Senator Everett Dirksen, Republican leader seeking re-election in Illinois, was not consulted on an appeal to German-Americans to vote for him so as to return “our own man” to Washington, the secretary of the group responsible for the racial appeal said today.
A. M. Frey, secretary of the German-American Committee for Dirksen, told the Chicago Jewish Sentinel that the appeal had not been approved by Sen. Dirksen’s campaign committee, nor by the Senator himself. “He was not consulted on the letter itself,” Frey said. He said that the letter “may very well not” reflect the Senator’s personal views.
Dirksen is being opposed by Rep. Sidney R. Yates, who is Jewish. A letter sent by Frey’s group to members of 225 German-American societies in the Chicago area, urging Dirksen’s re-election, absolved the Kaiser’s Germany and Hitler’s Third Reich of responsibility for starting two world wars. It described the Democratic party as anti German and guilty of starting both conflicts.
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.
