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We should listen to history.
The following editorial appeared in the Southern Israelite, a widely circulated Jewish newspaper, on Nov. 6, 1936 – so almost 83 years ago. The author was Rev. Leon Milton Birkhead, an American Unitarian minister who spoke out against Nazi-sympathizers and anti-Semitism throughout the 1930s. He issued many warnings, aimed at all audiences, and cited events in Germany as a sign that it could happen in the United States. (The Streicher he mentions is Julius Streicher, a prominent member of the Nazi Party and founder and publisher of the infamous antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer. He was executed in 1946.)
The following is the full text of the article. Below it I have included scans of the column as it appeared, pasted together so that the introduction, eight points, and closing paragraphs appear together instead of broken up into columns.
Note: The first few paragraphs outline the beliefs of Fascists and anti-Semites. They are not a defense, but a starting point from which Birkhead begins his screen against them.
Wendy Darling
Atlanta, GA
Contact: @wcdaring (Twitter)
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Defend America against fascism!
By Rev. Leon Milton Birkhead
There are certain important facts about all the Fascist anti-Semitic groups that I have enumerated which must be kept in mind. Many of them believe that the source of our trouble is gold. The gold standard is a Jewish invention inasmuch as the Jews have control of the gold of the world. Therefore, destroy the gold standard and the Jews are defeated. Such is their simple logic.
The facts which I have enumerated about the views of these groups concerning Communism and Zionism are also important. Both these movements are part and parcel of the conspiracy of world Jewry to destroy modern Gentile civilization. The Fascists claim that 85% of the Communists are Jews.
Streicher’s slogan is "the Jews are the cause of our trouble” is fast becoming the slogan of Streicher’s American counterparts. If America is to be saved, the Jews must be defeated, they say.
These pro-Fascist leaders all know each other and exchange ideas literature and letters. They keep in touch with each other. They are very patriotic. They are one hundred per centers. They're constantly seeking connections with such patriotic groups as the Daughters of the American Revolution and the American Legion. They praise the “redbaiting”. of William Randolph Hearst and the fine work that Hitler has done in Germany
These groups propose (and they are doing it) to educate the country in anti-Semitism. They want to defeat the New Deal because it is a “Jew Deal,” they say.
They cannot be ignored. They cannot be laughed out of existence. Ridicule may help to restrain them, but it is not a sufficient instrument for their destruction. It is not sufficient to say they are radical, fanatical and psychopathic. The same thing was said of Hitler in Germany before he came to power.
But what shall we do? Ah, that is the rub; what wouldn't modern civilization give for an answer to this problem of racial hatred and religious bigotry: but who has the answer? Not I. And no one else that I've conferred with.
However, at the risk of being presumptuous, I am going to make certain hints or suggestions.
1 - It needs to be said around the world and shouted from the house tops that the source of modern civilization's evils not to be found in any one race or religion. To say, for example, that "the Jews are the cause of all our trouble” is to do what all simple minds are forever seeking to do, namely, to oversimplify our problems. If it were possible to capture all the 15 million Jews of the world and execute them, I do not believe that that would solve any of our problems or any of them for that matter. This is an idea that need to be preached widely.
2- Very closely associated with the above, over-simplification of civilization’s problems by blaming everything on the Jews is this scapegoat idea. Mankind is inclined personalize its evils. Once the devil caused all the trouble; now it must be the Jew or the Catholic or the Negro. We need to say that everybody (and to ourselves) "Don't blame the races, groups, or classes for the ills of which you suffer. There's no scapegoat for all our evils.”
3 - Anti-Semitism is an idea alien to America. There is much talk now availing philosophies and theories which have been imported into America. But there's no question about racial hatred and religious bigotry. These are definitely Old World ideas from which our ancestors sought to escape. On this continent they set up a haven for the persecuted and the hated minorities. Are we going to import the Old World hatreds into America and disrupt our society?
4 - Anti-Semitism is a Gentile problem, not essentially a Jewish one. It is the Gentile who hates and persecutes the Jew. It is, therefore, the problem of the Gentile to deal with his fellows who are so full of the venom of racial and religious bigotry.
