Seven corporations with U.S. war contracts in the New York area were accused today before President Roosevelt’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice of discriminating against Jews or Negroes in hiring employees.
All seven denied any intention of violating FDR’s order, issued last June, against discrimination by war contractors “because of race, creed, color or national origin.” The Titeflax Metal Hose Co. through spokesmen, apologized to the Committee for an ad containing the word “Gentile.”
Declaring that the hearings of the President’s Committee have brought out the fact that private employment agencies, labor unions and employers in many cases discriminate against individuals because of race or religion, the New York Times in an editorial today attacks such discrimination.
“In Europe’s ‘New Order’ ,” the editorial says, “there are first-class, second class and third-class citizens – perhaps other categories further down the scale. We should recognize the Nazi infection by that arrangement if by nothing else. If we recognize classes of citizenship here – and this is what some of our labor unions and employers have been doing – we introduce the Nazi system to that extent. The practice is outrageous at any time. At the present time it is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
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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.
