Merchants Organize to Combat Hitlerite Ballyhoo in States

Milton J. C. Greenebaum, vicepresident of Felix Lilienthal and Company and leader of the movement to establish a merchandising council composed of representatives of the buying, selling and manufacturing fields, in order to fight Nazi propaganda in the United States, today called upon American business men to take the lead in combating the Nazis in this country. The merchandising council will be organized tonight at a dinner at the Hotel Astor.

“As far as I can recall”, he said, “the formation of the merchandising council represents the first time that merchants, manufacturers and buyers in this country have made any attempt to contribute collectively of their time or fo their money, to a cause other than charitable. Business men, who are accustomed to face and deal with realities, should be the first to recognize that we in America are confronted with the gravest crisis in the history of Jewish settlement in this country.

RIVALS K.K.K.

“We have in the United States today the beginnings of a situation which already rivals the period of the Ku Klux Klan. Seizing a period of great economic depression throughout the world, agents of a fanatical regime, with tremendous funds at their disposal, are endeavoring to create the same racial hatred in this country as exists in Nazi Germany.

“There is an attack being made on the fundamental position of the Jews in this country, and on the democratic principles on which this great country has risen to such strength. It is appalling to think that such a situation is permitted to develop without an awareness on the part of those whose position is attacked, or that the same psychology evident on the part of German Jewry before Hitler’s rise to power, should be permitted to rule the situation now.”