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THE DETROIT JEWISH HEWS
Purely Commentary
Congressman Broomfield's Sense
of Outrage Places the UN on
Trial in the U.S. Congress
A continuity of threats by the Soviet-Arab bloc against
Israel inspired one of Israel's outspoken friends in the U.S.
House of Representatives, Rep. William Broomfield of
Michigan, to introduce a resolution, co-signed by a number
of his associates, placing the UN "on notice that if it inten-
tionally fails to adhere to its own charter by expelling,
suspending or otherwise denying rights and privileges to
any of its democratic member states, then the United
States will suspend its participation in the General Assem-
bly and withhold its assessed contributions until the illegal
action is rectified."
In an address in the House of Representatives explain-
ing his proposed resolution, Congressman Broomfield
stated in part:
Once conceived as the very embodiment of
freedom and democracy, a place where interna-
tional disputes could be resolved through negoti-
ation, the United Nations has now degenerated
into a focal point of Soviet espionage, Communist
subversion, and Third World fascist de-
mogoguery.
Rather than resolving international disputes,
the General Assembly now exacerbates them by
quickly lining up into camps against one or
another Western country and then tries to ram
through ludicrous and totally unacceptable re-
solutions against these Western nations. There is
no attempt made any more to find the middle
ground, to find areas in which the parties in dis-
pute can agree and then build upon these areas to
resolve their greater differences.
It is outrageous that these Third World and
Communist nations, nations which deny any
semblance of democracy at home, are so intent
upon using majority rule in the General Assembly
to ride roughshod over the Western democracies.
The General Assembly routinely attacks Israel,
El Salvador and South Africa, among others. Yet
the General Assembly and its human rights agen-
cies were silent while the Communist forces of Pol
Pot killed three million Kampucheans. No Third
World voices were raised while Idi Amin mur-
dered 250,000 Ugandans. In fact, Amin was the
president of the Organization of African Unity
during this period.
Not one Third World spokesman in the United
Nations called for sanctions against Jordan when
they ruled the West Bank and controlled the .
Palestinian population from 1948 to 1967. And, of
course, the United Nations is silent concerning
the oppression, imprisonment of political prison-
ers, and complete denial of human rights that
exist in the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other Com-
munist bloc nations.
It is for these reasons that this resolution is so
important. It states in no uncertain terms that
there are genuine standards of behavior that
must be adhered to in the world, and that the
United States will not tolerate a double standard
being applied to suit the majority of tyrants whose
representatives occupy seats- at the United Na-
tions.
• Congressman Broomfield is not alone in expressing his
sense of digust with the UN General Assembly.
Spearheaded by Sen. Moynihan and Rep. Jack Kemp, the
resolution is gaining co-sponsors. A similar resolution was
introduced by Congressman Tom Lantos.
Even if action on these resolutions is delayed, or
pigeonholed, due to pressures which often come from the
State Department, the verdict is on the record. The guilty
are condemned. The destroyers of peace aims in what
should be a peace-building institution must face the
limelight.
To the sponsors of these resolutions must go the
gratitude of the entire American people, whose spokes-
men continually reject the indecencies stemming from the
world organization's polluted principles.
Why Was the Sense of Shame
Stemming From Leo Frank Case
_
Delayed for So Many Years?
_ Even those who are familiar with the details of the Leo
Frank tragedy, with the horror that struck the state of
Georgia, must suffer from a sense of shame over what
occurred.
The hatreds that polluted a state and the entire nation,
the judicial cowardice, the yielding to terror — what a
horrible recollection of one of the most shameful experi-
ences in this country.
Governor John Slaton knew and understood what was
happening. He was aware of the injustice. He sensed that a
frightened court permitted an official condoning of what
was occurring.
114;
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Challenge to UN General Assembly in House Under Leadership
of Broomfield and Lantos Merits Acclaim . . . The Leo Frank Case
Under Louis Marshall's Scrutiny Exposed the Judicial failures
Was it ever a lesson for that generation and is it a
lesson for the present?
