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The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags 1917-1927
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags igiy-igzy John Forbes
Philadelphia
University of Pennsylvania Press
© 1962, by The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-5539
Printed in the United States of America
A. B. magistrae cuius Consilio opus perductum est
D. D. J. F.
PREFACE This book is an account of the negotiations of the American Friends Service Committee, of Philadelphia, with agencies of seven governments. These negotiations were undertaken to obtain permission and arrange collaboration to bring help to European civilian sufferers, especially child victims, of the First World War. When the United States went to war in 1917, the Committee, formed on April 30 and here referred to as the AFSC, at once began complex negotiations with the War Department to obtain, for relief work overseas, the services of drafted men conscientiously opposed to bearing arms. Almost equally prolonged were the negotiations with the State Department for passports. Concurrent negotiations with the American Red Cross for collaboration and supply led to a relationship with the American Relief Administration, which was also a staff, if not an arm, of the Government of the United States. Delicate arrangements with the French civil and military authorities were necessary to work in combat areas. These and other negotiations for work in France, then in Serbia, Austria, Germany, Poland, and revolutionary Russia, provided a structural skeleton without which the body of relief achievement could not have held up. The British Friends War Victims Relief Committee, of London, earlier in the field in France, Russia, and elsewhere, supplied example and experience for their American colleagues. This chronicle of negotiation is an armature for the com7
8
Preface
plete portrayal of the work. Six earlier books tell of the daily labor of relief and the emotions of those who received it: Rufus M. Jones, A Service of Love in War Time (New York, 1920) Mary Hoxie Jones, Swords into Ploughshares (New York, 1937) A. Ruth Fry, Three Visits to Russia, 1922-1925 (London, 1942) , A Quaker Adventure: The Story of Nine years' Relief and Reconstruction (London, 1943) Joan Mary Fry, In Downcast Germany, 1919-1935 (London, 1944) Francesca M. Wilson, In the Margins of Chaos (New York, 1945) A word as to arrangement: prior to the Armistice, the AFSC relief work was limited to France, though six determined women representing the AFSC had already gone into Russia, through Siberia, to help the British Friends. The Armistice that stopped the formal fighting opened the nations beyond the Rhine to foreign access—and to internal unrest. Since all large-scale systems of relief require governmental sanction, a public willing to support them, and at least some degree of civil order, no agency can go into a country and set to work there until these prerequisites have been met. Broadly speaking, for the AFSC the post-Armistice openings occurred from west to east, though much of the actual distribution in the various fields was concurrent. Therefore, and because the problems of entering, carrying on, and devolving efforts to meet each field's need entailed decisions and procedures distinctly different from those required by other fields, the story is here told nation by nation in the order of access, proceeding from Philadelphia to Paris,
Preface
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thcnce to Belgrade, Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow—in fact, deep into revolutionary Russia. Though few individuals are named in this account, the achievements that it traces would not have been possible without the imagination, common sense, courage, and devotion of the men and women who planned and carried through the enterprise, nor, indeed, without good will and trust among members of all the agencies that worked together. Particularly is this true of the governments involved. I am indebted to the American Friends Service Committee for permission to consult its Archives, housed in the Haverford College Library. They are records of transactions between the American Friends Service Committee and the several governments and their participating agencies; transcripts of minutes, and the memoranda, reports, letters, telegrams, and cablegrams dispatched between the Committee in Philadelphia and its individual representatives or units in the field; correspondence between the Philadelphia and London Committees or their representatives and the President of the United States, members of the United States Congress, the United States Departments of State, Treasury, War and Commerce, other agencies of the United States government, officers or agencies of other governments or the League of Nations, the offices and representatives of the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, and Red Cross organizations of other nations; also General Minutes and Audits; correspondence with other private relief agencies, with individual contributors, and with banking, supply, and shipping houses; correspondence with volunteers for work at home or abroad, including conscientious objectors detained in United States Army camps and forts; press correspondence and releases; also bulletins, circulars, financial appeals, and photographs. Government documents
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and published histories of the Red Cross, the American Relief Administration, and other agencies as cited in the List of Related Reading have been consulted. For advice on the study and for reading of the manuscript, I wish to express appreciation to Dr. Henry J. Cadbury, Hollis Professor of Divinity, now Emeritus, in Harvard University, Honorary Chairman of the American Friends Service Committee; to Clarence E. Pickett, retired Honorary Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee; and to Dr. Roy F. Nichols, Vice Provost and Professor of History in the University of Pennsylvania. The author assumes full responsibility for the material, arrangement, and conclusions of the work. Blackburn College
October, 1961
John Forbes
CONTENTS Preface 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Notes Related Index
Quaker Relief Conscription France Serbia; Austria; Bulgaria; Ireland Germany Poland and Upper Silesia Russia: 1917-1921 Russia: 1921-1927 Epilogue Reading
7 15 31 48 69 89 122 134 157 191 213 265 269
