The elimination of racial and religious prejudice in the United States, despite “remarkable progress” in various fields, still has “a long way to go,” C. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury, said here last night.
Speaking at the ninth annual human rights award dinner of the Joint Defense Appeal, Mr. Dillon assailed such discrimination as “socially explosive” and economically wasteful. He was presented with the JDA’s human rights award, a placque, presented annually to an American “whose contributions to the nation’s welfare epitomizes the goals and ideals of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.” The JDA is the fund-raising arm of the two agencies. A.M. Sonnabend, president of the American Jewish Committee, made the presentation to Mr. Dillon.
Mr. Dillon said that denial of opportunity for reasons of bias “invariably creates misery and hardship, and inevitably adds to the tensions within our society.” At a time when “our survival and that of the free world requires moral, social and economic strength,” he told the dinner, “we simply cannot afford to let intolerance erode our vitality as a nation.”
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.
