Thursday, September 8, 1949
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
Page Three
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
Peekskill Rioters in Best Storm-Trooper Form
By PHINEAS J. BIRON
THE PEEKSKILL RIOT on Aug. 27 against the Paul
Robeson concert sponsored by the American Civil
Rights Congress has a deep significance.
Not because the audience which assembled on
that Saturday night at Lakeland Acres to hear the
famous Negro singer was to a large extent Jewish.
And also not because there were several Jewish men
and women among those injured. • • ...
No—the rather substantial per-
centage of Jews among the victims of
this organized outrage is not the
main reason for our concern.
What frightens us is the fact that •
the assault on innocent men and
women was carried out in the tradi-
tional style of storm-troopers and
that the authorities of Westchester,
although fully aware that trouble
was brewing did nothing to guaran-
tee the safety of these American
Biron
citizens and their Constitutional
right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.
• •
operated with the perpetrators of this disgrace, or in
any case, invited what happened by their actions.
For an official permit to "parade" was granted to
the Westchester Joint County Council of Veterans
Organizations In the face of public statements that
these organizations were preparing to stop—if need
be by physical force—the holding of the Robeson
concert.
It is a terrible indictment of Jewish leadership
that the Jewish War Veterans were among the partici-
pating veteran groups in this un-American exhibition
of fascism.
•
•
A LYNCHING SPIRIT dominated the misled
youngsters and mature men who attacked elderly
mer and women, smashed cars, destroyed and burned
chairs, made a bonfire of music sheets on the stage
and generally carried on in real Nazi style.
But there is still a more sinister aspect to this riot.
The organizers of this storm-trooper festival worked
hand in hand with the Ku Klux Klan.
All around the auditorium KKK crosses blazed
and KKK slogans were heard. It is worth mentioning
that county assistant district attorney Leonard Ruben-
feld is chairman of the veterans council which orga-
nized the riot and that county clerk Robert A. Field
•
BY NOW IT IS established beyond any shadow
of doubt that the Westchester County authorities co-
Joe Practices Tolerance
and Is Better Jew for It
By ALFRED SEGAL
Y FRIEND, Joe Marx, is not often seen in the Synagogue. I
say this in no fault-finding of Joe Marx. If I pointed critically
at Joe because he is not often
in the Synagogue, he would well does justly, loves mercy and
point back and ask, "How often walks humbly. Such a Jew
doesn't go around preaching this
are you seen there?"
Nor is Joe Marx one of the but in the way of his own life
loud-speaking big shots of Juda- he tries to follow it. This way
of Jewish life leads him to the
ism in our town. rr ,
higher and quieter places; in his
That is to say, e
path of Judaism • he is far from
I have never
the tumult of Jewish dialectics.
seen Joe in tux-
• • •
edo-clad emin-
UNDERSTANDING
HEART
ence at any of
the speakers'
JOE'S MIND worries itself
tables of the
about the people who work for
Jewish affairs in
him. There was the matter of
our town.
hiring a new stenographer a
Nor is Joe
while ago.
heard in th".
Well, yes, all he needed to do
.
Segal
controversies of
was to call up the employment
Jewry or seen in contests for service and in short order some
honors, such as being elected nice-looking girls would be at
vice-president or secretary of this the office applying for the job.
Jewish organization or that; nor That's the easiest way to get a
is he among those who are con- stenographer.
tinuously in a state of being mad
Joe Marx was thinking of a
at somebody who disagrees with
harder way. lie was thinking
him on this or that of Jewish
Jewishly in the way Jews think
life. (I am sure that Joe knows
when they get prophetic. Joe
little about the current quarrels
was saying to himself, we Jews
in Zion and cares less.)
justly complain when our boys
Joe Marx doesn't take it upon and girls can't get jobs because
himself to find fault in the ways they are Jews.
of other Jews, Joe carefully
"Shouldn't we as employers be
'minds his own way of being a first among those who make no
Jew. As I understand him, his point of race or religion in hiring
idea of being Jewish has to do people to work for them?
with ethical living and doing.
Shouldn't I myself, as a Jew,
To be a Jew is to be a man who practice in my business the con-
M
cept of brotherhood that, as we
are told, is of our religion."
* • •
A NEGRO FOR VACANCY
THERE WAS this the job of
stenographer vacant in his office
and why shouldn't he hire a
Negro girl to do it? Negroes were
fetv, if any, in offices in Cincin-
nati. Negroes were hired only for
the more menial tasks.
