Confronted with the most serious racial and religious issue in this State in many years.- one which political writers said might decide the election — all candidates for the governorship, and also president Roosevelt and mayor the Laguardia, have denounced the injection of race into politics.
This issue has taken such forms as a whispering campaign against Governor Lehman with I the slogan, “vote american,” campaign letters bearing the statement, “save our state for Americans,” and campaign posters captioned, “Keep the American Way.” The Governor exonerated District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, his opponent, blaming the campaign on the Republican leadership.
Latest to speak out against the racial issue was Mayor during a forum broadcast by station wow that resorting to racial or LaGuardia who warned yesterday religious prejudices would result in the end of our free institutions and form of government. he urged the voters to demonstrate to the world that “we have raised a quarantine wall against the intolerance’s now prevalent in Europe, that we will disinfect the very atmosphere to prevent any such system taking hold in our state.”
Governor Lehman, addressing a Democratic rally at the Manhattan Opera House on Saturday, urged voters to keep the cornerstone of american liberties “clean of the corroding acid of intolerance.” he warned that intolerance masked a flagrant attempt to destroy the Bill of Rights and constitutional guarantees. “Far-sighted and fair-minded voters of this State will know how to meet such a challenge,” he said.
Other gubernatorial candidates also denounced racial intolerance. Mr. Dewey asserted I n a statement that he would rather not be elected than win as a result of race prejudice. Norman Thomas, Socialist candidate, at a Socialist rally in Mecca Temple last night, condemned “the two whispering campaigns of anti-Semitism and pro-Semitism.”
The racial issue was catapulted into national significance when cognizance was taken of it by President Roosevelt. in a State-wide radio broadcast from Hyde Park Friday night, the President said: “Pick them (the candidates) without regard to race, color or creed. Some of them may have come of the earliest colonial Stockj some of them may have been brought here as children to escape the tyrannies of the old world. all of them are american citizens now.
“Remember that the fathers of the American Revolution represented many religions and came from many foreign lands. preferrer that no matter what their origin they agreed with Benjamin Franklin: ‘We must indeed-all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.’ remember that in these grave days in the affairs of the world we need internal unity – national unity. for the sake of the nat (on that is good advice and it near grows OLD.”
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.
