The following two editorials were published in the July 18, 1924, edition of The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. Both were written by the editorial board — likely specifically by Victor Slone, The Chronicle’s first editor.
The first editorial is in response to the Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act), signed by President Calvin Coolidge, which, in addition to other anti-immigration implementations, imposed strict quotas on Southern and Eastern European immigrants.
The second editorial covers the KKK presence at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, called “The Wildest Convention in U.S. History” by Politico. Unfortunately, the author’s prediction that the KKK’s publicized positions would finally elicit complete American condemnation and eliminate the organization did not happen.
“The New Jewish Migration”
With the newly restricted immigration law in effect as of July 1, American Jewry has lost no time in preparing to alleviate the sufferings that will inevitably result to the many thousands of Jews in Europe who must seek new avenues of migration. Forty-five American Jewish organizations sent 120 delegates to a conference in New York which effected the organization of an “Emergency Committee on Jewish Refugees,” the first consideration being the welfare of approximately 8,000 Jewish immigrants who are now stranded in various cities and ports of Europe, Cuba and Mexico.
A thorough study of immigration and settlement possibilities in Central and South American countries will be undertaken so that the emigrant from Europe may be in a better position to establish himself. A million dollars will be asked to make this vitally necessary work possible. That it will be forthcoming without delay is assured. With men of the type of Louis Marshall, Max D. Steuer, Joseph Barondess joining representatives of Jewish labor, fraternal and religious organizations, this project will become one of the big activities of American Jewry.
A new era in Jewish migration is about to be opened up. The doors of America are closed for a number of years, at least. Only a few thousands of Jews from European countries will be permitted to enter here. The situation in Europe at present is not at all favorable to the security and welfare of the Jews and they are just as anxious as they ever were to settle in more favorable countries. Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and other countries have announced a favorable attitude to Jewish immigration, but it is not as yet known in what manner these countries could properly absorb any number of Jews.
The duty of paying the way for the new Jewish immigrants to these countries rests on the shoulders of the Jews in America who, now relieved of the responsibilities of further immigration to America, are in the best position to aid their brethren who were unfortunate enough not to have come here sooner. The progress of the new migration to other countries in this hemisphere will become absorbingly interesting.
“The Klan Issue”
No better method of stopping the growth of the Ku Klux Klan and starting it on the quick path to oblivion could have been revised than the debate staged at Madison Square Garden by the Democratic National Convention on the question of denouncing the Klan by name in its platform.
For the first time, this vile, hidden, monstrous creature of the insane imagination of bigoted cowards was dragged out into the sunlight of public discussion and exposed to the rays of an aroused public opinion. Through the marvelous agency of the radio, that miracle of modern miracles, the worlds of the many able men and women who excoriated the anti-American hooded band were heard by millions. The hooded organization was branded in unequivocal terms as a thing foreign and repugnant to the theory of human relationship and political government established by the founders of this republic in the Declaration of Independences and the Constitution of the United States.
The Klan and its cohorts is by every test a thing of abject cowardice was demonstrated in the fact that despite the presence of hundreds of delegates reputed to have been sent by the Klan to plead its unholy cause in the convention, not one word was uttered in its behalf. Its adherents, by their cowardly silence, proved that it only does its nefarious work in the dark and behind masks. The Klan had a most favorable opportunity to declare its “100 percent American” purpose, but it remained silent, and pursued instead its “klanish” course of action by attempting to destroy a political party with a “religious” issue.
There was no actual religious question involved in the Klan debate. It is true that blind passionate religious hatreds were engendered, for which the partnership of the anti-Klan elements are undoubtedly as much to blame as the Klan itself, but the issue involved was fundamentally a political one. It struck right to the very roots of our form of political government. It involved the most precious heritage handed down by generations of liberty-loving Americans, the maintenance of the fundamental principle, written into the organic law of the land, for which the founders of the republic risked life and fortune, the right of every American citizen to worship his God according to the dictates of his conscience, unhampered and unhindered by any force in the body politic. It involved not mere opposition to a secret fraternal society that took it upon itself to indulge in religious hatred, but rather the right of any organized body of men to capture local, state and national government for the purpose of depriving millions of American citizens of their inalienable rights. It involved the perpetuation of the American nation and presented as serious a situation as was met by the Civil War.
The debate marked the death-knell of the Klan. It wasn’t necessary to denounce it by name in the platform after that historic session. The American people have the issue squarely before them, whether the politicians like it or not. It makes no difference what political party is successful at the polls next November so far as religious freedom is concerned. The moral sentiment against the Klan will grow to such overwhelming volume as to make it impossible to endure. It will go the way of the Know Nothing Party of the [eighteen] fifties, the A.P.A. movement and every other form of organized bigotry that attempted to raise its head and was crushed out not by force, but by the inherent sense of justice of the American people.
More than a century of Kansas City Jewish Chronicle issues are available at kcjc.com/archive.
