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| An antisemite in Congress |
Louis Thomas McFadden was a Republican member of Congress from Pennsylvania for twenty years, serving from 1915 to 1935.
He was also a virulent antisemite.
Wikipedia summarizes:
In 1934, he made several anti-Semitic comments from the floor of the house and in newsletters to his constituents wherein he cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, claimed the Roosevelt administration was controlled by Jews, and objected to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., a Jew, becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Drew Pearson claimed in his "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that, in a publication by the American fascist Silver Shirts, McFadden had been "extensively" quoted "in support of Adolf Hitler".[ In September the Nazi tabloid Der Stuermer praised McFadden. He was also lauded by the publications of William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts, on several occasions.According to McFadden's Jewish Telegraphic Agency obituary: "In January 1935, he announced his candidacy for president with the backing of an organization called 'the Independent Republican National Christian-Gentile Committee' on a platform to 'keep the Jew out of control of the Republican Party!'"
McFadden was apparently an excellent orator. In this section of the Congressional Record where he quoted the Protocols, (May 29, 1933, page 4539), his antisemitic statements were followed by an appeal to patriotism which was greeted with applause in the halls of Congress:
Mr. Chairman, the provisions of this repudiation bill were foretold by a writer in the Dearborn Independent some years ago. There is, therefore, nothing novel or original about them. The writer of the article in the Dearborn Independent made the following quotation prophesying some of the measures which have been introduced here by the President of the United States:(2) Confiscation of money in order to regulate its circulation.(3) We must introduce a unit of exchange based on the value of labor units, regardless of whether paper or wood are used as the medium. We will issue money to meet the normal demands of every subject, adding a total sum for every birth and decreasing the total amount for every death.(4) Commercial paper will be bought by the Government, which will grant loans on a business basis. A measure of this character will prevent the stagnation of money, parasitism, and laziness, qualities which were useful to us as long as the Gentiles maintained their independence, but which are not desirable to us when our kingdom comes.(5) We Will replace stock exchanges by great Government credit institutions, whose functions will be to tax trade paper according to Government regulations. These institutions will be in such a position that they may market or buy as many as half a billion industrial shares a day. Thus all industrial undertakings will become dependent on us. You may well imagine what power that will give us."Remember that when next you hear the Jewish plan that 'Gentiles' shall do business with their own bits of paper, while Jews keep the gold reserve safely in their own hands. If the crash comes, 'Gentiles' have the paper and the Jews have the gold."
Says Protocol XXII: "We hold in our hands the greatest modem power-gold; in 2 days we could free it from our treasuries ln any desired quantities."The Jews are economists, esoteric and exoteric: They have one system to tangle up the "Gentile", another which they hope to install when " Gentile " stupidity has bankrupted the world. The Jews are economists. Note the number of them who teach economics in the State universities.Says Protocol VIII: "We will surround our Government with a whole world of economists. It is for this reason that the science of economics is the chief subject of instruction taught by the Jews."Mr. Chairman, have not most of these predictions come to pass? Is it not true that, in the United States today, the "Gentiles" have the slips of paper while the Jews have the gold and lawful money? And is not this repudiation bill a bill specifically designed and written by the Jewish international money changers themselves in order to perpetuate their power? What else do you make of it, Mr. Chairman? ...Mr. Chairman, I demand that the gold stock of the United States be taken from the Federal Reserve banks and placed in the United States Treasury. I demand an audit of United States Government financial affairs from the top to the bottom. I demand a resumption of specie payments based on full gold and silver values. I demand the currency of the Constitution. I demand the rights of the people guaranteed to them by the Constitution, and that means that I demand a vote which will defeat this repudiation bill. No man can serve two masters. A vote for this bill is a vote for the money changers. A vote for an audit and an investigation of the Government's financial affairs is a vote for the people.Mr. Chairman, all I ask of this House, and I ask it in the name of all the people, Jews and Gentiles, citizens and resident aliens alike, is that it, the people's own representative legislative assembly, shall stay close to the people and vote in their interest. Do not cancel the war debts and bind down upon our suffering veterans and our men of toil and our broken-hearted mothers and our starving children, the endless slavery of paying tribute to . the "united front" of the war debtors. Do not force Americans to pay tribute to foreign rulers and potentates. Take back this country or perish in the attempt. Let this be our own country again. Let us rebuild it for our own. Let us keep the Stars and Stripes floating over the roof of the Capitol. Let us cling to the Constitution of the United States. This is the way to freedom and prosperity. The way of repudiation is madness. Remember, Mr. Chairman, that the ship of state has women and children aboard. Do not, therefore, guide it into uncharted waters. Do not allow the great Democratic Party to steer it onto the rocks while the world waits for it to founder and go down so that the international salvage crews may set to work on the wreck of it. [Applause.]
