Trade Board Acts to Force U.S. Amity

to determine whether the giggle was an expression of pure joviality or of glee over Dr. Degener’s chances of finding surcease from business while he is in Berlin.

The board’s official statement as to its plans and purposes sounds highly innocuous.

A resolution, just made public, was adopted by the directors on May 23 proposing that the board “entertain for sympathetic consideration any constructive and legitimate proposals and suggestions, from whatever source they may come, made with a view to removing the obstacles impeding the normal flow of commerce between the United States and Germany.”

Spokesmen for the board made vociferous denial of the suggestion that its plan of action would countenance cooperation with the Dawa, counter-boycott movement of the United German Societies.

Questioned as to what steps the organization proposes to take toward making its program effective, Meyer explained that meetings will be held today and tomorrow, at unannounced places, to map out a program.

Questioned further as to whether there are any Jewish members of the directorate, the board chairman answered in the affirmative. He was unable, however, to name any of them “offhand.” It was at this point that the “confidential” nature of the organization’s make-up was explained.

An employe in the office of the board, whose headquarters are at 230 Fifth avenue, admitted that in recent years there have been many resignations from the group, but ascribed them to general unfavorable business conditions rather than to disapproval of existing conditions in the Reich.

Dr. Degener will be available in Berlin, after his arrival there, at S W 7, Neue Wilhelmstrasse 12, central office of the Deutsch Amerikanischer Wirtschaftsverband, it was stated.