Governor Saltonstall, Church, Labor Leaders Condemn Race Hatred

A mass meeting here of 2,500 persons called to promote racial amity was told last night by Governor Levertt Saltonstall that it is the responsibility of individuals and civic groups to prevent repetition of the attacks on Jews which have occurred in Boston recently. The Governor said: “In dealing with this problem in Massachusetts, we must look primarily to the future. The utmost pains must be taken to deal fairly and thoroughly with what has happened. But our chief concern must be to prevent it happening again.”

Church and Labor leaders also spoke condemning persons who spread racial hatred. The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Richard J. Haberlin, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Boston, representing William Cardinal O’Connell, warned: “To deny our neighbor his inalienable rights amounts to a rejection of God and to despise him because of his race or religious belief is neither Catholic nor American.” Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, of the Methodist Church, stated: “I can’t prove there’s a definite tie-up between the recent outbreaks and the Vast national Fascist movement, but I know for a fact that the former constitute a real menace to our form of government.”

“Prosecution of American fascist leaders and distributors of literature that promotes racial hatred” was demanded by Joseph Salerno, head of the state CIO. Rabbi Herman H. Rubenovitz, president of the Boston Rabbinical Assn., condemned remarks by Boston’s new police commissioner, Col. Thomas F. Sullivan, who upon appointment Friday, shrugged away questions of what he planned to do about anti-Semitism with the reply that all cases of it here were “kid stuff” and that racial prejudice was “an ancient malady.”