Protest rallies marking the fifth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to power on Jan. 30, 1933, were held last night or scheduled for other days this week in a number of cities throughout the country.
Approximately 4,000 persons packed Carnegie Hall in a rally sponsored by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, with hundreds more turned away for lack of space. Thousands more gathered in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Other meetings were scheduled in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, 2,000 Germans attended a mass meeting in the Yorkville Casino at which Dr. Hans Borchers, German Consul-General, justified Nazism and attributed the “Jewish question” to “Jewish ambition,” which, he said, had called out repression.
Ten thousand persons gathered in Los Angeles, according to the Anti-Nazi League, heard Eddie Cantor, Dorothy Parker, Representative Jerry O’Connell of Montana and Dr. Lechner of the American Legion, among other speakers.
Speakers at the Carnegie Hall meeting included William E. Dodd, former Ambassador to Germany; Representative Hamilton Fish, Jeremiah T. Mahoney, Prof. Franz Boas, Vito Marcantonio, Ludwig Renn, Heinz Liepmann and Dr. William E. Taylor, Negro leader.
Mayor LaGuardia sent a message in which he declared that the extension of Nazism “is creating a grave menace to the peace of the world” and declared that all friends of democracy must unite “to stem the tide of reaction and assure the establishment of democracy and freedom in the world.”
Representative Fish declared that “the inhuman and brutal treatment of the Jews in Rumania has shocked the American people.” He urged Congress to consider asking President Roosevelt to “make an appropriate protest and remonstrance to the Rumanian Government.” He called upon Secretary of State Hull to accept the precedent of the protest in 1872 by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, Mr. Fish’s grandfather, against persecution of Jews in Rumania.
Prof. Boas, urging defense of intellectual freedom against the encroachments of Nazism, demanded that American students not be sent to Germany and that German students not be helped to come here, and “if they do come, we should see to it that their propaganda is properly counteracted.”
Dr. Dodd, who, the chairman explained, was not feeling well, limited himself merely to expressing the hope that the audience could do something to aid world peace. Later, speaking by telephone to the Los Angeles meeting, he said that the one chance “of keeping the peace and saving democracy is for all democratic countries to cooperate in economic matters, applying pressure to bear upon people who are forced into undeclared wars and stringently applying boycotts against governments which violate solemn treaties.”
Mr. Mahoney urged further support of the anti-Nazi boycott.
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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.
