Bankhead Lauds Jewish Contributions at B’nai B’rith Dinner

Asserting that dictatorships rather than democracies were in danger of perishing, William B. Bankhead, Speaker of the House, told a B’nai B’rith convention dinner tonight that the Jews had richly endowed America’s democratic heritage and urged them to be in the vanguard of those battling to uphold the democratic principle.

The dinner, which was in honor of Alfred M. Cohen, retiring president of B’nai B’rith, climaxed the order’s fifteenth general convention at the Hotel Willard, and heard a message of greeting from President Roosevelt read by his son, James Roosevelt. A thousand delegates and guests attended, including Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. and many congressmen. Mr. Cohen was lauded by Judge I.M. Golden, of San Francisco, first vice-president of B’nai B’rith, and Sidney G. Kusworm, of Dayton, 0., treasurer, who presented him with a testimonial gift on behalf of the entire B’nai B’rith, which has 450 lodges in the United States and Canada, as well as lodges in 28 other countries throughout the world.

Speaker Bankhead, whose address was broadcast over a national hook-up and internationally, paid tribute to Mr. Cohen and B’nai B’rith, saying that his “devotion to this great army of peace of almost 100,000 souls is in itself a contribution to american democracy.” He said: “The democratic ideal is not only pervasive of our American civilization, but is basic as a powerful impulse in the history of the Jewish people. No people has more richly endowed the democratic heritage which is ours; no people has found greater satisfaction and sanctuary in its blessings.”

Condemning dictatorships, he named Germany as one of the countries which “has reverted to a one-man absolutism almost without parallel in all the tide of time,” and that democratic states cannot save themselves “through smug indifference to the peril of the dictatorships.” He added that he believed democracy will not permanently retreat before the authoritarian system.

“I will go further,” he said, “and assert the conviction that the dictatorships are in far greater danger of perishing than are the democracies. No people has ever remained in permanent subjection to despotism. No power on earth can forever destroy the innate passion of a people for personal liberty.” Pointing out that he was not issuing a threat, Mr. Bankhead said the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, France, the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and others together “constitutes a body of public opinion invulnerable to their might against the assaults of any or all totalitarian states. Democratic institutions will not perish from the face of the earth.”

“As for the Jewish people,” he continued, “let me state that your problem is inextricably bound up with that of freedom-loving peoples everywhere. wherever democracy yields to dictatorship, the Jew is the first to feel the mailed fist of arbitrary power. Where-ever democracy reigns supreme, the Jew is accorded equal treatment under the law in common with other citizenry in the land. Were we to sanction in America any of the monstrous acts now being perpetrated on helpless Jewish people in other lands, it would constitute an assault upon the very foundations of our government. It therefore behooves my fellow-citizens of the Jewish faith to be, as you have always been, in the vanguard of those who battle to uphold the democratic principle.”

The Speaker paid tribute to Jews of Revolutionary days, mentioning Haym Salomon by name, and enumerating the deeds of valor performed by American Jews on the field of battle He also declared that the American colonists drew much of their inspiration, in their struggle for independence, from the Jewish Bible.

In introducing Mr. Bankhead, Mr. Cohen, whose remarks were also internationally broadcast, gave public thanks “to the fine humanitarian who is Secretary of State” for the recent American invitation to 32 countries to join in finding havens of refuge for German and Austrian refugees.

B’nai B’rith Districts spent $77,578 during the past three years on one of the Order’s less well-known activities — Jewish social service — it was reported at this afternoon’s session by Rabbi Emil W. Leipziger, of New Orleans, chairman of the committee in charge of that work. District No. 6 appropriated most of this sum — more than $45,000 — according to Rabb: Leipziger. District No. 4 spent $14,000; District No. 1, $5,000; District No. 2, $3,754; District No. 5, $2,000; and District No. 7, $2,500.