In the current issue of The Nation, Editor Freda Kirchway accuses Merwin K. Hart, president of the New York State Economic Council of being “as consistent a fascist as American reaction has developed” referring particularly to his speech before the Union League Club on Sept. 19, part of which was devoted to “a slightly oblique expression of anti-Semitism.”
In his speech titled “True Americanism,” Hart blemed an “irresponsible force” for leading Britain and France into war, asserted that “lawfully or unlawfully” the United States had been flooded by 200,000 to 500,000 refugees and went on to say that the same “force” was seeking to drive America into war because it was “blinded by fury at the persecution of minorities in Germany.”
Hart said he had submitted the address in advance and rewritten parts of it to meet the approval of the Union League Club’s president, Alfred H. Cosden. The 150 persons attending the luncheon received cards offering free printed copies of the speech “to members and guests who in the interest of true Americanism may wish to circulate them.”
Recalling Hart’s relationship with the Franco regime, with Allen Zoll, George Van Horn Moseley, James True, John B. Trevor and Joseph McWilliams, Miss Kirchwey asserted in her editorial that “he has consorted with all the anti-democratic, anti-labor, anti-government organizations and individuals that clutter our street corners and public halls.”
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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.
