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Anti-semitic Campaign Against Candidate for Governor Stirs Ire in Kansas

September 25, 1938
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An anti-Semitic campaign waged against Payne H. Ratner, Republican candidate for governor, on the ground his father is Jewish, has brought a storm of denunciation from both political parties and the democratic offer of a $100 reward for the arrest of persons distributing anti-Jewish leaflets aimed at Mr. rather.

The reward was posted by the Democratic State Committee with the approval of Governor Walter Huxman, Mr. Ratner’s appoint, after it had been suggested by William Allen White, Republican leader and publisher of the Emporia Gazette, who editorially hailed Governor Huxman’s “stinging rebuke to the Ku Kluxer and jew-baiters who peddled these circulars.”

one of the circulars distributed in the drive against Mr. Ratner said: “vote only for Gentiles. Who knows how much Jewish money Republicans are spending? Ratter is a Jew.” An open attack was made by the Marysville Advocate-Democrat, which called Mr. Ratner a “tricky little Jew” and urged a Democratic campaign slogan of “Swat the rat!” The attack was later repudiated by the publisher of the “weekly, Lynn r. Broderick, democratic National Committeeman for Kansas, who, however, did not discharge its author.

Mr. Ratner was born of a Jewish father and Irish mother. He is a member of the Disciples of Christ Church, also known as the Campbellites.

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