“times” Compares Anti-semitic Disturbances in Roumania to Last Year’s Palestine Riots

Sharp criticism of the admitted action of the Roumanian minister of the interior, Dr. Alexander Vayda Voevod, in giving a high post in the ministry to M. Tazladanu, a noted anti-Semite, in the hope of appeasing the anti-Semitic organizations and at the same time keeping tabs on their activities is expressed in an editorial in yesterday’s “New York Times” which sees the promises of Premier Maniu to put an end to the anti-Semitic disturbances as unfulfilled.

After pointing out that the attacks on Jews have increased the “Times” says that the reports of the disturbances in Roumania “begin to sound ominously like the ‘incidents’ in Palestine last year which government neglect permitted to flare up into tragedy.” Admitting that it may be true that the disturbances are being instigated against the Maniu government by the Liberals, the “Times” see the prestige and good name of Roumania at stake, apart from the danger to the Jewish population.

Saying that in Roumania “the anti-Semitic mischief makers seem often to have been met more with sorrow than anger,” the “Times” admits that the agricultural depression may be making the peasants more amenable to anti-Semitic incitement, but it points out that “in the history of modern minority- baiting it is established that primary responsibility is with the government authorities. Mobs will go in for riot when assured of protection, and will hesitate when the government makes it plain that it will suppress and punish rioting.”