Communal defense agencies on the West Coast swept into action this week to secure publication of a retraction by the Santa Monica Evening Outlook of an anti-Semitic attack published by that paper against the Santa Monica Jewish community.
The paper, in an editorial attack on the Santa Monica Town Hall, conducted by the Jewish Community Center at the Bay Cities, charged that the forum had become a platform for the “Left-Wing” and that “there is no one on the program discussing public affairs who is not decidedly hostile to the American system of free enterprise.” It added that “the Jewish people who started Town Hall include a majority of solid businessmen who should believe in our system.”
The speakers to whom the paper took exception are United States Senator Hubert Humphrey who “speaks for the Left Wing of the Democratic Party and for nothing else;” Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of the Methodist Church, “a fellow-travelling pinko who has been identified with numerous Communist fronts and is a better socialist than a churchman;” Dr. Max Lerner, “a leading exponent of Socialism,” and Dr. Robert Hutchins, “a leading pacifist.”
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.
