The way was cleared today for the first race libel trial in English history when a magistrate’s court committed a Fascist publisher and his printer for trial on charges of seditious libel against the Jews of England.
The defendants, Arnold S. Leese, publisher, and Walter Whitehead, printer, of The Fascist, organ of the Imperial Fascist League, were arraigned in Bow Street Court on a summons charging seditious libel and creation of public mischief in connection with publication of a ritual murder libel against the Jews. Both pleaded not guilty and were freed on bail of fifty dollars each.
Submitting a copy of the publication in which the ritual murder accusations are made, Public Prosecutor Eustace Fulton told Magistrate Dummett that “the document plainly intended to incite ill will and hostility between the Jewish subjects of His Majesty and others.”
Mr. Fulton read excerpts describing the Jews as “an Asiatic race,” and a “contaminating influence” and stating that the Jews practice ritual murder of Christians and enjoy torturing them.
In committing the defendants for trial, the Magistrate declared the document constituted seditious libel and was a prima facie case for the jury. He continued:
“You’re both charged together with unlawfully creating ill will between His Majesty’s subjects of the Jewish faith and non-Jewish faith by printing divers scandalous and libelous statements regarding His Majesty’s Jewish subjects, which would have a tendency to promote ill subjects to create public mischief.”
Whitehead pleaded guilty to the printing, but not guilty of the charge, pointing out that The Fascist was a profit-making job, therefore he could not turn it down because it expresses certain views.
The printer explained that he knew The Fascist expressed severe criticism of the Jews but said that “this was no new thing.” He said King Edward I, Chaucer, Shakespeare and “thousands of other people” had done the same and that “it’s happened throughout history.”
Regarding the ritual murder statement, the printer claimed the encyclopedia mentions it and that saints have been created who were said to have been murdered that way. He confessed he had no decided views on the subject one way or another.
Leese on the other hand demanded the charge be withdrawn on the ground that the Jewish people were an “indefinite entity” and that ninety per cent of the Jewish people were not His Majesty’s subjects but belong to every nationality. He launched a long tirade against the Jews, declaring the Bible supported his charges that Jews are murderers.
Contending he had broken “the conspiracy of silence” and that this was “very different from causing discontent.” Leese pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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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.
