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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONIC4E and The Legal Chromcia
Detroit Jewish Chronicle
and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE
Aublished Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc., 525 Woodward Ave., Detroit 26, Mich., Tel. CAdillac 1040
SUBSCRIPTION: $3.00 PER YEAR, SINGLE COPIFS, 10c: FOREIGN, $5.00 PER YEAR
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post offif e at Detroit, Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879
Detroit Rabbis Pay
Tribute to Roosevelt
DR. LEO M. FRANKLIN
The flag of our country flies
PAUL MASSERMAN, Managing Editor at half mast. But not only our
JACOB H. SCHAKNE, Pres.•Gen. Mgr.
JACOB MARGOLIS, Editorial Director
CHARLES TAUB, Advertising Mgr.
flag. Wherever there are men
who love liberty; wherever there
Detroit 26, Michigan
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1945 (IYAR 7, 5705)
Vol. 47, No. 16 are those who stand ready to
live and to die for freedom's
cause; wherever there are those
lease bill. In the midst of a Presidential to whom justice and brotherhood
campaign, when advisers told him it was and peace are sacred terms, there
politically fatal, he rushed through the is mourning because one has been
called from the earthly scene
first peace-time draft and thus gained who
their friend and their
for us at least a year and a half time. ardent was
supporter.
"Grievous in the sight of the Lord
He strengthened our arms. Earlier he had
Franklin D. Roosevelt had a
is the passage of His saints"—Psalms
sent MacArthur to the Philippines to build passion for the service of his
116:15.
up a Filipino Constabulary. All this, fellow-men. Neither creed nor
nor the national and racial
Roosevelt
accomplished, in the face of color
origins of men dulled his sympa-
A nation mourns. It is Spring, the sea-
son when nature reawakens, when the growing opposition, even from his own thies for the least among them.
were human beings—all
earth comes to life after its winter's party and his own friends. And when They
children of the living God. And
the
Japs
attacked
us
at
Pearl
Harbor
he
sleep. It is a time when all men's hearts
as children of God they were
are lifted. A time of blossoming. A time knew what to do. He reassured a stunned brothers to each other. Hence it
nation.
was natural that the great aim
of azure skies and green fields. And
* * *
of his life was to make human
Spring was especially beautiful this year.
Even Roosevelt's enemies admit that no brotherhood a reality and not
It came earlier than usual and, with the
war
was as well conducted as this one; merely an empty phrase upon
coming of Spring, the war news, too,
men's lips.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
became brighter. It seemed that Spring
would bring victory, victory over the
dark forces which held so much of the
earth in the icy grip of despair.
A nation mourns, and for us there is
no Spring. For us the skies have dark-
ened. For us even the foretaste of the
coming victory seems flat. For Franklin
Delano' Roosevelt, who led us to victory, ,
the Captain who guided ,the Ship of State
safely through storms which threatened
to founder it, is dead.
The nation mourns the late President
Roosevelt as one• mourns a beloved parent:
For he was truly a father to his people.
To the underprivileged, to the oppressed,
to the minorities, he was as a light in
the darkness, as a beacon in the night.
* * *
All week the .press, the radio, recapitu-
lated 'the achievements of Franklin Del-
ano Roosevelt. We all remember how,
in the dark hour of depression, he instilled
courage in a disheartened people, a peo-
ple which saw little hope for the future.
He saved the nation from chaos. He
opened the banks. Through the CWA,
the PWA and the WPA he provided jobs
for millions who were rusting in idleness.
Through the HOLC he saved the homes
of millions.
His Social Security legislation, includ-
ing Unemployment Insurance and Old
Age Pensions, guaranteed many from the
indignity of receiving charity and as-
sured a dignified old age for tens of mil-
lions who have given their life's work
to their country and, in ordinary times,
would be thrown on the scrap heap. His
spirit infused every department of the
Government. A new air of freedom was
in • the United States. The staid Supreme
Court which for so long had been the
defender of the status quo, changed and
became progressive. He gave Labor its
charter of Liberties in the Wagner Act.
Achievements like the TVA and soil con-
servation were almost overlooked in the
great list of accomplishments.
* * *a
Great as was his handling of domestic
matters, Roosevelt was, if possible, even
greater in his dealings with foreign af-
fairs. Back in 1937 in his "Quarantine
Speech," he tried to warn the aggressor
nations. He foresaw the peril long before
any other world leader, and he acted to
prepare the nation for the coming inevi-
table struggle.
