Only three out of 38 athletic clubs in key American cities maintain religiously and racially open membership policies, according to a national survey recently completed by the B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League. The results of the survey were made public by Eugene L. Sugarman, chairman of the ADL’s discrimination committee, at the ADL 55th annual meeting here last night. The survey showed that 21 clubs in cities of over 100,000 population apparently admitted Jews but excluded Negroes; 14 other clubs either barred Jews and Negroes from membership or imposed quotas. The three clubs that practice open membership policies were the Baltimore Olympic Club, the Oakland Athletic Club and the Pacific Coast Club in Long Beach, California.
The ADL presented its annual America’s Democratic Legacy award tonight to John W. Gardner, chairman of the National Urban Coalition and former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. According to Dore Schary, ADL chairman, the award to Mr. Gardner was made “for his long career of public service and personal commitment to American ideals.’
Mr. Schary announced last night that he had been assured, in a letter from Republican National Committee Chairman Ray C. Bliss that social clubs in the Miami Beach area which practice racial or religious discrimination will be bypassed for events in connection with the Republican National Convention there on August 5. Mr. Bliss, replying to a letter from Mr. Schary, promised that the Republican
National Committee would make “every effort to select only those (clubs) that are open to all people regardless of race, creed or ethnic background.” An ADL spokesman said that a list of clubs known to practice discrimination would be sent to Mr. Bliss. Mr. Schary said he had not written on the subject to Democratic National Chairman John C, Bailey because a parallel situation did not exist in Chicago where the Democratic Party will hold its convention on August 29.
At an earlier session, Arnold Forster, general counsel, charged that the Japanese Government had failed to protect Japanese industry from Arab pressures and had thus helped the Arab boycott against Israel achieve Its greatest success to date. Among major Japanese firms that flatly refuse to do business with Israel because of Arab pressure, Mr. Forster listed Toyota, Suzuki, Sumitomo, Mitsubishi, Mariubeni and Mitsui, firms that make automobiles, appliances, machinery, footwear and many other products.
He said the ADL had met several times over a two-year period with members of the Japanese Embassy and consulates in the United States and with Chamber of Commerce officials without satisfactory response. However, direct meetings with officials of some of the firms led to their abandonment of boycott practices. Among those firms Mr. Forster mentioned the Matsushita Electric Corp., which announced it would not allow any of its 40 affiliates to yield to the Arab boycott office, the Fuji Photo Film Co., Nisaei Sangyo, a subsidiary of the Hitachi Corp. and the Kawasaki Dockyards. Mr. Forster discounted the theories that Japan feared Jeopardizing its oil imports from Arab countries. He said that oil retaliation by the major Arab suppliers had been “severely limited” against countries doing business with Israel. He noted further that the Arab market absorbed only three percent of Japan’s exports in 1966.
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.
