Benjamin Gitlow’s testimony that the Rev. John Haynes Holmes and the late Rabbis Stephen S. Wise and Judah L. Magnes were Communist Party followers, was challenged today by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith as “simply hearsay.”
In a letter to Rep. Harold H. Velde, the League said it was “distressed” that the House Committee on Un-American Activities would make public the secret testimony of the one-time secretary of the Communist Party because “nowhere in his testimony before the Committee does Mr. Gitlow indicate that he had direct knowledge with respect to any of these three religious leaders.”
Henry E. Schultz, national chairman of ADL, who signed the letter, pointed out that publication of the Gitlow testimony was “a reckless attack upon the memory of two great religious leaders revered by most Jews and many Americans. The result, too, is a besmirching of the reputation of one of the most honored representatives of the Protestant clergy, Dr. John H. Holmes. We believe that such action can serve only to undermine the great freedoms upon which our democratic system is based.”
The League renewed “with urgency” a plea that the House Committee preserve “the American bulwarks of human liberty by rejecting hearsay evidence, conducting painstaking investigation and fair and impartial hearings and by allowing a person the right to confront and cross-examine his accusers.”
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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.
