December 6, 1935, Pages1, 3
Desire Withdrawal
From '36 Olympics
Forty College Presidents Think
Nazis Plan To Use Olympics
For Reich Propaganda
The presidents of forty colleges in seventy-seven states issued a request last Sunday to the Amateur Athletic Union and the American Olympic committee to withdraw American teams from the sixth Olympic games to be held next year at Berlin. Dr. Frank Kingdon of Dana College, Newark, who made public the request, expressed the belief of the educators that the Nazis were planning to use the Olympics as an instrument of propaganda.
The request read in part:
"It is our considered judgment, based upon the record of events which have transpired in Germany for the past two and-one-half years, that the inequities and discrimination practised against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, labor, Masons and all independents are perpetuated in the field of sports and in the Olympic Games. We further believe that these games arc being used by Nazi Germany as an instrument for the propagation of her ideals which represent the destruction of democratic and progressive society.
"Because the Olympic Gaines are dedicated to the advancement of inter-racial amity and the high standards of sportsmanship, and because the Nazi regime is responsible for the enslavement of races and the destruction of all standards of fair play, we believe that Americans should refuse to lake part in the games, and that such refusal will serve to elevate and preserve sports and the sporting spirit."
At a mass protest meeting against the United States participation in the Berlin games held at the 92nd St. branch of the Y.M.H.A. Representative Vito Marcantonio said that he believed a united front of all forces opposing Germany would result in the speedy transfer of the games to another country. Denouncing Brigadier General Charles H. Sherrill, American member of the International Olympic committee, for his stand against withdrawal and applauding the tearing down of the Nazi
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Swastica from the Bremen mast, he said:
"In connection with General Sherrill that American Fascist, what else can you expect from him? One whose knees have become calloused from bending before European royalty should not be trusted. One who has advocated a Fascist dictator in America has disqualified himself from the important task of reporting upon conditions in Germany.
I don't care if I'm going to be criticized for what I'm about to say, but I say that a few more Nazi swastikas torn down from ship-masts will do a lot of good. I believe that the conscience and consciousness of the American working classes will be the best defense to keep us out of the Berlin games."
Jeremiah T. Mahoney, president of the American Athletic Union, answered General Sherrill's charge that politics were being 'brought into Sports by pointing out that Germany was the first to introduce politics into the situation when the government took the control of. the Olympiad out of the hands of the German Olympic committee and put representatives of the Third Reich and .the National Socialist party in. charge of the arrangements for the event.
Making a vigorouss plea for a united front to keep the. United .States out of the games, Kurt Rosenfeld, former Minister of Justice of Prussia, an exile from the Hitler regime, cited many instances of the manner int which the Nazis would try to use the games for propaganda.
A resolution embodying the sentiments expressed at the meeting was unanimously adopted.
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May 20, 2004