Now-editorial Notes

In Response to my open letter to Mayor LaGuardia, published in the Jewish Daily Bulletin of May 13, with regard to the “Mass Demonstration” which is announced as “Der Tag” of the Awakening Germandom in New York and which is organized by Germans and camouflaged as a meeting of German Americans, the Mayor of the City of New York, through his secretary, writes:

“The meeting in question is to be held in a private building owned and operated by a private corporation. Whatever the Mayor’s personal viewpoint may be, he has no jurisdiction under the circumstances, presented on this particular occasion.

“Both the constitution and laws of this State guarantee and protect freedom of speech and the right of assembly. Controversial opinions, even though repugnant to a majority, still have a constitutional and legal right of expression.

“Under the laws of the State of New York and the provisions of the State and Federal constitution, the Mayor has no authority to prevent this meeting, in the absence of any complaint charging a specific violation of the law.”

In view of the fact that my letter contained an outline of the purposes of the Mass Demonstration of Hitlerism which is openly intended to incite conflict between one element of the American people and another on racial and religious lines, the Mayor’s letter requires no comment.

AN IRRESPONSIBLE PROPOSAL

According to a report from London, Dr. Moses Gaster has written an article for The Daily Herald under the title “The Jews Must Leave Europe,” in which he says that the Jews must emigrate from Europe before it is too late, and he suggests that the League of Nations should help find a home for the Jews in Africa or America, where from three to four million Jews could be settled under the protection of the League.

Dr. Gaster is reported as saying in this article that Palestine is too small for the large number of Jews who must save themselves from Europe before the flames of Jew-hatred reach every nook and corner of Europe because of the growth of Fascism. And Dr. Gaster makes the further suggestion that the League of Nations secure a loan of 30 million pounds for this purpose.

If the contents of Dr. Gaster’s article are correctly quoted, it must be said that the eminent Dr. Gaster has committed a very serious blunder. His alleged statements are as irresponsible as they are unwise and unwarranted. In this crisis, brought on by mad Nazism and unbridled Fascism, Jewish leadership should beware of rushing into print with ill-considered, hysterical and defeatist opinions and schemes.

Nazism and Fascism will spend themselves before long. Hitlerism is directed against the welfare of all civilized nations. Hitlerism is feverishly preparing a new war. The other nations may soon realize the magnitude of the danger that threatens them in Nazi Germany.

The Haham’s proposal that the Jews of Europe should save themselves by wholesale flight from Europe is a cowardly and unreasonable proposal.

THE ARCHBISHOP’S PROTEST

The Archbishop of Canterbury in a letter to The London Times protests energetically against the rabidly anti-Semitic Nazi publication Der Stuermer, which recently revived the ritual murder accusation against the Jews. The Archbishop declares that it is almost incredible that such a publication, recalling the worst excesses of me###val fanaticism, should be permitted in any civilized country, and yet it bears the name of a high officer in the Reich. The protest addressed in behalf of forty representatives of Christian public opinion in England, urges the Nazi government to disown promptly this “odious incitement of religion bigotry.”

This is a splendid expression of the moral indignation aroused in right-thinking people, but it is somewhat naive to urge the Nazi government to disown some of the latest pogrom agitation in the Stuermer, since the publisher of that journal, Comrade Julius Streicher, was placed in charge of the agitation for the anti-Jewish boycott in Germany by Hitler according to Goebbels’ diary describing the origin of the anti-Jewish boycott and excesses.

“A GRAVEYARD AMONG CITIES”

The London Daily Express special correspondent states that the anti-German boycott has reduced Hamburg to the position of a “graveyard among cities,” where the wartime scenes of suffering have been revived because of the cessation of German exports.

The German people are paying a heavy penalty for the criminal blunders of the demagogues who are now the masters of Germany. Economic distress will open their eyes at last and then Hitlerism will be ended.