Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, writing in his syndicated New York World-Telegram column today, warned of the reaction against racial groups in this country if the United States is drawn into a European war.
Declaring growing editorial opinion in favor of America’s taking sides in a foreign conflict was based partly on “sincere, earnest and patriotic judgment” and partly on “impractical idealism” and “understandable racial resentment of brutal and unbelievable cruel racial persecution in Germany,” Gen. Johnson concluded:
“We may thus be high-powered through another expeditionary force into the blood and mud and dreariness and welter of another set of rented trenches in Europe. But if we are, then when the ‘boys come home’ I wouldn’t like to be in any one of the pressure groups who are now urging on us that course — either of resentful racial groups or politicians courting racial groups, or war sirens of any other persuasion. There might not be enough lampposts to sustain them.”
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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.
