"Unholy Issue"

"It is very unfortunate to try to bring religion into this campaign," declared New Deal-hating Publisher Paul Block last week in a signed editorial in which he tried to bring religion into the campaign by asserting that President Roosevelt had drafted New York's Governor Herbert H. Lehman to run for re-election in an effort to snare the State's Jewish vote.

In Manhattan next day religion got into the campaign in a bigger way. Week before the New York World-Telegram had reported that a charge of anti-Semitism was being whispered against Republican National Chairman John D. M. Hamilton, based on assertions that Jews were ignored at the Cleveland convention, that no Jew had sat on the dais with the new chairman at a post-convention banquet for him in Manhattan. Last week newshawks asked John Hamilton about the rumors. Obviously primed with his points, if not with his metaphors, the jut-jawed Republican Chairman barked: "There is not an iota of truth in such a thing, and it is a deliberate attempt by those other people to throw a dust cloud when they know their ship is sinking. We have a red herring in every campaign, and apparently this is the first such attempt. The opposition is using this unholy issue to catch votes as it best suits their purpose."

Chairman Hamilton charged that a Democratic whispering campaign against both him and Governor Landon had been in progress for three weeks. In the East Jews were being told that he and the Governor were anti-Semites. In the West anti-Semites were being told that the Governor's middle name, Mossman, proved his Jewish descent.

Launching into a defensive counterattack, Chairman Hamilton declared that in 1924, when Democrats dodged the Ku Klux Klan issue at their National Convention, Alf Landon had supported William Allen White's anti-Klan candidacy for Governor of Kansas, and he himself had run for the State Legislature on an anti-Klan ticket. Elected Republican Floor Leader of the House, said he, he had fought and defeated a bill legalizing the Klan. In 1926 he was elected Speaker of the House over Klan opposition. "In 1928 I ran for Governor. Although the Klan had practically passed out of existence, there was strong Klan sentiment in many of the counties and that defeated me."*

Chairman Hamilton proceeded to point out that a longtime law partner of his had been a Jew, that long before the current campaign began he had hired a Jew as his secretary. "Governor Landon," cried he, "is just as tolerant as I am. . . . The religious issue has no part in a campaign. It involves the very basic elements of our form of government and jeopardizes the very foundations of the Constitution. But jeopardizing the Constitution is nothing to the New Dealers, who have been jeopardizing it now for nearly four years."

To date, Alf Landon's most vocal Jewish supporter has been Publisher Paul Block. Others are Manhattan Banker Frank Altschul, Adman Albert D. Lasker, Publisher Eugene Meyer of the Washington Post. Last week Publisher Meyer joined the procession of Republican bigwigs calling on Governor Landon, testifying by his presence to the nominee's freedom from prejudice. Earlier visitors that day had been Rabbi Samuel S. Mayerberg of Kansas City's Congregation B'nai Yehuda and Joseph Cohen, Kansas City lawyer and Jewish fraternal leader. Declared they in a joint statement on departing: "Both candidates of the major parties are free from antiSemitism. . . . The record of Governor Landon is proof of the fair-minded and liberal attitude he has always maintained. . . ."

* Backed by Kansas' Old Guard, John Hamilton was defeated in the Republican primary by the liberal faction's Clyde M. Reed. Candidate Reed's campaign manager was Alf M. Landon.

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