More than ten months after Pearl Harbor, there still persist in the country propaganda sheets which tend to sabotage the spirit of the war effort by spreading anti-Jewish, anti-war and even pro-Nazi statements, the New York Herald-Tribune reported today.
“These sheets are not so numerous nor outspoken as they used to be, before the United States went to war, or before last July, when Federal indictments were returned against twenty-eight propaganda writers accused of trying to foment disloyalty in the armed forces. But they still exist, circulating the same old hate lies with a bit more subtlety and caution. Several of them have been put out in recent weeks by some of the very persons indicted in July for issuing anti-American or pre-enemy propaganda,” the paper writes.
The principal themes of the propaganda sheets, whose effect is to serve a pro-Axis and pro-Japanese cause in America, are to cast doubt and aspersions on allies of the United States; to discredit the Administration guiding the nation’s war plans, and to raise the chimera of anti-Semitism and international Jewish plots.
“YANKEE FREEMAN” CALLS FOR DRIVE “TO STOP JUDAISM” IN U.S.
The most barefaced propaganda piece now in circulation comes from Seattle and advertises an organization known as the “Yankee Freemen.” Its program advocates the immediate resignation of President Roosevelt, immediate peace with Germany, Italy, and Japan, and the immediate annulment of all lend-lease laws. A pledge card soliciting funds for the organization commits the signer to help stop “Judaism” and to work for putting “a military man in the White House.” A “Yankee Freemen” pamphlet asks: “Do you know that all hate Hitler propaganda is inspired by the enemies of mankind (Jews and Freemasons)?”
In Muncie, Ind., Court Asher still publishes his weekly “X-Ray,” although he is one of those indicted in July. Asher refers to New York as Jew York. He also openly attacks President Roosevelt. Gerald K. Smith, a former Huey Long associate and long a promoter of various movements, publishes “The Cross and the Flag” in Detroit. In his September issue he warned the “Christian farmer” and the “Christian worker” against Farmer-Labor political parties. William Kullgren, who as publisher of “The Beacon Light” in Atascadero, Calif., is under Federal indictment, sent a recent circular to friends and subscribers, asking contributions for his defense.
“The Broom,” of San Diego, Calif., formerly published by C. Leon de Aryan, who still writes for it, though he, too, has been indicted, raised this question; “In view of the fact that England has a little more war on her hands than she can comfortably manage, it seems passing strange that she so persistently refuses to allow the Jews to form their own army to fight with her. One is forced to the conclusion that the international Jews are a long way from the decent, upright Zionist Jews and are perhaps blocking their demands for such an army.”
Charles B. Hudson, of Omaha, publisher of “America in Danger,” and now under Federal indictment, recalls in a recent issue that it was he who raised speculation over the advancement of the “part-Jew Churchill” to the post of the British Prime Minister.
During investigations leading to the July indictments, most of the sheets lost their second-class mailing privileges. Now most of them circulate through first-class mail.
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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.
