25% U.S. Penalty Duty on Reich Goods Spurs Boycott

Spurred by the United States Government’s action in raising duties 25 per cent on dutiable German goods — virtually halting German exports to this country — the anti-Nazi boycott surged forward today on the crest of a wave of American resentment at the Reich’s occupation of former Czecho-Slovakia.

The Volunteer Christian Committee to Boycott Nazi Germany announced that 366 prominent Americans in 117 cities and 39 states had signed a pledge to join the movement to isolate Nazi Germany through economic boycott as an expression of their abhorrence of the Reich’s “violation of religious freedom, racial persecution, glorification of war and the inculcation of race hatred into the minds of little children.”

The Government’s action, effective April 22, imposed the penalty duties on German imports on the dutiable list until it is shown they are not subsidized. An opinion endorsing the step, under the Tariff Act of 1930, was rendered by Attorney-General Frank Murphy yesterday. Although the action was technically only an economic measure, it recalled President Roosevelt’s statement, in his message to Congress on Jan. 4: “There are many methods short of war, but stronger and more effective than mere words, of bringing home to aggressor governments the aggregate sentiments of our own people.”

The boycott has been extended by the Joint Boycott Council to the areas of former Czecho-Slovakia now under Hitler’s control. Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, chairman of the council, said the boycott automatically applied to “all lands where the swastika flag flies” and “now we shall have to treat goods from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia as Nasi goods.” The boycott against these areas was supported by the Association of Beads, Stone and Glass Importers, which decided at a luncheon to try to bring Czech workers here to found these industries in the United States.