The rumblings of the anti-Semitic agitation featuring the opposition party’s campaign for mandates in the July 2 election here, had an unexpected reaction when M. Calevras, a former governor general of Macedonia, resigned from the Greek Progressive Party, which forms a section of the opposition bloc, and which is the chief ally of the Venizelist Party, on the grounds that the latter group had undertaken an anti-Jewish campaign in this country.
M. Calevras declared in the columns of the Hellenikon Mellon, a newspaper of Athens, that “one single incendiary word of anti-Semitism, which drags the country back into times that are past, is enough to make me leave the opposition bloc.”
This was only one of the events of interest to Jews here in recent days. A case that attracted widespread attention was the news that Maitre Zahos, one of the most famous lawyers of this city, who defended the Jews in the well-known case concerning the incendiaries of the Campbell Quarter, has refused to undertake the defense of the Makedonia, an organization against which the Minister of Justice has ordered an investigation to be launched on account of its anti-Semitic writings.
The Jew-baiting of the Makedo### is calculated to disturb the public peace, according to the ministry of justice.
VENIZELOS’ POLICY
Several distinguished persons have spoken to former Premier Venizelos, head of the opposition party, in an effort to induce him to command the cessation of the anti-Semitic campaign in Salonica. He declared to his petitioners on the eve of the annulment of the election that he left to the discretion of the members of his party here the complete liberty to decide whether or not the campaign should be waged on racial grounds. This apparent inactivity on the leader’s part, however, disappeared later, according to the Independent, Jewish local newspaper, which announced that he was not satisfied with the turn of events and has now promised to use all his influence to induce the Salonica press to abandon its anti-Semitic {SPAN}cam###{/SPAN}.
THE JEWISH CANDIDATES
The Popular Party (Tsaldarist), which is actually in power, has just closed the list of candidates for the July 2 elections here. The list contains the names of the retiring deputies, the Hon, Daniel Allalouf and the Hon. Isaac Molho, who are the only Jewish candidates. This party has not yielded to the demand to include three Jews on its lists, while the opposition party has no Jews at all.
The electoral campaign has filled certain persons belonging to the Popular Party with great uneasiness. These persons hope to exclude Jews completely from their lists in order to prove that they are not a Tsaldarist Jewish party as parties of the ### allege.
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