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Who really said it

Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram

Spoken by Jesse Owens 1913–1980 · American sprinter and long jumper; four gold medals, Berlin 1936
Verified In copyright

Owens said it at a Republican campaign rally in Kansas City, Missouri, on the night of 15 October 1936, while stumping for Alf Landon against Franklin D. Roosevelt. A United Press flash datelined Kansas City the next morning carries the line word for word on page one of The Waterbury Democrat, 16 October 1936 ↗ — a contemporaneous report, not a later recollection.

Last verified 25 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram” Hitler didn't snub me — it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram. — Jesse Owens, at a Republican rally in Kansas City, Missouri, 15 October 1936; reported by United Press in The Waterbury Democrat, 16 October 1936, p. 1.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Jesse Owens (for Owens’s own words); United Press International, successor to United Press, for the 1936 wire report.). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Jesse Owens — American sprinter and long jumper; four golds at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Theme: "Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Occasion
Republican campaign rally, Kansas City, Missouri — evening of 15 October 1936
First report
United Press dispatch, datelined Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 16, 1936
Printed in
The Waterbury Democrat (Waterbury, Conn.), 16 October 1936, page 1
Also cited as
Jeremy Schaap, Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics (2007), p. 211

OWENS SORE — Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 16 — (UP) — Jesse Owens, Negro Olympic track star, told an audience of 1,000 Negroes here last night that it was President Roosevelt and not Feuhrer Hitler who snubbed him during the recent Olympic games in Berlin. “Hitler didn’t snub me — it was our president who snubbed me,” Owens said at a republican rally. “The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” “Late News Flashes”, page 1

Transcribed from the Library of Congress OCR of page 1; the OCR reads “Feuhrer”. The racial terminology is the newspaper’s own, retained here because this is a period document.

Newspaper page (digitised scan)
The Waterbury Democrat, 16 October 1936, page 1
Library of Congress — Chronicling America scan of the page

How we got here

  • 4 September 1936 — Owens declares for the Republican ticket. The McDowell Times, page 1 ↗: “Owens Jumps Into Political Ring; Landon for President,” datelined New York, Sept. 2.
  • 15 October 1936 — Owens tells an audience of about a thousand at a Kansas City Republican rally that it was Roosevelt, not Hitler, who snubbed him. A United Press flash carries the line to press the next morning, on page one of The Waterbury Democrat ↗.
  • 2007 — the line reaches most modern readers through Jeremy Schaap’s Triumph, p. 211, which is the citation Wikiquote ↗ attaches to it.
  • Afterwards — the thought resurfaces in Owens’s better-known formulation about not being invited to shake hands with Hitler or with the President, carried by ESPN SportsCentury ↗.
In copyright

The wording was first published on 16 October 1936, in a United Press dispatch on page 1 of The Waterbury Democrat ↗ — after the 1931 cut-off quotle.info uses for United States public domain, so we classify it as in-copyright rather than assert otherwise. U.S. periodicals of 1936 needed a copyright renewal that many never filed, and a single spoken sentence quoted in a news report is thin material for a copyright claim, but we have not checked the renewal record for this issue and make no public-domain claim on it.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What travels wrong

The words are genuinely Owens’s — that part survives scrutiny. What almost never survives the trip is the setting. Strip the date and the podium away and a line of election-year politics reads like a wise old champion’s late-life verdict, which is not what it was.

Quote pages that print the line bare, with no date or place Context lost

It was said at a partisan political event during a presidential campaign. Wikipedia places it at a Republican rally in Kansas City on 15 October 1936 — Jesse Owens, Wikipedia ↗ — and the United Press flash the next morning confirms the rally and the audience of about a thousand.

Anyone using it as proof that Hitler shook Owens’s hand Overread

Owens is contrasting two slights, not describing a handshake. His own 1936 account, as recorded on Wikiquote ↗ citing The New York Times of 25 August 1936, is that Hitler rose and waved as Owens passed his box, and Owens waved back.

