Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/82
at cost price; at this office it received packages both from Chicago and from the entire West, forwarded them to New York and there made arrangements with the Czechoslovak Commercial Commission, attached to the consulate general in New York, to look after the delivery of the goods. When in November it was announced that the post office was ready to forward parcels to Czechoslovakia, the Chicago forwarding office was closed. During five months of its activity it forwarded two million dollars worth of free gifts from Czechoslovaks in America to kinsmen in Europe. In addition to this principal office two similar forwarding agencies were established by local Czechoslovak organizations in Cleveland and New York, and many individuals availed themselves of the service of private forwarding firms. Undoubtedly some four million dollars worth of goods was sent from United States to Czechoslovakia in the latter half of 1919.
By far the greater part of this consisted of packages sent by individuals to individuals; and since as a matter of fact the majority of people who came to America from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, were from the country districts, the greater part of the gifts also went to villages, where the needs were smaller than in cities. It must be admitted that the two great Czechoslovak charities, the Red Cross and the Child Relief, received little benefit from the tremendous piles of gift boxes sent to the old country through the forwarding offices named above.
A special campaign for the benefit of the Czechoslovak charities was undertaken in the summer. Miss Emma Novákova came to America as representative of Alice Masaryk, spoke in a hundred or more cities and settlements and established the Alice Masaryk Fund; when she went away, she took with her $56,000, and later some $12,000 more were sent to Dr. Alice Masaryk directly. But in the meantime Dr. Masaryk cabled that all funds collected for Czechoslovak charities should be turned over to the American Relief Administration, as Mr. Hoover’s organization was able to deliver in food and other necessaries far greater values than the Czechoslovak Red Cross or the Child Relief was able to buy with money received from America. Thus $40,000 collected for the Alice Masaryk Fund was turned over to the American Relief Administration directly. In December this great organization explained to officers of the Czechoslovak National Council that in addition to feeding half a million children in Czechoslovakia in was necessary to clothe at least 100,000 of these, because otherwise the tattered children could not get in winter to the soup and cocoa kitchens; for five dollars a complete, substantial and warm outfit would be furnished for a child. It would take over half a million dollars to clothe the bare minimum of one hundred thousand children just in Czechoslovakia, and that money had to be collected from charitable souls in America. If Americans who had no special ties connecting them with the Czechoslovak Republic undertook to do so much, it was clearly up to Americans of Czechoslovak descent to do their share. The Union of Bohemian Ladies gave $1500, the National Alliance of Bohemian Catholics gave $2000, the Bohemian National Alliance gave over $12,000, most of it collected in Nebraska, and the balance of $6000 remaining in the Alice Masaryk Fund was turned over for the same purpose.
Much money was spent by the Czechoslovak National Council, as representative of the three principal racial organizations, for transportation of gifts for general charity. During the first shipping campaign in spring more than $20,000 was paid out by the various local organizations for freight of charity gifts. Later in the summer the American Red Cross made a gift to the Czechoslovak Red Cross of clothing valueu at more than a million dollars, on condition that Czechoslovaks pay for the cost of transporting it to Prague; and the Relief Department of the Council in New York paid out $20,000 in order to secure this magnificent gift. In addition more than $10,000 was paid out by the Relief Department for transportation charges on boxes collected throughout the country for free distribution in Bohemia and Slovakia. All this work for the old country was done in addition to heavy expenditures on behalf of the Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia and the payment of a generous bonus to 2000 boys from America who volunteered to fight with the Czechoslovak army in France and returned to the United States in the fall of 1919.
The latest form of relief work will undoubtedly be the most popular, as well as