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NEW YORK -- An Americanization meeting of the pro-Nazi German-American bund, attended by 18,000 persons and featured by tributes to George Washington and denunciations of Jews, ended shortly before midnight last night with salutes to swastikas and the singing of the Nazi anthem, "Horst Wessel." Outside Madison Square Garden policemen had had a six-hour struggle with throngs of anti-Nazis who repeatedly charged their lines to fight their way inside.
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Although there were numerous individual fights, none was seriously injured. Thirteen were arrested, including Isidore Greenbaum, 23, a sanitary engineer, who rushed the speaking platform in an attempt to attack Fritz Kuhn, national bund leader, and was severely beaten by bund storm troopers. Greenbaum's trousers were torn off.
100,000 Gather
Traffic was halted completely in a six-block area most of the night and it was estimated at one time that a crowd of 100,000 was in the neighborhood.
Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine commanded 1,7000 policemen at the scene, the largest force ever detailed to one task in the city's history.
The climax of the demonstration arrived when bund members, leaving the hall, were attacked on the sidewalk in a score of individual encounters.
The meeting, widely advertised a George Washington birthday rally for bundsmen and sympathizers, failed to produce the serious rioting and bombing predict for it. Several hundred uniformed storm troopers, in brown or gray shirts, commanded the interior of the building, with the aid of 750 policemen.
Denounces Ickes
American flags, swastikas and banners carrying such slogans as "Stop Jewish domination of Christian Americans" decorated the hall. In the lobby, copies of Rev. Charles E. Coughlin's publication "Social Justice" were hawked by boys. Storm troopers wore civilian overcoats concealing their uniforms, but once inside discarded the coats, arranged themselves in formations and took orders from their leaders in German.
Kuhn denounced the New Deal spending program for relief, accused "Dictatorial Harold Ickes" of attacking Nazi Germany with out cause.
"Americanism should be return ed to the Christians who founded it," he said. "We must defy those who turned this country into a Bolshevik paradise.
Assails Jewry
"We do not say all Jews are communists but we do say that the Jew is the driving force of communism ..."
He read a roll of those whom he blamed for America's troubles. They included "The Brandeises, the Baruches and the Untermyers who sent thousands of American boys to France to die under the slogan of "Make the world safe for democracy."
Outside, the crowd of anti-Nazis was growing. They strained at the lines held by mounted policemen. Just as the meeting inside was starting a loud speaker began blaring a anti-Nazi speech from the second floor of a rooming house. Policemen rushed there and found the room empty, the voice coming from a record playing device that had been set off by a time clock.
As the temper of the street crowd seemed to grow menacing, the orchestra from the show "I Must Love Someone" left the pit of the Longacre theater, stood on the sidewalk and played the Star Spangled Banner in an effort to soothe it.
Eject Columnist
The next incident inside the hall was the ejection of Dorothy Thompson, newspaper columnist and wife of Sinclair Lewis, who wrote the novel, "It Can't Happen Here." Storm troopers complained that Miss Thompson had laughed during one of the speeches. Police men escorted Miss Thompson out side, but readmitted her in a few minutes when they learned she had come to report the meeting,
Shouts of "throw her out" had greeted Miss Thompson's . laughter, and several storm troopers moved toward her. The police in tervened, however, and hustled Miss Thompson and a friend, Ethel Moses, from the hall. Heywood Broun, newspaper columnist, followed, remonstrated with the po lice and gave his seat at the reporters' table to Miss Thompson when she was permitted to return.
Other newspapermen who at tempted to reach Miss Thompson for an interview were prevented from doing so by storm troopers, who formed a line around the press section. Police pushed them back, however.
"We came here because it was a public meeting," she explained. "At such meetings one may react as one chooses. So we laughed. I laughed, because these Nazis were exercying the free speech which one day they would deny everyone."
Miss Thompson continued to laugh at the speakers.
Jeer Roosevelt
James Wheeler-Hill, national secretary of the bund, introduced the Rev. S. G. Von Bosse. Lutheran pastor of Philadelphia. He pleaded with the crowd to renounce all "isms" including Nazism. The crowd heard him In silence. They began jeering a few minutes later when Wheeler-Hill mentioned the names of President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins and other New Dealers. Then they cheered the names of Herbert Hoover, Senator Gerald P. Nye, republican of North Dakota, Father Coughlin and Senator William E. Borah, republican of Idaho. Coughlin's name was greeted enthusiastically.
"If Franklin Roosevelt takes the place of George Wshington, so in the cultural life Beethoven is replaced by Irving Berlin," said G. W. Kunze, the bund's public relations counsel. He stood beneath a 30-foot portrait of Washington.
Want Americanism
Rudolf Markmann, eastern district leader of the bund, said it did not seek Nazism for the 'United States.
"We have never claimed to be Nazis," he said, "knowing that Nazism is something reserved for Germany and is not for our country ... to us, Americanism mea is that we will fight international Jewry, closely interwoven with bolshevism, and fight for God and country.
Policemen had tried to hold the crowd at least two blocks from the Garden, but were overwhelmed several times. The throng was even larger than had been expected, al though Newbold Morris, acting mayor, had broadcast a plea by radio- yesterday for all persons to "shun the meeting as they would a pestilence."
Prisoners Charged
Most of the 13 prisoners were charged with disorderly conduct. One, a Negro, was charged addi tionally with cruelty to animals. He was alleged to have injured a policeman's horse.
Greenbaum said he had charged the speaker's platform because he could no longer endure the anti- Jewish speeches. He was not armed.
It was disclosed that the American Jewish committee had sent a letter to the management of Madison Square Garden announcing that it was opposed to any action to prevent the bund from airing its views."
