Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1920 — FOUND NOW RIVALS PLIGHT OF BELGIUM [ARTICLE]

FOUND NOW RIVALS PLIGHT OF BELGIUM

Children Chief Sufferers in Land Stripped of Necessities, Says Relief Worker. Poland is in the destitute state for want of food and clothing among the poor that Belgium would have been during the war, had there been no commission for relief in that country, according to Dr. Vernon Kellogg, American Relief Administration official, who recently returned from Warsaw.. Dr. Kellogg was a member es Mr. Hoover’a staff in Belgium, and at the conclusion of hostiltlea. entered Poland as the Hoover emissary In charge of food relief. He first entered .Poland in 1015, a few months after the German occupation. Hia report of atarvatlon, disease and suffering that existed at that time is one es the most harrowing document! In the records of American relief work overseas. Dr. Kellogg made the following statement regarding the work after the armiatlce: “With Warsaw as our headquarters, we bdfcan operation* in Poland In January, 1919. and within a few weeks there was established a steady Importation of food into that country. Tons and tons of It came from overseas through the Danzig. “It was Impossible to do all that the administration wanted to do, because the need of Pol#hd was too great, but It was agreed that enough food should be sent to Poland to car# for the four million people until the great agricultural districts couW again provide for them. “But In addition to these four million people who so pressingly- needed relief, there was another call for relief from a source that could not be resisted : the children of the land. Many of these were orphans, hungry, emaciated, destitute and diseased. So the American Relief Administration added to Its work by Instituting a system of feeding these children. In a few months a million and a quarter Polish children were getting a free meal- every day of special food prepared to counteract the effects of their previous undernourishment." To finsh the Job eight great organizations have united under the name of the European Relief Council to raise the funds necessary to care for the food needs and the medical needs of the 5,500,000 children of Eastern and Central Europe. These organizations are the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the Knights of Columbus, the Y. M. C. A. ahd the Y. W. C. A •