Labor: Creed for Promotion

The claim that his union was discriminating against its Negro and Puerto Rican members was too much for David Dubinsky, 70, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union for the past three decades, and white-haired patriarch of New York's Liberal Party. Before a House subcommittee investigating the charge of racism against the I.L.G.W.U., Dubinsky admitted that proportionately few of the 100,000 Negro and Puerto Rican members of his 450,000-man union have become part of the hierarchy. He explained that they were still gaining necessary experience at lower levels.

Then Dubinsky struck out at the notion that anyone should be elected or appointed to responsible office simply because of being a minority member. Said he: "I'll be damned if I will support the idea of the professional Negro, the professional Jew, the professional Italian, that a man should be a union officer because of his race, color or creed. He should be an officer on his merits, ability and character."