Protests Mount Against Permit for Union Square Nazi Meeting

Protests mounted here today against a rally scheduled to be held in Union Square, July 4, by the American Nazi Party. Demands were made upon Mayor Robert F.Wagner and Commissioner of Parks Newbold Morris to forbid the projected rally.

Among those who protested, and coupled their objections with requests that the rally be forbidden, were Rep. Frank J. Becker, New York Republican, who telegraphed Mr. Wagner from Washington; Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress; L. Joseph Overton, president of the New York branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Louis Hollander, manager of the New York Joint Board of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, who is also a vice-chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee.

Rabbi Prinz, who also appealed to District Attorney Frank Hogan and Police Commissioner Stephen Kennedy, asserted in his protest that George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, “has no right to disturb the peace or cause a public disturbance. ” Rockwell’s “diatribes” against Jews, voiced at public rallies in Washington, “are more violent and more vicious than those of any American anti-Semite, ” Dr. Prinz declared.

CONGRESSMAN IS “OUTRAGED” BY PERMIT TO ROCKWELL

Rep. Becker informed the Mayor that he was “outraged” at the thought that an outdoor rally permit might be granted to Rockwell. The Nazi rallies, said the Congressman, “do not involve a matter of free speech because they are designed to destroy the freedoms of American citizens. ” (In Washington, Rep. Becker also complained to the Department of Justice against the continuing Nazi rallies being held in the capital.)

Mr. Hollander told Mayer Wagner and Commissioner Morris that, if a meeting like the one scheduled by Rockwell is held here, “it would be an insult not only to our Founding Fathers, but to all freedom-loving people of this great city and to our democracy, which the fourth of July symbolizes. “

In his letter of protest, Mr. Overton said that the projected Nazi rally “would create tensions in areas where none now exist, and would be extremely harmful to the harmonious intergroup relations that have been built up in our great city.”