The Daily Worker, Communist organ, printed today a purported reproduction of a letter from the superintendent of Osawatomie State Hospital in Kansas, listing Governor Alf M. Landon on its letterhead as chairman, in which applicants for a position with the hospital were restricted to Gentiles.
The letter, addressed to the dean of the Medical School, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and signed by A. Carmichael, superintendent, said, in connection with placing a resident in neuropsychiatry at the hospital: “Young men over thirty and single have the preference. All applicants must be Gentiles.”
The paper said Clarence A. Hathaway, its editor, had telegraphed Governor Landon asking his stand on discrimination against Jews and received a reply from an officer of the hospital stating that Dr. Carmichael had resigned. Another telegram was sent to Governor Landon holding that the original letter had expressed the policy of the hospital, and requesting a “clearcut answer: do you approve this discrimination against Jews?” No answer was received to this wire, the Daily Worker said.
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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.