Cahan Outlines Credo As “forward” Enters 41st Year

Abraham Cahan, the newspaper he created beginning its 41st year, summed up his political philosophy and editorial policy today in one word–Americanization.

He was still a little tired from the rush of preparing the 92-page anniversary issue of the Jewish Daily Forward, the flood of congratulatory messages and the mass meeting at Carnegie Hall last Saturday night when 4,000 persons wished him and the paper continued success.

President Roosevelt and Premier Blum headed the list of distinguished men from many countries who sent messages of congratulation to the editor of the most widely-circulated Yiddish daily in the world. The President wished it “a future of great usefulness as an exemplar of the highest ideals of constructive journalism.”

Interviewed today in his office in the red-festooned Forward building, the 77-year-old editor said his paper had succeeded because it followed the guiding principle of Americanization. Instead of giving readers what “the editor thought the people should read”–as European papers did–he gave them “what they wanted to read,” and the paper grew.

The Forward, from its founding in 1897, set an example in news treatment which the rest of the Yiddish press was obliged to follow. Under his leadership, the human interest story found a place in Yiddish newspapers.

Socialism, too, has been “Americanized,” he declared, and “the country has made great strides in our direction.” He saw the United States and Socialism meeting halfway. He recalled that he had a few years ago jokingly suggested that President Roosevelt was eligible for membership in the Socialist Party.

“When I came here in 1882,” Mr. Cahan said, “I found two Yiddish weeklies. Both were out of date; they were not American at all. I received my training on American papers and realized we must use American, not European, methods in the Yiddish press.

“We started the Arbeiter Zeitung as a weekly, and it later became a daily. We introduced a lot of human interest stories. For example, a big fire would break out in a hotel. The ‘European’ press would give it a few lines. We gave it columns.

“The Socialist press in Europe went on the principal that the great thing was the social and political question. We introduced the principal that first the worker must be attracted to the paper. When the paper captures the reader, then the editor can give him Socialism.”

Reviewing the evolution of Socialism in America, Mr. Cahan said that “this country has met us halfway.” The sort of message President Roosevelt sent to the anniversary rally “would have been impossible even ten years ago,” he held.

He recalled that he had been one of the first Socialists to support Roosevelt. Three years ago in the Madison Square Garden he said the President ought to apply for membership in the Socialist Party. He was booed and brought up on charges, “but two or three years later most of the people who brought me up on charges voted for Roosevelt.”

In journalism and in politics he has been a firm devotee of “the American way.” He resigned from the Forward early in its career and only came back when the paper adopted his principles. Similarly, with Socialism, he said, “my brand of Socialism was also American. I advocated right-wing democratic Socialism.”

America has come a great way in the direction of democratic Socialism, Mr. Cahan declared, and so has Socialism in Europe. “Premier Blum of France, whom I know well, and Roosevelt have the same policies. They could form a mutual admiration society. I know that Blum has great admiration for Roosevelt.

“Yes, this country has made tremendous strides in our direction. The Wagner bill is a pure labor bill. In one way I think Roosevelt is the greatest president since Lincoln. Lincoln emancipated the Negroes; Roosevelt is the emancipator of labor. He is the first champion of the rights of labor as a president.”

Mr. Cahan saw no danger of Fascism in this country, for, he said, the United States was coming closer to “the social point of view.”

He was pessimistic as to the future of the Yiddish press in the United States–unless there were to be free immigration again. “The children are becoming Americanized, and it is only natural. They live in this country and it treats them as its own children.”