as members of Congress, including Somers, were introducing a resolution urging the president to create a new government agency for the sole purpose of rescuing Jewish refugees.

While Somers's concern about the British-Irish situation no doubt sensitized him to what the Jews faced in Palestine, his support for the rescue of European Jewry sprang from nothing more complicated than human decency and the natural desire for justice.

He repeatedly pressed the Truman administration to loan the Jewish state funds to address urgent humanitarian needs, such as the absorption of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors and Jews who were expelled en masse from Arab countries in the wake of the war.