Daniel C. Roper, Secretary of Commerce, declared last night that racial and religious discrimination can find no place in the national life of this country.
He asserted that it was the ability of American citizens to reach beyond racial and religious lines for the common good that had been the foundation of growth and progress in the United States.
His remarks were made in addressing the banquet of the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the National Jewish Hospital of Denver. The meeting of the institution’s officers and trustees marked the opening of a drive for a special research fund of $250,000 this year to finance a five-year program of investigation and to develop a vaccine that would produce artificial immunity to tuberculosis.
President Roosevelt, in a message to the meeting, praised the work of the hospital as a “noble enterprise dedicated to the relief of human suffering.”
Earlier in the day, Senator Rayal S. Copeland, New York, had declared in opening an address, “It so happens I was born a Gentile, but thank God, not a Nazi.” In introducing him, Alfred A. Benesch, of Cleveland, vice president of the hospital, announced that since Hitler was conducting a referendum he had cabled him “wishing him everything he wishes us.” Senator Copeland beamed and joined heartily in the applause.
At the banquet, Mr. Roper declared himself “much impressed by the fact that of more than 20,000 men, women and children who have found succor in this Jewish hospital at least one-third have been of other than the Jewish faith. This is significant and reflects the broad attitude and wholesome spirit which has made America the great and united nation it is today.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