Negro girls and boys had been
training for stenography and
bookkeeping in the high schools,
but they came only to frustration
when they went to look for jobs
in offices. Joe Marx said we give
them equal education and we owe
them the equal right to earn their
livings at the work we have
trained them to do.
The white girls in Joe Marx's
office mightn't at first like hav-
ing a colored girl among them.
But the way to do with prejudice
was not to give in to it; prejudice
festers and grows because people
are afraid to quarrel with it.
If the ,white girls could meet
and face an object of their
prejudice, maybe they would
come around to see that the
Negro stenographer was the same
kind of a person as they, except
for the way her skin was tinted.
• • *
A JEWISH FEELING
JOE MARX could feel ex-
quisitely Jewish as he went
about to hire a colored stenog-
Prescriptions and Repairs
Called For and Delivered
For Service at all Times
Call WE. 3-3332
rapher for his office. The week
before the girl came, he brought
to the office a speaker to give a
speech to all the office help on
every American's right to equal
opportunity. It was on Lincoln's
birthday.
Three years have passed. It
worked out all right. Not just
that the Negro girl turned out to
be a capable stenographer. (She
was promoted to the secretary to
the executive of one of the de-
partments.)
What caused Joe Marx to exult
the more was the way the early
prejudice had dissolved in his of-
fice. It had dissolved like some
foul infection in the fresh air and
sunlight. From becoming ac-
quainted with the Negro stenog-
rapher, the white girls had come
to respect her. There was no one
more popular in the office than
she.
The white girls had come to
the highest degree of social edu-
cation: They had learned to see
that every individual was to be
(Continued on Page 11)
3 Local Civic Leaders
to Attend N. Y. Parley
Rabbis Morris Adler and Leon
Frans, vice-president and execu-
tive committee member of the
Community Council, respectively,
and Boris M. Joffe, Council ex-
ecutive director, will attend the
conference on religious holiday
observances in public schools
Tuesday and Wednesday in New
York.
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THE CULTURE COMMISSION OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF DETROIT
PRESENTS
For Presidents and Chairmen of ,Ed ucational and Program Committees
of Detroit Jewish Organizations
The Second Annual Program Planners' Institute
THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 15, 8:30 P.M. AT THE CONG. SHAAREY ZEDEK
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, SEPT. 18, 2:00 P.M. AT THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER
Thursday Evening
Sunday Afternoon
Rabbi Morris Adler, Chairman
AIMS St GOALS OF CULTURAL PROGRAMS
Rabbi Moses Lehrman
PLANNING FOR THE YEAR
Rebecca Sanders
The Jewish Scene
The American Civic Scene ... Esther Green
AVAILABLE COMMUNITY RESOURCES
Eleanor Wolf
Jason Tickton
JEWISH MUSIC
HOW GOOD PUBLICITY CAN INCREASE
Wilfred B. Doner
ATTENDANCE
Lawrence Crohn, Chairman
Choral Music
"Mastersingers"
Moe Kesner
"Jewish Music on Records"
"Israel Reborn"
Film
"The Jewish Community in America"—Morris
Lieberman
"Songs of Friendship"—Film
Radio Transcription
"My Native City"
Filmstrip
"Man in a Cage"
Demonstration of Films, Film Strips, Radio
Transcriptions, Literature and Records
For Reservations and Information Call
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Questions, Answers, Discussion by
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was one of the actual leaders of the hoodlums.
What is very disturbing is the indifference of the
Jewish press. The Yiddish newspapers, especially,
take the view that this outrage is of very minor con-
cern to American Jews.
Vandalism and physical attacks against innocent
men and women have taken place in an American
town under the benevolent eyes of the municipal
authorities. The fury against these men and women
had no justification.
•
•
•
THE AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS Congress, under
whose auspices the Robeson concert was to till.: place,
is on the subversive list of the department of justice.
We know, however, that this so-called subversive
list includes many of our most distinguished citizens
and groups whose loyalty and patriotism are abovc
suspicion. A dangerous atmosphere has been created
in this country. . Today no minority group, whether
racial, religious, or ideological is safe from mob
violence.
It is very late—American democracy cannot per-
mit another Peekskill putsch. It is the very last
minute for defenders of American democracy to speak
out against the lynching spirit manifested at Peekskill
which shakes the very foundations of our Constitution.
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