The Human Touch

The Dutch government, by yielding to German importunities and arresting and jailing Heinz Liepmann, author of “Murder–Made in Germany,” for the offense of having libelled the head of a friendly government, meaning von Hindenburg, merely prolonged the period necessary for Liepmann to recuperate from the wounds and the injuries suffered by him in the Nazi concentration camp from which he had escaped. Liepmann is now out of jail, his wounds not entirely healed, but while he was in jail he had the great comfort and the solace of knowing that friends all over the world were fighting for him and watching with deep concern the uneven battle between the Nazis and Liepmann. Had he not had such aid and comfort there is little doubt that the Germans would have got hold of him, through the process of extradition, and what they failed to do to him when they had him in concentration camp they would undoubtedly have done at their second opportunity.

I learn that during the month he was confined he was that jail’s most important prisoner, receiving, within that period, more than a thousand letters, telegrams and cables, from individuals and organizations in every corner–well, in almost every corner–of the world.

And among those who wrote to him–and this letter was not solicited by the enterprising press agent of the firm publishing “Murder–Made in Germany” — was one from Professor Albert Einstein, who appears to have bought, and read, the book while at Princeton. Professor Einstein’s letter reads:

THEY CAN’T TAKE IT

There are good European caricaturists and apparently some of them got under the hides of Hitler, Goering, Goebbels et al, for the other day the authorities at Prague had to remove caricatures of these gentry, the work of anti-Nazi artists, many of them, if not all, refugees from the Fatherland. The German Embassy at Prague made representations to the Czechoslovakian Foreign Office, which had the sketches removed from the exhibition walls, but not until after the curiosity of the Prague public had been aroused by the publicity and had been given enough days in which to appease it.

And at the Metropolitan Museum, here in New York, a caricature of Hitler had to be removed, not because Nazis complained–although they may very well have done so–but because, according to the Museum’s pubished explanation, that institution does not make a practice of exhibiting caricatures of living people. Companion caricatures also came down, including one of Dawes. But because these caricatures were removed they were published in the newspapers and more men and women saw what had given offense than would have had the caricatures remained on exhibition and been seen only by those comparatively few who visit the Metropolitan. After all, The New York Times has a far greater circulation, daily, than the Museum here has weekly.

OUR OWN CARL ROSE

I do not know how able were the caricaturists whose work was exhibited at Prague, and I do not believe that the removal of the Hitler caricature at the Metropolitan was any great loss. So long as Carl Rose continues to draw Hitler, Goering and Goebbels, as he has for the past year in the pages of the Jewish Daily Bulletin, so long will other caricaturists have a mark to shoot at.

Carl Rose can do things to Adolf Hitler, without altering his fundamental physiognomy, which should make that gentleman squirm. It is in no spirit of parochial pride or village chauvinism that I say that when better caricatures of Hitler are drawn, Carl Rose will draw them. The pity of it is that he does not draw more of them, for he writes the most pungent editorials, sometimes, in a few eloquent combinations of line. The cartoons of Carl Rose which have appeared in The Bulletin seem worthy to me to be exhibited, all to themselves, in one of the exhibition rooms of New York. And the first man to greet this suggestion with a curt and rude raspberry will be–Carl Rose, who, in common with another well known cartoonist, Rollin Kirby to be exact, has the notion that he is just a good and capable carpenter, not an artist.

To return for a paragraph to the subject of censorship attracting undue attention to the object censored. In the same week in which the Prague caricatures had to be removed and the Metropolitan took down a couple of caricatures, Admiral Rodman made a hue and cry about a painting by a fellow Cadmus entitled “The Fleet’s In,” showing girls and gobs on Riverside Drive in any but the most amiable attitudes. The moment Admiral Rodman and Secretary of the Navy Swanson made a row about it, the papers took it up, reproducing the painting in, literally, millions of copies so that everybody saw what it was about, whereas had they shut their mouths only a few critics and dilettantes would have bothered about it. The unfortunate thing is that it does not look, in reproduction, like a very good picture, but it does look, if not posterish at least like a work of art that might help induce some youngsters to join the Navy and have a hell of a good time, at least when “The Fleet’s In.”

TO ADDRESS YOUTH RALLY

Dr. Shalom Spiegel, Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Jewish Institute of Religion, and Joseph Sprinzak, vice president of the World Zionist Actions Committee and Histadruth emissary in America, will be the principal speakers at a youth rally next Saturday evening at Stuyvesant High School. The rally is sponsored by the Youth Council for Labor Palestine.