Not the Polish Jews, but the civilization which permitted the resurgence of hatred should wear a yellow badge of shame, Senator William H. King of Utah declared last night before two audiences at the Hotels Commodore and Astor, totaling some 5,000 persons, who attended the “Third Seder” of the National Labor Committee for Palestine.
The seder, admission to which required each person to raise $20, grossed about $100,000 for labor projects in Palestine, it was announced by Secretary Isaac Hamlin. The dinner was one of a number of such affairs held throughout the country.
Declaring that America faced the challenge of fighting off a Nazi “propaganda war” which had been brought to “our own front door,” Senator King asserted: “Throughout the past seven years we have witnessed a ruthless but carefully calculated campaign to dismember small countries through the use of racial and religious prejudices as the Trojan horse. The Jewish people in Germany and other parts of Europe were unhappily cast in the role of the first victims.”
In Nazi-occupied Poland, the Senator said, “all Jews are compelled to wear an armlet or a yellow badge on their clothing as a mark of degradation and shame. But as a Christian I cannot help but feel that not the Jews but the civilization which has permitted the resurgence of medievalism and brute hatred in our day should wear that yellow badge. The Jews in Poland are wearing the yellow badge for every enlightened man and woman who has failed to cry out against the heinous injustice which has brought an innocent people to the verge of extermination.”
Referring to the Palestine land restrictions, he said: “I cannot understand how, at a time when Palestine must be prepared to provide a home for tens of thousands of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, any government can promulgate laws that would in any way interfere with this urgent activity.”
Other speakers were Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Joseph Schlossberg, Morris Feinstone, Israel Mereminski, Louis Lipsky, Chaim Greenberg, David Pinski, Louis Segal, Baruch Zuckerman and Alexander Kahn.
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