Calls Upon Christians to End Social Discrimination Against the Jews of United States

Calling upon the Christians of America to put an end to all social discrimination against the Jews here, and declaring that in this way they would make a lasting contribution to the peace of the world, the Rev. Dr. Henry Howard, co-pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, declared in his sermon in that church on Sunday that all Christians have and are, they owe to the Jew. Dr. Howard came to this country from Australia and remains a British subject.

“To an outsider, the treatment of the Jew by democratic America is one of the most curious and perplexing of contradictions,” Dr. Howard said. “We clothe him with all the rights of citizenship and put all civic privileges within his grasp and then vex him with all sorts of social disabilities.

“We call ourselves by the name of one of their race,” he continued. “We are the professed disciples of a Christ who, on His human side, whatever we as Christians may claim for him besides, was a Jew. I should like to know how some of us are going to face this Christ after the way we have treated His race.

“The time is overripe for redress. I speak not to the world this morning, but to the Church. What right have we to name the Blessed Name while we cover with opprobrium and ostracize the people of His choice?”

Dr. Howard expressed the belief that hatred on the part of the Christian towards the Jew arises from the fact that the latter often wins over the former in the competition for wealth and power. He praised the generosity and self-sacrifice of some of the Jews he had known in Australia and pointed out the contributions of Jews to the upbuilding of America and other lands.

“Make friends with the Jews, put yourselves in living, loving sympathy with them, evoke the best that is in them.” declared Dr. Howard, “and I predict it will do more than a score of conferences to promote and stabilize the peace of the world.”