Between the Lines

Louis E. Kirstein, well-known for his activities in Jewish life in America, is now organizing all retail merchants of America into a special federation from which both the government and the consumer in America will benefit.

The retail trade in America is the third largest industry in the country. Nevertheless, it is not properly organized. This was discovered by Mr. Kirstein when he served as a member of the NRA Advisory Board. While acting on this board, Mr. Kirstein established that was no single authoritative group to speak for retailers in general.

AN ABLE ORGANIZER

Retail trading affects almost every citizen in the country. The work which Mr. Kirstein has now undertaken is therefore of interest not only to Jews but to every citizen of the United States. It aims to protect the interests of the consumer by protecting the interests of the retailer.

The organizing abilities of Mr. Kirstein, which are known to those who have had an opportunity to observe his activities, have long been appreciated in Washington. His new project to organize “a unified voice of the merchants of the nation” will be welcomed by the present administration which would prefer to deal with one representative body rather than with dozens of delegations who are flooding Washington in connecttion with numerous legislative problems concerning retail trading.

SPEAKING FOR MILLIONS

The new Federation which Mr. Kirstein is forming will speak for not less than one million merchants in America. It will thus be the properly authorized institution to act on economic issues and to voice its opinion to the government on legislative problems. It will maintain headquarters in Washington under the directorship of Col. Clarence O. Sherrill, winner of the Distinguished Service Medal and the Croix de Guerre in the World War.

FACTS FOR DREISER

From a Jewish standpoint the efforts of Mr. Kirstein to bring the government into closer contact with the merchants of the nation, through a unified body, are only to be congratulated. People like Theodore Dreiser and others who claim that the Jews in America are chiefly engaged in commerce, will realize that they are mistaken when the merchants of the country are organized into one body. They will then see for themselves that among the one million retail merchants there is a very small proportion of Jews. They will perhaps then change their minds about the so-called “domination” of Jews in commerce.

Hardly represented in the heavy industries in America, and only insignificantly represented in the nation’s retail trade, the allegations about Jews preferring commerce to labor or farming will once and for ever be refuted, as soon as the list of the one million members of the new Federation organized by Mr. Kirstein is published. It is only when no specific data is obtainable that anti-Jewish elements in the country feel free to operate with false figures against the Jews.

The new Federation, compiling all the necessary data for the government, will indirectly also help the Jews in establishing who is who in America’s commerce. The myth about Jewish control of America’s trade will thus disappear, replaced by actual facts and figures.