“In view of the German government’s continued policy of discrimination and denial of rights to citizens and residents as well as denial of freedom of conscience, this assembly of delegates representing Jewish communities in all parts of the world, realized the need for the extension of the present basis of the boycott movement. We are resolved to join and cooperate with organizations and persons of every creed and race who are making efforts to ensure just treatment of all German citizens without any distinctions,” he declared.
A prediction that extension of the boycott would result in “unavoidable and profound developments in Germany, not later than next Spring,” was made by Walter Citrine, noted British labor leader, who was the chief speaker at the conference today.
Mr. Citrine, who is president of the International Federation of Trade Unions, stated that his organization had decided to attend the conference officially and “to support and cooperate with the conference.”
A. F. OF L. ASSURES SUPPORT
“This boycott movement is not against the German people, but for its liberation,” the English labor leader declared, adding that “the boycott is the most important means of accomplishing and accelerating changes in Nazi Germany.”
In his opening speech to the conference President Untermyer read a message from William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, condemning Nazism and pledging his organization to support the anti-Nazi boycott in the United States.
“The rights of minorities in all countries must be respected,” the American labor leader declared in his message, “if international good-will and peace are to be promoted and maintained. Labor in the United States has regarded the persecution of the Jewish people in Germany with feelings of resentment and horror.”
Mr. Untermyer was vehement in his protest against Hitlerite Germany’s race hatred and “the grotesque ‘Aryan’ fetish for destroying civilization.”
“Against such a war,” he declared, “there is no effective weapon except the refusal of the world to deal with Germany, which has inflicted upon an entire race new forms of refined torture compared with which witch burning was a harmless civilized pastime.”
UNITY CALL SOUNDED
Rev. Paul J. Teisonaires, head of the Unitarian Church in Brussels, Belgium, pleaded with Jews, Protestants and Catholics to forget “differences of faith and creed and to unite in defense of human freedom and the progress of civilization, which is menaced by Hitlerism.”
The conference was flooded with messages of greeting and good-will from all parts of the world. There were greetings from France, Belgium, Egypt, Palestine, the American Jewish Congress, the Canadian Jewish Congress and various League for Human Rights in Europe.
AMERICANS REPORT ON WORK
A significant message was received from Flora Drummond, who spoke for the British Empire Women’s Guild, declaring that “it is the obvious duty of British women to support the boycott, because if the Nazi government is successful, then the women of the world will realize that the emancipation they won was in vain.”
Mrs. Mark Harris, Dr. Paul Hutchinson and James Beamish, American delegates, reported on the achievements of the anti-Nazi boycott movement in the United States.
The conference continues tomorrow.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