2 QUAKER RELIEF The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags might have borne the subtitle A Study in Reciprocal Toleration, for it tells how toleration gradually evolved between war-making national states and an agency opposed to war and attempting to relieve some of the suffering caused by it. The period dealt with is the decade 1917 to 1927, during and immediately following the First World War. Forty years ago, common effort by citizens of warring nations to help civilian victims of war was a new phenomenon, as indeed was total war itself. One of the pioneers of international relief was the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), formed in Philadelphia in April, 1917, as an agency of the Religious Society of Friends, the members of which are known to themselves as Friends and to others as Quakers. In this book we see the work begun with the encouragement of the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee, of London. It was rapidly built up with cooperation from the American Red Cross, the American Relief Administration that Herbert Hoover led, and other agencies of the governments of the United States and of France, Serbia, Austria, Germany, Poland, and Russia, as well as agencies of the League of Nations. Initial dealings between the AFSC and these many other agencies were at first tentative. There was anxiety on both 15
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sides. How confidence gradually developed, how the governments took increased interest in relief and came to share responsibility with the private agencies, is here illustrated through the Quaker experience. From the early international ventures in relief by the Friends Committee and other agencies have grown the multiform aid programs of the present, world-wide in scope, gigantic in financing, diverse in motivation, and incalculable in effect. To meet needs created by economic turmoil, by wars between the great wars, by the Second World War and the war in Korea, by the continuous East-West turbulence, and by the aspiration of peoples hitherto submerged, governments have accepted the principle of help by the able to the needy. And they have accepted it as an element of policy. The public is now familiar with the idea of large-scale relief as a factor in international reconciliation. Success in cooperating with the uncooperative demonstrates that a force more trustworthy than violence can be drawn upon. The response of governments and people when desperate need is brought to their attention proves that they can work together and respond effectively to claims other than those of war. The United Nations, the Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, and others sprang from the small beginnings suggested in these chapters. Indeed, the concept of social security and public assistance, once called "organized charity," has by this time become so generally accepted that a new profession has grown up to put it into practice. Young men and women fresh from college train themselves for careers in the fields of public, semipublic, and private social work at home or
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abroad. Assistance is lobbied for, and politicians promise or denounce it. "Cold War" strategists try to marshal and deploy assistance, even to counteract it. Students of government and public morals debate its validity. From the concept of emergency relief of hunger and disease, assistance has evolved into the world aim of overcoming poverty. The Human Rights Commission now emphasizes that individuals throughout the world are considered entitled to political freedom and to subsistence. The ideal has been expressed, but the means are not yet strong enough to realize it. One means—namely, the use of tax appropriations augmented by voluntary public contribution of money, goods, and individual services—the United States and Great Britain have used to great advantage. When the United States went to war in 1917, what impulse prompted the formation of the American Friends Service Committee? And what qualities enabled the Committee to retain its integrity, yet deal practically and tactfully with national states, the architects of war? The American Friends Service Committee, its staff, and its missions at home and abroad were, and are, pacifist. From its beginning in England three hundred years ago, the Religious Society of Friends has held, and through many sufferings declared, that ". . . God endows every human being with a measure of His own Divine Spirit"; 1 in consequence of this, war is fratricide; personal or material support of violence is an offense against the Holy Ghost. The witness is twofold, against war and for peace. It results in social action. William Penn (1644-1718) epitomized the link between faith and practice when he wrote, "True Godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it." 2
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In keeping with this outlook, Quakers hold it as part of their obligation to provide alternatives for their members and for others who refuse on grounds of conscience to participate in war. As a general testimony the Society of Friends hopes that the principle of devoting a substantial period of youth to constructive work for the common good may eventually supplant military preparation and combat. In 1917, from a list of young men subject to conscription but in conscience opposed to bearing arms (a number of whom were not Friends), the AFSC selected individuals qualified and willing to perform alternate service in overseas relief, a work that continued until 1927 and that has been resumed from time to time since then. Older, more experienced persons served as administrators. As is usual in Quaker enterprise, women also took part in the work. Once overseas and engaged in actual relief, the A F S C workers sometimes were afraid, bewildered, discouraged, homesick, or bored, and sometimes uncongeniality and misunderstanding smoldered among the cooperating agencies, but, to a surprising degree, harmony prevailed and difficulties were surmounted by good-humored persistence. In later years, the workers felt that the time spent in foreign relief work was a high point in their lives. In the tentative phases of international relief, the simple religious motive that the Quakers brought to bear gave their contribution the aspect of a challenge, at times a burden, to their more secular colleagues. Its motivation being religious, Friends work was, and is, nonpartisan and nonpolitical. It is conducted solely on the basis of relative need, and children have first claim to such aid as Friends are able to provide. Food as a weapon or instrument of policy forms no part of their program. All Quaker field workers are volunteers, and receive only maintenance.
