A Million for Hitler

In order to prevent further bloodshed and outrage in this war of the German aggression, I am authorized by competent Americans to offer a reward of $1,000,000 to be paid in cash to the person or persons who will deliver Adolf Hitler, alive, unwounded and unhurt, into the custody of the League of Nations, for trial before a high court of justice for his crimes against the peace and dignity of the world. This proposal will stand good through the month of May, 1940.

One morning last week the foregoing paragraph led the decorous letters column of the New York Times. Signer: Dr. Samuel Harden Church, president of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. The Times in its news columns further quoted 82-year-old Dr. Church to the effect that 1) he was not joking; 2) his plan had been seriously proed-&-conned for three months in Pittsburgh's Duquesne Club (coal, steel millionaires); 3) the offer had the backing of 50 citizens who could and would put up the cash; 4) he thinks his plan can work; 5) his backers doubt it; 6) "I felt that there was some power in the idea, especially so because it is not in any sense an offer of reward for an assassination, and so I have come to believe that it will indeed catch people's imagination."

Dr. Church's plan caught imagination and several other things:

>One Joseph J. ("Flying Dutchman") Dunkel, a Cleveland parachute jumper, wired Samuel Church: "Plans complete. . . . Need $25,000. . . . Wire instructions and cash. We take off on receipt of expense money."*

>The Pay Murphy System of Physical Culture of Houston, Tex. telegraphed the Times: "Will go after Hitler . . . must have $100,000 drawing account. . . ."

>Dean Carl W. Ackerman of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism penned an open letter to Dr. Church: ". . . You have won the unique position of War Maker No. 1."

>A senior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N. Y.) offered $10,000 for the capture of Chamberlain and Reynaud "dead or alive."

>"Ridiculous . . . utterly stupid," Berlin officials puffed.

> The U. S. State Department languidly harked back to President Roosevelt's Neutrality edict that no U. S. citizen "shall take part, directly or indirectly, in the said war."

>Duquesne Clubman Ernest T. Weir said he had nothing to do with the Church offer. Embarrassed Dr. Church said the Times wrongly hooked the Duquesne Club into his plan, had a note posted on the Duquesne bulletin board: "I want to extend my apologies to every member. . . ."

>Congressman Ham Fish of New York suggested that the Germans might post $100,000 for Franklin Roosevelt delivered in Berlin.

>"I guess those people are just giving vent to feelings that probably are shared by 99% of the American people," said Congressman Ed Izac of California.

>Quipsters quoted Adolf Hitler: "And I'll give 50-c- cash for Mr. Church, alive and kicking, here in Berlin."

>Mourned Colonel Luke Lea of Nashville. Tenn. (who almost kidnapped Kaiser Wilhelm II from a castle at Amerongen, Holland in 1919): "The U. S. is not at war. . . . Therefore ... no American can accept the alluring adventure advanced by President Church. . . ."

Sixteen days after World War I began in 1914, Samuel Harden Church was called the first violator of Woodrow Wilson's neutrality proclamation (for denouncing Germany's "murder of civilization"). Previously he had worked his way up from messenger boy to vice president of Pennsylvania Railroad, had long been doing good with Steelmaster Andrew Carnegie's money. He has crusaded for monetary inflation, against Prohibition, for President Roosevelt.

Back in good standing at the Duquesne Club since he turned against the New Deal in 1936, he recently summed up his domestic views: "I am for the ordered way of economic law--the gold standard, the bumper crop, the helping hand to honest business, and a tariff that will restore work to our labor." Although he announced in 1938 that Hitler should be tried as a criminal, Dr. Church has no intention of doing any kidnapping himself. That, said he, is for those who are young in years and heart.

*"That was all I could afford to wire," amplified Mr. Dunkel. "Right now on Long Island, a Lockheed plane is waiting. I have a pilot and a radio man and we can't miss. My end of the deal is to get the $25,000 advance. . . ."

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