Congress will eliminate the discriminatory features of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, Assistant Secretary of State Ralph Wright tonight predicted at a meeting of the Jewish Labor Committee here. Wright pointed out that the DP immigration bill discriminates against Jews and Catholics in "callous fashion."
(In New York this week-end a meeting of the American Friends Service Committee heard Carl Levine, one of its field workers who just returned from a tour of duty in Germany, advocate more generous Federal legislation to admit DP’s. Levine outlined weaknesses of the bill as far as its being of greatest service to the DP’s is concerned. He singled out the deadline before which DP’s had to be in Germany to be eligible for admission to the U.S. and the red tape involved in the administration of the act as being particularly disadvantageous to the displaced persons.)
Wright also said that President Truman’s election "signifies to all of us that a civil rights program is now closer to enactment than ever before." The report, of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, appointed by President Truman in 1947, "is being taken seriously" by the administration, he said.
"President Truman has committed himself to continue the fight to eradicate all racial, religious, and economic discrimination," he declared. Wright revealed that the Labor Department has taken the lead in complying with President Truman’s executive order setting up a Fair Employment Practices Commission within the Federal Government.
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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.