Supreme Court Justices Charles Evans Hughes and
Oliver Wendell Holmes recognized that there was an injus-
tice and they favored granting a new trial to the
innocently-accused Leo Frank. Now a delayed confessional
by a witness to the actual murder of the young girl brings to
light again a disgraceful occurrence.
There were Jews who believed at the time that Leo
Frank was guilty. They should have heeded the cries of the
insaned mobsters, the anti-Semitic outbursts of hatred, the
failure of the judge to call a halt to such demonstrations, for
a recognition of something vastly different than a mere
murder case. It was mob rule, and now a guilty conscience
relates only how the murdered youngster was attacked and
does not contribute toward a renewed realization that one
must never, never, condone the panicking of a jurist.
Perhaps the judge in that case was himself _motivated by
hatred for Jews. The fact remains that the court where an
innocent Leo Frank was judged was under duress, was
threatened by a mob, and the judge didn't have the decency,
the courage, to ask for state troops, if the local police could
not intervene, to assist in assuring proper judicial action.
The Leo Frank case has many lessons for the genera-
tions to come. There is one on the domestic scene.
Morris Abram, a former president of the American
Jewish Committee and one of the nation's very eminent
lawyers, was here in 1976 to assist JiMmy Carter's cam-
paign for the Presidency. There were four of us at breakfast
with him at the Sheraton. Abrams is a native Georgian and
the friendly discussion led to reminiscences. Your commen-
tator mentioned the Leo Frank case as a matter of interest
to a man born in the state that was disgraced by that
outrage. The others at the breakfast perked up their ears.
They had never heard of the Leo Frank tragedy!
This is what is echoing now, as a result of the deferred
eyewitness confession. The calls are: when, how, who .. .
By Philip
Slomovitz
people are unaware of what had occurred — and that oc-
currence was not a mere incident.
Which goes to prove that matching the ignorance of the
Georgia mob is a lack of knowledge of history in most
American, and in this instance, the Jewish ranks. That's a
pity. How can judicial errors be averted if occurrences of
abuses are not reckoned with?
Can it all happen again?
That's what's being asked about the Holocaust. This is
a question to be posed regarding the Genocide Convention
which remains unapproved by the U.S. Senate, although 84
nations have already acted positively on the matter stem-
ming from the decent years of the United Nations
Can it happen again?
Only if mob rule gets the upper hand and the judiciary
submits to panic and to threats from beasts who may invade
courtrooms.
ar
The Happier Note
There is a more pleasant note to the Frank Case.
The New York Times, reporting the latest develop-
ment and the belated revelation by the eyewitness, stated
that- half of the 3,000 Jews then in Georgia fled the state.
This is incorrect. There were some 12,000 Jews in Georgia
at the time and they had to protect themselves from
threatening anti-Semitic groups with bars on their busi-
ness houses and caution against invaders in their homes.
Few fled the state.
Now there are about 34,000 Jews in Georgia. They are
a proud element in the population and there is amity bet-
ween them and the non-Jews. Atlanta even had a Jewish
mayor until last year.
That's the turn toward the civilized that predominates
presently, provides hope for a better future for all cooperat-
ing Americans, black and white, of all faiths.
Georgians are no doubt ashamed of what occurred in
1913-1915.
Blind Justice Needs Moral Ophthalmology:
Frank Case Served as Medium for Bigotry
character was beyond re-
The mob whose domina- bers, in which he contends
proach. He was a graduate
tion over the Georgia cour- that Leo Frank, who was
of Cornell University, and a
troom in the early 1900s led lynched in Georgia in 1915,
number of the members of
to the murder of an innocent was guilty of the crime of
the faculty and of his
Jew, the bigoted activities murder, should not remain
fellow-students testified to
of Tom Watson who gained unnoticed.
his unblemished reputa-
a seat in the U.S. Senate as
"Speaking from the re-
' tion, as did various leading
a result of the anti-Semitic cord, I say without the
citizens of Atlanta."