He struggled with a recalcitrant Con-
gress and with a people who, were
drugged with propaganda, and were still
suffering from disillusionment arising
from the last war, a people which was
anti-militaristic, in fact, pacifist.
Roosevelt began building a two-ocear
Navy 10 years ago. And when the dark
midsummer of 1940 arrived, when France
was prostrate under the heel of the brutal
Nazis and England lay wide open to in-
vasion, the President acted swiftly. He
sent all the arms he could scrape together
to England, to make up for the weapons
lost at Dunkirk. Some people called the
act illegal, but it saved England. He sent
Britain 50 U. S. destroyers.
He persuaded Congress to pass a lend-
that for no war were we as well pre-
pared as for this one. He mapped the
larger strategy. He was the one who
urged that we concentrate on beating
Germany first, instead of dissipating our
forces.
Besides the purely military side of the
war, the late President Roosevelt handled
the economic. the financial, the industrial
phases in a masterly manner. His OPA
has so far succeeded in keeping down
the cost of living, in guarding us from
the perils of inflation.
* * *
. His tax measures are equitable and
raising enormous sums of money. The
bond drives have taught people to save
money and will guarantee us from a de-
pression for at least some years.
The Jewish people, especially, have
lost their best friend in the death of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He understood
the Jewish problem and sympathized with
the aspirations for a Jewish Homeland
in Palestine, and, it is safe to say, that he
would have seen to it that justice was
granted at the peace table.
But we mourn Franklin Delano Roose-
velt not as a friend of Israel but as a
friend of all humanity and, more espe-
cially, of the underprivileged. He was the
Twentieth Century Moses, who led his
people to the Promised Land of a warless
and just world.
President Truman
In the White House, where Roosevelt
dwelt, where Lincoln during another war
dwelt, there resides now our new Presi-
dent, Harry S. Truman. An enormous
burden is suddenly placed on his shoul-
ders. He is stepping to the fore at times
which would try to the straining point the
most experienced hands. President Tru-
man has a right, therefore, to expect un-
derstanding and sympathy and the utmost
cooperation from the people.
Everything seems to indicate that Presi-
dent Truman will meet the exigencies of
the situation and bear well the great
tasks that have befallen him. His very
modesty in taking over the reins of office
is in itself a propitious sign. Where there
is no humility, there is no genius, wrote
Emerson. President Truman has humility.
American Jews will not forget Mr. Tru-
man's appearance in 1943 in St. Louis to
denounce slurs which had been made on
the Jewish part in the war effort. This
was characteristic of the man. During his
term as Grand Master of the Masonic
Lodge in Missouri, it was Truman who
appointed a rabbi as Lodge chaplain.
Again in his first speech after his inangu-
ration as Vice President, President Tru-
man made a strong plea for religious tol-
erance. "Bigotry and intolerance," he
said, "are the munitions of our enemies.
Evil doctrines of discrimination frequently
imported from gangster nations plague
certain areas in America. Racial and reli-
gious intolerance is being preached here
by agents of our enemies as well as by
innocent victims of their propaganda."
The Jew-baiter will get no support from
our President.
Friday, April 20 , 1945
for us a divine lesson. Man is
creature of two worlds, but
too
many limit their horizon to this
world alone.
We can do no less, without vi(
kiting his sacred memory, th r
to catry on the fight until
reach the goal of his vision. To
uproot the evil of tyranny, to
establish a lasting peace in free.
dom and in justice, is Use fitting
monument to which wo must
dedicate ourselves.
RABBI LEON FRAM
All mankind is bereaved and
Israel is orphaned by the passing
away of Franklin Delano Roose-
velt.
The masses of the Jew ish peo.
ple loved President Roosevelt not
for any specific services which
he rendered to Jews as Jews.
They loved him because he was
a friend of the common people.
Jews know instinctively that
the statesman who works to im-
prove the lot of the common
man is by that very fact a de.
fender of the Jewish people. It
is only where there is general
social injustice that the Jew is
victimized as a scapegoat. When-
ever and wherever the common
man enjoys the elementary rights
of employment and the pursuit of
happiness, there there are no
scapegoats and Jewish life is
free of peril.
