Three hundred Jewish and non-Jewish leaders joined Tuesday evening in paying tribute to Dr. Sherwood Eddy, noted author and sociologist, for his action last July in condemning Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany. Dr. Eddy’s speech, in which he criticized the Nazi regime for its anti-Semitism, its suppression of liberty and its ruthless tactics in dealing with its political opponents, was delivered at a meeting in Berlin under the auspices of the Carl Schurz Foundation and was the first open criticism of the Hitler government made by a foreign observer in the Reich.
Dr. Eddy was eulogized by former Justice Joseph M. Proskauer; Kirby Page, editor of “The World Tomorrow”; B. C. Vladeck of the Jewish Daily Forward, and Jacob Landau, publisher of the Jewish Daily Bulletin, which sponsored the dinner.
In introducing Dr. Eddy, Frank L. Weil, chairman of the dinner committee, described the guest of honor in a statement composed of excerpts from letters received from Professor Shapley of Harvard, Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, one of the honorary chairmen of the dinner committee, and Dr. John Haynes Holmes.
“We express our appreciation to Dr. Eddy for his vigorous stand for personal rights the world over and for his splendid defense of human rights in Germany. He has had the privilege of speaking for the whole civilized world in protest against the policies of the Hitler Government. We hail his courage and his wise and brave address.
“His speech was not only of the noblest but one of the bravest utterances of our time. As such it was wholly characteristic of the man who well deserves the acclaim of all lovers of liberty, tolerance and the basic ideals of humanity.”
ACCLAIMED BY PROSKAUER
Dr. Eddy’s speech was acclaimed by Judge Proskauer as “an act of courage.”
“That took real courage,” he declared in referring to Dr. Eddy’s Berlin speech. “It takes moral courage to tell the truth in the face of a danger that might oppress you….
“When he uttered those words in Berlin, he sounded a new slogan to which all men may agree: the brotherhood of Man under the fatherhood of God in which all men may rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the divinity.”
Dr. Eddy’s speech in Berlin was no surprise to those who know him well, Mr. Page declared. He recounted several instances in various parts of the world when Dr. Eddy, in the face of a hostile rule, had voiced his condemnation of suppression of liberties.
Describing the story the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has to tell daily as “surpassing in starkness and horror any previous period in Jewish history,” Mr. Landau declared that “we are therefore particularly gratified when we are enabled to offset this picture of gloom and despair by reports of a more cheerful character. It is for this reason that we were happy to report the courageous address delivered by Dr. Sherwood Eddy in the very citadel of Hitlerism, in which he challenged the inhuman program of the German government—it is to do him what honor lies in our power that the Jewish Daily Bulletin, together with prominent men and women, Jews as well as non-Jews, have sponsored this dinner.
WOULD BE IMPRISONED
“I am afraid that if Dr. Eddy were a German, instead of being here today as our guest of honor, he would be in a concentration camp for the three-fold crime of being a friend of the Jews, a socialist and a pacifist.”
Three other incidents of a gratifying nature in recent months listed by Mr. Landau were the statement of President Masaryk in which the head of the Czechoslovakian Republic served notice on Germany that the Jewish situation was not an internal matter and that the League of Nations would have to take it up; the intervention of the American Government to secure the release of the editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Berlin bureau when he was arrested by the Nazis, and the arrival here of R. D. Blumenfeld, the celebrated “R.D.B.” of British journalism and chairman of the board of the London Daily Express. Mr. Blumenfeld was to have spoken at the dinner but was unable to attend.
REMINDED OF NORDAU, HERZL
“I am reminded of Max Nordau—of Theodor Herzl—who like Blumenfeld, was a stranger to the Jewish people and became its greatest leader when, at the time, of the Dreyfus case, he heard the streets reecho with the shouts ‘Death to the Jews’; his pride then rebelled and he wrote that famous booklet, ‘Der Judenstaat’, which initiated a new era in Jewish History,” Mr. Landau declared. “And, again, a great journalist has risen to the defense of the Jewish people and has joined us in the great battle of today. To know that Mr. Blumenfeld will wield his mighty pen of withering irony, excelling in wit and brilliancy of style against the forces of
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.
