Congressman John W. McCormack of Massachusetts was named chairman today of the House committee which is charged with investigating the Nazi propaganda in the United States.
Speaker Rainey made the appointment following an offer to Representative Samuel Dickstein to accept the chairmanship of the committee formed as a result of activities by Dickstein.
Mr. Dickstein declined the appointment, tendered as a gesture good will, on the supposition that a Jewish chairman of the committee might hamper its work. He accepted a position as a member of the committee.
Other members of the committee are Representatives Carl M. Weideman (D. Mich.), Charles Kramer (D. Cal.), Thomas A. Jenkins (R. Ohio), J. Will Taylor (R. Tenn.) and Ulysses Samuel Guyer (R. Kan.).
The Dickstein bill was passed by the House on March 20. The sum of $10,000 was appropriated for use by the committee.
Representative Dickstein, in an explanation of the purpose of the bill which was passed by a standing vote of 161 for and 31 against passage, told the House that the purpose of the investigation is not directed at individuals or any group of American citizens.
MCCORMACK BORN IN BOSTON
Congressman John W. McCormack was born in Boston on December 21, 1891. He was educated in the public schools of Boston and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1913. He began practice in Boston as a member of the firm of Farrer and McCormack. He was admitted to practice at the United States District Court in 1915. He was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1917-18. and resigned to enter the United States Army in 1918.
Mr. McCormack was elected member of the State House of Representatives during the years 1920-22, and of the State Senate during 1923-26, where he was Democratic leader. In 1927, he was elected to fill the unexpired term in the Seventieth Congress of the late James Gallivan, and was re-elected to the Seventy-first and Seventy-second Congresses.
Mr. McCormack is a Democrat, and resides in South Boston. He is a Catholic and a member of the Elk, Moose, Knights of Columbus and American Legion.
HAD PREVIOUSLY DECLINED
Representative Samuel Dickstein, chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, today revealed in a statement that he had declined previously to accept the chairmanship of the special Congressional committee to investigate Nazi propaganda in the United States.
The post was offered to him by Speaker Rainey in a letter dated March 30. Dickstein’s refusal to serve was submitted to Speaker Rainey in a letter dated April 2.
The letter to Speaker Rainey said “for conscientious patriotic reasons, I feel compelled to respectfully decline the appointment,” Mr. Dickstein said, “however, I shall be happy to serve as a member of the special committee if that is your desire, so that I may give to the committee the benefits of all my efforts during the past eight months of exhaustive work in fact-finding. I feel the work this committee has before it, will be the making of wholesome American history.”
Mr. Dickstein’s statement follows:
“For conscientious and patriotic reasons I have advised the Speaker that I feel compelled to decline the chairmanship and I have suggested to him the hope that the chairmanship of this committee shall be given to an outstanding member of the House of Representatives.
“I believe this special committee is going to find conditions in various parts of the United States so serious that it is my sincere desire that this formal investigation by authority of the House shall be directed by some member of the House whose personality and record will establish as a fact that this investigation of Nazi and other foreign instigated propaganda in the United States is an official inquiry into a menace to the Government of the United States and its principles.
“For more than eight months by individual effort through my own office and through the informal investigation conducted by a subcommittee of the committee on immigration and naturalization, of which I am now the chairman, convincing proof was uncovered, by voluntary statements and intense investigation. that our very institutions of government under our Constitution are being attacked by the aliens and others who are being used as the persons to spread this Nazi and other foreign propaganda in the United States. I am willing to serve on this special committee in order to personally supply the intricate in formation secured.
“I am well aware that if I should accept the chairmanship of the investigating committee the results of the investigation might be hampered through unkind criticism by certain persons or organizations. That is why I sincerely desire someone else to be appointed as chairman, someone with whom I can cooperate fully, and someone in whom everybody can and will be willing to cooperate to get at the bottom of this direct attack upon the principles of our American Government.???
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.
