With the backing of President Eisenhower and Vice-President Nixon, a drive was begun by the President’s Committee on Government Contracts to get the help of the nation’s industrialists and labor leaders toward ending employment discrimination.
President Eisenhower wrote a special message on the subject in a pamphlet, 500,000 copies of which are being distributed by the committee. Mr. Nixon made an additional statement. The pamphlet emphasizes the country’s present need for “the largest possible reserve of skilled manpower,” and the fact that “in the world struggle for the minds of men, America’s position of leadership makes it mandatory” to end discrimination because “the charge of racial prejudice is being hurled at us every day by the Communists.”
The President’s message commended the committee, headed by the Vice President, as follows:
“Quietly but persistently the members of this committee have been at work, with heartening success, on employment problems which over the years have become charged with emotion and distorted by prejudice. Their efforts will, I am sure, continue to bring far-reaching results of enduring value.”
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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.
