The Dismissal of the case against Pothier and Captain Rosenbluth was interpreted by Ford’s “Dearborn Independent” as “an orderly end to a long and sensational attempt to block the processes of the United States court and to prevent the trial of a man indicted for high crime.” The “Dearborn Independent” further stated, “The shameful interference of racial organizations and the hysterical efforts to make of Captain Rosenbluth an American Dreyfus were amply illustrative of the length to which an alien type of mind will go to neutralize the safeguards which have been get up for the people in our laws and courts.”
This brought a reply from Louis Marshall in a statement issued by him to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“The editorial on the Rosenbluth case published in the recent number of the “Dearborn Independent”, is an illustration of the disgraceful methods of that publication, under cover of which Henry Ford manifests his fanaticism. For weeks and months its columns reeked with vile falsehoods, wicked and insane imaginings, and cunningly contrived appeals to passion and prejudice, in order to compass the destruction of a fellow-being. In spite of Rosenbluth’s exoneration by the public authorities of the State of Washington and by the United States District Court, Ford still indulges in insinuations and innuendoes against him and in refiecions upon the Jews. He is incapable of ridding that pitiable mind of his of the monomania that has taken possession of it.
“The fact that Captain Rosenbluth’s friends came to his rescue, is referred to as ‘the shameful interference of racial organizations.’ Their efforts to prevent Ford and other enemies of Captain Rosenbluth from virtually ‘railroading’ him, are declared to be ‘illustrative of the length to which an alien type of mind will go to neutralize the safeguards which have been set up for the people in our laws and courts.’ What that ‘alien type of mind’ did was to resort to these very safeguards. The statement of this piratical publication, that it expressed no opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the two accused men, is belied by the disgraceful vilification which it unceasingly employed while the case was awaiting the action of the courts.
“Even now Ford is attempting to minimize Rosenbluth’s judicial exoneration by saying that the trial has not ‘cleared up the mystery of Major Cronkhite’s death.’ There never was the slightest mystery concerning it. The Court of Inquiry held immediately after his death, consisting of brother officers of high rank, found that his death was due to an accidentally self-inflicted wound. The State authorities, after careful investigation, reached the same conclusion; as did the jury in the Federal Court. Again, with characteristic suggestion of a falsehood, Ford declares that ‘the confession of Pothier implicating Rosenbluth is still unexplained.’
“The official representative of the State of Washington analyzed the so-called confession and found that it was the result of shameful coercion and duress and was brought about by the application of the infamous third degree. Judge Cushman in the Federal Court, ruled that the confession to which the Government’s star witness testified was worthless, and instructed the jury to disregard it. The Secret Service Agent who procured another of these confessions testified that he gave no credence to it. And the jury, by its verdict gave to all of these so-called confessions their quietus.
“That the prosecution of Captain Rosebluth did not have a shred of evidence to support it, is established by the fact that the special counsel employed by the Government, after communication with the Department of Justice at Washington, of his own motion and in the absence of Rosenbluth and his counsel, moved for a dismissal of the indictment; so that Rosenbluth and the fifty witnesses whom, at his instance, the Government subpoenaed and brought to Tacoma for his defense, were prevented, after crossing the continent, from giving their testimony. There never was a more complete admission of the utter absence of probable cause than that thus made by the prosecution.
“And yet Ford, the intellectual brother of the Ku Klux Klan, the inspirer of Hitler and Ludendorf, whose text-book is ‘The International Jew’s which is distributed throughout the world by this irresponsible disseminator of libels, instead of making reparation, persists, as one would expect a man of his low mentality to do, in his crusade against him upon whom he has inflicted so terrible a wrong. There is not a decent man who would not rather stand in the shoes of Captain Rosenbluth than in those of Ford, even though he be the richest man in all the world. In the words of the Psalmist:
“‘The wicked plotteth against the righteous, And gnasheth at him with his teeth. The Lord doth laugh at him, For he seeth that his day is coming.'”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
