Wheeler, Holman Scored As Injecting Anti-semitism in Lend-lease Debate

The term “international bankers.” with emphasis on Jewish bankers, has been dragged into the controversy over the lend-lease bill by Senators Burton K. Wheeler and Rufus C. Holman, outstanding opponents of the measure.

Senator Wheeler, in a radio speech on Monday night, said: ” Now we find these same international bankers with their friends, the royal refugees, and with the Sassoons of the Orient and with the Rothschilds and the Warburgs of Europe in another theme song…our investments in India. Africa and Europe must be preserved, Save democracy.”

Senator Holman, on the floor of the Senate yesterday, asserted: ” I have always deplored Hitler’s ambitions as a conqueror. But he broke the control of these internationalists over the common people of Germany. It would be a good idea if the control of the international bankers over the common people of England was broken, and good if it was broken over the wages and savings of the common people of the United States.”

(The New York newspaper PM, commenting on these speeches, said: ” The stock Nazi charge that Jewish international bankers are responsible for Europe’s war has now been adopted by lend-lease foes in the Senate making a last-ditch attack against FDR’s British aid program.” The PM story was headlined: ” Foes of Aid to Britain Parrot Hitler’s Anti-Jewish Talk.”)

It was recalled that on Feb. 21, when followers of Joe McWilliams attempted to inject anti-Semitism into an isolationist rally in New York, Senator Wheeler rebuked the effort, declaring; ” I abhor intolerance, whether it be predicated upon color, race or religion.”