“The Germans are spinning like dervishes and foaming at the mouth,” said Ludwig Lewisohn in a speech before the Lions yesterday.
“Politics under Hitler have been divorced from brains and have taken the form of epilepsy.”
World civilization has broken down, the noted writer declared, and the causes of the collapse have been widespread moral and spiritual unrest. War is imminent in Europe, he warned.
The crisis is one of will and intelligence, he added, and only wisdom and goodness will enable a safe passage through it.
“It is stupid to say the world has progressed, when it has rapidly retrogressed since 1914,” he stated. “We have all been making fools of ourselves with the notion of progress while permitting the world to go straight to the devil.”
Pointing to the vast army of unemployed, which he estimated numbers 30,000,000, he expressed the opinion that mechanical and scientific advances are not true progress.
“We still retain a trust in our brain trusts,” the author of Mid-Channel continued, “but other countries have taken steps in the opposite direction.
“The Russians have withdrawn from the theory of Marxist materialism—a theory exploded forty years ago.”
Mr. and Mrs. Lewisohn will take part in a benefit entertainment at the City Hall to aid the victims of religious persecution. The writer will speak on “The Present State of the Religious World” and his wife will sing. The Rev. Skillman E. Myers will preside.
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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.
