Declaring that interventionism is “the majority American sentiment” and most prevalent where Jewish influence is almost non-existent, the New York Daily News today editorially denounced the “whispering campaign” to the effect that the Jews are seeking to push this country into war. The editorial follows.
“A whispering campaign now going on to the effect that the Jews are mainly to blame for our being as deep in the war as we now are, and are moving heaven and earth to push us all the way in. After the war, when blame is being dealt around for the inevitable tragedies of it all, this legend will probably be dug up in this country, and anti-Semitism may have a flare-up.
“Some pertinent facts: In the Senate, the leaders of the fight for the bill were Senators Barkley of Kentucky. Byrnes of South Carolina and George of Georgia. These man are all from the regions where the Ku Klux Klan was strongest. To say they are subject to Jewish influence in their bailiwicks is ridiculous.
“Of the three House leaders of the fight for the bill, the most powerful, Speaker Sam Rayburn, is from Texas; Majority Leader John W. McCormack of Massachusetts is a Catholic, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Sol Bloom is Jewish.
“And in the real test vote in the House on Feb. 8 (Tuesday’s House vote was just a bandwagon affair), all the Southern Democrats except Peterson of Georgia and Cannon of semi-Southern Missouri voted for the bill. The only Southern and semi-Southern Senators to vote against H.R. 1776 were Reynolds of North Carolina and Clark of Missouri.
“Three New York Democratic Representatives voted against the bill on Feb. 8, plus eight New York Republicans.
“The Jews hate Hitler and wish him harm, because Hitler first hate them and did them harm. But to call the Jews the prime movers in the United States interventionist movement is simply to talk against the facts in the ease.
“Interventionism is evidently the majority American sentiment; and the most war-minded part of the whole country is the South, which has the highest percentage of native American stock, and where Jewish influence in politics is almost non-existent.”
Meanwhile. The Nation, in an article by its Washington correspondent, I.F. Stone, declared it was difficult to believe that the resemblance of Senator Wheeler’s recent remarks on “international bankers” and the ranting of Father Coughlin was coincidental. Stone reported that a year ago Senator Wheeler held a “long and friendly” telephone conversation with Coughlin. The correspondent also quoted Senator Wheeler’s wife as saying she thought the Jews were 100 percent for the lease-lend bill and that the Senator was “much too tolerant of the Jews.”
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.
