Little Raymond Healey, a youth who says he was twenty-one in September but who looks several years younger, and who wears a large metal swastika in his lapel, appeared before the Congressional Committee to Investigate un-American Activities in the Bar Association building Friday afternoon and testified concerning the recent birth of the anti-Semitic Healey’s Irish Weekly.
Raymond, a stunted, beardless youth, proved a recalcitrant witness whose memory was very poor for everything except declamations against the Jews, which he repeated parrot-like at the least provocation in the vain hope that they would go onto the committee’s record and into the notes of reporters present.
HAS BODYGUARD
Accompanying him was a motherly bodyguard of three women, said to be members of the Friends of New Germany, all of whom spoke with strong German accents and who beamed affectionately on the little fellow when he attempted to speak his invariably interrupted pieces in a quivering, immature treble.
Congressman Samuel Dickstein, vice-chairman of the committee, who presided Friday, took Raymond quite seriously, however, and fired stern questions which the youth stubbornly evaded.
After some contemplative remarks about the possibilities of citing the boy for contempt, Dickstein adjourned the hearing until next Wednesday afternoon, instructing Raymond to bring counsel with him to protect his constitutional rights.
TAKES OATH
The session started in fine fettle when Raymond took the oath with his arm extended in “Heil Hitler” fashion instead of in the conventional upright position.
Asked how Healey’s Irish Weekly whose second issue came off the press Friday, is financed, Raymond said he is its sole owner. He told the committee he started the paper with “several hundred dollars” which he had not in a bank account, but “in my own pocket.”
He denied having obtained financial aid from the Friends of New Germany or from Dr. Hubert Schnuch, that organization’s national president, explaining that the “several hundred dollars” really was $200, which he claimed to have received from the sale of a pamphlet, “Nordics Awake!” which he said he had written.
SUM TOTALS $20
A slight inconsistency appeared some time later when he declared that of 1,000 of these pamphlets printed, 200 had been sold at ten cents a copy—which would represent a total gross income of twenty dollars from the project.
Fred Hackl of 221 East Eighty-third street, the boy finally reluctantly admitted, printed both “Nordics Awake” and Healey’s Irish Weekly.
Raymond has no office, he said. He gave as his only headquarters the number of a mailing box in the office of Ernst O, Hopf of 308 East Eighty-sixth street, Yorkville accountants who run what is commonly known as the “Nazi post office” because it contains more than 150 similar mailing addresses.
ASKED TO BE COURTEOUS
When Dickstein ordered the boy to answer questions respectfully and to bear in mind that he was appearing at a Government hearing, Raymond asked:
“What government”?
“The United States Government,” Dickstein replied.
“I thought you meant the international finance government,” the youthful editor and publisher retorted.
Pointing out that Healey’s Irish Weekly pretends to attack Communism in this country, the Congressman asked the witness whether he has any real evidence of subversive Communistic activities here.
“New York University is enough evidence of that, isn’t it?” Raymond responded.
RANTS IN ZIONISM
Later, in one of those little speeches which were nipped in the bud, he said:
“It is my conviction that Zionism and Judaism are un-American.”
“Have you any proof?” Dickstein inquired.
“I’ll present it in time,” Raymond answered. “The Protocols—I’ll present that.”
Here occurred a melodramatic piece of business which left everyone in the room grinning. The boy yanked a little swastika banner from his pocket and slapped it onto the table, like a pinochle player drawing trump.
“That’s what I believe in, see?” he exclaimed.
He proceeded to explain that “the red in it represents the blood of the people; the white stands for honesty.”
As for the swastika itself: “That there,” he explained, “is the symbol of the Nordic race.”
WHERE’S SHAMROCKS?
Why hadn’t he brought in the shamrock? Dickstein asked, pointing out that the latter emblem occupies a place of equal honor with the swastika in the masthead of Healey’s Irish Weekly.
“My face is enough,” the boy replied. “I’m Irish.”
When Dickstein characterized the paper as an attack upon “certain races,” Raymond interrupted him.
“Upon the Jews,” the boy amended.
Asked whether the paper was created to incite a campaign of racial disturbance, the witness answered:
“I’m only leading it—helping to lead it.”
REFUSES ADDRESS
When the Congressman requested his resident address, young Healey refused to give it at the open hearing but agreed to write it on a slip of paper for Dickstein’s eyes alone.
“I’ve had Communists come into my home plenty of times,” he said. “I had a knife stuck into my hand. I don’t want no stink bombs thrown into my house.”
Questioned regarding the extent of his acquaintance with Schnuch, Hackl and Dr. Ignatz Griebl, the youth said:
“I know those people just like I know you, that’s all, just by meeting them.”
Later he declared:
“I’ve declared against the Jews because the Jews have declared war against the Gentiles.”
‘I’M A HITLER’
Asked whether he is a follower of Hitler, Raymond said:
“I’m a Hitler.” At this point he bit fiercely into the wad of chewing gum in his mouth and groped nervously for a cigarette.
Questions regarding his knowledge of Communism here evoked the following response:
“I put men into the Communist party. Those names I would never give out because they’re still in there, see?”
Dickstein directed him to name these “men,” but he refused.
Several questions were asked him in reference to the “Anglo-Saxon Celtic Alliance,” the “organization” which publishes Healey’s Irish Weekly. It was pointed out that because its name never has been filed with the county clerk, it is illegal. Healey volunteered the information that the paper’s subscription blanks bear the name of the “Anglo-Saxon Celtic Anti-Jewish Alliance.”
Although “unable” to recollect the names of almost everyone about whom the committee asked him, Raymond glibly reeled off the names of “a bunch of Jews” whom he said he had met in 1931 while supposedly associated with the local Communist party, ostensibly for espionage purposes.
He represented himself as a member of Royal Scott Gulden’s Order of ’76 and a former member of Art Smith’s Khaki Shirts.
Asked whether he believes a story in his paper, copied from a magazine known as “Inside Stuff,” to the effect that every United States army officer admires Hitler and wants Fascism here, he replied:
“I absolutely do—ninety per cent of them, I should think.”
Adolph Sutro, who was elected Mayor of San Francisco in 1894 on a Populist ticket, left on his death a library over 200,000 volumes.
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.
