[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14615]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE LAST GAVEL

  (Mr. SNYDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, pending before this body June 5, 1941, Mr. 
Speaker, was a debate on the war in Europe. Everyone listened as 
Representative John Elliott Rankin of Mississippi delivered yet another 
unfortunate anti-Semitic diatribe. Not even the events of Hitler's rise 
to power stopped him. Not even knowing there were six Jewish Members of 
the House stopped him.
  When he was done, New York Congressman Mike Edelstein jumped to his 
feet and responded to this diatribe of anti-Semitism and he said the 
following words: ``I deplore the idea that men in this House attempt to 
use the Jews as their scapegoat. I say it is unfair and I say it is un-
American. All men are created equal, regardless of race, creed or 
color, and whether a man be Jew or Gentile, he may think what he deems 
fit.''
  Those were the words of Mike Edelstein, June 5, 1941. He left this 
podium, went into the Speaker's Lobby and died of a heart attack, and I 
wanted to recognize this on the anniversary of his passing.

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