Lincoln, Alive, Would Strike at Hitler Says Hertz

Abraharm Lincoln-what would he have done, what would he have said, were presidnt of the United States at this moment, would he have kept his peace in the face of human persecution in foreign lands?

Or would the Great Emancipator have spoken out, declared his attitude, let the world know what he thought of the opprssion of a group of 600,000 people for some vague, almost unexplainable, reason?

If anyone can say what Lincoin would have done in times like ours, Emanuel Hertz, perhaps the greatest living authority on Lincoin, can

“Lincoln’s pure heart and noble soul,” he told the Jewish Daily Bulletin, “would never have permitted such hypocrisy as is being exhibited in Germany today go by unnoticed. He would have sopken out, even as members of the House of Commons in London spoke out against Hitler a few weeks ago.”

It is foolish to say that “the first American” would have done just such and such a thing, the Lincoln expert admitted, yet much can be deduced from his utterances.

LINCOLN’S JEWISH FRIENDS

“It is very difficult to tell what the man would have done, but from his attitude toward intolerance, and his views on innigration,” Mr. Hertz explained, “we can make a pretty good guess. He favored unlimited innigration. He had many Jewish friends. He revoked Grant’s famous anti

“I cannot conceive of Abraham Lincoln keeping quiet under circumstances such as those in Germany. He would not have hesitated a moment in making known his viewpoint.

“As president,” he continued, “he could not have taken any definite diplomatic astion, but we can think of what he would have done. He would have called White House, and made him understand how foolish Hitler’s whole anti-Semitic policy was. He would have talked so clearly that no one could misundersand him. With his faculty for making phrases to sum up the whole situation, he would have let Hitler understand that the could not get away with his tragic farce. He would have made Hitler realize that history will put him in his place.”

ANSWERED ALL APPEALS

Mr. Hertz quoted his booklet on “Lincoln’s Jewish Contacts,” declaring that “the Jewish soldier and salor, the chaplain and the officer in service, the friend in far-off Oregon and nearby Philadelphia and Baltimore, all-all found him humane , considerate, cordial, compassionate, kindly and helpful to them, as he was to every man and woman who sought his help in having justice done, who appealed to him for some unfortunate man or woman who had encountered the iron heel of the military law. He was ever the same Lincoln, who could not endure the shooting of a fowl or the robbing of a window, or the injustice of the inhuman creditor against a crippled victim of a debtor, or the condemnation of the youthful soldier for sleeping on guard, or the one day deserter who sought to see a dying mother-in a word, the man who was ever ready to plant a rose where a thorn had grown before-the highest type of human being who loved his fellowman, regardless of race, of creed, or color, of station, or of previous condition-the lover of all mankind.”

A man like this could never have kept silent in the face of Hitler and his inhuman persecutions. Hertz concluded. The martyred president would have defended the martyred nation.