Apology is Result of Meeting of Jewish Leaders with Tribune Editors

The National Community Relations Advisory Council, which is the coordinating body of all Jewish organizations combatting anti-Semitism, today revealed that immediately after the article appeared in the Chicago Tribune representatives of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, Jewish Labor Committee and the Anti-Defamation Leagus met with the senior executives of the Tribune.

“At this meeting the article was analyzed from the standpoint of its propaganda character,” the N.C.R.A.C. reported. “It was pointed out that in the association of exclusively Jewish names, in linking of Zionism and Communism and lurid references to suicides and mysterious deaths vaguely associated with the individuals named in the article, the writer had followed the pattern of Goebbels and professional anti-Semites in the United States.”

Following this meeting, the four national Jewish agencies sent a letter to J. Loy Maloney, managing editor of the Tribune, stating that the article “can be and has been interpreted as employing anti-Semitism for political purposes.” Emphasizing that they do not question the right of any newspaper to express its political philo- sophy and do not seek to circumscribe the Tribune’s right to criticize individuals in public life regardless of their race, color or creed, the Jewish organizations said:

“The concern of the Jewish community in this instance stems from the fact that the article appears to follow the recognized propaganda pattern originated by the diabolical genius of Goebbels of Nazi Germany and emulated by the leading anti-Semites in this country. The technique of associating exclusively Jewish names regardless of the relevancy of such association is an old one in propaganda. The practice of anti-Semites in associating Communism and Zionism so as to evaluate one with the other is well known; and their shabby though lurid references to mysterious deaths and suicides as the concomitant of too much knowledge of secret influence in government has been worn threadbare. The gruesome implications of these methods have shocked the Jewish community when they have been utilized in the cheap circles of racketeer anti-Semitism. It is the more shocking when parallels appear in the Chicago Tribune for then they have about them the cloak of respectability.”

The representatives of the four Jewish organizations then demanded “complete assurances” from the Tribune that “the unfortunate implications” of the article were not intended by the newspaper.