The following article in "The New York Herald Tribune" shows how strong anti-Semitic influences in the United States were, in 1943:
BISHOP OXNAM ASSAILS BEATING OF JEWISH BOYS
Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, of the Boston area of the Methodist Church, denounced today the alleged beating of Jewish boys as an apparent expression of incipient Fascism and, in a statement, demanded, "who is flooding the nation with anti-Semitic literature, and why?" <265> Declaring that "the beating of Jewish boys is not the work of hoodlums," Bishop Oxnam expressed hope that Jews, Catholics and Protestants could unite "in demanding that these beatings stop and that steps be taken to discover and destroy the dangerous forces that lie back of them." The Bishop's statement followed the placing of charges before Governor Leveratt Saltonstall that Jews had been made the victims of ruffians over a period of months in the Boston area. The Governor, acting upon a petition of which Bishop Oxnam was one of the signers, has appointed five prominent citizens of various faiths to an advisory committee on anti-Semitism. "The beating of Jewish boys must stop," the statement said. "The beaters must be apprehended and punished. The beating of any boys by gangs is bad enough at any time. The beating of boys of a particular race is worse. But the real menace lies in the apparent fact that these beatings are an expression of incipient Fascism, that they follow a similar pattern, and that, in one case, at least, the beaters wore black shirts. "Who is flooding the nation with anti-Semitic literature, and why? Who finances these movements? Why is it that the anti-Semitic leaders now under Federal indictment have attacked such religious organizations as the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, the Methodist Church and other Protestant religious bodies? Why has Franco, the Fascist dictator of Spain, been extolled? Bishop Oxnam, in an interview with "The Boston Traveller", said that the recent outbreaks of racial violence in the Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan districts of Boston follow a pattern. "I was in Germany when these things began there. It is the same pattern in which organized gangs beat up a scapegoat race whether they be Jews or any one else," he asserted. He asserted that Fascism is prevalent in Brooklyn now, and predicted that it would show itself in Detroit and sections of the Pacific Coast before long. "I think Brooklyn, New York and Boston are currently the most difficult centres, however," he added. [573]
In Dec., 1943, a Senate resolution proposed the creation of a special commission "to bring about the rescue of the surviving Jews of Europe". Eight Protestant leaders sent "a Christmas Appeal for speedy adoption of the Resolution" to Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Senate majority and minority leaders and members of the House and Senate committees involved.
Asserting that "more than 2,000,000 European Jews have been slaughtered by the Nazis, the message added that "we cannot approach Christmastide without declaring that too many of us have been found wanting in the will to rescue these suffering people." <266> "Let no possible sanctuary be closed, whether in America or elsewhere," the appeal said. "Let each door of refuge be kept open. This is the Christian way."
The message was signed by Bishop William T. Manning (Protestant Episcopal);
Archbishop Athenagoras (Greek Orthodox); Bishop William J. McConnell
(Methodist), and others. [574]
On Jan. 15, 1944, fifteen hundred persons attended a rally against anti-Semitism at Carnegie Hall. Dr.Henry Smith Leiper of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, chairman of the meeting, asserted that anti-Semitism was "treason against God, treason against the country".
"Anybody spreading such slander," he said, "is helping Hitler just as much as if he were a paid agent of the Reich." Dr. Leiper and several others spoke out against what they said was the desire on the part of many to approach the problem of anti-Semitism with too much caution. Dr. Leiper said that exactly this idea prevailed in Germany in 1932, but did not halt the rise of fascism. [575]
The biennial convention of the United Lutheran Church in America adopted, on Oct. 13, 1944, the following Resolution:
"Recognizing that the Jewish problem has been made one of the central elements in the present assault on civilization, the United Lutheran Church in America, viewing with concern the manifestations of a rising tide of anti-Semitism in American life, begs its members to consider their Jewish brethren in the spirit of Luther, who spoke kindly things of them as 'blood brothers of our Lord', to use every available means to assure the Jewish people of their communities of the efforts of our church for the preservation of their rights, and to offer prayers on their behalf." [576]