862.015311/5
The Secretary of State to the German Ambassador (Luther)
My Dear Mr. Ambassador: Having reference to your call at the Department on June twenty-eighth in connection with an article [Page 487] which appeared in the New York American on May thirty-first stating that the authorities of Newark, New Jersey, prohibited the display of the German swastika at a gathering of American-German singing societies at that place on Decoration Day, I now desire to inform you that the matter was at once taken up with the Governor of New Jersey, who in a letter to the Department dated July twenty-seventh46 encloses a report on the incident made to him by Mr. Michael P. Duffy, Director of Public Safety of Newark.
A copy of Mr. Duffy’s report is transmitted herewith46 from which it would appear that the determination to omit the swastika in the display of flags was not on the part of the officials of the City of Newark but was taken by those in charge of the celebration.
I am [etc.]