A.J.C. and A.d.l. Approve Cancellation of Hearings on Religion

Controversies on social problems among America’s three major religious faiths cannot be adjusted by open Congressional hearings without friction or strife, it was declared yesterday in a statement by two major national human relations agencies.

The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, holding their national executive committee meetings in the Hotel Roosevelt, jointly approved cancellation of public hearings on alleged violations of religious clauses of the First Amendment by the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, headed by Senator Thomas C. Hennings, Jr., and expressed the hope that no legislative group will undertake such an inquiry. The joint statement asserted that, while Congressional hearings are desirable forms in other matters, public hearings on controversies among religious groups on social issues “may have the effect of sharpening conflicts.”

American prestige abroad has been so seriously damaged by the murder of Emmett Till, 14-year-old Negro boy, in Mississippi that there is an urgent need for Federal legislation strengthening the Justice Department’s civil rights powers to prevent a recurrence, Congressional leaders were told in a report by the American Jewish Committee presented to the executive committee session. The report featured a survey of public reaction in six countries of Europe and North Africa to the acquittal of two white men accused of the crime.

Earlier, a budget of $5 million for 1956 was adopted for both agencies at the tenth annual meeting of the National Council of the Joint Defense Appeal, the fund-raising arm of AJC and ADL. The Council elected Philip E. Hoffman of Orange, N. J., chairman and re-elected Paul H. Sampliner of New York chairman of the Council’s executive committee for the fifth consecutive year.