George S. Messersmith’s appointment as American Minister to uruguay will be received with mixed feelings by all his friends who welcome his diplomatic advancement. They will exceedingly regret that he is not returning to his post as American Consul General in Berlin. Mr. Messersmith has won the esteem of all who had any contact with him as a thoughtful personality combining a wellbalanced judgment with strength of conviction. A vigorous defender of American interests, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency owes a particular debt to Mr. Messersmith. When Otto Shick, editor of the J.T.A. Berlin office, was arrested, Mr. Messersmith intervened. He again successfully intervened when the Secret Sate Police (Gestapo) closed the offices of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in Berlin and prohibited its special correspondent, Mr. Boris Smolar, from sending out any news.
Baron Edouard de Rothschild and Louis Dreyfus are the only two Jews mentioned by a prominent European economist among the seventeen richest men in the world. The others mentioned are: Edsel ford, the Duke of Westminster, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Gaekwar of Baroda, Sir Basil Zaharoff, Simon Patino (Bolivia), Lord Iveagh, the Agha Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, Henry Ford, G. de Wendel, John D. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Andrew Mellon, and Fritz Thyssen (Germany).
Louis Dreyfus is the greatest grain dealer in the world, and occasionally comes to the United States where he maintains offices. He is very active in French politics and has been a member of the French Parliament for many years. He has a vigorous and outspoken personality. He takes no interest in Jewish affairs, while Baron Edouard de Rothschild, on the other hand, is the president of the Jewish Consistoire of France. His brother, Robert de Rothschild, has been the head of the committee which endeavored to ease the lot of the German Jewish refugees, not to mention Baron Edmund de Rothschild, who personally has spent approximately fifty million dollars in palestine; more than has been collected from all the Jews throughout the world during the last decade. He is the most venerated Jew in the world. When Jews in Eastern Europe and Palestine speak of “The” Baron, they invariably refer to Baron Edmund de Rothschild, who has grown to the status almost of a legendary figure.
The deep interest in Palestine which Edward M. Warburg, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Felix M. Warburg, showed when presiding over the dinner of the American Friends of the Hebrew University the other evening, is an encouraging indication of the sense of loyalty to Jewish interests as evinced by the younger set among the wealthy of our community. James Marshall, Lessing J. Rosenwald, James Becker of Chicago, and others, prove by their application to Jewish activities that not every rich man’s son is turning his back on the duties which a hard-pressed community imposes on every one of its members.
A. R. Z.
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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.
