The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle from Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Page 1

(fftroMcfe 240 North Milwaukee Street Telephone MArquette 2 9 9 2 Vol 43 No. 15 Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice of Milwaukee. under the Act of March 3. 1879 MILWAUKEE, JUNE 16, 1939 Per Year $3 lewis Approach $265,500 Quota SOME OF MY An American Non BEST FRIENDS Jew Speaks Out In Emergency Campaign For Jewish Welfare Fund REFUGEES OBTAIN HAVENS IN FOUR EUROPEAN LANDS Holland, Belgium, England and France to Admit St. Louis Refugees Wednesday's Report Shows Total of By FRANCIS SILL WICKWARE This poignant article by a man who dares to speak the truth, Francis Sill Wickware, a member of the staff of "Fortune" and formerly a staff member of "The New Yorker," is an open, critical challenge by a non-Jew to his friends.

Through special arrangements with "Equality," the monthly journal dedicated to the purpose of defending democratic rights, Seven Arts and The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle bring you this unusual, interesting and revealing article. The Editor Nazi Paper Jeers at Sovereigns for Hearing "Jews Play Swing" Berlin (JTA) The newspaper Rheinfrbnt, typical of Nazi press comment on the Royal tour of Canada and the United States, declared editorially: "We turn pale with jealousy, we poor slaves of Fascist dictatorship. We console ourselves, however, by thinking that we shall never go so far, for we are without a wild-west tradition. As an example of the highest American civilization, during the banquets negro songs and swing music directed by Jews were presented. Before such exhibitions, the English Royal couple must have had special cause for rejoicing at the ideal type of civilization reigning on the other side of the big pond." Workers' Morale at Highest Point As Campaign Goes Into Final Stages; Several Thousand Cards Still Outstanding JUNIOR DIVISION GUARANTEES ITS GOAL OF $6,100 TO REACH Over $200,000 and still going That is the inspiring report Emergency campaign of the Milwaukee Jewish Welfare Fund.

Within striking distance of their $265,500 quota, the workers are expected to redouble their efforts over the week-end and during the next few days to bring the sion. Reports at a workers' meeting hotel showed a grand in more ways than one total of $204,218. The initial gift committee was responsible for 376 of that amount, with the women's teams, junior division, special gifts division, and the Waukesha team, $1,808. Another report meeting was scheduled for Friday noon, too late for publication in this issue. Probably the most heartening feature of the campaign was the splendid report of the junior division in reporting an amount only $151 short of its quota of $6,100.

In the words of Chairman Erwin Greene, "The amount is so close to the quota that it hurts, but we're so sure of reaching our goal that we'd be willing to write a promissory note for the balance. J. D. C. AIDS IN PLACING JEWS STRANDED ON SHIP New York (JT A) The Joint Distribution Committee announced this week that all the 907 refugees aboard the German liner St.

Louis "will find a haven in Europe." It was indicated that the countries are England, France, Belgium and Holland. "It was learned that the numbers to be accepted by the countries are approximately as follows: Holland, 200; Belgium, 200, and France, 250. The J. D. C.

statement, issued by James N. Rosenberg as chairman of the National Council, follows: "I believe we may fairly state, after four days and nights of tireless effort, that all of the refugees on the St. Louis will find a haven in Europe. It would be improper for us here to issue any final statement at this time. These must come from the splendid governments which we are assured will give haven to these 907 refugees.

The press has already reported that a substantial number will be received in Holland and I have reason to believe that this will be the case and that it will be in keeping with the tradition of hospitality of that country. Until certain formalities are completed as to the other countries of refuge I think it would be premature to say any more. "We are in daily touch with the refugees on board the ship by radio so as to help them to keep heart and courage. The chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, Mr. Paul Baerwald, is in London with Mr.

Harold Linder, a member of our committee, actively engaged on this matter. Our European director in Paris, Mr. Morris C. Troper, with whom I have been in daily and nightly touch by telephone during. the past four days, is in closest contact with the problem.