It was Roosevelt's doctrine of
freedom from fear which gave
the Jewish people the confidence
that he would champion the es-
tablishment of a Jewish common-
wealth in Palestine. He wanted
to remove the element of fear
from the lives of all peoples,
large and small. A Jewish com-
monwealth, the masses of the
Jewish people believe, would
largely remove the elements of
insecurity and fear and homeless-
ness from the life of the Jewish
people.
We must now pray and exer-
cise the faith that Roosevelt's
doctrine of the Four Freedoms
has struck such deep roots that
the new President and the states•
men of the United Nation will
carry out their meaning and
their implications to the full.
Historic Words
The last words he wrote--
words that were to be broadcast
to the nation had not death seal-
ed his lips a few hours before
the time appointed for the ad-
dress, will take their place like
Lincolns Gettysburg Address
with the immortal utterances of
the ages. Said he: "If civilization
is to survive we must cultivate
the science of human relation-
ships—the ability of all peoples,
of all kinds, to live together and
work together, in the same world,
at peace."
Ibis was the picture of his
land of promise toward which he
led his people and the people;;
of the earth, but into which, like
Moses, he was not permitted to
enter, but only to catch a glimpse
of it from afar. But he is not
dead.
Like Moses
Only they are dead who are
forgotten. And the man of his
valiant spirit; the man of his
heroic deeds; the man of his
prophetic vision; the man who
was the friend of man can never,
never be forgotten.
May his mantle fall upon those
unto whom it is given to carry
on the work where at the com-
RABBI ISAAC STOLLMAN
mand of God, he laid it down.
Our
nation bows as does each
A better world—a world at peace
—a world where all good men one of us in tribute to the pass-
shall live in safety shall be his ing of our President and Com-
mander-in-Chief, Franklin Del-
monument.
ano Roosevelt.
Our generation and the genera-
DR. B. BENEDICT GLAZER tions to come will remember him
as the emancipator from tyranny
I am immeasurably shocked and barbarism. The freedom-lov-
and grieved by the tragic news ing people will keep his memory
of the untimely death of our as a symbol of humanity and
great President. He died a mar- justice.
tyr of his love of country and
At a time when military vic-
mankind, as surely as any Amer- tory is near, we need his ideal-
ican hero who has fallen on the ism, his vision and experience.
field of battle.
In Roosevelt, we find a man who
Loss Irreparable
knew civilization and hatred
His loss to this nation and to could not exist simultaneously in
the world at this time is irre- this world. His goals must be
parable and has implication for fulfilled. With his noble soul as
every citizen of the United Na- architect, we must build with his
tions who envisions a better and visions and idealism a better
peaceful human society. Espe- world and everlasting peace.
cially in this sad hour do all the
His personality will live for-
members of underprivileged ever. Men of his caliber do not
groups everywhere feel orphaned die; they live, they continue to
by his passing.
live.
This is indeed an hour of
heart-rending mourning for all
RABBI JACOB J. NATHAN
who loved and trusted Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the
architect of the new world i5
RABBI JOSHUA S. SPERKA dead. A whole world grieves at
his demise; justifiedly so. For
In this hour of national sor- he believed in man, and restore)
row, the genuine and widespread men's confidence at a time when
grief over the loss of our Presi- faith was waning. It was in the
dent demonstrates the human midst of a crisis that he rose to
qualities of his personality, the prominence.
goals of his philosophy and the
Crisis begot a leader, one who
principles of his way of life.
possessed those spiritual quail-,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was ties that men so sadly needed l
a deeply religious person. The courage, vision and faith; and
word of God was in his heart above all, the will to fight for
and his faith in God was un- the principles he believed in.
shakable. It was this absolute
The blueprints of the great
faith in God that lent strength architect have been drawn up,
to his being in overcoming all and the question is: Will the
obstacles be they physical, social m ns s b eahni
he
h ew h
n d dfin
builders
i
or political evils. This faith made lea ve s
ac-
finish
him a master of man and leader cording to the specifications of
of nations. Believing in God, he
their master? Will they build
had faith in man; therefore be- well, and for eternity? Will the
came beloved by all men as a
day of Unconditional Surrender
living symbol of democracy.
see the world on the Highway
Tragic is our loss, and time of true Brotherhood and Peace.
will reveal it more strikingly. This
sethvee ttals ea
k vme.sh i ctho Franklin
The tragic parallel that our
Let
Roosevelt
President, like Moses, took us out us fulfill his high expectations of
of Egypt but did not lead
to
us.
our
into the Promised Land may hold our
great President!
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