On 28 July 1942, 20,000 people participated in a WJC-organized "Stop Hitler Now" demonstration at New York's Madison Square Garden. Nine months later, on 1 March 1943, an estimated 22,000 people crowded into the same hall and a further 15,000 stood outside at a WJC rally addressed by Wise, Chaim Weizmann, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and others. However, the US government did not heed calls to rescue European Jews. Early in 1944, US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau stated in front of President Roosevelt that "certain officials in our State Department" had failed while it would have been commanded by duty to "prevent the extermination of the Jews in German-controlled Europe".