Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1920 — HEMPHILL EXPLAINS ORGANIZATION OF NEAR EAST RELIEF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HEMPHILL EXPLAINS ORGANIZATION OF NEAR EAST RELIEF

Prominent New York Banker Says Aim Is 100% Relief of Starving Peoples. “Just what Is the Near East Relief? Is the question that many people are asking whose Interests have been awakened to the terrible conditions existing in the Levant today,” says Alexander J. Hemphill, President of the Guarantee Trust Company and well known New York banker and financier. “In prosaic facts, the Near Eust Relief Is a body incorporated by act of Congress the object of which is ‘to provide relief and to assist in the repatriation, rehabilitation and re-es-tabllshment of suffering and dependent people of the Near East and adjacent areas; to provide for the care of orphans and widows and to promote the social, economic and industrial wel-

fare of those who have been rendered destitute or dependent, directly or indirectly, by the vicissitudes of war, the cruelties of men or other causes beyond their control.' 100 Per Cent Relief. “The aim of the organization is 100 per cent relief, the relief which puts, those aided on a self-supporting basis, which Instills in them a confidence for the future, places in their hands the means with which to begin life anew, and in their hearts the courage to go on, Work, that is the prescription subscribed and provided by those loyal men and women who have Journeyed into perilous places for the sake of their fellow men; to make these people independent for the future, to encourage the flickering fire of national pride. “There are 82,291 workers employed in the Industrial establishments of the Near East Relief, where wool is furnished for the women to spin and weave, and all the girls who are strong enough are washing wool, sewing beds, grinding and sifting wheat, tailoring and learning to make lace. The big problem is to make these women independent. “About 500 American men and women, Near East Relief workers, are now In the field, including 36 eminent physicians and surgeons, 76 nurses, 7 mechanics, 15 industrial experts, 16 agriculturists, 14 bacteriologists, 197 relief workers, 25 supply and transport workers, 19 teachers, 20 administrators, 34 secretaries, 7 engineers and 45 army officers. Where Money Goes. “Funds for relief purposes are distributed in two ways: First, the vari ous relief centers are authorized by the Executive Committee to draw sight drafts on New York for specific amounts each month; second, by supplies purchased in America, the major portion of which arj shipped to the committee warehouses at Derindje, and the remainder either to Beyrouth or Batoum.

“The relief is rapidly expanding and meeting the situation, but the future depends on the continuation of American support.” According to Mr. Hemphill, the need for American help to see the destitute peoples of the Near East through the crisis of present conditions is greater now than ever before on account of the uncertainty as to the future, the truculence of the Turkish government and the danger of bolshevism from Russia, which threatens to engulf the whole of Armenia. Who Direct the Work. Mr. Hemphill Is the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Near East Relief. Other members are Dr. James L. Barton, Secretary of the Foreign Department of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; Edwin M. Bulkley, banker, of Spencer Trask & Co., New York; Judge Abram I. Elkus, former United States to Turkey; Harold A. Hatch, a well known New York cotton man; Herbert Hoover; William B. Millar, one of the Secretaries of the Interchurch World Movement; Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to Mexico; Edgar Rickard of the American Relief Administration; Charles Y. Vickrey, who Is Secretary of the Near East Relief, and Dr. Stanley White, the Board of Foreign Mia siens of the Presbyterian Church.

ALEXANDER J. HEMPHILL