Frankly admitting he was too prejudiced against anti-Nazis to hear the action, Magistrate Francis Irwin in East Fifty-seventh Street Magistrate’s Court yesterday adjourned until next Thursday the case of Julius Zittenfeld and Joseph Bleimeyer of the Pennant Stationery Company, charged with selling boxes of thumbtacks from which the name “Germany” had been erased in violation of the recently passed Wald Act.
“I feel too prejudiced against you to hear this case,” Judge Irwin curtly told Samuel Poses, appearing as counsel for the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, plaintiff.
“I just want to read you the law,” remonstrated Poses.
“I don’t want to hear the law,” Judge Irwin retorted. “You anti-Nazis ### carrying this business too far.”
Samuel J. Siegel, attorney for the defendants, engaged Poses in a heated exchange of words, abusing him and the Anti-Nazi League for “wasting my time with this outrageous business.”
Both lawyers were brusquely ordered from the court room by Judge Irwin.
As the two went down the stairs, Siegel engaged in an altercation with Poses, and a row was narrowly averted when a reporter stepped between the two as they stood glaring at each other.
“You people do more to encourage Hitlerism than anybody else,” said Siegel hotly.
The case will come before Magistrate Thomas A. Aurelio in East Fifty-seventh Street Court next Thursday.
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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.
