Now-editorial Notes

Ivy Lee, master mind among American publicity experts, who has represented the Rockefellers, the Pennsylvania Railroad and other important American interests, admitted in a statement before the Congressional Committee that he had counselled the Nazi government on major questions of policy. He did this through the powerful German Dye Trust which had retained him for several years and which increased his pay to $25,000 a year since Hitler came into power. According to Mr. Lee’s testimony, he conferred with Hitler, Goebbels, von Papen and others last January in Berlin, but said that these conferences were confined to a discussion of how German – American relations could be improved. Mr. Lee advised the Nazi government, through his client the German Dye Trust, on armaments, the Jewish question and the problem of debts.

There is no doubt that Mr. Lee did caution the Hitler government against its outrageous anti-Jewish policy. As a brilliant publicity director, sensing public opinion, he knew that the savage methods of the Nazis in dealing with the Jewish question would only serve to alienate the sympathy of the American people, and he advised them to give up the war against the Jews. Mr. Lee may have given this advice as an American opposed to racial and religious discriminations rather than as the paid publicity agent of the German Dye Trust. But it seems to us highly improper for an American citizen to sell his services in a round-about way to a foreign government and to offer advice regarding questions of armaments and debts at a time when the American Government has been dealing with these very problems. The advice that Mr. Lee gave the Hitler government, through his son in Berlin, and through the German Dye Trust, was designed to strengthen the position of Hitler’s Germany whose policy carried within it the seeds of hate and a new war. While Mr. Lee’s suggestions with regard to the Jewish question were disregarded, his counsel regarding rearmament was heeded to a considerable extent.

But the case of Mr. Ivy Lee is not quite as reprehensible as that of Carl Byoir, the Jewish publicity agent, who entered into agreement, through Mr. Viereck, with the German Tourist Bureau for the purpose of creating favorable public opinion in the United States for Nazi Germany. Undoubtedly Mr. Byoir, too, urged the Nazis to modify their anti-Jewish policy. But as long as Hitlerism and anti-Semitism are identical, any praise for the Hitler system is a direct endorsement of anti-Semitism.

As for the American authors and journalists who accepted free transportation from the German steamship lines and other favors in exchange for favorable articles on Nazi Germany, it is interesting to note that practically no important and responsible American writers are included in this shady arrangement. The writings of the people enumerated before the Congressional Committee as having received favors from the Germans have failed to influence public opinion even before it was known that the authors were not objective and unprejudiced observers. Now these articles will be adjudged as nothing else than ordinary propaganda.

DELIVERING THE GOODS

According to George Sylvester Viereck, author and poet, Kaiser and Nazi propagandist, Adolf Hitler complained to him that he did not persecute the Jews, but that, on the contrary, the Jews persecuted him. Mr. Viereck knows well enough that this statement is as stupid and cowardly as it is false.

A year before Hitler came to power, to be precise, on February 25, 1932, the Nazi storm troopers’ song was quoted in the Reichstag. The last verse read as follows:

“Wenn der Sturmsoldat ins Feuer zieht,

Dann hat er frohen Mut,

Und wenn das Judenblut vom Messer spritzt,

Dann geht’s noch mal so gut….

“Blut muss fliessen, knueppel-hageldick,

Wir pfeifen auf die Freiheit der Judenrepublik.”

Translated this means: “When the storm trooper goes to the firing line, he is in happy mood, and when Jewish blood drips from the knife, it is twice as good. Blood must flow, as thick as hail; we whistle at the freedom of the Jew-republic.”

This is the refrain to which Hitler marched to power. The “Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion” were his armor. And the anti-Jewish boycott in April, 1933, was the fulfilment of his promise to the Nazis.

George Sylvester Viereck knows all this, but as an apologist for the bloody Hitler, drawing his commission for the Carl Byoir contract, and his pay from the German Consul General, Dr. Kiep, he had to “deliver the goods” to his master.