Protest Rises over Rankin Speech

More than 15,000 persons, including almost all New York’s Congressmen and Senators, many judges and other prominent persons today attended funeral services for Rep. Edelstein, while a wave of protest was arising against Rep. Rankin’s anti-Jewish speech. Rabbi Bernard Bergman officiated at the service, which was held at Gramercy Park Memorial Chapel. The procession was accompanied by an Army guard of honor. Internment was at Mt. Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, L.I.

A charge that statements such as Rankin’s play into the hands of Europe’s dictators was made by Citizenship Educational Service, a coordinating committee of 24 national patriotic, religious and welfare organizations with a total membership of more than 30,000,000 Americans. The statement, issued by Executive Director Palmer Bevis, said such an attack “should never be permitted to happen again in a land which prides itself on its democracy.”

The New York Times declared editorially: “The present Nazi attempt to divide and weaken America begins, as the parent movement did, with vicious attacks upon religious minorities here. There is no better way to help Hitler and hurt the United States than to make or countenance such attacks.”

The Herald Tribune said: “His (Rankin’s) remark was typical of an all too prevalent habit of ticketing those whose opinions or actions arouse dislike with labels that embrace far larger segments of Americans–who have nothing to do with the case. In that direction lies intolerance, division, descent to the Nazi level of raw prejudice and ignorant hate.”

The Washington Post stated that “seldom has the passing of a House member brought greater shock to his colleagues than has the death of Representative Edelstein.”