The political committee of the German-American Conference, which roared into existence like a lion, was prepared to make its exit like a lamb, it was revealed yesterday, when it was disclosed that John Fuss, leader of the Brooklyn Plattdeutsche Verein, and not Louis Zahne, had been named chairman of the body.
Fuss’s appointment came at a secret meeting of the Conference executive board, in Turn Halle, Friday night. Other developments in what had appeared a cut-and-dried surrender of the milder element in the organization to the blood-and-thunder group led by Zahne included a drastic curtailment of the political committee’s powers and avowed purposes.
When the unit was formed recently, with Dr. Louis Ewald as chairman, it was organized with the intention of ordering German-Americans how to vote and even of placing its own candidates in the field, if necessary.
Ewald’s resignation subsequently was forced by Zahne and his henchman, Dr. Herbert Schnuch, national president of the Friends of New Germany, who laid careful plans to seize control of the committee and to make its aims one with those of the German-American Independent Voters League, of which Zahne is dictator and spokesman.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
