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Only 27 Police ‘frontists,’ Laguardia Reveals

February 16, 1940
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A total of 407 policemen applied for Christian Front membership and only 27 still retained it, out of 16,903 who filled out questionnaires on the subject distributed by Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine, it was announced last night by Mayor LaGuardia. The preliminary report also revealed that six had refused to answer the questionnaire and another 1,405 were on vacation or sick leave.

The Mayor asserted the city’s right to question police on this issue, declaring that the Police Department “must be kept from any entangling alliance with any kind of organization that might at any time create a disturbance.” He was supported in this view by the New York Post, which declared editorially today that no policeman’s constitutional right was threatened by the investigation.

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