The Czechoslovakian envoy to the United States, Dr. Ferdinand Veverka, yesterday informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his legation had sent no memorandum concerning the selection of lawyers employed in tariff and patent cases to organizations in his own country.
A despatch from Prague on October 24th to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency stated that the Czechoslovakian Minister in the United States had sent a memorandum suggesting that Washington lawyers be employed inasmuch as New York lawyers are Jews and certain American authorities are unfriendly to them.
The information, according to the despatch, was sent to the Chamber of Commerce and other interested authorities and was confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by the authorities in Prague.
Minister Veverka states, however: “No memorandum concerning the selection of lawyers was sent by this Legation, still less a memorandum could have been sent to the Czechoslovakian Chamber of Commerce to which my Legation sends no memoranda.”
Minister Veverka does state that a list of “especially qualified lawyers acting as representatives before various institutions was compiled recently and suggested by this Legation to the authorities in Prague.” Referring to this list, Minister Veverka says “the most conclusive and illuminating fact, barring all erroneous conclusions is that in the list there figures . . . in the first place Mr. Rafael Tour-over, and in the third place Mr. Frederick Hackenburg of New York both of whom, as I have just been informed are of Jewish faith. From this fact you will observe that there could not possibly be any discrimination whatsoever on the part of this legation on religious or racial grounds.”
At the same time Minister Veverka says that “I am making inquiries as to what specific information, of which my Legation sends quite a number, your report from Prague, published in the Jewish Daily Bulletin of October 25th, refers.
“The exceptional nature of this case obliges me to beg you to consider this statement as final,” the Czechoslovakian Minister concluded.
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.
