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Dalhousie University Archives Kenneth Leslie fonds United States Human rights
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Kenneth Leslie's Protestant Digest and Textbook Commission letter book

File contains Kenneth Leslie's letter book from the early years of The Protestant Digest, and the Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks, dated 1938 to 1943. File contains full correspondence as well as snippets from Kenneth Leslie's letters, Protestant Digest documentation, favourable testimonials about The Protestant Digest, as well as Leslie's efforts to attract scholars to join the editorial board of The Protestant Digest.

The letter book is divided into the following sections:
- Textbook Commission: with a "general invitation to join the Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks as well as Leslie's letters to Richard E. Gutstadt, Samuel Radbill, Joseph Barth, E. George Payne, Chas. Feltman, Sol Tekulsky, Brigadier-General Chaplain William R. Arnold, St. Anthony Guild Press, the Confraternity of the Precious Blood, E.E. Wheeler, Louis Broido, and Abraham A. Neuman;

- Released Time: responding to critiques from the Editor of Commonweal, the editor of the Friends of the Public Schools of America, Harriet V. Postman, Simon Certner, Mrs. Yorke Allen, Mark Starr, and James King;

- Anti-Semitism: letters and support to Isaac Rosengarten, Marion B. Sulzberger, Joseph Gorelik, Dr Albert W. Palmer, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Hon. Fiorello LaGuardia, Senator James E. Mead, Margaret Lee Southard, Philip Slomovitz, Rabbi Jerome Unger, and Mrs. Louis L. Browne;

- Social Action and Negro: letters to the editor of the New York Post, John T. McManus, the Women's National Radio Committee, Dr Benjamin E. Mays, Donald West, Hon. Sumner Welles, Patrick Malin, Dr A. Clayton Powell Jr., Donald Young, Robert Searle, Bridget Clark, Mrs Franklin D. [Eleanor] Roosevelt, Sylvia Loomis, Annette Smith Lawrence, Mrs. Julius O. Adler, Harold Rosswell, Philip Murray, Chaim Weizmann, Meyer Weisgal, Samuel McCrea Cavert, Dr Adolf Meyer, Eugene R. Shippen, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and the text of a "statement for the special Negro issue of New Masses, October 1, 1942";

- The Protestant Digest, later The Protestant: with subheadings for Documents, Beginnings -- Motif -- Aim -- Purpose, Epigrams (to Nora Bateson, John L. Lewis, Edward T. Friendly, American League for Peace and Democracy, John Temple Graves II, Walter Winchell, Paul Vincent Carroll, Carl W. Shaver, Dr J.H. Rushbrook, Rev. J.T. Widner, Bishop Ralph A. Ward, Sara Graham Mullhall, Maurice Rosenblatt, Mrs. A. Goshawk, Hon. Henry A. Wallace, Cyrus S. Eaton, and Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst;

- Comments on The Protestant Digest, later The Protestant, Favorable: with comments from Eleanor Roosevelt, The Christian Register, Zions Herald, Social Action Digest, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dr. W.K. Wilson, Mrs. Andrew Gardner, Presbyterian Tribune, Joseph Fort Newton, Upton Sinclair, Edward Holton James, George N. Falconer, Edward T. Friendly, Nora Bateson, O.R. Thome, Miss Ada L. Snell, A.W. Heinle, Clifford J. Laube, I.C. Thorgaard, Ellis Huntington Dana, Hamish Hamilton, H.A. Crossley, Clarence E. Wilson, Carl W. Shaver, Walter C. Leck, Rabbi Joseph S. Shubow, P.L. Howe, Kay Smith, Robert C. Harder, M. Milton Talkin, Arthur Settel, Robert H. Ellis Jr., I.M. Sholkin, Fred Eastman, Florence L. Cox, Rev. Robert H. Eads, Stephen S. Wise, Angie Wynn, John Granberry, Samuel L. Hamilton, Leon Wolf Levy, W. Edgar Gregory, Guy Henson, R. Lloyd Pobst, Don MacDiarmid, D. Arthur Bowman, Harry C. Steinmetz, Lester L. Greenbaum, the New York Post, R.O. Johnson, Maria Halberstadt, Pierre vanPaasen, Louis Adamic, Sam G. Johnson, Laird T. Hites, Frank Mlakar, C. Oumansky, George R. Bryant, Robert Ulich, Mrs. A.B. Cross, Rev. Hurley Begun, Horace T. Houf, Frank D. Graham, Ivy Litvinoff, Rev. Alfred V. Bliss, Peter Kamitchis, Rev. Edward Morris, Gerald M. Meyer, William Bouck, R.. Dundon, Edwin McNeil Poteat, Stanley High, Ione Riggs, Bishop James Cannon Jr., Olive Anderson, Robert Whitaker Edward H. Redman, John A. Lee, John A. MacKay, Walter M. Kraus, Theodore D. Jervey, Neason Jones, Sidney A. Goodman, Mrs. A. Allyn, Marion Neville, Albert F. Gilmore, Richard J. Davis, and Ralph W. Wescott;

- Invitations to join the Board of Editorial Advisors, epigrams: with letters to Albert Einstein, Sherwood Eddy, Bishop Edward L. Parsons, George Bernard Shaw, Rt. Rev. Malcolm E. Peabody, Charles Evans Hughes, Rt. Rev. Benjamin, Ralph Barton Perry, and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam;

- The Protestant Digest Associates, epigrams: with letters to Martha Gelhorn [sic], Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Helen Lynd, William Jay Schieffelin, Rev. Edward Morris, Ida Pellar, Judge Benjamin Shaleck, and Cyrus Eaton.

Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks clippings and correspondence

File contains facsimiles of newspaper clippings related to Kenneth Leslie's "Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks", collected between 1943 and 1946. File includes facsimiles of articles from The Catholic News, Our Sunday Visitor, American Glass Review, The Portland Scribe, among others. File also includes a "Declaration of Principles of the Textbook Commission to Eliminate Anti-Semitic Statements in American Textbooks" broadside; facsimile of a letter sent by John Edgar Hoover to Ben Richardson (of The Protestant) dated December 27, 1945; facsimile correspondence between Richardson and Arthur Lourie of the American Zionist Emergency Council; a facsimile of a letter from L.M. Birkhead (National Director of Friends of Democracy Inc.) to Mrs. F.H. Gray (regarding The Protestant), a three-page letter by Jules Cohen of the Brooklyn Jewish Community Council on the subject of an "observers report on the 'Protestant' rally of March 21, 1946"; and facsimiles of an anti-Semitic poster from the German American Vocational League and an anti-Semitic advertisement for a Henry Ford publication.

The Protestant Digest

Series contains copies of the The Protestant Digest, materials related to the Textbook Commission, as well as office ledgers, advertisements, and Protestant stationery.

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

File contains a draft of an undated (presumably spring 1943) letter to be sent to American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, written by Kenneth Leslie. The file addresses concerns raised by the Textbook Commission about a "most regretful anti-Semitic foot note" that appeared in the Roman Catholic version of the New Testament that was issued to all "Catholic personnel of the Army". The offending passage, that the Commission requested be removed from all editions, appeared on page 559: "the Jews are the Synagogues of Satan". The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, had previously been an ardent admirer of Kenneth Leslie's work, giving invaluable endorsements to Leslie on several occasions.