Saturday, July 12, 2003
Eugene Volokh points to this thoughtful blog entry by David Bernstein concerning the recently unearthed anti-semitic Truman comments. From the Washington Post story:
"He'd no business, whatever to call me," Truman wrote. "The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement [sic] on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed."
Truman then went into a rant about Jews: "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes."
Bernstein:
I haven't quoted all of Mr. Bernstein's comment, but it's worth reading.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite scenes from Herman Wouke's excellent novel, The Caine Mutiny.
Greenwald, Lieutenant Maryk's defence council, brings up the crew's nickname for Captain Queeg - "Old Yellowstain" - and is ordered to justify the line of questioning. He does so, and:
In the corridor, Greenwald lounged against the wall and remarked to Maryk, "Captain Blakely doesn't like Jews. Intonations on the name 'Greenwald.' I have absolute pitch for those harmonies."
"Jesus," said Maryk miserably.
"It won't make any difference. You're not supposed to love Jews necessarily, just to give them a fair shake. I've always had a fair shake in the Navy, and I'll get it from Blakely, too, despite the eyebrows."
I'm fairly certain that Harry Truman gave the Jews a "fair shake." There's no reason to let a little venting in a private diary sully that image.