4
.NTROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and the Legal Chronicle
Detroit Jewis h Chronicle
and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE
Published Weekly by Jewish C hronicle Publishing Co., Inc.
JACOB H. SCHAKNE
President
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post-
office at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879•
General Offices and Publication Bldg., 525 Woodward Ave.
Telephone: CAdillac 1040
Cable Address: Chronicle
Subscription in Advance
$3.00 Per Year
JACOB MARGOLIS
Publisher and Editor
MAURICE M. SAFIR....Advertising Manager
ro insure publication, all correspondence and news matter
must reach this office by Tuesday evening of each week.
When mailing notices, kindly use one side of paper only.
The Detroit Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on sub-
jects of interest to the Jewish people, but disclaims respon-
sibility for en endorsement of views expressed by its writers.
March 6, 1942
Adar 17, 5702
Our Way of Life
There are many facets to our way of
life. Some of them have persisted from
the day the Republic was founded ; have
been tested and' found to be good.
We naturally take many of our bless-
ings for granted because we have always
enjoyed them. Who among us examines
the connotation of the phrase "The United
States of America"? There has not al-
ways been a United States of America. In
fact, it is unique. Now Australia and Can-
ada have followed our example, and
Russia theoretically. And from 1791 when
the Constitution was adopted, to 1865, the
end of the war between the States, these
United States of America were in the
experimental stage. The only internal war
in our history was fought, among other
reasons, to maintain this indivisible union
of the United States of America.
European rulers, Tories, Bourbons,
Hapsburgs, Czarists, ridiculed the idea
of a Federation of States. Even its well
wishers had their serious doubts. But the
men of vision and imagination who found-
ed the Republic believed that the States
could retain their sovereignty and still
repose certain powers in the Federal Gov-
ernment. This arrangement did not al-
ways work smoothly, nor were the Fed-
eral Government and the State Govern-
ment always in harmony. It is working
today as satisfactorily as any human in-
stitution can be expected to work.
In this country persons and goods flow
freely from one end of the land to the
other. There are no fortifications or cus-
tom houses separating the States. There
is one currency and one postage stamp.
No State or group of States complains
of lack of lebensraum or living space.
Every. State has access to that which the
whole country produces and grows, and
whether completely land-locked or on the
seacoast or lake front, the States can send
their goods everywhere without tariffs or
duties levied on them.
This is done in a country that is poly-
glot, bilingual, where every creed, race
and nationality is represented.
We want to preserve this aspect of
our way of life. In fact, we have ended
an era of isolation and joined in the war
against those whom we believe are threat-
ening our way of life.
When this conflict is over we shall have
something to say about the peace. Let us
hope that when the peace conference is
held that the men who will make that
treaty will be men of vision and imag-
ination, men who will not be moved and
swayed by those who have always in-
sisted that Europe cannot be federated.
*there are no good reasons why persons
and goods cannot move just as freely in
tile European continent as they do on the
North American land mass. The difference
up, till now has been that certain groups
in europe did not want a United States
of Europe, while we here have wanted it
and have had it.
If there is any group in Europe that
should and no doubt would welcome such
a change, it is our own people, for there
is no one so purblind among us who does
not know by now that we are first victims
of all the nationalist and racial rivalries
of unhappy Europe.
Mr. Deatherage Loses His Job
George E. Deatherage, national com-
mander of the secret organization known
as the Knights of the White Camelia;
promoter of an American nationalist con-
federation for which he had selected the
swastika as its emblem, has officially
been designated by Secretary Knox as
"undesirable to have access to the work
and /or materials of the Navy Depart-
ment", and consequently removed from
his position under a civilian contractor
at the Norfolk, Va., operating base.
Obviously, gentlemen who exchange
literature with organizations in Germany,
and consult the German consulate in San
Francisco and the Embassy in Washing-
ton, must expect to be classed as un-
desirable.
Mr. Deatherage was obsessed with
what he called "The Jew Problem."
Psychiatrists may be able to discover the
causes for such an obsession, we only
know what cruelties and barbarities such
obsessed men can inflict upon helpless,
bewildered people.
The dismissal of Mr. Datherage may
hasten the withdrawal of some of our
bitter anti-Semites from these anti-Semi-
tic organizations. If they do it will be
well to watch their activities for it is
not a simple or easy matter to get rid
of a deep-rooted obsession.
•
Disaster
The sinking of the steamer Struma in
waters close to Istanbul is a tragedy of
the first magnitude even in a world that
knows the tragedy of every day bomb-
ings of cities; torpedoeing of ships ; kill-
ings of thousands of troops in the frozen
wastes of Russia and the endless deserts
of Libya.
Eight hundred Jewish refugees were
aboard this unseaworthy hulk when she
allegedly struck a mine. All are reported
dead. These are the cold facts. But what
is behind the facts?
The refugees aboard the ship were
Rumainans who were anxious to escape
from Rumania but had no immigration
certificates for Palestine. Everything hu-
manly possible was done by the Jewish
Agency to persuade the Palestine Gov-
ernment to issue a sufficient number of
certificates from the current quota to
take care of the Struma passengers whose
plight was desperate. The Turkish Gov-
ernment refused them• refuge insisting
that Turkey was not a country of refuge
but o41-yill \_tiansit.
linormal times we would brush aside
these legal technicalities as mere trivia
and would un,*rcifully castigate all gov-
ernments th'at may have been responsible
for this disaster, but these are not nor-
mal times. These are times that tax men's
ingenuity, patience and judgment to the
utmost.
It cannot be repeated too often that
this is a global, total war and that catas-
trophies will befall the non-participant
as well as those at the fronts.
