Evening star., 1939-03-25
Denies franklin
Denounced Jews
Al Convention
6. U. Student in Talk
Attacks Perpetrotor
Of Report

Assigned Dy Georgetown Uni.
versity to inquire into the authen-
ITCHY of the alleged denunciation
of the Jewish people by Benjamin
Franklin at the time of the Federal
Constitutional Convention. John E..
Smith. Foreign Service School
student. told an audience last night
in Memorial Continental Hall that
the perpetrator of the report
should be condemned as a traitor
to the traditional liberal principles
of free America"
Mr.. Smith shared the lecture
platform with DR.. Edmund A.
Walsh, S. j., regent Of the Foreign
Service School, at the latter's week
ly lecture and reported on his re-
search In connection with the pub
lication of the alleged document by
William Dudley Pelley. editor of
Liberation. an anti-Semitic news
paper, in Asheville, N. C. The docu-
ment IN question, supposed to be q
reprint from the notes of Charles
Pinckney, South Carolina delegate
to the Philadelphia convention, has
been publicized widely in this coun-
try and in Europe to arouse an
tagonism against the Jews.
Franklin Not Author.
The Asheville editor, Mr.. Smith
said. had refused to produce al
legged original document, preferring.
as he told the student, to watch
the CONSERVATION of the world until
strategic moment" arrived, when
he would confound his critics by
"springing the original on them"
Mr.. Smith admitted he could not
say definitely that thu vicious de-
nunciation of the Jewish people at
tributed to the venerated Ameri-
can patriot did not come from his
pen. However. he said he had
compiled overwhelming circumstan-
tial evidence to the effect that
Franklin never wrote the document,
which was to the effect the Jews
should be barred from the United
States for fear they would control
the country.
Leading scholars and research au-
thorities, he said, are agreed that
the document is clumsy forgery"
and have searched in vain for the
original or reference to it in the
Franklin Institute in Philadelphia
the Library of Congress and in the
private papers of Charles Pinckney.
Favored Freedom.
At the time Franklin was SUD-
posed to have denounced the Jew
ish people, Mr.. Smith said, it can
be shown in numerous public state
ments he was in favor of complete
religious freedom for all denomina-
tions and even contributed to a
fund to provide house of meeting
to be used by Jewish people.
Despite the arguments against
the authenticity of the document,
he said that even if the report were
true, Mr.. Pelley did q grave dis
service to his country in publishing
this stimulant to racial hatreds at
this time"
He made an appeal, quoting from
both Washington and Franklin, to
preserve the liberal principles of
America and to keep this New
World apart from the racial and
class hatreds that are threatening
the very existence of the old"
In his weekly course on "The
Government and People Of the
United States" DR.. Walsh last night
declared that the direct overthrow
of this Government by a coup
d'etat was, in his opinion, re
mote, very dubious" so long as the
48 States retain their present au-
tonomy.
In q word" he said, "the best
prophylactic against dictator is
the maintenance Of q healthy Fed
eralism."
He added that I'VE have much
more to fear from the indirect
coup d'etat, from the centralization
of command by indirect approach,
by the accumulation Of power In
any highly centralized reservoir.
That process may be long, devious
and subtle, but the final effect
could be disastrous" he concluded.