In the light of discussions conducted by our representatives and by ourselves, we have renewed hope that the matter will be solved according to the principles of humanity." Britain to Accept 1,500 Refugees for Farm Training London (JT A) About 1,500 refugees will be admitted to Great Britain for training or employment in agriculture pending reemigration, Maj. Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith, (Continued on Page 8) Strictly BY rmxEAS j. 151 RON Confidential Tid-Bits from Everywhere Abroadcasts We're happy to report that the Germans suffer a lot from big headaches nowadays They're exporting all their aspirin tablets to foreign countries as the chief item on their famous barter deals An interesting bit of news is that the Germans are now engaged in training many thousands of war dogs, who are expetced to help the Red Cross in rescuing wounded soldiers in the anticipated European conflagration Former Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg, still under protective arrest in a Nazi stronghold, has now been reduced to such a men tal state that his chief occupation is playing with dolls Yet the Nazis boast of their humanity in not having had him killed Don't think that the British let Hitler get away with canceling Austria's debt to England or even dropping interest payments, as he tried to do They have been collecting everything due them, having threatened that unless regular interest payments were made they would seize Germany's trade balance in England Look and Listen John Hamilton, chairman of the Re publican National committee, is high ly jittery about the effect which the tying up of his name with the anti Semitic campaign of Gen. Moseley may have had upon the public mind He's sending out carloads of liter- ature proving that he fought the Ku Klux Klan, urged the Rev. Gerald Winrod's defeat in his Kansas Senatorial campaign and was shocked by reports of Nazi cruelty in Germany Walter Winchell, who has a knack of being penetrating as well as smart, says that if Gen.

Moseley is not a Nazi he is a rat that doesn't like cheese Note of warning: There are millions of loyal Americans of German descent who don't care for Nazism any more than you or we, but the tendency in some circles to discriminate against all people of German descent is beginning to get their goat, and may drive them to join Nazi groups in self-defense Nazti News 'Tis said that the Nazis, having the fear of God put into them by Attorney General Murphy's drive against their spies, have transferred their North American spy headquarters to Canada, near the U. S. border The Nazi Association for Germans Abroad, of which Ernest Wiljialm Bohle is the head, is very much satisfied with the "loyalty and support" it receives from Nazis in America, (Continued on Pace 6) among these well-bred, upper-class Americans. It is dreadfully discouraging 'business, because none of them seem to know. They seem willing to subscribe to what they know are lies.

Their attitude resembles that of that distinguished ecclesiastic Coughlin who gleefully flings the vitriol of the "Protocols of Zion" with the comment that while these forgeries may not be "authentic" they are "factual." Likewise with the anti-Semitic canards attributed to Benjamin Franklin and disproved a hundred times over. Now I can understand an economic brand of Jew-hating. I can understand how a Gentile owner of a little shop with three Jewish competitors in the same block might covet their trade and subconsciously transmute his greed into race prejudice. I can also understand how an unemployed factory hand or an evicted farmer, or any ether baffled, beata.i. unpossessed incivicual might emDace the incredible propaganda now circulating against the Jews and find it a scape goat to ease his realisation of fail ure.

But these secure and arrogant people behind braided flunkias and the remote battlements of Park Avenue apartment houses how could they! No one requires them to meet or treat with Jews from one year's end to the next. They aren't in trade. If they have any connection with pov erty and evicted farmers it omes from setting the wig 3 holding the mortgages. They are educated people, too, if Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Smith and Vasa. (let us draw the curtain of charity over Miss Porter's, Miss Walker's, Fermata, and Mill brook) are able to educate.

"Culture Spelled Kultur" Ask them to explain the implications of the U. S. gold monoply and (Continued on Page 8) REICH CONTINUES MASS EXPULSION OF POLISH JEWS Action Against 20,000 Jews Tak en In Retaliation for Polish Stand STARVATIQN STALKS IN BORDER CAMPS Zurich (WNS) More than 20,000 Polish and "stateless" Jews were ordered to leave the Reich by July 1 or face the alternative of being thrown into concentration camps. Several hundred were driven across the border into Poland by the Gestapo, many being added to the 3,700 Jews still liv ing in the frontier camp at Zbaszyn. It is understood that 4,000 Polish Jews have been ordered to leave Germany within three weeks, while 20,000 more have been notified they must emigrate.

The financial burden imposed by the forced emigration must be met by the harassed German Jewish community which is now going through a process of liquidation. It is expected that within three years Berlin Jewry wil be reduced from 125,000 to 20,000. In Munich 400 Jews were under ar rest. Large numbers were in custody in Berlin and Breslau. Several hun dred Jews in Dresden were given only 24 hours to leave Germany.

Those who lost their Polish passports under a new Polish citizenship law last No vember are being taken to concentra tion camps, while those whose passports are in order are being put across the frontier. Expulsions Reviewed East Prussian authorities have or dered all Jews, estimated at 11,000 to be out of that province by June 20 Four thousand Polish Jews in Leipzig have been given notice to leave with in one month. Orders were also given to Polish Jews in Breslau and Kassel while similar moves were reported from Hanover, Kiel, Bremen, Nuern berg. Karlsruhe, Bamberg, Wuerz- berg. Darmstadt and Cologne.

