Judge Nathan Cayton of the Municipal Court here, today denied all allegations that he insulted the Jews in a recent address of his in which he declared that the Jews in this country produce a larger percentage of criminals than other nationalities and that they are neither good Americans nor good Jews. The judge made his reply in a letter in response to a telegram sent him by Bernard G. Richards, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, in which Mr. Richards asked for an apology and a retraction.
In his letter, made public here today, Judge Cayton said “nothing has hurt me so much as the fact that my own word were not properly interpreted. My object was certainly not to indict my own people. I simply spoke about certain undesirable elements amongst us, and I certainly did not mean to accuse the Jewish people as a whole.”
Judge Cayton, one of the youngest judges in the country, brought down a storm of the indignation and protest when newspaper summaries of his speech spread over the country.
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