Legion Firm Against Exported Hitlerism

tion dedicated a memorial to the late labor leader yesterday.

Meanwhile the Federation proper listened for about an hour to an address by James Rowan, one of the two delegates to the convention representing the British Trade Union Congress. The address which was couched in scathing language erased whatever illusions possibly remained in the minds of attending labor leaders about the Hitlerite persecutions.

Using crushing evidence which described the outrageous brutality being practised against both Jews and Communists, particularly Jews, Mr. Rowan asserted that the success of Hitler’s regime is due to a “conspiracy on the part of the former ruling class of Germany to regain power they lost when they lost the war.”

He decried the fact that no nation has yet broken off diplomatic relations with the Reich government although every principle of freedom and humanity has been violated.

Terrorism and lawless violence were the terms he used in describing the Reich government which he insisted is being controlled by a “gang of criminals.”

He continued:

“I don’t know how much the American people have learned from your newspapers of the awful, the degrading, the abominable atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.

“Tortures of the vilest description are known to have taken place. The cases are on record. Murders, flogging, mutilation of the bodies of hapless victims of Nazi terrorism, arson, and worse crimes too filthy to describe, are fully authenticated.

“In our country we published under the auspices of the National Joint Council a pamphlet giving the details of numerous cases. Other publications have since appeared, including the Brown Book to which I have referred, which repeat and amplify the evidence of this appalling outbreak of terrorism and oppression, persecution, incendiarism and crime.

“No fewer than 250 murder cases are listed by the International Committee, who state that they have definite information of over 500 murders carried out by the Nazis since March last.

“The recorded cases of torture are in some instances more revolting than anything you can read about in mediaeval history. They are far worse than anything that has happened to the Jews even in the Tsarist pogroms or the persecutions of the Middle Ages.

“I have myself seen photographs of women who have been shamefully beaten with steel whips and rubber truncheons.

“The horror of the thing passes belief.

“You must not imagine that these atrocities are merely isolated incidents, a mere matter of individual excesses perpetrated by a few criminally minded creatures. They are systematic, deliberate, organized crimes instigated and connived by Hitler and his immediate colleagues who have the power of government in their hands, some of whom are known criminals, murderers, incendiaries, drug addicts, sex perverts and sadists.

“I speak of these things with a full sense of my responsibility as a member of the General Council of the British Trade Union Congress, and as the accredited representative of the British Trade Union Congress, and as the accredited representative of the British Trade Union Congress, and as the accredited representative of the British Trade Union movement.

“I am not exaggerating the facts in any single particular, and I do not dwell upon these horrors for any other purpose than to let the American Trade Unionists know what has taken place.”