5 - The real plans and purposes of these anti-Semitic groups should be disclosed to the American people. Many of these groups fly the banner of patriotism and in the name of patriotism they circulate the worst sort of lies and unfounded rumors about racial and religious minorities. They make one believe that there is a great measure of truth to the statement attributed to Dr. Johnson that “patriotism is the last resort of scoundrels.” The righteous indignation of the American people should be aroused against these groups that are racketeering in racial and religious bigotry.
6 - Some new and creative approach to the idea of the brotherhood of man is needed. What we say about this subject is so platitudinous and ineffective. There is a profound truth in the Lowell couplet that
In the gain or loss of one race
all the rest have equal claim
I do not know exactly how it should be said but America should be told no one race or minority can be injured without injury to rest of us.
7 - There is a very great need that all of us shall learn to judge races and groups more discriminately. I mean that races and peoples must not be condemned in toto. And yet that is exactly what the majority of us is doing every day. A profound truth recently expressed by Prof. Earnest A. Hooten, Harvard physical anthropologist, ought to be taught to everyone. “Each racial type runs the gamut from idiot and criminal to geniuses to statesman,” according to Mr. Hooton. “No type produces a majority of individuals at either end of the scale. There are no racial monopolies either of human virtues or vices.”
8. Minority groups must make common cause against though those who advocate oppressive measures against any one minority group. The world must be safe for minorities or is not a safe world for any decent, self-respecting person. I believe that we must oppose every piece of legislation which is in the oppression of minority groups or which discriminate against any minority.
These suggestions of things to do is not very satisfactory, I agree. But I have a strong conviction that something must be done and done it once. Fascist and anti-Semitic groups are now actually terrorizing American citizens. And they're planning further vigorous actions against Jews and other so-called “alien of minority groups.” So, we shall be on the defensive against these advocates of racial hatred, religious bigotry and of direct action. When that time comes, we are lost. You must do something to put every Fascist and anti-Semite on the defensive. We must make him apologetic.
Moreover, the situation has become so threatening and menacing in America that the Fascists anti-Semites need only the right sort of leader to make them formidable. They claim the following of 8,000,000. This number is to be reduced by half, according to my opinion. Now 4,000,000 are disorganized, but they have common ideas and plans. Can we head off the unification of these victims of hate and bigotry? Well, my answer that this is the one case where the victory may be to the swift. What is to be done, must be done, must be done quickly. Liberals cannot afford to make the mistake of their fellow Liberals in Germany. That is, they cannot afford to ignore the existence of Fascist and anti-Semitic. They cannot afford to dismiss the American Hitlerites as “erratic and crazy.” Anyone can learn from his own experiences, but clever people learn from the experiences of other people. A great statesman once said, "prevention is the daughter of intelligence.”
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#fascism#antisemitism#antifascism#1930s#1930s fascism#history repeats itself#american nazis#leon milton birkhead#leon birkhead#southern israeilite#jewish history#op-ed
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STALIN | PUTIN | MUSSOLINI | HITLER
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Unlike a monarchy or a military dictatorship imposed on society from above, Fascism draws energy from men and women who are upset because of a lost war, a lost job, a memory of humiliation, or a sense that their country is in steep decline. The more painful the grounds for resentment, the easier it is for a Fascist leader to gain followers by dangling the prospect of renewal or by vowing to take back what has been stolen.
Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning
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Fascisms seek out in each national culture those themes that are best capable of mobilizing a mass movement of regeneration, unification, and purity, directed against liberal individualism and constitutionalism and against Leftists class struggle. The themes that appeal to fascists in one cultural tradition may seem simply silly to another. The foggy Norse myths that stirred Norwegians or Germans sounded ridiculous in Italy, where Fascism appealed rather to a sun-drenched classical Romanita.
Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism
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Good guys don’t always win, especially when they are divided and less determined than their adversaries. The desire for liberty may be ingrained in every human breast, but so is the potential for complacency, confusion, and cowardice.
Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning
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A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.
Henry A. Wallace, 33rd Vice President of the U.S. (1941–45)
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