A reporter from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency interviewed McFadden, where he denied being an antisemite by saying, literally, "some of my best friends are Jews." When asked why he quoted the forged Protocols in Congress:
McFadden replied that, whether the Protocols be authentic or fraudulent, they are, nevertheless, prophetic. He viewed the document as an accurate picture of present political developments throughout the world, in which governments are slipping into the hands of a scheming, destructive organization of Jews. McFadden saw the “new dealers” of the present administration as a part of this insidious Jewish plan, and prophesied that unless something influences the President to return to good Christian economics there will be a horrible reaction, a Fascist revolution perhaps, against the “Jewish controlled administration.”
One member of Congress, a Jew named Emmanuel Celler, responded to McFadden's antisemitic screed (p. 4552)
Mr. Chairman, I was not in the Chamber when the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McFADDEN] rose to address this body. I have taken the trouble, however, to read his remarks as they appeared. He apparently prepared them in advance and read them verbatim. His attack is therefore all the more vicious because it was carefully prepared and deliberately read. It is unforgiveable, I assure you, my good friends. I say to those who heard the remarks and those who read them that you will rarely see anything as false or as utterly cruel, particularly since read at a time when in Germany insane religious prejudice is causing so much havoc, so much ruin, so much misery and suffering. I would that the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McFADDEN] saw fit to withdraw his remarks voluntarily, or that if he does not change them that at least the spirit of fan· play in this House will prevail upon him to withdraw them entirely.I appeal again to the sense of fair play and justice of this House, which I know is diametrically opposed to the aberrations of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, to prevail upon him to say he was mistaken. Only then will he exculpate himself from the charge of stooping so low as to attempt to fan the flame of religious prejudice in order to influence the House.I would be craven if I remained silent in the face of his defamation of my people. I would be a coward not to hurl the be to his teeth. In the brief time allotted to me to reply, I would remind him, when he falsely brings silly indictments against our people. and charges that the Jews will have the gold and the non-Jews the bits of paper money, of the long record of patriotic service of the people against whom he delivers his tirade.He speaks of Concord Bridge in the Revolution. What about the fame of Hymn Solomon, who sacrificed much, if not all, of his fortune to aid in the financing of the Revolution? In the diary of Robert Morris are to be found scores of favorable references to the patriotism and sacrifice of that Jew. It has been said that were it not for the benefactions of Solomon to the patriotic Madison, Monroe, and others, these men could not have carried on. I would remind the gentleman from Pennsylvania that this banker Jew died a martyr's death as a result of his trials and tribulations brought on by the Revolutionary War. He was captured by the British and died of prison fever. He Indeed sacrificed his fortune on the altar of American freedom.I would remind him also of the Lost Battalion to the Argonne Forest. That battalion was composed primarily of East Side Jews. many of whom went through the Valley of the Shadow. The mere mention of these heroes should belie the utterances of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.He should indeed hang his head in shame. He will when he realizes finally the sin that he has really committed. Let him reflect on the words of Lincoln in the second Inaugural: "With charity for all and with malice toward none." If Mr. McFadden . does not withdraw his remarks from the Record he is . devoid of charity and is animated by malice.Washington received generous praise and congratulation from the members of the Portuguese congregation at Newport upon his elevation to the Presidency. The great President replied in the kindest spirit, and said he now rejoiced that at last in this fair land of ours the people of the stock of Abraham could sit under their own vines and fig trees, and there were none to make them afraid. Surely, if the gospel of the gentleman from Pennsylvania is repeated and is allowed to spread, and the wild dogs of religious hatred and enmity are let loose, the time may come when not only the people of the stock of Abraham, but others as well, will be unable to remain under their own vines and fig trees. There will then indeed be those to make them afraid. [Applause.]