An explanation as to why the United States Government is participating in the meeting of the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission to be held soon in Berlin, was given by State Secretary Cordell Hull in a letter addressed to Samuel Untermyer, president of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, and made public by Mr. Untermyer yesterday.
The letter came as a reply to an inquiry by Mr. Untermyer in which he asked “why of all places on earth Germany, which has so flaunted every fundamental of human decency, has been selected for the forthcoming international meeting,” to which America is sending twenty-one delegates.
Replying to this inquiry, Mr. Hull explained to Mr. Untermyer that “it would be contrary to the policy of the government to deny itself the privilege of participating in the work of an international commission of which it is a member, meeting in a country with which the United States maintains normal diplomatic relations.”
ANSWERS HULL
Taking issue with Mr. Hull, Mr. Untermyer has addressed a second letter to him pointing out that, according to the information given him by Commissioner Bates, the United States was not represented at the meeting at which Berlin was selected as the place of the conference.
“I did not know,” Mr. Untermyer writes, “that there is any governmental policy that would require representatives of our government to participate in a convention to be held in a country where, since the invitation was accepted, conditions have radically changed, an enlightened democratic government has been succeeded by the most despotic rule on earth, law and order have ceased to exist and where the government, in time of peace, has descended to the medieval depths and degradation of inflicting cruel and inhuman punishment by secret administrative process and where the person accused is tried and sentenced without an opportunity to defend. If he happens to be a Jews or of Jewish ancestry, the law of that ‘enlightened’ country gives him no protection.”
NO JEWS ON DELEGATION
Mr. Untermyer emphasizes in his letter that he is surprised to notice that in the long array of penologists who have been selected to go abroad at the expense of the American government, there does not happen to be a single Jew.
“I assume that this is a mere ‘coincidence’. Or perhaps this is because no Jew would have been received,” Mr. Untermyer states.
“Why of all places on earth we should select such a country to send our representatives, absorb its poison and spend our money, is a mystery to me,” Mr. Untermyer continues. “I believe it will also be a mystery to every self-respecting American, regardless of race or creed, who learns of this excursion who has a sense of justice or a spark of the milk of human kindness in his heart.”
Mr. Untermyer concludes his letter to Mr. Hull with a repetition of his protest against the participation of the American government in the conference to be held on German soil. “It will be the standing joke for a long time to come— but ###stly and humiliating one for our ###ons of Jewish citizens,” Mr. Unter### emphasizes.
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.
