A Senate Judiciary subcommittee, over the vigorous objection of Senator Borah, today permitted Allen Zoll, who calls himself a representative of the “American Federation against Communism,” to make a statement declaring that confirmation of Prof. Felix Frankfurter as Supreme Court Justice “would fan a wave of anti-Semitism” in the United States.
Zoll, who organized a movement for Father Charles E. Coughlin in New York under the name of “Committee for American Constitutional Rights” and has been identified with the German-American Bund, was permitted to continue his testimony after a poll of the committee, although Senator Borah protested that “you are raising the same question that has drenched Europe with blood.”
“So far as I am concerned I don’t want to have the race question debated in a body of the Senate,” the Idaho Senator declared. “It’s a fundamental principle of this Government that a man can hold office regardless of race or creed….We would be rejecting him (Prof. Frankfurter) because he is a Jew if we listened to you.” Senator King broke in to say that Jewish friends of his had written to him that the appointment of another Jew to the Supreme Court might increase anti-Semitism.
Zoll, when permitted to resume, said that “today in America an anti-Jewish sentiment is growing by leaps and bounds.” He added that “to place, at this time, upon the highest court another one of that race is not only a political mistake but a social one.” Others who testified against confirmation of Prof. Frankfurter’s nomination were Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling, author of “The Red Network,” and John B. Snow, anti-Semitic New York broker, who called Prof, Frankfurter a dangerous radical.
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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.
