Now-editorial Notes

by Herman Bernstein Contributing Editor

The unanimous vote of the American Federation of Labor, at the annual convention in San Francisco, to continue the economic boycott against Germany, is an effective expression of public opinion on the part of a large and important element of the American people against the despotism that prevails in Germany today.

Hitler is continuing to call the anti-German boycott the work of “the devilish international Jewish clique,” but the German people will eventually discover that the economic boycott directed against Naziland is supported by the labor organizations and by other liberty-loving people, both Gentiles and Jews, in various lands. The economic situation of Germany is reaching an ever more critical stage, and it will soon be quite impossible for the Nazi leaders to conceal the truth from the disillusioned and desperate people.

NEITHER JEWESS NOR MARXIST

The works of Selma Lagerlof, the Swedish novelist and Nobel Prize winner for literature, have been banned in Germany by the Nazi authorities. Selma Lagerlof is neither a Jewess nor a Marxist. She is only one of the most gifted Christian novelists in the world, an advocate of peace and equality. She has denounced race hatred and religious prejudice, and has sharply criticized the Nazi terror. Therefore her novels are now verboten in Naziland.

THE TERRIBLE TURK

The Turkey of Kemal Pasha has prohibited Zionism, according to a report from Istanbul. All Zionist activities have been declared illegal. A number of Jewish organizations have been raided, and their headquarters searched for evidence of relations with the Zionist movement. No incriminating documents were found.

In this respect Kemal Pasha, the Turkish dictator, learned his lesson from Soviet Russia. There, too, Zionist affiliations are regarded as illegal. But the Turkish dictator failed to learn from the Soviet government how to deal with anti-Semitism. The Soviet government treats anti-Semitism as one of the pernicious remnants of reaction and as an attempt at counter-revolution, and it deals drastically with the offenders. The Turkish government has permitted a series of anti-Jewish outrages in various parts of Turkey. In the beginning the government denied the reports of pogroms and wholesale expulsions. Afterward it placed the blame on the local authorities. But the press is continuing its anti-Jewish agitation. Discriminatory laws charged with anti-Jewish bru###- have been made. The officials tality have been treated leniently by the military courts. Jewish children have been barred from the schools, and Jewish shops are boycotted by Nazified Turks. And now comes the official drive against Zionism.

Kemal Pasha is apparently anxious to regain the old title of the Terrible Turk.