The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-10-22
In OTHER WORDS

relatives in the nazi armies. Eve
these dislike him (but why their dis
like should prove him pro-nazi wa
left unexplained). He has sold out
for cash, to Hitler. Hitler has givel
him a medal for services rendere,
the German reich (Lindbergh's IL
other medals, from the British, Frencl
and other governments, were left un
explained). Finally, Lindbergh Il
against war because he is yellow.
l do not say these fantastic stupid
tiles are typical. l merely repor
them as | heard them. There is M
justification for them anywhere
There is no justification for any par
of this Lindbergh campaign.
In the first place, the man is OBJ
viously innocent of the charges that
are being hurled against him. He is
not demonstrably pro-nazi. He is not
even genuinely a Jew-baiter, though
he has clumsily given that impress
sion. He is not un-American He is
merely one more human being trying
to find his way to what is right and
true in world which grows more
cock-eyed by the hour. And his cour.
age is something magnificent, some
thing altogether beyond the under
standing of the yellow pack now
snarling at his heels.
In the second place, he is not i'm
portant enough-assuming for a mo-
ment that if he were very important
and very guilty his destruction, as the
end desired, would justify the appal-
lingly base and cowardly means that
have been chosen to that end-he is
not, l repeat, important enough to
warrant this insane and criminal
ganging-up against him. He is not a
public official like, for example, Bur-
ton Wheeler, who, as senator, is
bound to account to the people for
his official behavior He is not a
candidate for anything. He is mere
ly private citizen who happens to
be famous. Whether he is wrong as
sin or eternally right, he has as clear
a right to his views as every other
citizen-including that great British
patriot who now adorns the chair
once occupied by the Andrew Jackson
who licked the pants off the British
at New Orleans and the Woodrow
Wilson whom the British caught with
his pants down at Versailles.
This man has not merely been at
70 n ha hnnf, Tod
out justice, without mercy, without
even elementary decency. His virtues
of sincerity and courage have been
turned against him no less than his
faults of wilIfulness and occasional
obtuseness. His private life has been
exhibited like a carnival sideshow;
his very tragedies have provided
weapons against him; by some happy
of clairvoyance and false
hood, subsidized writer's have invaded
and reported even his wife's secret
thoughts. To use an earthly figure,
every stool he has passed since he
was baby has been smelled out and
subjected to public post-mortem for
the benefit of some yellow journals
Since 1889 more and con
stantly harsher cries have sounded
against him; only here and there has
some minor voice been raised in his
defense. l say minor because, most
ly, they have been liberal journals of
small circulation (for example, The
Peoples Voice. or small-town news
papers of limited influence flor ex-
ample, The MISUNDERSTANDING God
help us if powerful voices all over the
nation do not soon assert his right to
the integrity of his own life and
spirit
There is something shattering,
colossally disheartening
about the spectacle of a whole great
people descending to the level of a
Ladies' Aid bursting with pious NAL
Ice. What sort of democracy are we
anyway, if one lone citizen who has
The courage of his convictions can
throw such fear for our own convic-
ions into the other 130,000,000 of us |
hat we must resort to deliberate |
of mad and savage injustice
n the effort to dispose of him and |
lis arguments? We are in plain fact |
a national scandal for
which our children will have to blush
Is the pre-war generation of French
men blushed for the persecution of |
)reyfus.
AS to Lindbergh's attack on the /
'ews, it wasn't actually so much. The
rouble is that we are all becoming II
'sychopathic upon the subject of II
Let a man mention out loud any one
f the many unquestionable virtues of
he Jews: he is at once suspected of
eing Jew. Let him mention any II
ne of the many faults of the Jews:
o is as surely suspected of being
All. We are not ordinarily so ex-
liable. We can discuss Irishmen or
wedes or Brazilians or even Russians
,ithout necessarily getting hot and
othered. Why all this hysteria about
ews?
Hitler is not the only answer, II
nough his antics have shocked many II
us into forgetting so paltry mat
or as few thousand years of earlier
istory. For the crime of having a
omewhat longer memory than most |
shall perhaps once again be read
ut of the human race. So be it. The 1
Unavoidable fact is that the Jew pos
esses most unhappy faculty for dis
'essing other people. This was true
/ King David's time; it was true in
time (reread "The Mer-