The first mass expulsion of Jews bv Germany occurred last October when 7,000 Jews were driven across the border as the result of the passage of a Polish passport law that was designed mainly to prevent their re turn. Germany's argument at the time was that the Polish action would curtail the German government's right to expel any Polish citizen as an undesirable alien. Poland retaliated and sent several hundred Germans to the border, some of whom were sent into Germany, but the Warsaw government soon rescinded its order. Negotiations were started early this year designed to effect a settlement of the problem. These negotiations never reached final settlement as there are still 3,700 Jews living in the frontier "no-man's land." Jewish circles at Warsaw declared there was still a serious relief situation at many Polish-German border points.

Many of these Jews have been unable to move either way although an agreement between Germany and Poland was announced sev- Continued on Pace 8) OME of my best friends hate Jews. They don't know why they hate them, but they do. I have heard one of my best friends declare with venom on his tongue that though he disapproved of Adolph Hitler's "extremism," he considered the Nazi pogroms "justified by the problem" and I knew he meant that he would consider similar pogroms justified in America. This man is the kindest of husbands, the loving father of three bright-eyed young "Aryans," and a generous supporter of one of the most top-hatted churches on Park Avenue. No need to mention his clubs, but he is a college man married to a finishing-school girl, and he has an income which permits him to do expensive things with the right people.

His family name is one which occurs in the lesser footnotes in American history books, and his own name is included in those prestige directories which, it is said, it takes more than money to enter. Without a great deal of urging he will relate how his ancestors Cor-nishmen came to the Colonies in the early 1700's, quartered with Washington at Valley Forge, and later pro duced three Union corpses at Gettysburg and Cold Harbor. He proudly describes the way his ancestors died for the cause of liberty and perhaps rightly he considers himself the arch-type of contemporary American aristocracy. Continue "Cold Pogrom" Here I should say that most of my best Jew-hating friends resemble this man in various respects, iney are self-assured people with comfortable incomes and even fortunes, with names, children, governesses, dignified city apartments and country homes in the plushiest suburbs. They go to parties and give them.

They take an interest in things. They read books, attend concerts, play contract, and discuss intelligently. They are exposed to all the amenities of urban civilization, and if the amenities are worth anything they should be tolerant, gracious, broad-minded citizens as willing to let live as they are to live. Yet they hate Jews. They hate them, furthermore, with an undisguised bitterness which cannot but lead, sooner or later, to a demand for direct anti-Semitic action and an acceptance of the living death of Fascism.

Of course, these splendid folk have been carrying on a against the Jews for tnA years. iney have refrained from visiting resorts which Jews visit. They have stopped only at those hotels which refuse to accommodate Jews. They have belonged to clubs and social organizations which would admit a 100 per cent "Aryan" rapist sooner than Professor Albert Einstein. In their business they have erected invisible, impenetrable barriers against Jewish job applicants.

And in countless other small hateful ways they have expressed their contempt and prejudice as a sort of social convention. But these things were always done quietly, almost automatically. It has only been within the last few years that this rather formless snobbery has coalesced into a hard lump of antagonism, only recently that my friends have "commenced to use the words and tone of Herr Doktor Goeb-bels. And it seems to be spreading. I shall never forget my profound shock one morning a month or two ago when I was driving to work with a friend of mine and a truck bearing advertising signs of a Yiddish newspaper jumped the red light and nearly collided with us.

It was reckless driving, certainly, but my friend behind the wheel did not condemn it as such. No, it was Jewish driving. The truckman was a Jew, and what he had just done was typical of what the Jewish race had done to America and the world. This in the vilest language possible, from a man whose heart I had always supposed to be right. Other Evidences Cited Then there was my friend who recently gave up reading what he admits is the most intelligent newspaper in New York because of its Jewish management.

He was also the one whom I accompanied to the movies one night, heard him laugh delightedly at some Jewish comedians while in the theatre, and heard him come out and denounce Hollywood, the "Jew capital" which was "poisoning the universe." And so it goes, over the bridge hands and cocktail glasses, an inhuman sniping at an unhappy people with occasional prophetic flashes of violence. Already it has produced a couple of pathological characters among my select group of friends. I have in mind one Christian gentleman who is fond of reading aloud an old clipping from Time Magazine describing the plan of the notorious Nazi-racketeer James True of Washington, D. to organize on a certain day a "national Jew shoot." The piece has a certain humor, I suppose; even on the third or fourth reading some of my best friends hoot with laughter. Sometimes I try to find out the motivation of this anti Semitism strong! given Wednesday in the VXW) campaign to a successful conclu- Wednesday noon at the Pfistcr mens teams raising the The distinction of being first to reach its quota went to the team of Mrs.

