Herbert Bayard Swope, noted journalist and consultant to Secretary of War Henry Stimson during World War II, was presented tonight with the Interfaith in Action 1950 Gold Medal Award at a dinner at the 1 Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, attended by 1,500 notables of all faiths.
The presentation was made by Bernard M. Baruch who read the citation in which Mr. Swope’s achievements in fostering interfaith and interracial understanding were emphasized. Speakers at the $1,000-a-table dinner, in addition to Mr. Baruch, included Robert P. Patterson, former Secretary of War; James A. Farley, chairman of the dinner; New York State Supreme Court Justice George Beldock; George A. Saltzman, president of the Interfaith in Action Committee, and Louis Nizer, author.
The Keynote theme emphasized by all the speakers was the need, in the face of the cataclysm of a third world war which seems to be approaching, for making real and expanding interfaith and interracial understanding and the brotherhood of man — both to help avert the feared new war and to help free men meet the crisis better if it comes.
According to Arthur H. Konvitz, executive director of Interfaith in Action, proceeds of the dinner will become part of the Interfaith in Action Committee’s fund for a $1,000,000 interfaith and community center at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and Fortieth Street, in New York City’s garment center. The site for the building, which will include a synagogue, gymnasium, swimming pool, library and auditorium, has already been purchased for over $500,000 out of funds previously raised in the campaign. The Interfaith in Action Committee is led and supported by representatives of all religious faiths.
Mr. Swope was four times a recipient of the Pulitzer Journalism award – once for his own work as a reporter covering Germany in the First World War; the other three times for the public service the New York World had rendered under his editorship. He wears the Medal for Merit, awarded by the President and conferred on him by General Eisenhower.
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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.
