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Welles Upholds U.S. Right to Condemn Dictators; Lawyers Hit Persecution

January 30, 1939
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The American Government’s right to condemn “cruel and inhuman treatment of human beings” by any country was upheld Friday night by Sumner Welles, Under-Secretary of State, in an address before the New York State Bar Association. “The people of the United States and their Government have always maintained, and in practice have made it clear,” Mr. Welles declared, “that they assert the right to protest and to condemn the cruel and inhuman treatment of human beings wherever such brutality occurs.”

A resolution condemning racial and religious persecution and calling on Americans to rally against totalitarian threats was adopted yesterday by the association at the close of its annual meeting. The resolution expressed “dismay and abhorrence” at the violations of civil liberties in “more then one-quarter of the world” in the form of arrests, incarcerations in prison and concentration camps “solely on grounds of race, religion or political opinions.” It added: “Such systematic wholesale persecution is without parallel in the history of civilized countries.”

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