700 Leaders of Protestant Church Assail Lindbergh’s Anti-semitism

More than 700 Protestant churchmen, including Bishops, presidents of Theological Colleges, Deans, Presbyters and editors of Protestant publications, today issued a proclamation denouncing Lindbergh’s anti-Jewish speech in Des Moines and urging Christians throughout the country to “preach and preach again and continue preaching against this moral disease of anti-Semitism. “The proclamation reads:

“Until recently the anti-Semitic campaign in this country has been carried on by scattered and apparently unimportant individuals and groups. Since the Lindbergh speech at Des Moines, Iowa, the most important political opposition to the government of this country apparently has decided to make anti-Semitism one of its major tactics, following identically the Hitler technique in Germany. This tactic consists of undermining the confidence of the people in its own government by first conditioning the people to hate a special group and them associating the government with that group in the minds of the people.

“According to the Associated Press dispatch, Charles Augustus Lindbergh in an address at Des Moines on September 11th, spoke of the Jews as follows: ‘Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government. It would be easy enough to prove that the Jews have no disproportionate influence in any of these spheres, but to answer Mr. Lindbergh’s attack in that manner would be to fall into the trap he and his friends have set. Such proof was often enough forthcoming in Germany. It did no good.

“The intellect alone will not cure this American form of a world disease any more than it cured the European form. Lindbergh speaks derisively of ‘the Jews, capitalists, anglophiles and intellectuals. ‘The racist does not appeal to the intellect. He appeals against the intellect. He must be met on moral grounds and on religious grounds. This Lindbergh speech is the beginning of the last phase of a definite plan to destroy democratic government in this country. It marks a dire threat to our way of life, our humanness, our very existence as an independent free people. The political implications of this, our very existence as an independent free people. The political implications of this, tragic though they be, are not the primary concern of the Christian people of America. That concern is of the moral conscience, whether that conscience has been formed in a cathedral or in a cross roads chapel.”

CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS TREMBLE TO READ LINDBERGH’S WORDS

“Catholic and Protestant alike will tremble to read these words of the Lindbergh they have loved; for these words strikes down not the Jews, but a Jew, Jesus of Nazareth whom they have been taught to revere. The past decade has written large what we Christians have long known, that anti-Semitism is anti-Christianity. This anti-Semitic appeal is a studied insult to Christ who taught love for all men. Jew and Gentile alike. This un-American racism would place our Christian creed below the level of our nation’s constitutional creed. The Christianity which gave birth to America must not now become a scandal to Americanism Christians dare not repeat the mistake of German Christians who failed to speak forth their condemnation clearly and unequivocally when this evil first raised its that unhappy land.

“The undersigned therefore issue a call upon the spokesmen of Christianity in America: preach and preach again and continue preaching against this moral disease of anti-Semitism; let not the matter rest when you leave your pulpits, carry your condemnation into the streets and into the homes of your fellow Christians; enlist them in a campaign of resistance; call upon your youth especially to let no anti-Semitic word pass unchallenged; this is a moral war out of which may issue the ghastliness of civil war; into the thick of this moral fight, lead your Christian community!”