A. Rice, who on Monday reported $95G, or $5 above the quota. On Wednesday the team of Mrs. B. F.

Saltzstein exceeded its $1,300 mark by $278 and Hyman Lerner's team went over its quota by $125. A complete tabulation of all team reports appears elsewhere in this issue. Gilead Lodge Will Hold 78th Annual Meeting, Thursday Officers to Be Elected for New Term Annual Reports to Be Presented The seventy-eighth annual meeting of Gilead Lodge No. 41, B'nai B'rith, will take place Thursday evening, June 22, at 8 o'clock in the Club Room of the Schroeder hotel. Gilead Lodge was instituted June 14, 1861.

Featured business of the evening is the annual election of officers. Present officers are Robert A. Hess, president; Jesse J. Habush, vice-presi-ent; George Papermaster, second vice-president; Ronald Padway, secretary; Paul L. Moskowitz, monitor and Henry Zelonky, warden.

Trustees are Mervyn Braun, George Braunfeld, and Leo Reitman. One successor trustee will be elected for a three-year term. Annual reports will be presented. The large membership of the lodge at the present time will require further election of delegates to the District Grand Lodge convention to be held in Detroit on July 2, 3, and 4. The lodge elected nine delegates and four alternates last December.

All of the alternates will advance to positions as full delegates to the convention, and a number of others will be needed. At the last convention, held in Duluth last July, over thirty persons attended from Gilead Lodge. Install Officers Immediately Officers who are elected at the meeting Thursday evening will be installed immediately in ceremonies conducted by Leo Reitman, past president of the District Grand Lodge. If possible, committee appointments for the ensuing year will be announced. Paul L.

Moskowitz, chairman of the lodge picnic committee, has announced that the annual picnic bigger and better than ever will take place at Jackson Park on Sunday, August 13. His committee, together with representatives of all affiliated organizations, will meet soon to begin the necessary arrangements. New Bombings In Tel Aviv Jerusalem (JTA) A British constable was seriously wounded in one of eight explosions that destroyed six public telephone booths in Tel Aviv. Another of the explosions started a fire in the Tel Aviv railwav station. The blaze was auickly extinguished.

A group of Jews, estimated to number 80, raided the headquarters of the Zionist-Revisionist organization. Four Revisionists were injured, one of them seriously, in the resulting clash. Belgium Financing Refugee Camps Brussels (WNS) The Belgian government decided to provide for about 3,000 Jewish refugees now living in camps in Belgium. About others are in the care of regular Jewish residents and refugee aid societies. The government will finance the upkeep of the refugees until they are able to find employment under various emigration schemes.

A small number mav be allowed to stay in Belgium indefinitely if they are able to find work. DR. WEIZMANN ASKS LEAGUE TO UPHOLD PALESTINE RIGHTS Charges Virtual Repudiation of Balfour Declaration In Letter WHITE PAPER ATTACKED BY AGENCY LEADER Geneva (JTA) Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency, this week called upon the League of Nations to uphold the Jewish people's "internationally recognized rights" in the Holy Land, in a special letter accompanying the annual report of the Jewish Agency to the Mandates Commission, which was scheduled to begin examination of the Palestine question on Wednesday. The letter assails the new British policy on Palestine, embodied in the White Paper, as virtual repudiation of the Balfour Declaration's promises to the Jews, makes the "strongest pro test'' against it and appeals to the League as the body "in which ultimate control over Palestine is vested." Charging that the White Paper is in "direct contradiction to the whode trend and purpose of the Palestine mandate," the letter asserts that it ignores the mandate preamble which recognizes the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine, with regard to reconstituting the Jewish national home, and sets forth the basic principles to guide the country's destinies.

Hebrew Language Disregarded The letter accuses the British government of disregarding those principles and omitting from the White Paper positive obligations such as recognition of Hebrew as an official language in Palestine and recognition of the Agency as the body representing the Jewish people. "The latter omission," Dr. Weizmann declares, "accords with the whole trend of the new policy of whittling down the status of the Jewish people by limiting Jewish rights with regard to Palestine to those of the existing Jewish population in the country." The letter attacks the White Paper proposal to consult the Arab states which, it declares, have no locus stan di. Discussing the proposed consti tution for an independent state, Dr. Weizmann assails the contention that a state in which the Arabs will constitute a two-thirds majority will not be an Arab state.

