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Urges Call on Robinson at C.c.n.y. to Ban Nazi Goods

March 12, 1934
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(Reprinted from yesterday???s late edition)

“Personally I am in favor of boycotting German goods and I think an Avukah-Menorah Committee should call upon President Frederick B. Robinson and petition him to stop the school authorities from buying German goods,” Dean Morton Gottschall, of City College, said yesterday afternoon when told about the compulsory purchase of German goods forced upon the student body in the school.

“The president is probably not aware of the amount of Nazi made goods in the college,” the dean said. Informed that the student council had passed a resolution requesting the school officials to stop selling German goods and to support a boycott of those goods, Dr. Gottschall said that a resolution was not adequate and advised the students to see President Robinson.

Dr. Robinson refused to see the Jewish Daily Bulletin reporter but suggested through his secretary that the reporter see the various heads of the departments.

MUST BUY KITS

At the biology department where the controversy is most bitter because students must buy kits from the school for five dollars, Professor A. L. Melander, head of the department, insisted that all instruments which are sold to the students cannot be procured any-where else but in Germany. The kit consists of a pair of dissecting scissors, pliers, scalpels and pincers. “We are doing our best to get American-made stuff, and in the future we may,” he said.

Professor Frederick Skene, head of the School of Technology, admitted that many of the drafting instruments were much cheaper than American ones. “I would rather use American stuff because it’s stronger but it’s much more expensive,” he said. “Furthermore,” he claimed, “I do not buy the material the cooperative store does.”

A trip to the cooperative store proved fruitless. The head of the store, who refused to disclose his name, said that he did not buy the material but that the heads of the departments did. “At present there are only ninety-five dollars worth of German material out of a total of twenty-four thousand dollars goods,” he said.

OLD GERMAN MATERIAL

At the physics office Professor Charies Corcoran said that his department has not bought any goods for ten years. “Some of the old material,” he admitted, “comes from Germany.” The smaller equipment is stamped with “made in Germany,” but the purchase of that equipment is optional.

The executive committee of the Menorah-Avukah Conference met in a closed session last Thursday and decided to bring up a resolution petitioning the school authorities to stop buying German goods at its next regular meeting, Thursday afternoon. Members of the Newman Club, Catholic organization, are willing to cooperate with the Menorah in boycotting German goods, but the Y. M. C. A. is reluctant about taking such a step.

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