FASCISM MUST BE HOME GROWN, CLAIM
U. S. Will Not Stand for Foreign Ideas, Krueger.
Repeating the words of Benito Mussolini that fascism cannot be imported, Prof. Maynard C. Krueger told a Public Forum audience at the Y. W. C. A. Thursday that if fascism ever comes to this country it will be a very nationalistic government built on an particularly "anti" philosophy suited to our national life.
If and when fascism ever comes to America it will be brought about and
financed by the wealthier elements of the population, the reactionaries,
rather than the leftist elements, Prof. Krueger also stated. He said that an
anti-Negro program, like the anti-Semite campaign in Germany, was a very
plausible rallying-cry for American fascists.
Fascism is built on hate, speaker said, hate of some general source of irritation over which a great mass of the people can be aroused. He said he thought Germany had been heading in the right direction under the national socialists, but that it was moving too slowly, and then Hitler came along with his campaign against the Jews and rather side-tracked the movement, but at least speeded it up. He compared the movement to a boy riding a bicycle, he must keep up speed for if he goes too slow he will fall off.
Americans are very adverse to anything "foreign," Prof. Krueger continued, and thus fascism would have to grow up here as an American movement in order to be tolerated by the masses of the people. He spoke of recent strikes in this country, which he described as merely American workers fighting for their rights, and he said the terms radical and foreign were always applied to these men.
Fascism gains its greatest converts among youths, Prof.
Krueger pointed out. In Germany it is the youths who are more entranced by the
rattle of swords, saluting and parading, he said.
Article from May 15, 1937 Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay, Wisconsin)
No comments:
Post a Comment