First shared online after the Charlottesville, Virginia neo-Nazi rally, this 1940s anti-fascist film, created by the War Department, is making the rounds again. In it a man, clearly a recent immigrant, stands next to a younger man, watching a loud man, standing on a soapbox, haranguing the crowd in a “populist rant” that should have died in the 1940s.
Fascist: I’m just an average American. But I’m an American American. And some of the things I see in this country of ours makes my blood boil. I see people who are foreigners with money. I see negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you. I ask you, if we allow this thing to go on what’s going to become of us real Americans?
The crowd is watching this display. The immigrant man stands next to a younger man. He turns to him.
Immigrant Man: I’ve heard this talk before but I never expected to hear it in America.
Back to the fascist.
Fascist: The truth about negroes and foreigners. The truth about the Catholic Church.
[back to the Immigrant Man and the Young Man]
Immigrant Man: You believe in this kind of talk?
Young Man: I don’t know. it makes pretty good sense to me.
Fascist: And I tell you friends we’ll never be able to call this country our own until it’s a country without. Without what?
Without negroes. Without alien foreigners. Without catholics. Without freemasons.
[Young Man looks up]
Young Man: Masons? What’s wrong with the masons? I’m a mason. Hey that fella’s talking about me!
Immigrant Man: And that makes a difference, doesn’t it?
The two men sit down together and talk. One line always gets me.
Immigrant Man: The history of America is not if we tolerate minorities, it’s that America is minorities.
That’s what America is supposed to be.