(Signed) Warren G. Harding.
Jews of all factions, reform and orthodox, and of all political affiliations joined in expressing deep morrow today at the death of President Harding.
Jews, it was recalled, have special reasons to remember the President because of his approval and signature of the Lodge Resolution approving the establishment of the Jewish National Home.
President Harding’s thoughtful act in sending on the occasion of last Rosh Ha-Shannah a special greeting to Jews is also still fresh in the memory of American Jewry.
Harding had many of the characteristics of McKinley Oscar St. Straus declared when informed of the President’s death. “He had a kind and lovable disposition and served his country with utmost devotion.
“This is a tremendous shock”, declared Meyer London, former Socialist Congressman. “It is personal shock for I knew him well. President Harding endeared himself to all who knew him, whatever the political differences have been. Politics are now forgotten in the love all factions had for him as a man.”
“Regardless of all party” Morris Hillquit declared, “all men join in the national mourning for President Harding”.
“He was a man of big heart” declared Congressman Sol Bloom. “I am greatly shocked”.
President Harding’s last utterance to the Jews was made on August 21, 1922 when he addressed New Year Greetings to the Jews of America.
“The commemoration this year of Rosh ha-Shannah, the New Year day of the Jewish people, will mark the end of a year peculiarly notable in Jewish annals. It has seemed the definite assurance to the Jewish people that their long aspiration for re-establishment of Jewish nationality in the homeland of this great people is to be de- finately realized. This is an event of notable significance not only to the Jewish people but to their friends and well-wishers everywhere, among whom the American nation has always been proud to be numbered.
(Signed) Warren G. Harding.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
