A.a.u. Takes Firm Stand Against Participation in Berlin Olympics

to take the same stand as the A.A.U. and refuse to certify any athlete for the eleventh Olympiad.

While the A.A.U. itself has no voice in the matter, its opinions are a strong influence on the proceedings of the American Olympic Committee which has a meeting scheduled in Washington tomorrow.

G. T. Kirby, of New York City, who introduced the resolution, presented the minutes of the Olympic meeting in Berlin in June, and in addition newspaper material tending to prove that its declared impartiality in connection with choice of athletes was false.

Albert F. Wheltie, of Baltimore, asserted that Jewish athletes competing in the Olympic games would need police protection. Forty-six Jewish athletes scored 116 points for the United States at the last Olympics, he said, adding with conviction that the proposed resolution was too mild. He said he favored holding the contests elsewhere than in Germany.

Detrich Wortmann, who cast the lone dissenting vote, expressed the view that Jewish athletes in Germany are not molested and insisted that America’s stand on the racial question is hypocritical. He cited the prejudice existing against the Negro in the south as an instance of American intolerance. One Jewish athlete participated in the last contests for Germany, he said, urging that “friendly methods” be adopted to show that the Nazis are in the wrong.

A communication from Bernard S. Deutsch, president of the American Jewish Congress, enumerating fifty decrees passed in condemnation of Jewish athletes in Germany, was read by Charles L. Ornstein, member of the A.A.U. executive committee and the American Olympic Committee.

The resolution which is couched in conciliatory rather than violent language, concludes with a plea that Germany make the concession to demands from every part of the world for a let-up in its anti-Jewish repressions.

The resolution follows in part:

HAVE VIOLATED OLYMPIC CODE

“Whereas, it is believed and is common universal knowledge, that the German Olympic Committee and the Berlin Organizing Committee, under and by reason of the decrees and direction of the government of Germany, have violated and will continue to violate the code of the Olympic games and the fundamentals of sports competition in that they have deprived and will continue to deprive Germans of Jewish descent or belief from the rights of Olympic competition, if not by direct restriction, certainly, indirectly, by the withdrawal from them the rights of German citizenship and of a reasonable opportunity to train, prepare for and take part in sports competition in general and in the Olympic games in particular.

REFUSE TO CERTIFY ATHLETES

“Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Amateur Athletic Union, as a member of the American Olympic Association, about to be assembled at its quadrennial meeting in Washington, D. C., instruct its delegates thereto to call upon said American Olympic Association, to resolve that the American Olympic Association through the members of the International Committee to the U.S.A., namely, Colonel William A. Garland, General Charles H. Sherrill and Commodore Earnest Lee Jahncke, Jr., give notice to the International Olympic Committee and to the German government, that neither the A.O.A. or the members thereof, nor the American Olympic Committee to be organized for the Olympic games of 1936, will certify any athlete of the U.S.A. for competition in the Olympic of Berlin, until and unless the position of the German Olympic Committee, of the Organizing Committee of Berlin and of the German government is so changed in fact as well as in theory as to both permit and encourage German athletes of Jewish faith or heritage to train, prepare for and participate in the Olympic games of 1936.”