Police and FBI agents are attempting to discover the person or persons who have been circulating the old Benjamin Franklin anti-Jewish forgery here for the past two weeks.
Copies of a leaflet bearing what is purported to be an extract from the diary of Charles Pickney, reporting on an anti-Jewish speech made by Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, has appeared in subways, taxis, hotel lobbies, restaurants, buses, railroad terminals and similar places.
This Franklin forgery was proved to be a fake several years ago. Although the leaflet now being distributed states that the original of the Pickney letter is in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the Institute has repeatedly stated that no such letter is in its possession and that it has been unable to ascertain that any such letter was ever written by Pickney or anybody else. Competent historians, such as Charles Beard have branded the letter a barefaced forgery.
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