With the speeches of Senators Burton K. Wheeler and Rufus Holman introducing a hint of anti-Semitism for the first time into the debate on the lend-lease bill, leading American newspapers today denounced the Nazi-style references to “international bankers” and the emphasis on Jewish names.
At the same time, the official Berlin radio approvingly quoted Senator Holman’s utterances on this subject. The broadcast termed Senator Holman’s speech “interesting” and “important.”
The New York Post declared editorially that Senator Wheeler’s speech had reached “levels sickeningly below mere sordid politics.” It said that Wheeler’s remarks about Rothschilds, Sassoons and Warburgs “was in the approved pattern set by Father Coughlin as he worked up to his outspoken anti-Semitism. Does that mean,” the editorial continued, “that the Protocols of Zion shortly will be brought out against H.R. 17762”
Referring to the support of Senator Wheeler by Father Coughlin, Charles B. Hudson, Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling and Joe McWilliams, the editorial stated: “Senator Wheeler now has his following–at disastrous cost to his name. He has won supporters and they–including that strange crew of political untouchables without any recent hope of getting a respectable front–have won a far greater victory. They have won a voice in the United States. They are his but, alas for him, Senator Wheeler is theirs.”
The Philadelphia Record editorially spoke of Hitler’s “undoubted gratitude for Wheeler’s help” and published an imaginative letter from Hitler to Wheeler expressing thanks to him.
The Newark Star-Ledger said; “Senators Wheeler, Nye and Holman…have given voice to Nazi propaganda slogans and have sought to inflame un-American passions. Senator Reynolds has coupled his opposition to the lease-lend bill with vicious and untruthful attacks upon our alien population that recalls the savage racialism of Hitler.”
The New York Times criticized “Wheeler’s alarms about international bankers.”
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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.
