Speech #880223718

This February at Hadassahs midwinter conference in New York City. significant resolutions were passed relating to a strong U.S. leadership in areas of civil and human rights. The conference urged the ratification by our Government of the Genocide Convention which seeks to outlaw the deliberate destruction of any ethnic group. it expressed wholehearted support for the United Nations and the objectives set forth in the preamble to its Charter. it urged the continued use of the Agency for International Development as an effective instrument for the channeling of American foreign aid. and it also expressed endorsement and support for the civil rights program now facing Congress. In two other resolutions. the conference urged that defects and inequities be removed from our Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. known as the McCarranWalter Act. and that ratification be swiftly accomplished on the three conventions for abolition of enforced labor. abolition of slavery. and political rights of women which are now before the Foreign Relations Committee. Hadassah originated in the spirit and idealism of one woman. Henrietta Szold.