Sentinels of The Republic - Accusations of Antisemitism

Accusations of Antisemitism

The Sentinels faced charges of antisemitism in the media and in history books. George Seldes, an influential muckracking journalist of the 1940s, described the Sentinels as "the anti-Semitic enemy of child labor laws" and "the anti-Semitic wing of the first really important American Fascist movement." The historian Jules Archer writes that Sentinel members labeled Roosevelt's New Deal as "Jewish Communism".

Substantiating these allegations, the Black Commission, a 1936 U.S. Senate investigation into lobbying, discovered instances of antisemitic language and attitudes within the Sentinels. Specifically, the commission uncovered a written correspondence between Sentinel member Cleveland Runyon and Alexander Lincoln, the organization's president, in which the latter wrote that the "Jewish threat" to the United States was a "real one" and added that "I am doing what I can as an officer of the Sentinels." The former responded that the "old-line Americans of $1200 a year want a Hitler."

Following the resulting charges of antisemitism, Lincoln later denounced all forms of autocratic government, "whether they be communism, bolshevism, fascism, or Hitlerism." The commander-in-chief of the Jewish War Veterans wrote to Lincoln that, following its own investigation, his organization had concluded that Lincoln did not "entertain any antipathy against the Jewish people or any racial minority." However, these statements failed to erase the damage done to the reputation of the American Liberty League (the parent organization of the Sentinels) by the findings of the Black investigation. While the incident itself may have been a small part of the history of the Sentinels, it was the organization's largest source of press coverage.