Digest of World Press Opinion

The Jewish Layman, organ of the Temple Brotherhood of America, brings the news about the recent Soviet decree restoring the franchise to the clergy and comments:

A new ray of sunshine has penetrated the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, the largest unit of the Soviet Union. A half million Jews have been granted a new lease on life, with the order issued this past month by Michael Kalinin restoring the franchise to a vast portion of the population of former outcast and declassed groups of Russians. The former bourgeoisie class, ex-clergymen and even present employees of religious bodies — provided they “have performed five years of socially useful labor and have proved their loyalty to the Soviet State” — are once again given the privilege to vote, “the right to bread cards, low rents, jobs, social recognition and educational opportunities for their children.”

While Jews are only a small part of the people affected by this new order, it is a hopeful sign of a changing attitude by the Soviet government. Perhaps the next step may be the enfranchising of the Rabbis and its attendant official recognition of the individual’s right to religion.

RAIL MEN’S ORGAN COMMENTS ON ‘PROTOCOL’

Labor, official weekly newspaper of the railroad labor organization of America, prints the following editorial on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion”:

One of the strangest trials in human history was conducted in Berne, Switzerland. Certain Jewish leaders have brought a criminal libel suit against a group of Swiss Nazis, who have been circulating the so-called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” outlining an elaborate scheme to make Jews the dominant force throughout the world, in government, finance and industry.

These mysterious documents have been used to excite anti-Semitic feeling in a score of countries, and particularly in Russia and Germany. Now reputable witnesses testify that they are forgeries drafted by agents provacateur of the late Czar.

“They are gross inventions which no historian, no cultivated man, ever took seriously,” says Paul Miljukow, a noted Russian man of letters who served as a member of Kerensky’s short-lived government, and is well known in the United States as a lecturer.

Miljukow declares the protocols were responsible for the bloody pogroms which drove millions of Jews from Russia. Eventually, he says, they contributed to the destruction of the Czar and the triumph of the Soviets, because the embittered Jews supplied the brains and driving power which wiped out the old regime.

Hitler is using in Germany the same material which proved fatal to the Romanoffs.

If the Berne trial accomplishes nothing more, it should call world – wide attention to the wickedness and futility of racial and religious bigotry—a weapon the ruling class has used in every land to divert the people’s attention from their political and economic wrongs.

BOSTON TRANSCRIPT SCOTCHES FALSE IDEA

The Boston Evening Transcript, in connection with the Artkino libel suits publishes the following editorial on the misapprehension that has spread through the United States that Jews have been barred from the Massachusetts jury.

It seems incredible that any misunderstanding could have arisen as to one phase of a case completed today (Nov. 22) in the Superior Court for Suffolk County. Nevertheless, in certain quarters, a misconception occurred, and even reached print, spreading abroad a false idea which, for the honor of the bench and bar in Massachusetts, needs to be swiftly scotched. At the outset of the case in question—an action for libel, based upon gross accusations made against Jews—Reuben L. Lurie, as counsel for the plaintiff, requested that the case be heard by a justice himself not a Jew and also that the jury should not include Jews. His motive in so doing one would say was completely transparent, a characteristic expression of Mr. Lurie’s spirit of fairness. The purpose was to avoid any chance that, if verdict were given for the plaintiff—as it was so given today—the charge could be made that either the judge or any member of the jury had been prejudiced, by reason of Jewish faith or blood, in behalf of the plaintiff.

But this obvious fact somehow failed to make itself evident to some one or two obtuse minds. After the court had acceded to counsel’s request, a statement went out to the effect that “Massachusetts had excluded Jews from a jury,” as though this were done in hostility! Naturally, if this false idea were to gain currency, it would make the Americanism and common justice of the courts of this Commonwealth appear weak and ignorant. Wherever the story appears in headlines or whisper, it should be put down. The truth is that the action of the court, as well as of counsel, proceeded upon grounds of the highest right, as further attested by the verdict which the Gentile jury gave today for the plaintiff.