(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The rivalry of parties in the pre-election campaign is reaching its peak as the day when the votes will be cast for the election of the third Polish Sejm is only ten days off.
The elections will take place on Sunday, March 4. A vigorous activity is being carried on by the pro-Pilsudski election committee, the Polish Socialist Party, the anti-Semitic National Democrats, the Witos peasant party and the Communists. It is predicted here that the pro-Government list will have an overwhelming victory at the expense of the anti-Semitic groups.
In Jewish quarters the rivalry among the various parties is intense. Here the Gruenbaum group of the national minorities bloc, the Agudah and Volkist bloc, the Bund and the Poale Zion are carrying on heavy battles at the campaign meetings. Leaders of the minorities bloc continue to charge the authorities with hindering them in their campaign by refusing permission to hold mass meetings, while it is stated that the Agudah-Volkist bloc is permitted to carry on its campaign unhampered. In several districts the lists of the national minorities bloc were annulled.
The mass meetings which are being called by the various parties to propagate their platforms are in many cases so intense that frequent disorders break out. Isaac Paker, Agudah member, was killed at a mass meeting called in the town Dobromil, East Galicia, when a fight broke out between the Agudists and their adversaries. This casualty, however, is the single instance where a life was lost.
The hopeless split of Polish Jewry will undoubtedly result in a considerable decrease in the number of Jewish representatives in the third Sejm. Each party still asserts that victory will be its. In Galicia the fight is on between the Zionists under the leadership of Dr. Leon Reich and the Orthodox Agudath Israel. The group of Zionists which sided with the minorities bloc and the Reich list has withdrawn its opposition.
The report of Morris D. Waldman, prominent American Jewish social worker, submitted to the Constructive Relief Conference in Chicago, on conditions in Poland following a survey made by him there was quoted yesterday by the “Glos Prawdy,” the official organ of the Pilsudski Government.
The newspaper, in replying to the charges made by the Jewish representatives of the bloc of national minorities against the Government, cited Mr. Waldman’s opinion. Thereupon the Polish Telegraphic Agency broadcast widely Mr. Waldman’s report wherein it is stated that the position of the Jews in Poland has improved immensely since the advent of the Pilsudski regime. The Agency quotes Mr. Waldman as speaking enthusiastically of the Pilsudski Government and warning American Jewry against anti-Polish propaganda Mr. Waldman, during his stay in Poland, interviewed over a hundred Jewish personages and all agreed that the Pilsudski Government guaranteed to the Jews all political freedom, the Polish Telegraphic Agency despatch states.
The “Glos Prawdy” adds that Jewish nationalist leaders in Poland were very much angered by Mr. Waldman’s report.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
