Forty years of uncompromising struggle against political corruption, religious intolerance, and social pollution have convinced Rabbi Dr. Stephen S. Wise of the soundness of the ancient adage, it pays to speak the truth.
Preaching a pre-anniversary sermon yesterday on the eve of his sixtieth birthday before more than 1,000 persons who gathered at the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, Rabbi Wise reviewed the highlights of the triumphs and failures during the course of his career.
Characterizing himself as a man who “just wasn’t born to be intimidated,” the militant preacher admitted that on many occasions he was wrong in the causes he defended and chief among these mistakes, he said, was his defense of prohibition.
“Now I realize that I lacked the foresight to see what would supplant the legal sale of liquor,” he said.
Hailing Mayor LaGuardia as “the greatest executive in the lifetime of New York City,” the rabbi scored what he called the shady activities of the Mayor’s predecessors.
Dr. Wise recalled his fight against the administrations of Mayors Gaynor, Hylan and Walker and in colorful language described the wanton waste that prevailed while Tammany ruled New York during the past sixteen years.
He was bitter in his fight against Mayor Hylan, said the speaker. At that time, a man ventured to introduce the two leaders to each other.
“Have you ever heard of Rabbi Wise,” Hylan was asked.
“I ought to. He abused me ##–to which Dr. Wise replied. “I’ve abused you much, Mr. Mayor, but not enough.”
Two men stand out among the famous personalities in modern Jewish history, according to Rabbi Wise. They are Dr. Theodore Herzl and Louis D. Brandeis, Justice in the United States Supreme Court.
He recalled the time when Zionism was in its infancy. and spoke of the terrific opposition encountered by Dr. Herzl in advancing his ideal of a Jewish homeland.
There was a slight trace of irony in his voice when he referred to the fact that German Jews were the chief opponents to Zionism since its inception.
“Now,” he said, they seek a home for which they did absolutely nothing.”
HIS SENSE OF HUMOR
His sense of humor undimmed, Dr. Wise related several anecdotes concerning his dealings with men in the public eye. He noted that once Mayor Gaynor said he was a ninth carbon copy of Dr. Parker, who was one of his heroes.
“The only battles I regret having fought are those in which my opponents saw fit to use poison weapons against me. They usually criticized me for lying about them. Never in my career have I uttered deliberately a word against a man that was untrue.”
“I regret these battles not because their aspersions on my character hurt me in any way, but for what it did to them,” he continued.
“Despite my years of fighting, the real battles are just beginning. The Jewish people have many problems to solve before they can say they have won complete liberation.”
Rabbi Wise reminisced about his fight for female suffrage while he was head of a congregation in Oregon.
“Oregon, which is about as big as New York and Pennsylvania put together and has about as many people as the Bronx, voted against suffrage twice during the time I campaigned for it. I left the state following that–and then they accepted it,” he said. “I am proud that I fought for that cause.”
The rabbi pointed out that a religious man is at an advantage in campaigning for any sort of improvement because the “public realizes that he is not doing it for his own benefit.”
With a final summation of his forty years in the pulpit, Rabbi Wise said: “I am no happier about things now than I was when I started.”
Preceding his sermon, Rabbi Wise officiated at a celebration by the younger children in his honor at the Free Synagogue house, 40 West Sixty-eighth street.
He told the youngsters that Zionism means more to him than anything else in the world. He depicted the growth of the cause since its inception.
The children presented under the direction of Mabel Meyer, “Sixty Years in tableaux”, a dramatized version of Dr. Wise’s life, written by Rabbi Berman and A. W. Binder.
The cast is as follows:
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.
