Stefan Hedjas, one of the notorious leaders of the anti-Jewish terror in Hungary at the beginning of the Horthy regime, is a member of the Hungarian delegation which is coming to New York to participate in the unveiling on March 15 of the Kossuth memorial being erected at Riverside Drive and 113th street. This was revealed Sunday at a meeting of the anti-Horthy League at the Central Opera House.
Following addresses by Arthur Garfield Hays, Lewis Gannett, associate editor of the Nation, Roger Baldwin, director of the Civil Liberties Union, Dr. Samuel Buchler, who presided, MmeRosika Schwimmer, Hugo Gellert, Niederman and Emery Balint, a resolution was adopted urging Hungarians in New York to boycott the Kossuth memorial exercises.
The arrest and sentence of Baron Lajos Hatvany was the principal cause of the protest. A resolution was adopted declaring that the charge against Baron Hatvany was that he had publicly criticized the Government for the anti-Jewish pogroms and the numerus clausus.
A mass meeting will be called on Friday. Addresses on Hatvany will be delivered by Emil Ludwig, who is a friend of Hatvany, the Hungarian writer Emil Lengiel and Municipal Judge Blau.
The “Jewish Tribune” in its current issue, in an editorial entitled “Hungary’s Shame” declares:
“We wonder how the five hundred distinguished Hungarians who are coming to honor the memory of the great liberator of their country, in whose eyes all inhabitants of Hungary were equally entitled to the liberty which he sought to bring them, will be able to explain to the American people who welcomed Kossuth to their shores and extended to him the honor of addressing their House of Representatives, why Hungary persists in a course which is profoundly abhorrent to American ideas of justice and fair play. We will be deeply disappointed if Secretary of Labor Davis. Senator Copeland and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who are to speak at the unveiling of the statue, will fail to impress upon the visitors the regret of the American people that Hungary should have so far departed from the ideals of the great patriot whom they are seeking to honor.”
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