News Brief

THE interview with Mr. Seward Collins, editor of the American Review, published in The Jewish Daily Bulletin today, contains startling statements by one of the leaders of American “intellectual Fascism.” We believe he is entirely wrong in his opinion that the Jews of America “for their own good should prepare for the coming of Fascism to this country.” We also believe that he is entirely misguided in his prophecy regarding “the disaster” to which American Jewry is doomed under a liberal form of government.

Mr. Collins, who is opposed to the “Silver Shirts” of Pelley because of the anti-Semitic tendency of that organization, and to other American so-called Fascist leaders because they are “far too lenient with capitalists,” says:

“As in days prior to the ascension of Adolf Hitler to power when the Jews suffered from an overdose of liberalism, so today in the United States they are becoming victims to the same unreasoned liberalism. Unless the Jews themselves take steps to counteract the nationalistic and utterly raclalistic trend which appears to be sweeping in the wake of an impractical democracy, they are almost certain to suffer here as they have during centuries of recurrent nationalism.”

Mr. Collins does not seem to realize that Hitlerism in Germany came into power not because there was too much liberalism in Germany but because there was still too little liberalism there. The democratic forces in Germany did not consolidate their position with sufficient vision and energy, and the foundations of the new republic were not yet solid enough to withstand the onslaughts of the well-organized but unscrupulous agitators who made the most fantastic promises to the disillusioned and distressed German people. The forces of peace in Germany were unable to cope with the rising tide of Prussian militarism which had been for generations part and parcel of Teuton psychology.

Fascism, dictatorship can successfully be imposed only upon a people that has been accustomed to being ruled by an autocracy. The rulers may change, but the methods of force and violence employed by these rulers are identical.

There is no room for Fascism in the United States. The foundations upon which American independence has been built are strong enough to resist any forms of dictatorship. What America needs today is not less but more democracy, not less but more social justice. Then all these “war babies”–the new political fads that have sprung up in various lands in the World War’s aftermath–will not affect American life.

And as for the Jews, it has been their experience in history that their welfare is bound up with liberalism, enlightenment, progress and democracy. Anti-Semitism has ever been the weapon of the dark, reactionary forces of retrogression. The salvation of Jewry lies in forward-looking democracies and not in backward-looking autocracies or dictatorships,–in peace, not in war.