However, we must extend all our ef-
forts and use public pressures to persuade
the British Government to formulate a
policy in the matter of Palestine certifi-
cates that will reduce to a minimum the
possibility of the recurrence of such dis-
asters.
In the matter of public pressures, it
must be borne in mind that the British
Government is still responsive to public
opinion, when that public opinion is
predicated upon a sound policy ; is united;
is reasonable and above all persistent.
The wide shake-up in the British Govern-
ment is proof of this.
Then, too, we should not forget that
we are most fortunate both here and in
Britain that we can still bring public
pressure to bear if we are dissatisfied
with the actions, methods and policies
of our governments.
•
The spirit of the coal miners of France
during a recent strike in the Herault and
Gard departments is convincing proof that
the French workers will not die as peace-
fully as Chinese peasants. Despite numer-
ous arrests the strike continued. The au-
thorities were compelled to make con-
cessions by appreciably increasing the
food ration.
March 6, 1942
•° •Heard in the Lobbies.'.
By DAVID DEUTSCH
THUNDER IN WASHINGTON
Did the Turkish Ambassador
to the United States eat his
breakfast peacefully the morn-
ing he got the news about the
Struma disaster at Istanbul,
especially when he remembered
that he had just turned down
an American-Jewish request
that he intervene to urge his
Government to permit the land-
ing of the '750 Jewish refugees?
. . The Zionist technique of
using the Congressional Record
to insert speeches favoring Pal-
estine has at last been taken up
by the anti-Zionists. Wonder if
Rabbi Morris Lazaron of Balti-
more had anything to do with
the insertion by Senator George
L. Radcliffe of Maryland of the
New York Times editorial on "A
Zionist Army," which set world
Zionists blazing mad . . . After
years away from the Jewish
field, handsome Jim Wise has
been persuaded to serve as the
Washington representative of
the World Jewish Congress and
the Inter-American Jewish Coun-
cil. Best bet the organizations
could have made . . . The rea-
son that University of Pennsyl-
vania graduate Robert R. Na-
than heads Donald Nelson's
"thinking committee" of three
is largely due to his prediction
in the summer of 1940 of short-
ages in basic war materials like
steel and aluminum. Insiders say
it was the thirty-three-year-old
six-footer who got the Presi-
dent's ear on the "Victory Pro-
gram." . . . Judge Samuel Ro-
senman has been so busy lately
with national affairs that friends
say he sometimes feels like re-
tiring to the simple life led by
his brothers Max and Meyer,
who own a string of loan shops
in San Antonio.
BANANAS AND ZEMURRAY
The old-time national favorite,
"Yes, We Have No Bananas,"
threatens to become a grocer's
anthem because of the submarine
menace in the Caribbean. And
that is a headache to Samuel
Zemurray, mysterious head of
United Fruit Co., who shuttles
between homes in Boston and
New Orleans keeping track of
one of the greatest enterprises
in the world.
As the price of bananas goes
up, because bottoms are not as
plentiful to ship the yellow fruit,
Zemurray must remember far
worse days in his career, espe-
cially in the early period when
he had just come to the United
States from Rumania. Zemurray
started life again as a stevedore.
He kept his eyes peeled and his
brain clear. He noticed that great
boatloads of bananas used to
arrive from Latin America and
that they had to be dumped. So
he went to the ship owners and
offered to buy all the bananas
that arrived at Gulf ports. The
price was low. As far as the
shippers were concerned, any-
thing was better than nothing.
But then Zemurray organized a
system of distribution that rushed
the bananas to grocery stores
inland so fast that they became
great table delicacies for imme-
diate consumption. His fortune
started. His competitors saw the
light and tried to drive him out.
That was the United Fruit Co
It wasn't long before he was
the United Fruit Co. Then came
his ideas of refrigeration—and
still faster methods of distribu-
tion. United Fruit Co. is today
an empire.
Zemurray is probably the least-
known and most modest Jew in
the land. Many enterprises have
his secret generosity. They say
he reads voraciously, hates the
inanities of public Jewish life
and is particularly immune to
flattery. Strike him right and
the cause gets thousands. Strike
him wrong and there is only si-
lence. A case where silence is
not golden—and all because of
the golden fruit which the ship-
ping shortage now makes spot
news
DEFENSE FRONT
Roger W. Straus, Christian-
Jew Conference leader, is super-
vising a big defense construc-
tion job at Corpus Christi, where
his American Smelting Co. is
putting up a huge electrolytic
zinc plant. Not since he joined
the company 25 years ago has
Mr. Straus been as busy.
Carl Laemmle, Jr., who man-
aged to squeeze into the Army
as a private despite his 63-inch
height, must be sore at the re-
vival of "All Quiet on the West-
ern Front", the anti-war film
which he turned out for Univer-
sal in the clays when the world
was "safe for democracy."
If you happen to be at Fort
Dix and you see a lot of boys
staring at a piece of paper, which
a fellow pointing at it with ges-
tures, you're probably in the
neighborhood of Harr y 0.
Teltscher, the great psycho-
graphologist. Herry, a refugee
from Austria, who has his first
citizenship papers, had to cele-
brate in the army the publica-
tion of his first book, called
"Handwriting: The Key to Suc-
cessful Living." In short, Herry
tells character from handwriting.
And can he be embarrassing!
His book teaches anyone to do
it. Or tries, anyhow.
Best wishes to Hy Hurwitz,
sports writer on the Boston
Globe, who has joined the
Marines.
ODD BUT TRUE
Congressman Arthur Klein lets
us know that George Washing-
ton's famous letter to the He-
brew Congregation at Newport,
R. I., is in the possession of
Gordon B. Hirsch, of New York's
Grand Street Boys Association,
in whose family it's been pre-
served as an heirloom.
Do Not Balance