Despite the pledges of national and state leaders of both the Republican and Democratic Parties not to permit the entrance of racial and religious issues into the current election campaigns, the New York State gubernatorial campaign has been marked by charges and counter-charges of anti-Jewish prejudice and bias.
Senator Irving M. Ives, Republican candidate for the governorship, accused his Democratic opponent, Averell Harriman of attempting to make him appear anti-Semitic. Mr. Harriman had compared a statement by Sen. Ives with a statement made by John Foster Dulles in 1945 when Mr. Dulles ran against Herbert H. Lehman for the senatorship.
The Dulles statement, which the New York Times said had been made in an attempt to describe members of the American Labor Party which was supporting Sen Lehman, declared: “If you could see the kind of people in New York City making up this bloc that is voting for my opponent, if you could see them with your own eyes, I know you would be out, every last man and woman of you, on Election Day.”
Citation of this quotation by the Democrats, Sen. Ives said, was an effort to make it appear that he was anti-Semitic. “Of course,” he added, “my whole record completely and absolutely belies anything of this kind.” He cited his record in the U.S. Senate and in the State Legislature in fighting bias, pointing out that he was one of the two authors of the Ives-Quinn Bill, which in 1945 outlawed discrimination in employment in this state.
Mr. Harriman, meanwhile, has denied that he sought to level charges of anti-Semitism against Sen. Ives. It was his aim, he said, to show that the Republicans were trying to divide the city’s voters from the rest of the state and “stir up hatred” between the two segments of the population.
Sen. Ives also denied that his party had displayed “bigotry” by omitting from advertisements in Syracuse newspapers the name and picture of Rep. Jacob Javits, Republican candidate for Attorney-General, and termed the charges “base and malicious, ” Frank De Vecchi, Republican candidate for Controller and a resident of Syracuse, said the photo of Mr. Javits had been omitted “simply because the picture of Mr. Javits did not arrive in time.”
Rep. Javits joined Sen. Ives in an appeal to drop the issue, declaring: “For me it is not an issue and it has ended here and now and as far as I am concerned any Democratic Party candidate getting into it hereafter will be talking to himself.”
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.
