Now–editorial Notes

The Declaration of Tolerance, as a supplement to the Declaration of Independence, written into the history of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, in connection with the application of the Silver Shirts for a certificate of incorporation, is an inspiring gesture which cannot fail to create a wholesome impression at this particular time. Drafted by Richard J. Beamish, Secretary of the Commonwealth, the document bears the signatures of more than a hundred religious, civic, political and economic organizations, and is a perpetual memorial against the organization known as the Silver Shirt Legion and similar un-American organizations.

The text of the “Declaration of Tolerance” contains the following passages:

“We protest against the issuance of a charter for either a business corporation or a nonprofit corporation by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to any organization whose purpose either directly or indirectly makes for religious or racial intolerance or hatred.

“We also protest against the issuance of a certificate of authority to any foreign corporation seeking to do business in Pennsylvania, whose objectives either directly or indirectly make for intolerance or bigotry.”

At the last moment representatives of the Silver Shirts withdrew their application for a certificate of incorporation by telegraph, but the hearing was held and the un-American organization was effectively rebuked.

In New York, at the Silver Shirt pro-Nazi meetings, envelopes containing the “literature” of the Silver Shirts are still being sold. These envelopes bear the inscription: “Halt, Patriots! Act to save your home–your family, your country and your constitution.” Each envelope, costing twenty-five cents, contains “the Truth about Communists in our Government, the Alien International Bankers and the Secret World Conspiracy.”

And the Silver Shirts ask, among other questions, the following:

“Do you know that forty millions of this nation are living on charity, during a period of natural abundance?

“Do you know that charity is being deliberately encouraged, that the resources of all may be depleted and thus the citizenry be subject to the plotters?

“Do you know that the real control of the Federal Reserve System is ninety percent Jewish?

“Do you know that Trotsky, alias Braunstien, was a New York Jew, and that he was employed by Jacob Schiff of Kuhn Loeb & Company of New York to help consummate the Russian revolution?

“Do you know that the present NRA was set up by the Jews, foisted on a political administration by the Jews, and that known Communists, wartime seditionists, or affiliates of the nefarious American Civil Liberties Union, are heavily sprinkled throughout NRA officialdom?

“Do you know that the Jew, Bernard M. Baruch, ‘the next best President,’ is the real power behind NRA while at the same time being recognized as the guiding power behind American Jewry?”

And then follow references to and quotations from the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” about a mythical world conspiracy organized by the Jews.

And the bankrupt Silver Shirt Legion then makes this appeal for funds:

“The time is at hand when great numbers of affluent people are going to realize that it is it is from the horde of the Silver Legion that their greatest measure of personal and property protection is coming and as they perceive it, underwriting funds for the wholesale work of the organization will accrue to it in sums which will allow the carrying of those who are impoverished.

“Give $10, $100, $1,000 to the War Chest if you can–but remember that Silver Legion membership is totally dependent upon your qualification in the light of true Christian principles!”

This morally and financially bankrupt organization of the Silver Shirts, which masquerades as a Christian organization, spreading the most absurd and vicious falsehoods, inciting religious and racial hatred, raising funds under false pretences and by fraudulent means, received an effective lesson in Americanism in Pennsylvania the other day.

This is the beginning of the end of the “patriotie” racketeers who call themselves Americans and Christians, but who are really hirelings and servants of Hitler, getting their orders and inspiration from the Prussian-Russian forged “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”