A 17-year-old youth held here for attempting to organize a Nazi-style movement, which was to engage in terrorism against Jews, was given a choice yesterday by a judge here to either go to jail or write an essay on a famous American of Jewish origin. He will have to submit the essay to the judge not later than November 23.
The youthful defendant, Richard E. Phelps, was arrested last January with two other youths who are scheduled for trial on September 29. The police found in the home of one of them a supply of swastika bands, Nazi marching songs and anti-Semitic literature. Judge James Randall Creel, in sentencing Phelps to a reformatory but suspending the sentence when the young defendant accepted the literary assignment, said:
“I was going to give you an essay to write on the contribution of Jewish people to America, but on reflection I have decided that the project is too great.” Judge Creel said that he ordered the essay assignment instead of the prison term because he felt the youth had joined the movement “more for companionship than anything else.”
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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.
