Cable Editorial

Famous British Editor and Cable Contributor to the Jewish Daily Bulletin

I have been struck recently by the ever-increasing number of letters in the British press by casual readers who appear to have just returned from holidays spent in Germany.

They are of varied tone and coming as they do from a wide diversity of people, these letters are naturally devoted to all sorts of subjects, such as hotel life, road traffic, sports, the cost of living, and so on, but above and beyond these and in every letter—if you look even carelessly—you may discern the Nazi nigger in the woodpile, in the form of well-organized propaganda for Hitlerism.

The letters all look innocent enough and are so designed that they may not be held up on their way to the printers’ by suspicious, scrupulous editors, I dare say that even a good many of them may find their way into the waste-paper basket, but Hitler’s propaganda organization, which has begun industriously functioning in London, Paris and New York, nevertheless considers itself amply rewarded by the daily spectacle of its spoof letters that are being foisted on an unsuspecting public.

I have had occasion to test the authenticity of several of these letters, and their sources are so much tainted by the Swastika that there cannot be the least doubt that so far as Great Britain is concerned the vast majority of these letters which begin “I have just returned from Germany” must be regarded as impudent impostures.

I informed you recently that the Nazi government had made arrangements to establish a propaganda department in England. They are keenly desirous of placating British opinion. English editors while, almost to a man, anti-Nazi and while abhorring the “bandarlog” methods of the Hitler regime, are yet so anxious to appear fair that they think they are doing the proper thing if they print letters which appear to give evidence in favor of the other side.

So along comes one of these letters posted from a London suburb by someone who has, in fact, never been in Germany and extolling the virtues of the dear Nazis, and the gullible editor thinks he has salved his conscience.

Actually, with every one of these misleading letters he lends himself to the dissemination of a fraud generated by one of Rosenberg’s henchmen. You may feel fairly certain that most letters of this nature which appear in the English press, both in London and New York, are fakes that have their origin in Herr Rosenberg’s press bureau.

We could put more faith in these gentry if they treated their own people in Germany with a little more confidence. They tell us at least something, even though it is untrue, while their poor German dupes are not considered good enough to be told anything at all.

I use the expression “bandarlog” in referring to the Nazi government advisedly. The bandarlog, we all remember, first made its appearance in Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.” They lived up in trees and threw nuts and twigs at the denizens of the forest below in order to attract their attention. They were desperately anxious for the rest of creation to take notice of them, because they thought they were wonderful people, although they had a tremendous inferiority complex. That was of course because they knew in their hearts that they were really frauds. They were always on the point of doing something big, but in the next moment they would forget it, and they were terribly cruel to weaker creatures. All they could do was to make signs. Kipling called them the bandarlog. That was forty years ago. If he had known them he would have called them Nazis.

“I have been reading the last essays of Professor Max Muller, famous Oxford Oriental scholar. In discussing Von Jehring’s “Prehistoric Antiquities of Indo-Europeans,” he points out that the theory is put forward by the author that the Aryans with all their good qualities would never have achieved a civilization beyond that attainable by shepherds and farmers, would never in fact have achieved any eminence in political or commercial life, in art, science or literature had they not been brought into contact with Semite races and received from them what is meant by real civilization.

THE LITERATI HAVE A SCHMOOS

James Branch Cabell, one of the five editors of the American Spectator, ends a long-winded discussion on how to dispose of the Jewish race and problem by the bright idea that if you gave the Jews Kansas you would thus dispose of the two problems of the Jews and of Kansas. Of course, this was rather flippancy than philosophy, but, in his own self-interest, Mr. Cabell might think twice before banishing the majority of his public to a place like Kansas. Maybe both the Jews and Mr. Cabell have erred, the Jews in over-rating Mr. Cabell, Mr. Cabell in imagining, even in a flippant moment, that the Jews would not burst the boundaries of Kansas.

Other editors who participated in the discussion—which takes up practically the whole of the first page of the September issue—are Theodore Dreiser, Eugene O’Neill, Ernest Boyd and George Jean Nathan, which last-named gentleman is reputed to be a Jew. Mr. Boyd, seeking to bolster up his contention that the Jews are not an artistic people, quotes the Scriptural injunction, Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, and Mr. Nathan compares the average synagogue with a Methodist church building in Kansas. We commend Mr. Nathan to Toledo and Mr. Boyd to these pillars of modern art: Matisse, the greatest colorist living today; Modigliani, Soutine, Rubin, Chagall, Grosz—who has been called a greater Hogarth by someone better informed about modern art than he seems to be and the magnificent Pissarro.

I submit this additional data just in case the editors should resolve some day to have a serious discussion about the Jews.