Justice Steinbrink, of New York, was re-elected national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League today at the closing session of the organization’s three-day annual meeting here at which a broad program for combating bigotry and prejudice in the United States was presented to the 500 delegates.
Pointing out that “excellent as the Bill of Rights is, it is not self-enforcing,” Justice Steinbrink, who has served as head of the A.D.L. since 1936, stressed that “bigotry has injured and still injures in the most tragic way more people more seriously than forest fires or train wrecks or hurricanes or floods.”
Benjamin R, Epstein, who was re-elected secretary and national director of the organization, asserted that anti-Semitism cannot be fought merely by pronouncements that “democracy is good, or that Protestants, Catholics and Jews mast work together. We must go further than that. We must show specific cases in which democracy is falling down.”
Posing the question on “how shall we combat anti-Semitism today ?” Epstein said: “Obviously the soundest method of all is to fight for a healthy society, full employment, adequate higher education and ample housing. Where there is scarcity and men must compete desperately for the basic necessities of life, minorities are hound to be at the mercy of those who stir up hatred and fear.”
Judge David Rose, chairman of the A.D.L ‘s civil liberties committee, charged that many Americans had begun to look “with an unjaundiced eye” on anti-Semitic prejudices expressed by public figures; that certain universities, were still discriminating against Jewish students and that there was a continuing influx into the U.S. of alien fascists and Nazis.
Others re-elected today to A.D.L. posts include Jacob Olson, treasurer, and Richard E. Goodstadt, executive vice-chairman.
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