The Phoenix Jewish news., 1960-08-26
The Tucson Plan

The hotel and restaurant industry in Tucson struck
an unusual bargain recently with the city council and
minority groups crusading for public accommodations
anti-discrminaton ordinance. The bargain this If
the city council would refrain from passing such an
ordinance the industry would undertake to end dis
elimination voluntary basis Then it, by December
l. the industry achieves substantially" 100 per cent
compliance from it's members there will be ordi-
If not the city council may ahead and pass
the ordinance without opposition from the industry.
Tucson's liberals view all this with mixed feelings.
Some believe that the voluntary approach has good
chance of succeeding Others the Negro leaders es-
pecally are skeptical and they said much the
public hearing at which the proposal adopted,
although they didn't put up any resistance to it.
We have mixed feelings about the thing too. For
instance we find most encouraging certain aspects OF
the situation which Tucson friends being close
to it. may not have noticed. One is simply the great
amount of public interest which has been generated in
the ISSUE The Tucson newspapers gave page one ban
lines and columns of space to it. The public hearing
had to be moved from the city council chambers to
hotel ballroom to accommodate all who wanted to at
tend And then there standing only This de-
gree of public interest is the more gratifying for the TACT
that not many years ago few people outside liberal and
minority groups even knew there was public accom-
modations problem in Arizona The man on the street
would have evnced surprise at being told that Negroes
were barred from restaurants hotels and motes
and Jews barred from at least half the resorts and
dude ranches.
fact that the hotel and restaurant people willing
to the pro-pubic accommodations people halfway
Instead of simply resisting the proposed ordinance as
their colleagues have done statewide level when
ever a public accommodations bill is introduced in the
legislature they up with plan for solving the
problem. This bespoke good ntenCOnS, at the very
least
There were discouragng aspects of the situation,
too. One was the attitude of the Tucson newspapers
The Tucson Citizen opposed the ordinance although
this to be expected Like Phoenix newspapers, it
practically never supports progressive legislation.
Something better expected from the Arizona Daily
Star which has shown increasing awareness of the
problems of mnorites in Arizona and has support
ed state public accommodations law. But the S
shifted ground the ordinance, at first seeming to
support and then coming out strongly against it.
Now, finally, the question of whether voluntary
approach to the public accommodations problem Ill
work: The is simply that nobody be sure,
because far anyone knows, such plan has never
been tried that large scale before. Two questions
to mind: First, what constitutes substantially
100 per cent compliance? Second after the program is
adopted what's to prevent backsidng by hotels motels
and restaurants that have change of heart change
of management? law the books remains law
until unless it is repealed With the passing of time
however, voluntary agreements sometimes forgot
ten We in Phoenix testify to this remembering how
the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce various occas-
ions promised not to distribute discriminatory resort lit
erature and then rather casually forgot it's promise
But the Tucson plan, with its drawbacks, is
heartening because it shows desire to do something
and neighboring city to the south deserves our
praise and congratulations Some day Phoenix must evil
dence the kind of good will toward its minortes
and we hope that day