Anti-semitic Campaign in Mexico is Dissipated As New Issues Appear

As suddenly as it had appeared, the intense anti-Jewish propaganda, which ran in Mexico City newspapers for ten days or more, vanished during the past week but the tension in commercial circles trading in German goods still continued. The pause in open propaganda seemed to have an ominous significance to many and speculation was current as to what the next move might be.

Perhaps the disclosure during the week that Walter Zechlin, the German minister in Mexico, has been ordered replaced by Baron Rued von Collemberg, German consul general in Shanghai, China, had something to do with the slackening of the anti-boycott movement headed by the German Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Zechlin, who came to Mexico last year, personally is reputed not to harbor any anti-Semitic sentiments, and in his protest to the Mexican government against the alleged Jewish boycott is believed to have acted at the behest of the German Chamber of Commerce.

American, French, British and Spanish chambers of commerce, as well as the majority of other foreign commercial organizations, have assumed a “hands off” policy in connection with the German drive to end the alleged boycott. The foreign chambers of commerce had been asked to join in a protest against the Israelite Chamber of Commerce, but they refused. It was quite evident that the dropping off in German trade, whether due to a boycott or to individual refusal by Jewish business men to handle German articles, is benefitting the countries whose trade here is in competition with that of Germany.

Meanwhile, with both sides in the German-Jewish commercial war taking a breathing spell, strong sentiment seems to have developed in some of the Jewish quarters in favor of disbanding the Israelite Chamber of Commerce. Those who favor this tactic point out that with the nonexistence of a Jewish commercial organization such a group could no longer be made the target of allegations such as have been made in the course of the conflict here. The proponents of the idea further insist that without such a “target” the battlecry of “propaganda for defense against the Jewish organized boycott” would lose its effect and that protests such as the one made to the Mexican government would be futile if it were merely a matter of individuals trading where they chose.

But the sentiment for abolition of the Jewish chamber is far from being unanimous. Leaders of that organization are vigorously opposing the movement for disbanding, stressing the contention that without organization the individual Jewish businessman will be exposed to abuses which an organization could prevent. In other words, the gist of the “standpatters” is that the Israelite Chamber of Commerce is a protective association and as such an essential body under existing conditions.