Now-editorial Notes by Herman Bernstein

Hundreds of Jews have been expelled by the Turkish authorities from the Dardanelles region and have suffered unspeakable hardships. The Turkish government has now disavowed the expulsion, and the Prime Minister announced that the Turkish government will severely punish the local officials who had driven out the Jews and made them homeless refugees. An explanation was offered that the expulsions were due to a misinterpretation of the new edict according to which Turkey has been divided into “residence zones.” Meanwhile the unfortunate refugees have been evicted.

The Turkish Jewish notables, who declined to recognize the Jews of Turkey as a minority group and refused to be included among those elements that were to be safeguarded under the treaty clauses for the protection of minorities, must have discovered by this time the effects of their shortsightedness and their cringing servility. The late Louis Marshall denounced those Turkish Jewish notables for their cowardly and stupid attitude. If those “Notables” had not blundered at that time, the position of Turkish Jewry would have been more secure today, and this inhuman expulsion of innocent people could not have taken place.

But the fact that the so-called patriotic Turkish Jewish leaders lacked the vision and the courage to protect the rights of their brethren does not absolve the Turkish government of the brutalities heaped upon the Jews. The official explanations and excuses are absurdly inadequate. The accounts of the tortures to which entire Jewish communities have been subjected by the authorities are heart-rending. The dictator of Turkey, Kemal Pasha, has been boasting of his progressiveness in modernizing and civilizing Turkey. His word is law in Turkey at the present time. Such wholesale and cruel expulsions of Jews, under various pretexts, could hardly have been undertaken by the local officials, without the sanction of the higher authorities.

Meanwhile immediate relief should be despatched to these most unfortunate refugees.

OBSCENSE NAMES

The Prussian Minister of the Interior has issued a new decree prohibiting the changing of names by Jews to “Aryan-sounding” names. The decree provides that Jews wishing to change “obscene – sounding” names may do so only if they adopt other Jewish names. “Aryans” who have “Jewish-sounding” names will be permitted to “Aryanize” them.

The leading Nazi Jew-baiting “ideologist,” Alfred Rosenberg, will undoubtedly hasten to avail himself of the opportunity of discarding his “Jewish-sounding” name and adopting one of the fine “Aryan” names of his perverted Nazi comrades among the “knights of the round table.”

There are no more obscene-sounding names than those of Hitler, Goebbels, Roehm, Streicher and other Nazi leaders. They will long be remembered for the depravity, the demoralization, the falsehoods and the murders with which they are identified. In the near future these “Aryan” names will be branded even in Germany as names that stained German history with indelible disgrace.

HANFSTAENGL’S FIASCO

“Putzy” Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s intimate friend and press agent, who came to this country for the purpose of carrying on some subtle propaganda for his master, must have discovered that the American people cannot be hoodwinked so easily. His mission here has been a wretched failure, notwithstanding the Harvard hospitality. He has been accorded no official recognition of any kind. The gifts he brought with him from Hitlerite Germany have not been accepted. The busts of Hindenburg, Schopenhauer and his favorite German composer, will either go back in his luggage, or will be deposited at the German embassy or consulate. Hanfstaengl will return to his band of depraved comrades in Berlin and will entertain his Nazi chief who needs diversion after his recent bloody escapade.

If Hanfstaengl is not blind and if he will have the courage to tell the truth, he will inform Hitler what the American people think of him.

ROBERT LEHMAN AND BRIDE CONTE DI SAVOIA PASSENGERS

Among those who sailed Friday on the Italian liner Conte di Savoia for Gibraltar, Naples, Nice and Genoa were Robert Lehman, cousin of Governor Lehman, and his bride, the former Ruth Owen Meeker; George Z. Medalie, former United States Attorney, and Mrs. Medalie; Judge Irving Lehman of the Court of Appeals of New York and Mrs. Lehman, and Mrs. S. C. Lamport and the Misses Sarah and Felicia Lamport.

CORRECTION

A typographical error crept into yesterday’s paper entitled “The Positive Attitude.” Two lines were inadvertently omitted, which obscured the meaning of the paragraph.

Referring to the paper of Mr. Morris D. Waldman, secretary of the American Jewish Committee, read at the convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary, I quoted Mr. Waldman as saying:

“Unfortunately it is a common weakness to confuse mere action with wise action.”

My comment on this should have read:

“It would be well for Mr. Waldman, writing as secretary of the American Jewish Committee, to realize that if it is a common weakness to confuse mere action with wise action, it is an uncommon weakness to imagine that inaction is always a sensible policy.”