A high Justice Department official source said today that while the swelling stream of anti-Semitic “hate mail” is deplorable, the Department will not request new legislation to curb it.
This indication came in the wake of a meeting of top Justice and Post Office Department officials. The meeting was called to discuss the increasing “hate mail” and its. relation to the recent bombings of synagogues. In their formal statement, officials promised “to cooperate vigorously” in action. They noted that “the difficulty, of course, is that many of these publications will not violate present laws even though they are warped and abhorrent.”
Representatives of both departments said they would “study the possibility” of new legislation to bar such publications from the mails. But “the problem, of course, is to determine a way to accomplish this within the framework of Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech.” It was after this statement that the indication came that the Justice Department would not request new legislation.
(In St. Louis, about 80 persons, Including 30 children, were forced to flee from the local Young Men’s Hebrew Association building because of a bomb threat, police reported. After the YMHA received a warning that it would be blown up, police squads searched the building but found no explosives. It was regarded as an anti-Semitic hoax.)
F. B. I. director J. Edgar Hoover announced today that special law enforcement conferences will be held during November and December at which the FBI will outline to state and local law enforcement officials the cooperative services of the FBI in connection with bombings and threats against synagogues, churches, and schools.
Mr. Hoover expressed belief that “these outrages can be materially curbed by an aroused public opinion, a coordinated effort on the part of Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies and by stern treatment of the perpetrators.” The conferences to be set up by the FBI will be held throughout the United States.
In Arlington, Va., the local B’nai B’rith lodge has asked Helen S. Lane to resign from the Arlington school board because of her friendly association with two publishers of anti-Semitic literature. The resolution request was in the form of a resolution unanimously adopted by the executive committee of the local B’nal B’rith lodge.
The resolution is expected to come before the County Board of Supervisors on Saturday, but the board has no power to remove a school board member. A school board member can be removed only through grand jury action.
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.
