U.S. Public Opinion Will Prevent Hitlerites from Executing Anti-semitic Program, Former American En

“If the Hitlerites in Germany ever attempt to carry out their anti-Semitic policies, public opinion in the United States will rise so strong as to force them to drop activity against the Jews,” declared James J. Gerard, ex-ambassador to Germany, in an address in the auditorium of the Rodoff Sholom congregation, Tuesday night. Mr. Gerard, who was United States ambassador to Germany from 1913 to 1917 traced the history of anti-Jewish feeling in Germany, and described the Hitler anti-Semitism as a medieval hang-over.

“Germany as a country is far more feudal and backward than we understand,” said Mr. Gerard. “It is as if the people had appointed a distinct class of professors and scientists to do all their learning for them, while the people themselves remained far behind. If you subtract the Jews from Germany there is very little kultur left.”

He pointed out that the system of government by a special governing class, so strongly maintained in Germany until the war, was an example of German backwardness. “Until the second year of the war, no Jew was permitted to be an officer in the army. No Jew was permitted to attain the nobility marked by a ‘von’ before his name, unless he were baptised.”

AVOIDED TOUCHING JEWS

Mr. Gerard told of attending a reception in the home of the richest man in Berlin, a manufacturer of chemicals, who had attained his “von.” “I saw a German count who kept his gloves on all evening. I asked him why he kept on his white gloves. He said he would not touch the hand of the Jew.”

This Jew-hatred Mr. Gerard traced to the middle ages. “During the plague of the Black Death in the fourteenth century, it was noticed that the percentage of deaths among the Jews—probably because they kept to their dietary laws— was lower than among the other peoples. In Strassbourg, 2,000 Jews were burned for bringing the Black Death among the people. In Frankfurt, hundreds committed suicide rather than suffer German persecution. The Jews were blamed for the Black Death.

“During the last war, the thing happened again. As the Germans began to feel beaten, the whisper went around that the Jews were to blame for German defeat. Why, nobody knows. Such reasoning is simply medieval superstition.

RECALLS POLITICAL MURDERS

“After the revolution in Germany, there were a good many Jews in the government. They began to call it the Jewish Republic. And then began the political murders. Before quiet was restored, there were about 279 political murders. During that time, Hitler first appeared as an associate in the Munich putsch.

“Hitler’s policies as officially proclaimed in his party newspaper declare that no Jew shall be allowed to buy land; that no Jew shall be allowed to serve in the army, but that he must pay a heavy tax for this exemption; that no Jew may get a higher education, or teach; that any Jew who entered the country since 1914 must be expelled; that anyone whose family were Jews in 1852 is still a Jew, no matter what he professes to be; that any paper published by Jews must bear the sign of the star of David.

“These are all marks of medievalism. It is my conviction that the sensible middle class in Germany will not allow the ountry to go to any such extremes. Unless there is a terrible world convulsion from Russia during the next decade, upsetting everything, the Jews have nothing to fear in Germany. It is true that some Jews are sending their families and property out of Germany.

“But in this country we know what Jews are. We do not share the prejudice felt somewhere against them because of their financial success. I firmly believe that should any such thing as a carrying out of the Hitler policy be attempted in Germany, there would be so great an opposition raised here that they would be led to drop all action of that kind.”