A charge that the Henry Street Settlement was assisting members of a lower East Side Communist organization in obtaining CWA jobs in preference to “more deserving citizens” was made yesterday by Congressman Samuel Dickstein. The charge, according to Dickstein, grew out of an investigation he made recently into Communist activities in connection with the Congressional committee probe into Nazi propaganda in the United States.
This afternoon, the Congressman, as a member of the special House body, resumes his one-man hearings of Nazi subversive activities. The session, to be held at the Bar Association Building, 42 West Forty-fourth street, will be secret. Mr. Dickstein refused to reveal the witnesses he expects to examine.
On the subject of the Communists getting CWA jobs he was more voluble.
“My investigators have discovered,” he said, “that within the past few weeks Communists have obtained between twenty and 150 jobs with the CWA. These jobs they got through influence wielded by some member of the Henry Street Settlement. I’m going to make it my business to find out how it is that hoodlums who spend their time parading through the streets and waving red flags get these jobs where more deserving citizens fall to get them.”
Duane V. Ramsey, assistant to Helen Hall, director of the Henry Street Settlement, when apprised of the charge, characterized it as “entirely without basis.” He said there was no one in the settlement who was working with the Communist organization in the manner charged.
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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.
