The National Conference of the Joint Defense Appeal, which is the fund-raising arm of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, concluded its three-day session here last night with the adoption of a $5,784,321 budget for 1951. Sidney S. Meyer, of Youngstown, Ohio, was elected chairman of the National Council, and Paul H. Sampliner of New York was named chairman of the Counciles executive.
Mr. Meyer, in accepting national chairmanship, declared: “The Joint Defense Appeal can look back upon nearly a decade of achievement in the fight against the bigot and the hate-monger. We have seen the slow but steady growth of a public opinion hostile to the blandishment of the anti-Semites and their cohorts. But the work of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Committee is far from finished. It is work that will become increasingly important in the years ahead.”
Mr. Sampliner called attention to the nation-wide programs of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. He declared that “the existencies of prejudice today is a threat, not alone to minority groups, but to the very foundations of our democratic order.” He warned against “permitting bigotry to divide America by setting one group in our population against the other.” A nation weakened by prejudice is a nation weakened in the face of the totalitarian foe, he said.
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