Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative. Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval.-Editor.]

Colonel Hammond, American representative who is investigating the situation relative to the national minorities in Bessarabia, is taken to task by the “Jewish Daily News” (Mar. 24) for embarrassing the Jews of Kishineff by questioning them at a meeting of the municipal council in the presence of Roumanian councillors.

“The American representative should have understood,” the paper declares, “that this was not the way to secure the proper information regarding the Jewish situation in Bessarabia. He should have understood that a question as to how the non-Jewish majority treats the Jewish minority must not be put to the Jews in the presence of the non-Jewish councillors. He could not have expected the oppressed to tell the whole truth in the presence of the oppressors.”

Referring to the fact that Colonel Hammond did not act on the suggestion of Rabbi Zirelson to secure his data privately, the paper concludes:

“We are surprised that America sent Colonel Hammond as investigator, for, as it appears, he is a poor diplomat and does not understand how to fulfill his important mission. The American government could easily have found a person fit for such an important and delicate work as to secure the correct facts regarding the minorities, not facts given under duress of the ruling majority.”

TERMS FORD’S CONTENTION “BUNK”

Ford’s own famous dictum regarding history is applied by the “Utica Observer-Dispatch,” (Utica, N. Y.), to his contention that he did not know about the anti-Jewish articles published in his organ, the “Dearborn Independent.” The paper says editorially:

“The ‘Dearborn Independent’ has been Mr. Ford’s paper only in name. ‘Mr. Ford’s own page’ in the ‘Independent’ was not Mr. Ford’s page at all, except in name. He did not see the copy for the page before the paper went to press. The man who wrote the article on ‘Mr. Ford’s own page’ had not for a considerable time met Mr. Ford. The attacks made upon people of the Jewish race which were continued in a series of articles, were not Mr. Ford’s articles, and it is claimed that he knew very little about them, for when a demand for retraction was made by one of the persons named, the matter was finally put up to Ford himself. But he washed his hands of it by saying: ‘You are the editor; be sure of your facts.’

“The editor of the paper, Cameron, testifies to these things, and assumes all responsibility, declaring that when he is the editor of a paper he ‘runs it.’ But readers of the paper did not know this until Cameron went on the stand and swore to it. They supposed all the time that Mr. Ford, while perhaps not doing the actual hack work, had general oversight, and that at least he sat himself down in his quiet office each week and wrote ‘Mr. Ford’s own page.’

“Apparently there are some things in the world besides history that are ‘bunk.'”