Another of those “organizations” based on the major premise that there is money in anti-Semitism stuck its head out of the mud Friday and made faces at American Jewry.
This one is the Protestant Civic Welfare Federation of 551 Fifth avenue (the Fred F. French building) : “Putting all other ambitions aside in order to serve our community.”
Its spokesman is Edward James Smythe, who is not listed among the “organization’s” imposing board of officers but who, investigation indicated yesterday, is its working secretary.
The Protestant Civic Welfare Federation’s stationery tells a story in itself. Its high-minded aim, as quoted above, is plastered at the top of its letterheads, above the name of the “organization” itself.
Also given prominent positions are an engraved sketch of one of those pleasant, picturesque little rural churches which one finds scattered so plentifully through the Connecticut countryside, and a mystic emblem, consisting of a curved scimitar, somewhat like that of the Masonic Shrine insignia, lying on its edge beneath a geometric, triangle-like symbol.
Beneath this hocus-pocus sign and extending down one full side of the letterhead is listed the board of officers. They are thirty-one in number.
Not one of them is included in the Manhattan telephone directory.
Harris A. Houghton, M. D., is the “organization’s” president. The Rev. William A. Davenport, D. D., is its vice-president. Professor Gilbert Patten Brown is second vice-president. Dr. John M. Clarke, M. D., is third vice-president. And so on, down the line.
SAMPLE OF PROPAGANDA
Who these men are, what they stand for, how well aware they are of the type of material Edward James Smythe is sending through the mails on the “organization’s” stationery, no one seems to know.
Following is a letter received from Smythe by Major Frank Pease, anti-Hitlerite author of “What I Learned in Nazi Germany.” The editor of the Jewish Daily Bulletin has not seen fit to tamper with this enlightening epistle’s spelling, grammar, punctuation or mode of expression:
“Received your book ‘What I Learned in Germany’ and it almost makes me ashamed of you, it is the most hateful piece of badly put together work I have ever seen.
“Of course we all have the moral as well as the legal right to change our opinion, but something must of be wrong with us in the beginning or we still are badly misinformed. I have read your book from beginning to end and I do not find anything in it that is of any value to the average American that is so hungerly seeking the truth about what is going on in Germany, perhaps I know more about what happened to you in that country and the reason for same than you do.
ROOSEVELT IS ‘ASLEEP’
“Now I am not a German or have I any German relatives or affiliations, and I served overseas as a seargent right in the front lines, taking part in many engagements, so I should be neutral as far as Hitler or the New Germany is concerned but I’m not the very same thing that made Hitler possible in Germany is happening right here in our country at the present, the Jews have taken over this country lock stock and barrell and Roosevelt had aided them perhaps he has not woke up yet but the nation has and many movements are under way and it is only a question of time when they will all join together and in that United Spirit they will decide upon a Leader, who will make a keep this country Christian as against International Jewish Communism, theres the answer and the Legion of Deceny is only the beginning in this direction.”
SHROUDED IN SECRECY
A Jewish Daily Bulletin reporter, who attempted to locate the “organization” at the address given on its stationery, failed to find its name on the directory board of the French building. He finally learned, however, that the building management rents out a group of sub-offices, partitioned off from a central receiving room, on the third floor.
Smythe was not in, the switchboard operator explained, but he could take a message. Further questioning led to the explanation that some of the so-called “occupants” of the sub-offices do not actually occupy any space, but merely purchase the right to use the building as their address and to receive mail and telephone messages there.
The Protestant Civic Welfare Federation, so far as could be learned, belongs in this latter group.
Across the bottom of its stationery is this message: “Address all communications to Russell F. Trimble, treasurer.”
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