The 267 graduates of the Milwaukee State Teachers’ College were told here at commencement exercises why the organized tour of the college band to Germany has been forbidden by the board of regents.
Speaking to the graduates, Joseph Padway, member of the board, declared the tour would have been seized upon by the Hitler government as a sympathetic recognition of its policies.
“The Nazi government is now anti-Catholic, anti-Labor and anti-Semitic,” he said. “If we gave our approval to sending the band as a group, this would have been used by the Hitler administration in its government-controlled press as constituting American sympathy with its practices.”
Padway explained the board had no objection to the band members going to Germany, or any other country, as individuals.
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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.