Charging that Ford’s “Dearborn Independent” in its issue of August 20, 1922 made “scurrilous and libellous” charges aginst him, Herman Bernstein, editor of the “Jewish Tribune” has announced that he will start suit against the automobile magnate of Detrcit. Samuel Untermyer will act as counsel for Mr. Bernstein.
Mr. Bernstein charges he was represented in Ford’s paper “as a sort of spy in the service” of a “mythical” combination of International Jewish bankers.
The article in question, Mr. Bernstein asserts in the letter he has addressed to Henry Ford on July 4, consisted of “grotesque assaults” upon Jewish bankers “based upon a tissue of fabirications that indicate an extent of ignorance and imbecility and of race bigotry and hatred that are beyond human understanding.”
Mr. Bernstein declares that in an interview with the Universal News Service in June, 1922, Ford charged that the statements against the Jewish bankers had been communicated to him by the editor.
In his letter, Mr. Bernstein declares that he will give Ford ten days to inform him whether or not he will accept service for the suit in New York State. After the expiration of this period, if Ford will not accept service in New York, suit against him will be started in Detroit.
“I am determined to seek redress for the injury you have done me”, Mr. Bernstein writes, “and incidentally to expose the wanton falsshoods you have been spreading over the country concerning the Jews of the land, based largely upon documents that I have heretofore exposed as forgeries, and the prejudices you have been trying to create based on these figments of a diseased imagination. It is high time for the American people to get a true pictures of the manner of man you are and I feel that in prosecuting this suit. I am performing an important public service.”
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.
