Now Editorial Notes

AT LAST The sympathy of the American Government for the victims of racial and religious persecution in Hitler’s Germany is to be expreessed in unmistakable terms. Officials of the Administration adopted measures that will enable such victims to find asylum here under the regular German quota, provided adequate assurances will be given that they shall not be come public charges.

Assitant Secretary of State, Wilbur J. Carr, declared that American consuls in Germany had already been instructed to do all they can for German applicants for visas and that the Department of Labor was cooperationg sympathetically in this matter. Friends and relatives of applicants for American visas under the German quota will be permitted to post bonds to guarantee that the immigrants will not be a burden upon the public. The present German quota is about 26,000. In recent years only about 3,000 applicants were fortunate enough to receive visas to enter the United States. Under the new liberal interpretation of the quota regulations, 23,000 applicants will be granted visas in order that they may save themselves from the religious and racial persecutions to which they are subjected under the Nazi reign of terror.

This is a most praiseworthy move. No longer will the Hitlerites be able to boast that even free and liberal America is shutting its gates to those who are subjected to discrimination, persecution and torture in Germany because of their race or faith.

The moral effect of this gesture will be far-reaching. The liberal forces in all civilized lands, realizing the threat of Hitlerism to world peace, will feel greatly encouraged by this sympathetic act on the part of the American government. And as for the victims of persecution, they will be saved from the Nazi inferno, and will find in this land of equal opportunity a new home of safety.

CATHOLICS IN NAZILAND

GEORGE N. SHUSTER, managing editor of the Catholic weekly, The Commonweal, after a visit to Gernany, declares that “Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism must stand allied” against the creed of Hitlerism which he deciebes as “brutal, inchoate, fantastic and primitive”. He describes the persecution of Catholics in Germany. He points out that large numbers of Catholics have been forced out of their positions, that the German Catholic Peace Movement had been suppressed, stating that under the Nazi government the fact that one has been a “pacifist is a clear title to an economic death sentence” He deplores the

In conclusion he pleads that Catholics, Protestants and Jews stand together against the creed of Hitlerism. Though the spoils of battle have so far gone to the Nazis, Mr. Shuster declares that he does not belive in the permanence of bogus faiths. He admits that the lot of German Catholics will not be easy-“indeed, it may enlist the outraged sympathies of the world.”

Painfully sad as the plight of the Catholies is in Germany, the lot of German Jewry is far more tragic. The bogus creed of Hitlerism which persecutes people for their religion, or race or political convictions, especially hounding and torturing advocates of peace, has transformed the Germany of today into the most menacing danger zone in Europe. All who are concerned with the maintenance of peace, regardless of race of or creed, must exert their efforts to prevent the spread of the poisonous gases of Hitlerism beyond the boundaries of Germany and must seek ways and means of bringing united moral pressure to bear on the present rulers of Germany to put an end to their peacedisturbing methods.

If the facts presented by the Catholic editor are authentic-and there is no doubt that they are-it is more than strange that the powerful voice of the Vatican has not yet resounded in vigorous condemnation of the outrages perpetrated in Germany today.

THE NEW KULTUR

ARTURO TOSCANINI was presnted with an inscription in the Golden Book of the Jewish National Fund as “a great friend of justice, truth and freedom”. Toscanini fully deserves this honor in recognition of his courageous and inspiring act of refusing to participate in German Music Festivals as long as anti-Jewish persecutions continue in Germany. As one of, the world’s foremost conductors, and as a liberal Italian and citizen of the world, his stand could not fail to make a profound impression. A host of other great artists have emulated his noble example. The few artists, who were concerned first and above all with financial gain, and who accepted Nazi invitations under various pretexts, merit the contempt of their colleagues and their audicnces in other lands.

Hitlerism has driven Kultur out of Germany. Germany’s greatest intellectuals, educators and artists have been expelled, or have fled from the persecutions and humiliations directed against them. Germany’s Kultur is in exile now. Hitler’s Germany is concentrating now on the development of a new type of culture-the culture of fiendish hate and brute force.