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Saturday Evening Post Article, “the Case Against the Jews,” Scored by Pm Editor

March 27, 1942
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Milton Mayer’s article entitled “The Case Against the Jews,” which appears in the current issue of the Saturday Evening Post, is assailed today in the newspaper PM, by Ralph Ingersoll, the daily’s editor.

In his article, Mayer stated that the Jews of America were afraid that “their number was up” because “they know that every war since Napoleon has been followed by collapse, and they know that the post-war collapse will remind a bitter and bewildered nation that ‘the Jews got us into the war.'” He criticized those Jews who seek to become completely assimilated and discard their Jewishness and those Jews who exploit their fellowmen. As his solution for the Jews of America, Mr. Mayer suggested a return to the principles of the prophet Isaiah: “In righteousness shalt thou be established.”

Ingersoll’s reply, which calls Mayer’s article “a glove slapped across the American mouth,” takes issue with the concept that a collapse has followed each war in which America has participated. Rather, writes Ingersoll, “at the end of each of these wars the principles on which this country was founded were not weaker but stronger.” The PM editor charges that Mayer’s article in essence said that “this was a Gentile country of shopkeepers without morals or meaning, competing only for the privilege of exploiting one another.” Scoring this thesis, Ingersoll reiterates that the strength of America lies in the fact that it is built on people of all creeds an colors and terms the Saturday Evening Post article an insult to millions of democratic Americans.

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