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Roosevelt Broadens Peace Action to Include Leaders of All Creeds

December 31, 1939
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President Roosevelt today extended an open invitation to the leaders of all creeds and religions to confer with him on world peace plans.

Apparently in response to criticism from some quarters of his moves to coordinate religions in a peace drive, the spearhead of which will be the Vatican, he emphasized that religious leaders representing any sects besides the Catholic, Jewish and those in the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, were welcome at the White House at any time.

The President specifically mentioned the Southern Baptists, the Southern Presbyterians, the Lutherans and the Episcopalians, which are not members of the Federal Council, as being welcome to discuss peace plans with him on the same basis as Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Dr. George A. Buttrick, president of the Federal Council.

Meanwhile, official Washington speculated, but not publicly, upon the silence of “radio priest” Charles E. Coughlin on the President’s naming of Myron C. Taylor as his personal representative at the Vatican and the new liaison between the White House and Rome.

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