Asserting that Jews in the United Stares are “predominant” in the Federal Government and exercise disproportionate control over “serchandising, the press and radio,” Rep. Clare Hoffman, Republican, of Michigan, yesterday urged the House to defeat the permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission hill, and denied existence of any discrimination “except perhaps in a few cities.”
“It is a well-known fact,” Rep. Hoffman said, “that many of the most powerful financial institutions in this country are controlled by the Jews.” Hoffman then called for figures “showing the proportion of the volume of the business of the country owned or controlled by individuals of the Jewish race, the exact number of Jews outstanding in the professions, sciences, arts, the number of high positions in the Federal Government held by or which are under the control of the members of that race.
Rep. John Rankin, Democrat of Mississippi, joined in the opposition to the FEPC hill by declaring “a racial minority in this house has been advocating this bill” and that doctors of that “minority group” were “crowding” veterans” hospitals. Mr. Ran Kins’ words, as printed in the official Congressional Record were: “We have found in our investigation in verterans’ hospitals that they (the racial minority in the house) have crowded the doctors of that minority group into these hospitals all over the country, and some of those hospitals have more doctors of that group than patients of that group. That situation is stirring up trouble in those hospitals. It is really causing more trouble there probably than everything else put together.”
When asked by Representative Hugh De Lacy, Democrat of Washington, whether he was doing “a little Jew-baiting,” Rep. Rankin shouted to De Lacy not to do any complaining about anybody’s record “because I have yours for a long way back, both with the Dies Committee and the FBI.” On motion of Representative Marcantonio of New York, Speaker Rayburn declared Rankin’s remarks about a colleague unparliamentary, and they were expunged from the record.
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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.
