Protesting to Governor Roosevelt that state funds are being used to improve the property of a private club which discriminates against Jews, the National Council of the Jewish Tribune on Thursday attacked the plan to hold the 1932 Olympic games at Lake Placid. In a statement which accompanies the letter to the governor, the Council declared that $60,000 was being spent by the state to build a bobsled run for the games on property of the Lake Placid Club, which, according to the Council, has always barred Jews from membership and is a “notorious anti-Semitic vacation resort.”
In the letter, Governor Roosevelt is asked to prevent the state “from debasing itself in promoting racial antagonisms.” In answer to this, representatives of both the state and the Olympic games organization said that the Council was “very much mistaken” in its attitude, declaring that “not one penny” was being spent to improve club property. Wallace Pierce, attorney for the state commission, explained that a perpetual easement had been given to the state by the club on the property where the bobsled run was being built and that after the games both will go to the State Conservation Commission.
Dr. Godfrey Dewey, chairman of the Winter Games Committee and executive vice-president of the Lake Placid Club, also denied the charges. The Council of the Jewish Tribune in its statement objected to his connection with the games, declaring that his father, Dr. Melville Dewey, founder of the Lake Placid Club, had resigned after charges of anti-Semitism had been made against him by prominent Jews.
In an article which the Jewish Tribune publishes in its current issue it is charged that items for improvements on the property of the Lake Placid Club were contemplated in the state budget for the promotion of the games. David N. Mosessohn, chairman of the Jewish Tribune council, who signed the letter to Governor Roosevelt, insisted yesterday that his charges were correct, declaring that any improvement to the Lake Placid region would benefit the Lake Placid Club.
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.
