Two Jewish organizations have urged political leaders to avoid associations during the current political campaign with clubs which discriminate on racial or religious grounds.
The American Jewish Committee asked all figures in public life “to exercise clear-cut moral leadership” by “publicly dissociating themselves” from such clubs. The issues of clubs which ban Negro or Jewish members has been in the news in connection with the current political campaign. Both Richard Nixon and Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, Republican contenders for their party’s nomination, were disclosed to be members of clubs with such records. Gov. Rockefeller resigned from the club in question.
Nathan Perlmutter, AJ Committee associate director, said that the agency did not argue with the right of a private club to engage in such policies, but that it did affirm “the social responsibility of public figures to remove their sanction – implied by their membership – from such clubs.”
The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith urged the state delegations to the GOP convention and John M. Bailey, Democratic national chairman, to counsel avoidance of discriminatory clubs in the cities in which the respective conventions are taking place-Miami Beach and Chicago.
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