Assailing the Hitler regime and deploring the threatened conquest of this country by Nazi propaganda, speakers at the Hotel Astor dinner last night, where 1,300 prominent merchants, manufacturers and buyers banded into a Merchandising Council, emphasized the need for a new attitude and ways and means of counteracting Nazi ballyhoo.
As an initial contribution to the cause of combatting the rise of Hitler propaganda in America, the sum of $25,000 was rased to finance a program of education and enlightenment. This figure was realized from subscriptions to the dinner, a $25 per plate affair. It was made available to the Emergency Defense Fund of the American Jewish Congress and formally preesnted to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president, by Milton J. Greenebaum, chairman of the dinner committee.
Speakers included Hon. Bernard S. Deutsch, the Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, Dr. Wise, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. Mr. Greenebaum presided A purported theat against Mr. Vanderbilt did not prevent him from attending the dinner and speaking out forthrightly.
Asserting that while the threat of Hitlerism begins with the Jews, it extends to all humanity, Dr. Holmes made a strong statement advocating the use of the counter-boycott as the most effective weapon in countering Hitlerism.
“The Hitler terror”, Dr. Holmes stated, “begins with the Jews but does not end there. What we really have in the Hitler terror is a frontal attack upon civilization. What shall be our program of action as we face this most formidable enemy of civilization since Bonaparte? I can see but three possible things that we can do:
“First we can do nothing, just watch and wait and bide our time. Such inaction, I believe, must be fatal, for, give Hitler five years and he will have the military power to defy and perhaps conquer all of Europe.
“Secondly, we can make war on Hitler-invade Germany, dismember the country and banish Hitler to a second St. Helena. But this also would be fatal. We should only be anticipating the wreck and ruin which Hitler himself menaces the future. Have we not learned that war setles nothing?
“Thirdly, we can use the boycott! This weapon is terrible, but terrible only because so effective. It is likewise justifiable, as any refusal to have traffic with evil is justifiable. The boycott is a solemn and sacred pledge that this enemy of justice, mercy and brotherhod, this agent of darkness and death shall not be received into the fellowship of civilized humanity.”
PLEA TO CHURCHES
A plea to the Christian churches in the United States to take definite action to combat Nazi propaganda in the United States was made by
Coupled with this plea was a challenge to thinking Jews to adopt a new attitude toward the situation which has afisen, in order to prevent the possibility of a repetition in the United States of what has happened in Germany.
Decrying the general communal attitude which has existed hitherto that “all our problems can be solved through charity,” Mr. Deutsch called for a realistic approach to the situation: for a recognition “of the criticisms that are just against us; for a solution of the specific problems of Jewish economy; for the creation of new avenues of productive labor for those who can find no place in overerowded professions, and for a program of education and enlightenment as widespread as is that of the Nazis, “as unyielding in its truthfulness as their campaign is unvarnished in its mendacity.”
He warned that “if the tide of Nazi propaganda is permitted to go unchecked, the Jews in the United States will come upon very sorrowful days. The need of the hour is unity, a combative spirit, courage to face fundamental truths and the will to exchange old methods for new.”
WARNS AGAINST NAZIS HERE
Dr. Wise, in an impassioned address, warned the American people that Nazi agents in this country are seeking to undermine the democratis foundations on which the American republic is built.
“We must not underestimate the danger of Naziism seeking to win the American people to its perverse and baleful point of view,” he declared. “Ten years ago. and five years ago, and as recently as one year ago, the Jews of Germany and all liberal groups in Germany ridiculed the possibility of the Nazis taking over the control of the government. Today, after less than one year, the liberal forces of what was Germany have been uprooted and every group of liberals is on the way to extinction.
“Jews who dare to be themselves and Christians who are Christians must unite in order to stamp out this evil before if comes to be of moment and strength in American life. A doctrine of the scapegoat people has no place in the American polity, and every effort to establish the myth of a scapegoat people unanswerable for the economic and political difficulties of our nation must be resisted with wisdom and courage and power-and, above all, before it is too late,” said Dr. Wise.
VANDERBILT DESCRIBES HITLER
Mr. Vanderbilt, who was in Germany throughout the first three weeks of the Nazi revolution and who interviewed important Nazi leaders, including Hitler himself, leaders, including Hitler himself, deseribed his impressions of the Chancellor of Germany.
He declared that Germany has returned to the spirit and practice of the fourteenth century and that war is defiitely in the air, in Germany.
He recealed that in order to arange an interview with Chancellor Hitler, the latter’s personal representative, Dr. Hafstangel asked Mr. Vanderbilt to contribute the sum of $5,000 for a fund for widows and orphans of Nazis killed during the revolution.
A prgram of entertainment followed the addresses, with Julius Tennen as master of ceremonies.
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