under direction of the Surgeon General, stating “The foreign-born, especially Jews, are more apt to malinger than the native born,” and Louis Marshall again telegraphed both the Provost Marshall and the Surgeon General demanding that “the further use of this form shall be at once discontinued; that every copy of it that has been issued should be recalled by telegram; and that proper explanations be made, so as to expunge from the archives of the United States the unwarranted stigma upon three millions of people.”
It was President Wilson, however, who eventually ordered the excision of this paragraph.
The United States Shipping Board sent an advertisement to the New York Times calling for a file clerk and stating that a “Christian” (by which is always meant a non-Jew) was preferred. The ad was not published as written; it was changed so that it requested applicants to state their religion and nationality. This last form would seem to be far more objectionable than the other. In the first instance the employer states fairly what he wants. In the second instance the applicant is compelled to divulge certain facts about himself in utter ignorance of the employer’s preference. In the first instance, only the two classes that can do business get together; in the second instance there is no clearness about the situation until much useless effort is undertaken. Why? Because the Kehillah demands it. And why does the Kehillah demand it? Because, while it is all right for a Jew to remember that he is a Jew, it is not all right for you to remember it.
So, Louis Marshall got into action again with the Shipping Board, this time with certain drastic demands. Strangely enough, the protest was lodged through Bainbridge Colby, who was Woodrow Wilson’s last Secretary of State. Mr. Marshall demanded: “Not because of any desire for inflicting punishment, but for the sake of example and the establishment of a necessary precedent, this offense should be followed by a dismissal from the public service of the offender, and the public should be informed of the reason.”
Attention is particularly called to the tone which Mr. Marshall adopts when addressing high American officials in the name of the Jewish Committee. It is