Modern renderings that run it together as one flowing sentence Punctuation

The 1936 wire text sets it as two separate quoted sentences with the reporter’s attribution between them, and uses a dash rather than a semicolon: “Hitler didn’t snub me — it was our president who snubbed me,” Owens said at a republican rally. “The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” See the page-one scan ↗.

Owens said it, and a newspaper printed it within about twelve hours — on the front page of The Waterbury Democrat for 16 October 1936 ↗. The only thing usually missing is that he said it while campaigning for the other candidate.

Context

Why it mattered

By October 1936 the “Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens” story had been running in American papers for two months. Owens’s answer was not a defence of Hitler; it was an attack on his own president, delivered from a partisan podium. He had declared for the Republican nominee, Alf Landon, that September — “Owens Jumps Into Political Ring; Landon for President,” The McDowell Times, 4 September 1936 ↗ — and was being paid to do campaign outreach among Black voters.

The rally line landed because it was true in the way that stung: Roosevelt never invited Owens to the White House and never publicly congratulated him. Owens had been cheered by a hundred thousand Germans, handed a paper bag with ten thousand dollars in it during his Broadway parade, and then sent up a freight elevator at the Waldorf Astoria. The telegram that never came was the smallest possible gesture, and its absence was the point.

Owens wasn’t defending Hitler. He was running down Roosevelt — from a Republican platform, three weeks out from a presidential election.

The fuller record: what Owens said about Hitler in 1936, and how he put it later

On the alleged snub itself, Owens’s contemporaneous account was that nothing had happened. Wikiquote ↗ records him saying — citing The New York Times of 25 August 1936 — that Hitler had to leave the stadium early, that Owens passed near his box on the way to a broadcast, and that the Chancellor rose and waved, and Owens waved back.

The same thought later hardened into the sentence most people can quote today: “I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either,” as carried by ESPN SportsCentury ↗. That version is the reflective one. The 1936 version, the one on this page, was campaign ammunition.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Justice Truth Character

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Waterbury Democrat, 16 Oct 1936, page 1loc.gov

The scanned front page carrying the United Press “Owens Sore” flash with the quote in full — the primary source for this page.
Chronicling America issue recordloc.gov

Library of Congress catalogue record for the 16 October 1936 issue, with its own suggested citation.
Wikiquote: Jesse Owensen.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry listing the line under the 1930s section and citing Jeremy Schaap’s Triumph (2007), p. 211.
Wikipedia: Jesse Owensen.wikipedia.org

Places the remark at a Republican rally in Kansas City on 15 October 1936 and cites the period newspaper report.
The McDowell Times, 4 Sept 1936loc.gov

“Owens Jumps Into Political Ring; Landon for President” — the front-page report of Owens declaring for Alf Landon.
Schaap, Triumph (2007)archive.org

Internet Archive record for the Houghton Mifflin book that modern citations of this quote point to.

The man who said it

Who was Jesse Owens?

Jesse Owens

1913–1980 · American sprinter and long jumper; four golds at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens (12 September 1913 – 31 March 1980) won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — the 100 m, 200 m, long jump and 4×100 m relay — in front of Adolf Hitler. He came home to a ticker-tape parade up Broadway and to a country that still made him ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf Astoria to reach a reception held in his honour. That autumn he took the stump for the Republican presidential nominee, Alf Landon, and it was from a Landon platform, not from a memoir, that this line was first heard.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Chicago

United Press. “Late News Flashes” [“Owens Sore”]. The Waterbury Democrat (Waterbury, CT), October 16, 1936, p. 1. Reporting Jesse Owens’s remarks at a Republican rally in Kansas City, Missouri, the previous evening. Chronicling America, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82014085/1936-10-16/ed-1/.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hitler didn't snub me; it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hitler-didnt-snub-me-it-was-our-president-who-snubbed-me/

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