Libels of Anti-semitic Propagandists Re-echo in Turkish Parliament

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Echoes of the international anti-Semitic propaganda and the influence of the ###, “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” resounded in the Turkish National Assembly during a debate yesterday on the budget of the Minister of Commerce.

Deputy Bessin Attali Bey demanded that the stock exchange be nationalized in view of what he termed “the existence of a Jewish peril.”

“Unless we adopt an anti-Jewish policy, Turkey will be financially similar to Hungary,” he stated.

Deputy Mehmed Vasfi, seconding the motion of Deputy Attali Bey, enlarged on the preceding speaker by stating that “the Jewish peril is not political but an economic one,” repeating in his address many of the accusations contained in Ford’s “International Jew” and other similar anti-Semitic publications.

The deputies were rebuked by the Minister of Finance, who in his reply declared that “the Turkish government believes in free competition of all citizens in accordance with the law, the law favors none and discriminates against no one. Those who are capable and active gain more. Our community should take an example from and work as much as the Jewish citizens.”

AMERICANS INTERESTED IN PROTECTING RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN EUROPE

“The failure of the United States to enter the League of Nations does not mean that Americans are not interested in the problems of the old world,” says Arthur J. Brown, Chairman of the American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities, in a report to the Committee members. “Although outside the League, the American people have shown a strong interest in the sufferings of people impoverished by the Great War and have contributed millions of dollars toward European and Asiatic charities. It is unthinkable that Americans should be deaf to the cause of common humanity merely because their government has not joined an international organization, and it is equally unthinkable that their government should regard such activities with disfavor.”

As proof of the growing American interest in foreign affairs Linley V. Gordon. Secretary of the Committee calls attention to the large number of leading men who have recently become members of the American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities. The ###atest additions to this Committee indude Frank J. Goodnow, President of the Johns Hopkins University, Dean Howard C. Robbins of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Carl Sherman, Bishop Luther B. Wilson, Ivy Lee, David Hunter Miller, Bernard Richards, George W. Wickersham, W. H. P. Faunce, President, Brown University, Clifford W. Barnes, President, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, Senator Morton D. Hull, Senator Arthur Capper, Adolph Ochs, Otto Kahn, James Brown Scott, Theodore Marburg.While the Committee, of course, has no official authority to correct abuses, says the report, it has accomplished results by appealing to public sentiment. At present the Committee is concerned mainly with the situation of Religious Minorities, including Catholics, Unitarians and Jews, in Roumania.

“We are not unmindful,” says the report, “that political factors are sometimes associated with religious ones, but the Committee is scrupulously careful to avoid entanglements of this kind. It does not concern itself with the nationalistic aspirations of any minority group. It strictly limits itself to the proper sphere implied in its title. Nor does it seek any exceptional religious privileges for these Minorities. It simply asks that they be accorded the rights of religious liberty which have been expressly guaranteed to them by treaties. Intolerant attempts to inflame prejudice against certain elements in our country and, on religious grounds, to deny them equal civil rights, have also been opposed by the Committee. It stands for full religious liberty both abroad and at home.”

Among the members of the committee are Abram I. Elkus, Louis Marshall. Henry Morgenthau and Dr. Stephen S. Wise.

The Baltimore “Evening Sun” of same date satirizes about the statement that instead of a two day demonstration the Klan will be given only one day at the exposition. that their parade will be limited to 25,000 marchers and no masks or flaming crosses will be used.

“Gone the fond hope and eager expectation.” the paper says. “What kind of impression can a knight of the Invisible Empire make with his mask off? He becomes a commonplace mortal with blistered feet, sweating profusely. The element of mystery vanishes. Bah ! Give the ### two days and let them put on a show with a thrill in it.”