“american Mercury” Uses Anti-semitic Innuendoes in Promotion

Promotional material for subscriptions to the American Mercury loaded with anti-Semitic innuendoes has been received by many Greater Miami residents, including many Jews, it was reported here today.

The material includes a “warning” about the “coming war in the Middle East” in which American support of Israel is asserted to be “to the detriment of our country. The statement charges that “the secret manipulators” were “arranging things so as to have us Christians fight” Moslems, Arabs and Hindus.

Another item in the promotional material assails Eleanor Roosevelt who “has nothing but praise for Israel and the Soviet Union.” The material describes Mrs. Roosevelt as “a racial troublemaker.” In an equation of Judaism with Communism, Zionism and Israel and with alleged plots at world domination, the pamphlet declares that “Mercury warned you. The Roths child interests ‘advise and guide’ the Rockefeller interests. The anti-Christ forces are making real progress in their determined efforts to weaken and divide us.”

The American Mercury, under the editorship of the late H. L. Mencken, was a leader in the shaping of American literary and social opinion. In recent years, according to the Anti-Defamation League, it has become “crudely reactionary,” frequently using language “which to the bigot can have strong anti-Semitic meanings.”