Anti-semitism Scored by Willkie in Saturday Evening Post Article

Taking issue with the article “The Case Against the Jews” published recently in the Saturday Evening Post and terming it a “flagellation of the Jews,” Wendell L. Willkie, in an article in the forthcoming issue of the same magazine, condemns anti-Semitism and emphasizes that Americans, particularly in time of national emergency, should be alert to protect the rights of all minorities.

“We are already witnessing a crawling, insidious anti-Semitism in our own country,” Willkie writes. It will be well to bear in mind continuously that we are fighting today against intolerance and oppression, and that we shall get them in abundance if we lose. If we allow them to develop at home while we are engaging the enemy abroad, we have immeasurably weakened our fighting arm.

“Our nation is composed of no one race, faith or cultural heritage. It is a grouping of some thirty peoples possessing varying religious concepts, philosophies and historical backgrounds. They are linked together by their confidence in our democratic institutions as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution for themselves and for their children.”

Pointing out that he has been “sickened to see political parties flirting with remnants of anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klanism and hesitating to denounce the anti-Semitism of Coughlinites and others,” Willkie concludes: “Our way of living together in America is a strong but delicate fabric. It is made up of many threads. It has been woven over many centuries by the patience and sacrifice of countless liberty-loving men and women. It serves as a cloak for the protection of poor and rich, of black and white, of Jew and gentile, of foreign and native born. For God’s sake, let us not tear it asunder. For no man knows, once it is destroyed, where or when man will find its protective warmth again.”