Minneapolis and St. Paul Newspapers Reject, Racialist Advertisement

Daily newspapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, after running for several days a classified advertisement for a society “for the Preservation of the White Race,” rejected additional advertising from the group. The rejection by the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press and by the Minneapolis Star and Tribune brought picketing of the Minneapolis paper by Paul B. Hurley, a candidate for Congress who reportedly was associated with the Society for the Preservation of the White Race.

The rejected advertisement read; “Supporters needed. The National Society for the Preservation of the White Race. ” The insertion carried a “blind” box number. Those replying to the insertion received literature on the organization’s goals and suggesting solicitation of funds for further organization work might be needed.

John Moffett, advertising director of the Star and Tribune, said it was the policy of the newspapers not to accept advertising seeking contributions for other than recognized charities or to be a party to such solicitations through classified advertising. Samuel L. Scheiner, executive director of the Minnesota Jewish Community Relations Council, and Clifford E. Rocker, executive secretary of the Governor’s Human Rights Commission, met with newspaper officials to determine policy on acceptance of such advertising.

The North Minneapolis Post, a neighborhood newspaper, refused all advertising from the group on grounds the newspaper opposed “the principles of the Ku Klux Klan, The paper asserted editorially that the KKK had been characterized by “intense nativism, anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism.”