Emphasizing that the war must bring about a definite recognition of the rights of minorities, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., today congratulated Aleph Zadik Aleph, the B’nai B’rith youth organization, for its decision to hold its annual convention by mail this year.
The Secretary of the Treasury, in a letter addressed to William V. Suckle, national president of the A.Z.A., estimated that this decision will result in conserving for essential military purposes approximately 1,000,000 passenger miles of vital transportation space. He lauded it as an example of voluntary participation in the country’s war effort.
“In a profound sense this war is a struggle for the youth of the world,” Mr. Morgenthau said, “The outcome of this war will determine for years to come whether youth is to remain free — free to develop its own potentialities, free to express its own creative talents, free to grow up to be thoughtful, mature men — or whether youth is to be denied its birthright and forced to goose-step to the whim of some power-crazed tyrant. There can be no doubt as to which side in this terrible conflict has the best interests of youth at heart.
“But there is another sense in which this war is a struggle for youth. I am thinking now of Jewish youth — and the youth of all other minorities. The long, bitter history of the oppression of minorities is proof that majorities may often be tyrannical. This war must not end only with the recognition of the rights of majorities; it must end with a corresponding recognition of the rights of minorities. A genuine democracy recognizes the intrinsic worth and dignity of the individual; it encourages difference, variety, and uniqueness; it puts its faith in intelligence.
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.
