Members of the band of the Milwaukee State Teachers’ College are circulating a petition among students asking that their proposed concert tour to Germany be reinstated, it was revealed here today. The tour was canceled last week by Dr. Frank Baker, president of the college.
Though the petitioners have gathered hundreds of signatures, Dr. Baker declared “it is impossible for me to change my decision unless the regents direct me to.” He added that the students can carry their petition to the board of regents, governing body over teachers’ colleges, if they wish. Doubt that the board would rescind the ban was expressed here, however.
Referring indirectly to the band controversy, Dr. Baker in an editorial in the Echo, undergraduate weekly, pleaded against intolerance toward Germany.
“The German people have without doubt gone mad, suffering from spiritual illness caused by a decade and a half of international injustice,” he said. “The world will someday learn national insanity cannot be cured by punishment. Retaliation, repression and isolation will drive Germany straight into war, the results of which on the world in general and on the Persecuted minorities in Germany, are too terrible to contemplate.”
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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.
