many, including his intolerable and intolerant attitude toward Germans of the Jewish religion,” the mayor wrote in part.
He stated that he had also been informed that the celebration would be the inspiration for disorder which “may result in serious injury if not loss of life.”
“We have no room here for any indictments against men and women because of their religion or their strain of blood,” he wrote. “New York is not the soil on which Nazi weeds of intolerance and religious hatred can flourish.”
Robert Rosenbaum, president of the German Jewish Societies, yesterday announced that he had rejected an invitation to attend the meeting of the United German Societies on the ground that he would receive no justice before groups who had already expressed favor for anti-Semitic Hitler.
“I might speak, but I would not be heard,” Mr. Rosenbaum said yesterday. “It is better to have nothing to do with the celebration.”
With four Jewish and eight non-Jewish groups already withdrawn from the union, it was said that many other societies are rapidly falling in line with the resigned organization’s attitude. It was felt certain that few would see fit to carry on in the United German Societies in the face of the mayor’s attitude and that of many detached organizations who have stormed the mayor’s office with congratulatory messages, complimenting his action against the celebration of Swastika-adhering organizations.
The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, German daily newspaper published here yesterday editorially regretted the mayor’s action in banning the German Day fest. It expressed the hope that some day in the future German-Americans “regardless of race or religious persuasion”, and all of the same status” might observe all the great German holidays. The editorial declared that the mayor’s charges of intrigue among imported Nazi agents were to be regretted, and that a few weeks ago such accusations could not have been envisioned by the German people of New York, who have been faithful, peaceful citizens for 250 years.
J. B. Matthews, chairman of the American League Against War and Fascism, yesterday called upon all anti-Fascist organizations to unite in a demonstration against “the infiltration of Fascism in this country.”
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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.
