President Eisenhower was tonight presented with the “America’s Democratic Legacy Award” by the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League in recognition of his devotion to the “furtherance of freedom.” The presentation was made at a dinner in the Mayflower Hotel marking the 40th anniversary of the ADL.
In presenting the silver medallion to the President, Henry E. Schultz, national chairman of the ADL, said: “We honor you for your leadership in the great crusade to bring about the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe; for your vigorous campaign to eliminate racial segregation in the armed forces; for your efforts to end undemocratic patterns of racial segregation in Washington, our capital city. But most of all, we honor you for your continuing leadership of the free world.” President Eisenhower’s acceptance remarks were not received by the time the Bulletin went to press).
The dinner was presided over by Philip Klutznick, B’nai B’rith president. Among the leading American personalities who attended the affair were Chief Justice Earl Warren, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Bernard Baruch, Justices Robert H. Jackson, Tom Clark, Sherman Minton, William O. Douglas, and Felix Frankfurter, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Secretary of Labor James P. Mitchell, Mutual Security Administrator Harold Stassen, General Walter Bedell Smith, Admiral Arthur Radford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Matthew Ridgeway, Israel Ambassador Abba Eban, and many Governors, Senators, U.S. Representatives, and leaders in the fields of religion, business, labor, and education.
More than 500 messages of congratulation were received at the dinner, including messages from the Presidents of Israel, Italy and France, Premier David Ben Gurion of Israel and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of Germany.
The dinner marked the closing of the four-day meeting of the ADL at which a budget of $2,485,000 was voted for the organization’s activities in 1954. Mr. Schultz was elected national chairman of the organization for a second term.
President Itzhak Ben-Zvi of Israel said in his message that he “was very happy” to learn that President Eisenhower is the recipient of the award of the Anti-Defamation League for 1953. “His presence at your anniversary dinner should be a source of pride and inspiration to you all,” he cabled to the ADL. “You are to be congratulated on the choice of President Eisenhower, the valiant champion of freedom and the doughty fighter against all forms of tyranny and oppression.” Mr. Ben Gurion congratulated the ADL for its championship of human rights.
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