By order of Louis Marshall, the American Jewish Committee and the B’nai B’rith, American Jewry has muffled the calculated furioso of its outcry, and contents itself now with occasional yelps. No longer do the syndicated sermons of the rabbis take their course across the country, saying the same old untrue things in the same old insincere way. No longer do editorial echoes spew villification across pages supported by advertising blackmail levied upon the community. The outcry has ceased. Suddenly, on order, orderly as a regiment on parade, American Jewry has been turned from a termagant in action to a silent mystery. A most impressive illustration of the inner control exercised by Jewish leaders.
The psychology of it all, of course, is false. Jewry decided that it was the attention which it paid to The Dearborn Independent which gave these articles vogue. The leaders asserted, indeed, that had the Jews of the United States paid no attention, no one would have known that they were under scrutiny. It is a rather flattering criticism to lay upon their inability to meet the situation, but it lacks the merit of being true.
The Jews of the United States issued the order of silence, not out of wisdom but out of fear. And not out of fear of injustice, but out of fear of the truth. As soon as The Dearborn Independent issued its first articles on the New York Kehillah (and only the outer edges of the facts concerning that institution have as yet been set forth) it became evident to Jewish leaders that something had to be done. They did not challenge a public investigation; rather they used discretion, refused to answer even the questions of local reporters, made absurdly untrue denials, and gave every evidence of panic. Thereafter their safest course was silence.