Blaustein Criticizes U.S. Failure to Check Re-emergence of Nazism

Jacob Blaustein, president of the American Jewish Committee, warned here last night that America’s failure to combat the “re-emergence of Nazism as a political force” in Germany and other European countries, and the continuing manifestations of group discrimination in this country are causing the freedom-loving peoples abroad to turn towards “neutralism” in the conflict between democracy and Communism.

Speaking at a dinner session of the 6th annual meeting of the Joint Defense Appeal–the fund-raising arm of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith–Mr. Blaustein assessed America’s “debits and credits” in the present world crisis. He charged that many prominent Nazis are now coming back to public life in Germany and “are snapping up those very positions from which they can lead Germany back to another dictatorship in the name of St. Hitler.”

Citing prejudice in America as another “major debit,” Mr. Blaustein said: “former rabble-rousers have washed their hands and faces, put a crease in their pants, and are now associating with respectable groups in the common cause of fighting Communism and tending to influence them towards anti-democratic goals.”

CITES PROGRESS IN COMBATTING DISCRIMINATION IN U.S.

Turning to the “credit side of the human relations ledger,” Mr. Blaustein cited “heartening progress” in overcoming discrimination in employment, housing and education, in furthering Christian-Jewish relationships and in the attainment of new scientific knowledge about the origins of discriminatory attitudes.

He paid tribute to the community relations efforts of all forward-looking Americans and expressed particular pride in the achievements of American Jewry through the support it is giving “voluntary agencies like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and others which are making group prejudice unfashionable.”

Earlier, Sidney S. Moyer, chairman of the J.D.A. national council, in a keynote address, told the meeting that “the fight against prejudice is not the concern of any religious group or race, but the concern of all Americans.” Declaring that “democracy is indivisible,” he said that “discrimination against any minority is a threat to the total democratic structure of our country.”