That the testimony of Dr. William A. Wirt, Gary educator who yesterday named the author of the assertion that President Roosevelt is “only the Kerensky of this revolution,” will be considered further by the special Congressional committee to investigate Nazi propaganda activities in the United States, was indicated here today.
The Wirt investigation committee, limited by the resolution by which it was created to specific charges made by Dr. Wirt, learned the undistinguished names of “Brain Trust Revolutionists” today. To get the facts behind the Indiana school teacher’s charges, further investigation may be undertaken by Representative McCormack’s Congressional committee to investigate Nazi propaganda. This, it is said, may involve the Silver Shirts, although no direct tie between Dr. Wirt and that organization has been brought to light.
It was learned that William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirt movement, has sent a confidential letter to all members of the Silver Legion in which he purports to give full details of the Wirt charges, naming Felix Frankfurter as the key man and Jews in the Administration as “plotters” against the American government. Neither Frankfurter nor Jews mentioned by Pelley were mentioned in Dr. Wirt’s testimony here today.
PELLEY CIRCULATES LETTER
Pelley has circulated a letter among his followers and among a select clientele who can afford to pay $25 yearly for weekly “inside” information on the machinations of the Government. In his most recent release Pelley cited a number of Jewish and non-Jewish members of the Roosevelt recovery administration as conspirators in the interests of “Communistic Jewry” for the overthrow of American civilization.
The Wirt investigation today collapsed and served little purpose other than to afford amusement for crowds that packed the huge House Caucus Room where the hearing was held.
WIRT GIVES NAMES
Dr. Wirt named Lawrence Todd correspondent for the Soviet Tass News Agency, as the person who referred to President Roosevelt as “only the Kerensky of this revolution.” He stated that six minor employees of the Administration were present at the time of the incident and said that two, Miss Mary Taylor, an economist of the Department of Agriculture, and Miss Hildegarde Kneeland of the Home Economics Section of the same department, had “acquiesced” to the Todd suggestion.
In a speech before the House of Representatives yesterday, Representative Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania recognized by many as the mouthpiece for many policies of the Silver Shirt movement and himself a ranting opponent of “International Jewry,” defended the right of Dr. Wirt to speak at length before the investigating committee. After it had been tacitly agreed to curtail all superfluous opinions in the Wirt interrogation, McFadden warned the Democrats that if the right to make a comprehensive statement were denied the Indiana educator he would counsel him to say nothing at all to the committee.
RANTS AGAINST GOVERNMENT
In his confidential letter, released about a week ago, Pelley informed his disciples: “The facts of the matter are that Dr. Wirt wrote nothing that has not been an open secret and an increasing scandal at Washington ever since March 4, 1933, among those Congressmen, journalists and patrion society members who have has access to the facts as to why the Brain Trust was formed at all and precisely what NRA was designated to accomplish. For fifteen months exactly these facts have been advanced in Liberation Weekly and become nationally known to enlightened members of the great Silver Legion.
“What Dr. Wirt or Mr. Rand have not as yet touched upon,” informed Pelley, “is the key to the complication supplied by Communistic Jewry and boldly announced in the much contested Protocols, namely Protocol Eight.–.”
Pelley then recites from the frequently – discredited Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which “reveal” the Jewish plot to surround all governments with Jewish economists. “They (the Jews) have one system to tangle up the Gentile and another which they hope to install when Gentile stupidity has bankrupted the world,” Pelley quotes.
STRIKES AT FRANKFURTER
To bring this ancient forgery up-to-date, Pelley designated Felix Frankfurter, noted Harvard leg teacher, as the guiding genius of the “plot.” He claims that Frankfurter’s proteges have been “planted” in practically every branch of the Government and calls attention to the fact that these men are Jews and Gentiles who hold important positions in the Government’s legal service.
Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury; Jerome N. Frank of Chicago, appointed as solicitor of the Department of Agriculture and later adviser to the Secretary of Agriculture; “the Jew” Secretary of the Interior Ickes, Isador Lubin, economist in the Labor Department, and Dr. Mordecai Ezekiel, economic adviser to the Secretary of Agriculture, are mentioned among “plotters.”
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