Evening star., 1947-07-18
Minority Chest Report
In Condensed Version

FOLLOWING is q partial tert OFT
the minority report OF the Citt-
zens' Chest Surrey Committee,
released NTH the majority report,
and signed by representatives
from the Federation of Business
Mems Associations and the Fed
Grafton of Citizens Associations:
The committee met and organized
early in March, and proceeded to
divide into three subcommittees. As
the various Investigations proceeded
lit was the opinion of the most OF
the committee that the releasing
of the Racial Relations Report had
seriously jeopardized the Chest, and
that there must be drastic changes
in the relationship between the
Chest and council, which would in
sure that there would not be a re-
petition of this kind of activity
There was some dificulty expert
enced in getting an expression from
the committee as to how this should
be accomplished. The Federation of
Civic Associations (eolored, and
the GRO, took the position that
while the trouble which the Chest
was facing had been caused by the
release of this racial relations re-
port, that the public was unfair in
its criticism, and that If properly
informed there would be no harm
come to the Chest from this release
The Board of Trade, the Junior
Board of Commerce, the AFL, the
Federation Of Businessmen Asso-
Citations, and the Federation of Citi-
zens' Associations took the position
that the release of this racial rela-
5ions report had seriously leopard
lied the Chest program, and with
out reference to the merits of the
report condemned this kind of con-
troversial activity, and took the
position that such readjustment
should be made in the Chest ad-
ministr alton as to insure that this
kind of activity would not occur
again. In an effort to put this con-
clusion into words, after much argu-
ment and change, the following
recommendation as to the relation
ship of Chest and council was
agreed upon, and adopted at the
June 16 meeting Of the full COM
mittee, to-wit:
"(a) We recommend that the
Washington Community Chest
create a new department to per-
form the functions for which the
Chest is now dependent upon the
Council of Social Agencies"
This was a compromise between
those who felt that the council
should be dropped from the Chest
participation entirely and those who
desired to subject the council to
complete control by the Chest,
Those of us who believed that we
could not provide for control of the
council by the Chest, based this on
the fact that they were two separate
corporations and neither subsid-
iary of the other We felt the only
thing that could be done was to
entirely separate the council from
the Chest, and reserve the question
of participation in Chest funds for
the new Board of Trustees to de-
termine. We coupled with our rec
ommendation another that the
Board of Trustees be reorganized
Immediately and before the 1s47
campaign, and that this problem be
left to them.
The Board of Trade and the Jun
ior Board of Commerce were as fully
convinced as We. that something
must be done to clear the present
confusion. However, after the adop-
ton of the above recommendation
on June 16, and at the next meeting
of June %. one of the representa-
tives of the Board of Trade moved
to reconsider the adoption of the
recommendation quoted above, and
joined with the CIO, the Fedora