Roumanian Legation Attacks Report of American Committee on Religious Minorities (By Our Washington Correspondent)
The report of the American Committee on Religious Minorities concerning the oppression of national minorities in Roumania, particularly the anti-Jewish discriminations and persecutions, evoked a rejoinder of the Royal Roumanian Legation here. Unable to refute the Committee’s presentation of the situation the statement of the Roumanian Legation resorts to abuse and a flat denial of the Committee’s findings. The rejoinder of the Legation was handed to the City News Association in Washington and states:
“The Associated Press circulated a statement of the preliminary report on a survey made in Roumania by some members of the American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities, in which they state that a ‘hideous campaign of intimidation and brutality against Jews exists in Roumania.’
“It is beyond understanding how the Committee could have arrived at this conclusion. During the last few years, it has been the habit of this Committee to provide a pleasant excursion in Roumania for five or six of its members, whose reports invariably pointed out that the Roumanian Government does not live up to its treaty obligations regarding the various groups of minorities living within its boundaries. At first, the Roumanian Government tried to reply to these reports by bringing forth undisputable facts to the effect that all the minorities are accorded complete economical, religious, political and educational freedom. The Committee if it cared, could have easily controlled these facts. Yet, it was satisfied to disregard the facts and maintain their report in its entirety. The Roumanian Government has shown, among other things, that the Committee did not care to examine both sides of the problem, and relied entirely upon statements made by leaders of the minority groups whose grievances against Roumanian consist chiefly in the effects of the expropriation, to which they have not become reconciled like the Roumanian land owners.
“The statements of the Roumanian Government were substantiated repeatedly by other disinterested observers, among whom Sir Eric Drummond and Mr. Colban, both high dignitaries of the League of Nations, are outstanding. They verified the fact that the Roumanian Government not only lived up to the letter and spirit of its treaty obligations, but went beyond them by providing schools for all the minorities, in which they were taught in their own languages. They left all the churches and synagogues of these minorities untouched, and overlooked the provoking attitude of some of their servitors, an attitude which, in any other country, would have been considered as high treason against the State. This attitude was influenced greatly by their coreligionists in America, who took for granted all their recriminations against Roumania without taking the trouble to verify the facts in the proper spirit.
“If these coreligionists, like the American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities, would limit their activities to calling the attention of their proteges to their obligations towards the Roumanian State, they would do a far greater service for them than by entertaining a feeling of hostility toward Roumania.
“This Legation refrains form going into the discussion of facts, which are widely known to every unbiased observer.” The statement quotes an excerpt from an article which appeared in the “Christian Science Monitor” of November 9, relating to the situation of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania.
“If one would not know that on the American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities there are persons of high character and unquestionable good faith and impartiality, one would be inclined to believe that one is faced with official Hungarian propagandists. These gentlemen would do a great service for international peace if, in the future, they would be more careful in the selection of their investigators in Roumania.”
W. Benjamin Brown, representing the Utah Poultry Producers Co-operative Association, who recently visited Palestine, where he studied agricultural conditions, will speak under the auspices of the Back-to-Herzl movement at the Hotel Breslin, 29th Street and Broadway, New York on Wednesday evening, December 14. The subject of his address will be “How Taxation Affects Palestine Agricultural Effort.”
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.
