Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/79
the Czechoslovak Red Cross is now covering the entire field of humanitarian work, just as we have become accustomed to see it in the case of the American Red Cross. Child Relief work has enlisted in its services the best brains of the nation and the most self-sacrificing women. There are 2300 kitchens scattered throughout the Republic, furnishing soup, cocoa and milk to several hundred thousand children. It means the saving of the next generation of the Czechoslovak nation.
When Hoover closed his official activity on June 30, 1919, by the expiration of the act which made him the food administrator of America and the world, he did not abandon the destitute children of the war-ravaged states of Europe. He established an office in New York under the name of the American Relief Administration, European Children’s Fund, and undertook to continue his support of the relief activities, and especially childrens relief, in a number of European countries, among them Czechoslovakia. The funds are obtained from charitable gifts. What this organization has done for Czechoslovak children is best shown in a cablegram sent to America by President Masaryk on Christmas:
“This American organization has been feeding half a million of our children since last May in close co-operation with our Czechoslovak Children’s Relief Society under the joint supervision of the minister of social welfare and a national committee, composed of representatives of the ministry and the American mission in Prague. It has established kitchens in over twenty three hundred towns in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia. These kitchens are supervised by voluntary committees of public-spirited men and women, representing all parties, creeds and activities in our national life. In my judgement our children need relief until the harvest of 1920. As president of Czechoslovakia I ask our relatives and friends in America to give their confidence and financial support to the American Relief Administration, European Children’s Fund, and the Czechoslovak Children’s Relief Society, to the end that our children may be fit to discharge their coming responsibilities of citizenship.”
Czechs and Slovaks in America have given generously for the relief of suffering among their kinsmen in the old fatherland. Since 1914 they have been contributing the funds with which the campaign for independence was financed; at the conclusion of the armed struggle and after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic a thanks-giving offering was taken in the closing days of 1918 which among the Czechs alone brought in $320,000. Most of this sum was no longer used for political purposes, but instead was distributed by President Masaryk to various charities.
The real relief work, however, dates from May, 1919, when the plan was conceived of sending out a “ship of love”, loaded with gifts, principally food, for both general distribution to the needy and for delivery to relatives of individual senders. In two weeks every important settlement of Czechs and Slovaks in America gathered one or two car loads of gifts and forwarded it to New York, where the special committee in charge of the campaign turned the goods for transportation to the firm of Voska & Byoir. There are no complete figures available as to the size of the total shipments, but from Chicago alone $400,000 worth of food and clothing was forwarded to New York. Nearly one quarter of the total were donations of food and clothing for the Czechosolvak Red Cross or for the mayors of various cities, all for distribution to the needy. The first part of this shipment was carried on the Steamer President Wilson which sailed from New York for Trieste on May 30; the balance was forwarded on two other ships, sailing a few weeks later. Owing to transportation difficulties in Europe it was several months, before the last of the gifts were delivered to the consignees.
Letters continued to come from Bohemia and Slovakia to relatives in America, telling about the lack of lard and soap, shoes and cotton, clothes and tobacco. Parcel post was not yet in operation between the United States and the Czechoslovak Republic; and while much dissatisfaction was heard about the high transportation charges on the first shipment and about delays in delivery, the people nevertheless demanded of their racial organizations that another opportunity should be given them to ship packages and boxes to their relatives in the old country. At the end of June the American Czechoslovak Board, now the Czechoslovak National Council, opened its own office and storehouse in Chicago for the forwarding of relief goods