SECRETARY OF INTERIOR HAROLD L. ICKES, CITING PERSECUTIONS OF MINORITIES FOR RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS REASONS AMONG THE “SNIPINGS AT LIBERTY” WARNED LAST NIGHT AGAINST “FASCIST-MINDED MEN” AS “THE REAL ENEMIES OF OUR INSTITUTIONS.”
ADDRESSING THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION AT THE HOTEL ROOSEVELT, MR. ICKES SAID THAT “IT IS THESE MEN WHO, PRETENDING THAT THEY WOULD SAVE US FROM DREADFUL COMMUNISM, WOULD SUPERIMPOSE UPON AMERICA AN EQUALLY DREADFUL FASCISM.”
“OF WHAT AVAIL IS IT,” HE DECLARED, “TO PREVENT DISCRIMINATION BY THE STATE BECAUSE OF RACE OR BECAUSE OF RELIGIOUS, POLITICAL OR ECONOMIC FAITH IF SUCH DISCRIMINATION IS ALL OWED TO CORPORATE POWER WHICH IN MANY WAYS HAS SHOWN ITSELF TO BE STRONGER, MORE PERVASIVE AND MORE RUTHLESS THAN THE STATE ITSELF?”
ATTACKING THE SUPREME COURT, SECRETARY ICKES ASSERTED THAT “WHEN THE CONGRESS, ALL TOO RARELY, HAS SOUGHT TO PROTECT MINORITY GROUPS AGAINST RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND ECONOMIC COERCION, THE SUPREME COURT HAS FREQUENTLY NULLIFIED ITS EFFORTS.”
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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.
