Had the Council of the League risen to a sense of the responsibility placed upon it, it would have taken up its work on behalf of the minorities at the outset, and, by timely intervention, it could have prevented much of that unfair and unwise treatment of the minorities which has been the cause of trouble in many quarters, Sir Willoughby Dickinson. Chairman of the Minorities Commission of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies, declared in a letter to the “Times’ ‘today, with regard to the decision on Dr. Streseman’s request to place the minorities question on the agenda of the March meeting of the League’s Council.
As it is, he continued, the Council has preferred to wait until individuals, or groups, have become sufficiently bold, or sufficiently exasperated, to bring to the League accusations against their own Governments. Some of these appeals have been listened to; the majority have been ignored. In any case, so far as the great mass of the 20 or 30 millions who live under minority conditions is concerned, the League has never investigated the question as to how far they have been granted the full rights promised them.
The result is that the minorities, considering it hopeless to obtain redress through the League, have turned to their own kith and kin beyond the frontier. Hence we have seen the grievances of the Hungarian-speaking subjects of Roumania and Czecho-Slovakia voiced by the representatives of Hungary; justice for the German-speaking subjects of Poland and Italy asked for by the German Reich; and the sufferings of Albanian-speaking minorities in Greece made the subject of representations by the Albanian Government under Article II of the Covenant, as a “circumstance which threatens to disturb international peace.”
The question of the minorities has really become one that threatens to disturb the peace. Every one wants peace, and yet all this time we have been sowing new seeds of war. It is for this reason that the International Federation of League of Nations Societies has invited the League to institute an inquiry into the operation of the Minority Treaties. The Council is now considering this request, and I hope it will not turn it down; for it is put forward by some of the warmest friends of the League and solely in the interest of European peace, Sir Wildoughby concluded.
Rabbi Frederick Cohn of Temple Israel, Omaha, Neb., was elected to his present position for life, at a special meeting of the Temple congregation. This honor marks the completion of Rabbi Cohn’s twenty-fifth year in Omaha.
The twenty-fifth aniversary of Rabbi Cohn’s coming to Omaha will be celebrated March 15. when special services will be held in the Temple. A banquet in his honor is being planned for March 16. Henry Rosenthal, president of the congregation, is chairman of the arrangements committee.
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.