Leo M. Frank case, has its slightest mental reserva-
repercussions elsewhere, tion that never was there a
Perhaps the judiciary of
Unbelievable as it may be, greater crime against jus-
the state of Georgia could
it took entirely too long to tice perpetrated than the
see fit to reopen the case, to
establish Frank's innocence condemnation of this inno-
correct a tragic error,
and there were prople in cent man for a crime which
perhaps place on trial post-
many states who believed he did not commit. I have
humously the inhumanities
he was guilty.
before me the record of the
LOUIS MARSHALL
of Senator Tom Watson and
As late as 1927, 12 years case, which shows that he
"Under the laws of Geor- the murderers he inspired
after the tragic lynching, was the victim of insane pre-
there was a believer who judice and of the virulent gia, Frank could not be in, his magazine. Surely,
expressed it. It was refuted animosity of Tom Watson sworn as a witness in his there must be a sense of
in a letter to the Boston and the shameless articles own behalf, although he guilt somewhere in the
made an unsworn state- ranks of survivors of that
Herald by Louis Marshall, published from day to day in
ment denying all participa- sad period in the history of
dated Nov. 9, 1927.
The Jeffersonian with the
tion
in the crime. His this nation.
Written by the eminent avowed purpose of arousing
constitutional lawyer who antipathy.
was president of the Ameri-
"Conley, the Negro whose
can Jewish Committee, in-
Shocking in retrospect, in Thomas E. Watson:
testimony was relied upon,
corporated as part of the re-
"In his Jeffersonian Tom
had a criminal record at the the recollections about the
cord of the Frank case in time when he was sworn. Leo Frank case, is how the Watson continued to in-
"Louis Marshall: Champion The letters which were frameup, as it was also de- flame his ever growing
of Liberty" (Jewish Publica- found on the body of Mary scribed, affected an eminent army of readers with lurid
tion Society, 1957), this let- Phagan were written by editor who fell prey to the attacks on the Jews. Like
ter analyzes the case, ex- him and demonstrated to a mob outrage.
every other rabble-rouser in
poses the travesty of justice certainty that Frank had no
Ralph McGill, editor of history, he used half-truths
caused by mob rule, calls at-
the Atlanta Constitution, whenever they suite, ''s
tention to the sense of fair part, directly or indirectly, was uncertain. He believed aims, lies and slander .
in the murder of this unfor-
play of Supreme Court Jus- tunate girl.
Frank could have been half-truths proved in-
tices Hughes and Holmes,
guilty. Later he changed.
adequate.
"At
various
times
Con-
and exposes even if only by ley gave at least five dif-
In a revealing book,
"Many thousands of
reference their two an- ferent conflicting ver- "Night Fell on Georgia"
Georgians, intelligent,
tagonists, Sutherland and sions of his story. After (Dell, 1956), Charles and
kindly, cultured people who
McReynolds, whose hatreds Frank's tragic death Con- Louise Samuels stated that
despised Tom Watson and
were felt by Supreme Court ley was convicted of the . the Frank case "is the only
everything he stood for,
Justice Brandeis.
nevertheless resented with
crime of burglary and celebrated American mur-
all their troubled hearts the
Marshall's letter of sentenced for a long term ._ .der case of the 20th Century
growing "interference" of
Nov. 9, 1927, to the Boston in state prison. It is said in which religious prejudice
Northerners and other out-
Herald, is of sufficient that while there he con- played a dominating role."
siders in what they consi-
Hatred for Northerners
importance to be re- fessed that Frank had no-
dered a purely local matter.
printed at this time, when thing to do with the mur- who pleaded for, justice
They also sincerely believed
the Frank case again as- der. Another of the prin- was in evidence in the
that if the do-gooders would
cipal witnesses against Frank case, as "Night
sumes the limelight:
"The letter of William B. Frank was subsequently Fell on Georgia" relates just go home and mind their
Stoneman which appeared convicted of blackmail in about the anti-Semite, re- own business, Frank would
ferred to as a scoundrel, get ,justice. "'
in one of your recent num- the state of Tennessee.
)
Recalling So uthern Error
.