Anti-Semitism in the United States

Abstract

Anti-Semitism has increased sharply in the United States since the last World War. This appears in the great increase in organized forms of antiSemitic agitation and organization, in the occasional occurrence of acts of violence against Jews, unknown earlier, in indications of increased discrimination in employment, in academic enrollment, and in social restrictions and exclusions, and of late years in the increasing tolerance with which these manifestations of antiSemitism have been treated. The highlights of the agitation during this period are well-known. They include the systematic campaign of antiSemitic publication carried on by Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent from 1920-1927; the activities of the Ku Klux Klan during the same general period; sporadic cases of agitation in the early 30's until, stimulated by the Nazi movement abroad, a wave of anti-Semitic publications and organizations began in 1933-34 to inundate the country. Among the more recent and prominent, in addition to publications of the Bund itself, were William Dudley Pelley with his Silver Shirts organization and his publication Liberation; Rev. Gerald Winrod of Kansas with his Revealer and Defender; and Father Coughlin and his Social Justice. During this latter period there flourished briefly, also, the notorious Michigan Black Legion. These major forms of agitation and organization should be seen as highlights, for the stream on which they reached the surface runs deep and wide. So marked have been the manifestations of anti-Semitism in the United States since the period of the last World War, and so sharp the contrast with the milder conditions preceding it, that some have felt anti-Semitism was essentially absent from America earlier, and particularly prior to 1900. The change has been acute in public and official attitudes toward antiSemitism. At the opening of the century, the sober judgment of the American people branded anti-Semitic offenders and offenses with public denunciation and scorn. As late as the 20's, Ford's campaign in the Dearborn Independent was widely denounced and a retraction and public apology for the canards obtained from Ford himself. When Representative McFadden in 1933 introduced anti-Semitic canards in the record of Congressional proceedings, he was censured both in Congress and by press and public. But in May 1941 Representative Rankin indulged in an outburst of anti-Semitism in the House of Representatives which went unchallenged, save by Representative Edelstein of New York, who died from a heart attack as he finished his plea for traditional American tolerance and democracy. But neither press, nor Congress, nor leaders of the Government have censured or denounced this outburst. The event was widely treated with indifference, and in some cases Edelstein's action and death were also