"Hairy Man"

Last week a Hairy Man, an austere Harvardman, and a cargo of vituperation came down hard and almost snapped the already strained relations between the U. S. and Germany. For the U. S. Government emerged from its diplomatic storm cellar and slapped down Adolf Hitler.

Esau. Next to New York City's spunky, part-Jewish Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, whose manhandling by a disgruntled WPAster was front-page German news last week, the U. S. politician whom Nazis hate most is that spade-is-a-spade "Aryan," Secretary of the Interior Harold LeClair Ickes.

Last spring, to the embarrassment of the State Department, Secretary Ickes refused to permit the export of a promised shipment of helium* for use in German dirigibles. As this act was recalled to Nazi minds last month by the reshipment of 200 empty steel bottles from Houston, Texas to Germany, Secretary Ickes bobbed up again with a speech before the Cleveland Zionist Society. Title: "Esau, the Hairy Man." Excerpts:

"It seems to be all too easy to arouse prejudice and passion against the people who so long ago struggled out of the ford of the Jabbok to meet Esau, the hairy man. . . .* Today the Jew in certain areas is a political eunuch, a social outcast, to be dragged down like a mad dog. . . .

"How can any American . . . accept a decoration at the hand of a brutal dictator who, with that same hand, is robbing and torturing thousands of fellow human beings? Perhaps Henry Ford and Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh [both decorated by Germany in 1938] will be willing to answer. . . . The bestower of [these tokens] counts that day lost when he can commit no new crime against humanity.

"We have seen free countries deteriorate into dictatorships ruled by the heavy hand of voodoo high priests. ... To seek a true comparison it is necessary to go back into that period of history when man was unlettered, benighted and bestial."

This is Herr Ickes! The German press recently called Britain's venerable Earl Baldwin a "guttersnipe" for expressing far less fiery sentiments. It met the Ickes salute with a fantastic bombardment.

Hitler's Voelkischer Beobachter: "The Germanophobe Ickes belongs to that group in the Washington Cabinet that . . . seeks to put Roosevelt in the foreground of their dark machinations." Essen National Zeitung: "Ickes . . . official co-sinner of the drug king [Coster-Musica], whose vest is by no means clean!" Dr. Goebbels' Der Angriff (under a photograph of Secretary Ickes slumped, ungainly, in a chair): "THIS IS HERR ICKES. Instead of busying himself with the gigantic corruption scandal at home, which is his duty as Minister of the Interior,/- Herr Ickes makes incendiary speeches against Germany."

The implication of these outbursts was that Secretary Ickes did not represent U. S. opinion, would soon be cast into "oblivion." Apparently unaware how much that opinion has changed since the State Department last year apologized for Mayor LaGuardia's onslaught on the Fuehrer as a "gangster," Germany's Foreign Office last week sent bland, blond Charge d'Affaires Thomsen to the State Department with a "sharply worded" demand for another apology.

"Nuts to You." Next day in answer to this protest, not Cordell Hull, busy in Lima, but Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles received handsome Dr. Thomsen. Two days before, Dr. Thomsen had informed Mr. Welles that Germany, whose currency export restrictions have long barred the transfer of German estate funds to U. S. beneficiaries, had finally agreed that U. S. heirs would henceforth get their money in full, regardless of their race or creed. Dr. Thomsen is himself an amiable and reasonable man, and deliberate Mr. Welles is a career diplomat of frigid temper, conservative habits, impeccable speech. But Mr. Welles is also the man who wrote for Secretary Hull an extremely sharp note on Mexican expropriations this year, and when harsh words are required Mr. Welles is an expert in speaking them.

Half an hour after Dr. Thomsen entered the Welles office he emerged, imperturbable. Then Mr. Welles issued to the press (including Kurt Sell of the German News Agency) his digest of the interview. In diplomatic language the substance of his answer to the Man of 1938 (see p. 11) was "Nuts to you!"

". . . Mr. Welles said the German Government must surely be familiar with the fact that the recent policies pursued in Germany had shocked and confounded public opinion in the United States more profoundly than anything that had taken place in many decades, and such references to this state of public indignation as may have been made certainly represented the feeling of the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States.

"Mr. Welles said it seemed to him the desire of the German Government to make a protest of this character came with singular ill grace. For the past few months he had followed carefully the German press, which he was sure the Charge d'Affaires could hardly dispute was completely under the influence and dictation of the authorities of the German Government, and he had rarely read more unjustifiable criticism or open attacks on members of another Government. . . .

"The Acting Secretary of State concluded the interview by saying that . . . so long as the attacks against officials of the United States Government, which had been continuing for so long, persisted in Germany, the German Government could hardly suppose that attacks of the same character would not continue in the United States."

Do Not Like. Not since 1917 has the U. S. given any nation such a comeuppance. It was stronger than the recent notes to Germany on the repudiated Austrian debt and the refugee problem, stronger than the "temporary recall" of Ambassador Hugh Wilson. It was so strong that the Nazi Government did not even let its press tell the German people about it. It was as close to a severance of diplomatic relations as two "friendly" nations can get.

Actual severance would make Germany the diplomatic (and trading) pariah which Russia was between 1917 and 1933. To drive home the fact that the U. S. was not joking, Franklin Roosevelt unexpectedly-motored out to dine with Secretary Ickes and his attractive young wife at "Headwaters Farm" in Olney, Md.

The next blow came from a source almost as impressive as State Department or White House. Chairman Key Pittman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee handed out, without preface or elaboration, a concise statement of his view of U. S. foreign relations with totalitarian States. Its text in toto:

"1) The people of the U. S. do not like the Government of Japan.

"2) The people of the U. S. do not like the Government of Germany.

"3) The people of the U. S., in my opinion, are against any form of dictatorial government, Communistic or Fascistic.

"4) The people of the U. S. have the right and power to enforce morality and justice in accordance with peace treaties with us. And they will. Our Government does not have to use military force and will not unless necessary."

Understanding Senator Pittman's words were far too crude for diplomacy. Even from a chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (who is not expected to be a diplomat) they came perilously close to being a deliberate insult. And there was even a suspicion that they might have been inspired by the White House. In effect, Mr. Ickes having boxed Adolf Hitler's ear, and Mr. Welles having slapped his nose, Mr. Pittman took a roundhouse swing at his jaw.

In the club of nations this was carrying rebuke of a fellow member to the brink of unpleasantness. It appeared, however, to be just blunt enough to make Member Hitler understand. For two days there was silence from officials in Berlin. Then a Propaganda Ministry spokesman announced: "The incident now is closed. We had our say and the American Government had its."

For the first time Adolf Hitler had been treated with the same crudeness he had often used to other nations. At least for the time being the result appeared salubrious.

*A monopoly supply of the world's helium comes from gas wells owned and operated by the U. S. Government. In July helium gas was reported discovered in Brazil. Chances are that if Brazil develops a helium supply, Germany will obtain it there.

*In his youth Esau was wronged by his younger brother Jacob, who became father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Years later the warlike, hirsute Esau (who came from his mother's womb "all over like an hairy garment") terrified Jacob and his followers when he appeared at the ford of the Jabbok with 400 men, but instead of carrying out a pogrom he forgave his brother, embraced him. (Genesis, Chapter 25, et seq.~)

/-"Aryan" ignorance, which presumed that, in European fashion, a Minister of Interior has charge of police and the suppression of crime. Mr. Ickes, who looks after public lands, forests, territorial and insular government, etc., has no authority to look into skulduggery such as Coster-Musica's.

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