A state with a Jewish majority, he counters, would likewise not be a Jewish state. Referring to promised safegu ds for the Jewish national home, Dr. Weizmann points out that experience has shown the inadequacy of constitutional safeguards when the majority chooses to disregard them. The Zionist leader denies that the mandatory power is obliged to secure ultimate independence, pointing out that the Palestine mandate sui generis does not contain an independence clause such as contained in the Syrian and Iraq mandates. The new British policy, Dr.

Weizmann charges, subjects the Jewish national home to Arab rule, perpetuates the Jewish minority position and places Jewish immigration at the mercy of the Arabs. "In short," he asserts, "it envisages termination of the mandate by jettisoning its primary purpose." Discussing the question of immi- gration, Dr Weizmann declares that the absence of any limiting provision in the mandate shows that the government does not have the right arbitrarily to terminate Jewish entry. The absorptive capacity principle regulating immigration, he states, is the only principle enabling the mandatory to discharge its obligations to the Jews and others. He denounces the Arab veto principle, under which further Jewish immigration to Palestine after five years would be dependent upon Arab consent. He warns that repudiation of her obligations deprives Britain of moral justification to rule Palestine and attacks the land restrictions as reversing the mandatory obligation to facilitate close Jewish settlement of the land by introducing racial discrimination contrary to the mandate.

The Jewish Agency, Dr. Weizmann states, "is forced to the conclusion that just as the drastic changes proposed in the immigration policy have been dictated, as has been freely admitted in the White Paper, by purely political considerations, so the proposal to relegate the Jews to a pale of settlement in the country of their national home has a political and not an economic object." A "mop-up" squad in the junior di vision is now cleaning up unsolicited cards and re-soliciting inadequate gifts, and all young people in the division are urged to give their final reports at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening at the Jewish Center. Women Set Pace Inspired by the success of the Junior division and the fact that the largest part of the work in the campaign is already completed, the workers have pledged themselves to stay with the appeal to the very end. No campaign within recent local history has evoked so enthusiastic a response and so willing a group of workers. Particularly is this true in the women's division, where many teams have completed solicitation of all cards allocated to them and are clam oring for new assignments.

The call for new cards has been so insistent that on several occasions Chairman Nathan M. Stein has remarked, "I don't know where the ladies get their cards, but they always seem to turn in more at each report meeting." The excellence of the women's. performance in raising $22,929 as of Wednesday is indicated by the fact that well over a quarter of the cards are new, having never contributed to any campaign heretofore, and the amounts in many cases are as low as $1 and $2. The men's teams were rather slow in getting started, and at the Monday meeting Chairman Stein threatened to take away the cards from lagging teams and assign them to the women's division. The turn came, however, after an enthusiastic meeting Tuesday evening at the Pfister hotel attended by over 175 men.

Exhorted by campaign leaders to take their part more seriously and inspired by a magnificent address by B. F. Saltzstein, the men's teams showed marked increases on Wednesday and are expected to show further increases within the next few days. Progress Held Satisfactory Commenting on the progress of the campaign, Chairman Stein declared that the effort is "continuing slowly but in satisfactory manner. I am as confident now as when we began that this campaign will go over the top.

Perhaps one of the reasons why the progress seems to be slow is because the workers are taking more time and not selling out for the lowest amount offered by the donors. They are doing the job thoroughly and completely and I am certain that with the hardest hurdle already passed we will make this campaign a complete success." Lew Levy, chairman of the men's division, struck the same keynote when he said, "Don't sell this campaign short. We'll put this campaign over if it takes us all of July." The most unusual feature of the drive is the practise of re-soliciting cards. Mr. Stein explained that the executive committee decided on this technique not with the idea that the amounts previously given are wholly inadenuate.

hut with the hope that with the deepening of the Jewish crisis many contributors may be induced to increase their original amounts. Those who are being re-solicited, he continued, should not regard the act as a personal affront, an indication that they haven't given enough, but simply a plea to extend themselves further view of the emergency nature of the appeal. Three Teams "Over Top" Not only are many initial gifts cards being re-solicited, but many general donors are being asked to raise their original contributions. Several women's teams, having completed all their cards, are on re-solicitation duty and the two-man team of I. E.

and A. G. Goldberg, known from previous campaigns as the "gorgeous Goldbergs," are making a specialty of the work..