Continuing to press his charge that sponsors of the Senate movie probe had sought to rouse anti-Semitic sentiment in their isolationist campaign, Wendell Willkie in an interview today with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency pointed out that there had been no denial of this fact by Senators Gerald P. Nye and Bennett Clark, sponsors of the investigation resolution.
Yesterday Nye, in testimony before a Senate Inter-state Commerce Sub-Committee, denied any personal anti-Semitism, but voiced the belief that active support of interventionist policies by leading Jewish writers and other figures would create strong racial feeling.
“Mr. Nye’s statement makes it plain that the sponsors of this resolution have no reluctance to fan the flames of latent anti-Semitism in their drive to smear the motion picture industry, which, in turn, as only an effort to hamstring the American foreign policy through coercion,” Willkie declared. He added that acceptance of Senator Nye’s theories regarding the danger of anti-Semitism developing because of interventionist activities would have the effect of “denying the right of free speech to a substantial and thoroughly loyal part of our citizenry.”
Meanwhile the movie probe went into its second day of hearings with the major developments being the echoing of Nye’s charges by Senator Bennett Clark and an indication by Sub-Committee Chairman D. Worth Clark that he would accept Willkie’s challenge to bring Lowell Mellett, Director of Government Reports, to the stand to answer charges that the Government had forced the motion picture industry to act as a propaganda medium.
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.
