The charge that religious bias was intense at the Kings County Hospital and was back of the ordeal of the three internes. Dr. Hyman Solovay, Dr. Louis Borow and Dr. Edward Katskee, who were attacked by six anti-Semitic internes on Monday, set three imestigations in motion.
An investigation was promised by Mayor Walker. He was indignant after reading newspaper accounts of the experiences of the internes.
“If this be true, as represented in the afternoon papers,” said the Mayor, “that these men were hazed especially because they are Jews, or of any other faith, I will see that the guilty ones are prosecuted to the last ditch. I will conduct an investigation to fix responsibility, and the guilty ones will not be allowed to remain in the city service. You can depend upon that.”
Bird S. Coler, Commissioner of Public Welfare, denounced the attack and said that “it seems like a bad religious war,” and declared he would order an investigation.
An inquiry was initiated by the Committee of Internes of the Medical Board of the hospital. The committee heard witnesses and adjourned. Dr. Cameron Duncan, chairman of the committee, said that no action against the six men under charges would be taken until they had had a hearing in court.
It was learned that the three internes had previously complained to friends about the prejudice. Last Wednesday Dr. Louis D. Gross, rabbi of the Union Temple, Brooklyn, and a group of rabbis visited the hospital and complained to Superintendent Jones that the Jewish internes “were not getting a square deal.” Dr. Jones called in Dr. Solovay and told him to put his complaint in writing. He said that the matter would be put before the Internes’ Committees at its regular meeting, which had been scheduled for yesterday.
Commissioner Coler said that Rabbi Gross had not taken up the matter with him and that he had felt that if any anti-Jewish feeling had been prevalent at the hospital Rabbi Marcus Friedlander, who is assigned there, would have informed him of it.
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