The Southern Jewish weekly. [volume] (Jacksonville, Fla.) 1939-1992, 1940-01-19
Continued from Page Two)


Jewish, it is Christian, it is
revolt against reason and God.
This is not a lesson for Europe
alone, or simply for lands other
than our own. 1t is lesson that
Americans, also, need to learn
and to carry with them through
life as an inseparable part of their
citizenship.
For the virus of anti-Semitism
has made itself felt here as well
as abroad.
The purveyOrs of hatred, the
prOVOkerS of diSSentiOn and strife,
the staggering apostle of force
and violence, are methOdicaIly
and with generalization laboring
to bring to the United States the
same conditions of group hatred
and civil war that have destroyed
the peace of Europe. Preacher
Ously, they camOuflage their true
nature by representing themselves
to the unWary as defenders of
God, America, and the COnstitu-
ton. Unscrupulously, they stir
up riots in the city streets, they
intimidate peaceful citizens, they
invade meetings, and they peddle
as truth the malicious lies which
people of their ilk have invented
to blacken those whom they hate.
Some of the professional hate
mongering, government can and
will combat through the laws of
the land. But in the main, Amer
lean democracy must look for it's
defense to the wisdom of the peo-
pie and their determination not
to be led on the paths that have
taken other peoples to commun-
ism and fascism.
Not guns nor battle ships will
ultimately preserve democracy,
but the devotion of a people who
have the good sense to realize
that intolerance is no respecter of
perSOnS-that once unleashed it
has no regard for religion or race
or economic status, or least of
all, for that dignity of the individ-
ual which lies at the basis of our
civilization. Democracy in Amer
lea will be saved if, as a people,
we are wise enough to know that
if we do not respect others faiths,
the day will come when other men
will not respect cur faiths.
The refugee problem is not a
problem of or for any one race
or religion, it is a challenge to
civilized man the world over. In
helping to give your people or any
people a chance to live free
life in a free country, we are
helping to do our part to preserve
justice and liberty in civilized
world. We are not merely re-
lieving suffering and distress, we
are helping to preserve for our
selves and our posterity those
ideas and spiritual values without
which life would be a barren and
british thing.
There are some things in this
era of transition on which we all
cannot agree-SOme matters of
national policy about which there
, are bound to be honest differences
of opinion.
But there is one question of pol
icy that should not and must not
divide us. Should it eventually
do so, the end of American dem
ocracy will not be far behind.
That policy is the creed of toll
erance which for century and a
half has sustained civil liberty
and representative government in
this land.
There is no hope for us in turn
ing away from that policy. And
those who preach that we will
prosper by doing so preach a
black and destructive doctrine.
They preach a doctrine that is
the betrayal of everything that
the Fathers of the Republic hoped
and planned for. They preach
philosophy that can bring nothing
but hate and misery and ruin to
this nation which has become
great only through harmony and
mutual faith among those who
built it.