The House Rules Committee today deferred indefinitely a bill to name a Veterans Administration hospital at Jackson, Miss., in honor of the late Rep. John Rankin, Mississippi Democrat, a notorious anti-Semite. Rep. Rankin served in the House from 1921 to 1953. In those years he sought to justify Nazi genocide and made the most vitriolic attacks on Jews ever heard in Congress. He was also an outspoken opponent of equal rights for Negroes.
The bill to establish a “John Rankin Hospital” as a veterans facility was shelved after protests were made to the Rules Committee that this would be offensive to veterans of Jewish and Negro backgrounds.
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.
