Nude Bathing Story Had Wrong Sponsor

Camden Courier-Post – June 28, 1933

Civic Group Secretary Says He Did Not Refer to Erector of Petting Sign

A nudist bathing resort may be established on Cooper river in North Camden, but Lewis B. Simon, Haddonfield tire dealer and Delaware Township farmer, doesn’t intend to be its sponsor.

Simon made that plain yesterday in answer to an interpretation by The Morning Post of remarks made Monday night by Frank J. Hartmann, Jr., at a meeting of the North Camden Civic Association. Hartmann, secretary of the association, emphatically denied that his remarks pointed to Simon, who recently created a Delaware Township petters’ paradise and posted a sign announcing that police are unwelcome.

“My remarks were misinterpreted by the reporter,” Hartmann said, “when I remarked that a friend of mine planned to provide means whereby nude bathers could have immunity by his erection of sign similar to one in Delaware Township inviting petters to park their cars behind a sign without interference of police.

“Since Mr. Simon erected the petters sign in Delaware Township, the reporter assumed that I must have meant Mr. Simon. I did not. I do not even know Mr. Simon. At present I cannot release the name of my friend who is planning the nudist bathing beach, for he now has a lawyer working to discover if the plan he proposes would be likely to encounter legal obstacles.”

The Courier-Post Newspapers regret any embarrassment the story may have caused to Simon and Hartmann.

Hartmann declares that the sign proposed by his friend would probably read:

“NUDE BATHING ALLOWED HERE…

THE CITY ALLOWS IT AND SO DO I.

POLICE KEEP OUT.”

His friend, he said, desired to find legalization for nude bathing since 14, boys arrested at Cooper river last week, were released by Police Judge Garfield Pancoast. Hartmann declared he is “not in favor of nude bathing when the actions of bathers are indecent,” and that his friend planned the sign as a satire on city officials.