Labor Department support for bills that would establish a Fair Employment Practices Commission and that would admit a number of displaced persons to the United States is reaffirmed in the annual report for 1947 of Secretary, of Labor Lewis Schwellenbach, issued today.
The freedom to earn a livelihood for one self and one’s family without discrimination “on the irrelevant basis of race, religion, color, national origin, or ancestry is no less important than the more generally recognized and accepted freedoms” the report points out. Such discrimination is “a constant threat to wage levels adequate to sustain an American standard of living and levels of purchasing power and production adequate to maintain prosperity.”
The Labor Department also backs the passage of legislation to admit 400,000 European displaced persons, predicting that it would have “beneficial rather than harmful consequences for our country. During the present period of almost full employment labor shortages have developed in some fields and surveys have shown that many displaced persons who would be brought in under this legislation possess skills that are needed to meet these shortages,” the report added.
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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.
