The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith protested today to U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., against the plan of the National Association of Attorneys General to hold its annual convention at Camelback Inn in Phoenix, Arizona. The League charged that the hotel maintains restrictive guest policy which, with few exceptions, bars accommodations to Jewish guests.
Mr. Brownell is stated to be the principal speaker at the convention which opens December 8. He will not register at the Gamelback Inn. “Because the membership of the National Association of Attorneys General is composed of the chief law enforcement officers of the nation and because we are convinced that the Association would not want to give any sanction to religious bigotry, we consider it necessary to point out that Camelback Inn does violence to American principles of equality,” Henry Edward Schultz, the League’s national chairman, declared in a letter to Mr. Brownell.
A similar protest asking Mr. Brownell to do “all in your power” to have the attorneys general cancel out of Camelback Inn, was wired yesterday by the Travel Agents Committee to Combat Discrimination in the Travel Industry, a New York group representing 125 hotel and resort booking agents. The group also wired Attorney General Eugene Cook of Georgia, president of the Attorneys General Association, urging a switch from Camelback Inn. “This hotel is notorious for its anti-Jewish policy,” the travel agents said.
The Anti-Defamation League also said it has been advised by Attorney General Robert Y. Thornton of Oregon that he was not “in favor of the holding of a meeting at an establishment which practices racial or religious discrimination.” He wrote the League’s Oregon director that he would “make appropriate protest” at the convention and “endeavor to make arrangements to stay in another nearby establishment”
Another formal protest to the attorneys general’s group was made earlier this week by the Phoenix Jewish Community Council. It asked that the convention switch to another Arizona resort hotel. Burton Lewkowitz, an attorney who is chairman of the Phoenix council’s community relations committee, promised free automobile transportation to and from the convention to delegates who do not register at Camelback Inn. He said members of local B’nai B’rith groups would provide and drive the cars.
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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.
