Nazi Exodus Cheers Cleveland

Ohio City Disgusted by Lies and Attempts to Stir Up Hate

Cleveland doesn’t want another convention like the one that ended yesterday.

The consensus among the German-American element here today, as the last of the visiting delegations left the scene of the German-American Congress, was that the convention had left an unpleasant after-taste with the press because of the secrecy of its sessions and the distorted versions of developments that did come to light; with leaders in local German-American society because it was felt New Yorkers had made Cleveland a battleground for misguided racial, economic and political theories; and with was a feared that heretofore peaceful Cleveland might become heir to prejudices similar to those fostered in almost every city east of the Mississippi.

DAWA APPEAL STRONG

While the city is still trying to straighten out the inaccurate accounts of the convention proceedings, as given out by the convention “diplomats” a few things are clear. It is certain that the DAWA, the German-American Protective Alliance, appeals to the majority of German-Americans who were represented here.

The defeat of the DAWA sympathy resolution by a single vote cast by the doorman-delegate, was laid to the intense rivalry of the waning Steuben Society and the desire of the Cleveland delegates to keep the city clear of prejudice. The Steuben Society delegates, incidentally, made no effort to correct early reports that the DAWA resolution had been swamped.

Another item clarified in the post-mortems is the Steubenite compromise with Nazi politics. Theodore Hoffmann, Steuben head, pleaded that his measure was purely defensive and against all boycotts. The preaching???s of Carl Nicolai, leader of the DAWA forces, were on identical grounds.

Why William H. Mueser, New York Steuben Society representative, gave out a false report regarding deletion of the important clauses from the Hoffmann resolution calling on all German-Americans to ask when buying, “Do you boycott German goods?” and refuse to buy from boycotters, no one except himself knows. Perhaps he had hoped to fool the public with regard to the real intention of the resolution.

STEUBEN SOCIETY ON FENCE

The Steuben Society maneuvers are regarded in some channels as the result of that organization’s growing unpopularity during recent years. It has been recognized as being on the fence on major political issued and at present is being forced from the American course by the tide of Nazi sentiment against which it is too weak to fight, yet with which it cannot comply wholeheartedly.

It is felt that the Steuben Society resolution counts for little, except as an attempt to justify the freedom of a faction, and that the congress was little more that a sounding board for German-American sentiment.

The Nazi-DAWA trick play-Nicolai to Voss, Winterscheidt and Froehlich-lost some face and may never recover from this first defeat after its conquests over and expansion into circles of widening influence.

Steuben Society representatives, trading on the honorable name of their organization, called the Nazi DAWA a possible weapon of racketeers

Only time will tell whether the DAWA will survive this brand, along with the severe inroads being-made against it by the McCormack committee.

HOFFMANN RESOLUTION

The resolution introduced by Theodore Hoffmann, head of the Steuben Society, and adopted by the German-American Congress states in part:

“Be it resolved that while we do not desire to support the ‘New Germany.’ and while we are Americans and stand for American policies and American justice and take issue for no other country, Germany not excepted, wherein the people have the right to determine their own form of government, we here protest against the high-pressure propaganda undertaken in this country with the object of ruining Germany’s trade and creating a breach of friendship between two friendly nations; and be it further resolved that we are against all boycotts and that we recommend to all Americans that when they buy they should ask: ‘Do you boycott German goods?’ and then patronize and buy only from those merchants who do not proclaim boycotts.”

The amendment to this resolution follows:

“Resolved that we earnestly request our government at Washington to take effective steps to stop the boycott of German goods.”