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Their message of peace and reconciliation is not tinged with proselytizing. Between the relief worker and the recipient of relief, the relation is always delicate. Personal inadequacy on either side may result in tension. What the truly qualified worker hopes to emphasize is not his own good will in action but rather the eternal human and community values. It is obviously easier to distribute food, clothing, and medicine than to exert a reconciling influence. To be so faithful to the ideal as not to be diverted from it bv failure or success is supremely difficult. Finally, while the touch of genius is welcome wherever it appears (and Quaker projects have had their share of genius), the Society of Friends believes in the prophetic possibilities of every human being. Thus the role of leadership becomes less important than the general requirement that lias been aptly called "divine ordinariness." From such convictions, then, how did the AFSC set about appealing for donations to open and to carry on its work? The membership of the Society of Friends is distributed principally in the British Isles, North America and Australia, with small contingents in northern, western, and central Europe, the Near East, South Africa, Japan, China, and India. There are also large mission groups in Central America and Africa. Membership in the United States, all branches, when this country entered the First World War was above 113,000; at present it is above 120,000. Present world membership is above 193,000. The organization of the Society is neither hierarchical nor centralized, but locally autonomous, through Monthly and Yearly Meetings. The American Friends Service Committee is one of the agencies of the Quaker movement. Its corporation members are nominated by the Yearly Meetings; it also has members-
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at-large. In projects overseas the Committee works closely with the British Friends Service Council and other Quaker committees. Quaker support of the AFSC is largely augmented by public donation, and for special undertakings, by foundations and government grants. Among its contributors and workers or the recipients of its supplies and services, the AFSC has never made any distinction as to race, creed, or political or national affiliation. To encourage local initiative at home or abroad and to put ongoing work into the hands of local groups as soon as they are ready to receive it is a standing policy and practice. Among those who contributed to the Service Committee during the first decade were many of the so-called Peace Churches: the Brethren in Christ and the Church of the Brethren in their various branches, and several of the Mennonite bodies who continued to support the work even after their first enthusiasm had moderated. Their workers, money, counsel, and encouragement gave consistent backing. Everv Meeting of every branch of the Society of Friends, and all friends of the Friends were asked to give generously, and keep on giving. Government agencies pressed by their own needs were not expected to fill empty space in the purse, but their help in various ways was thankfully received. Realizing that it must appeal to the public at large, the American Friends Service Committee asked persuasive, able men to lend a hand. Appeals were based on need and opportunity: the children need help; use this opportunity to help them. The Committee assumed that once Americans were informed of the desperate situation they would respond, that reconstruction, not destruction, was America's real impulse. The case was presented to farm groups, labor unions, business men's associations, professional societies, peace societies,
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and welfare organizations, to the foreign born and the oldest families, to the YMCA and the YWCA—both trusty supporters—to the whole range of American churches and, outside the United States, to Canada and Mexico. Space was taken in local newspapers of at least five foreign languages. The poor were told that well-to-do Quakers were giving their share, as indeed they were; the rich were informed that the Committee's overhead, which at no time exceeded 3.5 per cent of the total income, 3 was being met by donations from members of the Society of Friends itself. First and last, manufacturers and merchants whom the Quakers approached gave enormous stores of food, clothing, drugs, tools, machinery, and vehicles. Other relief groups for whom the Committee acted as distributing agent were also generous. Private persons across the nation turned out their own and their neighbors' closets for clothes to wash and mend and send abroad. The Red Cross emphasized the Friends appeals. A shared solicitation, in the summer of 1917, announced that donations to the Red Cross could be earmarked for Friends use, and that donations made directly to the Friends could be reported as Red Cross contributions.4 This, however, proved to be an unworkable arrangement. 5 From published financial statements of the first ten years of the AFSC, the scope of the enterprise in Europe can be judged. In its first fiscal year, ending May 31, 1918, the AFSC raised and expended $511,000; in 1919, $834,000; in 1920, $3,350,000; in 1921, $1,319,000. This total of $6,014,000 was augmented by large amounts of goods-in-kind contributed by governments, public and private organizations, and individuals; after 1921, the approximate evaluation of such donations is stated in the annual reports. In 1922, the peak year of the AFSC's war and postwar emergency relief and recon-
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struction, the AFSC expended, principally in Central Europe and Russia, $1,419,000 plus gifts-in-kind valued at $4,748,-
000.
In the next phase, 1923-28, the AFSC did not keep up the same pace. For all fields at home and abroad it expended, in 1923, $873,000 plus gifts-in-kind valued at $252,000; in 1924, $2,961,000 plus gifts-in-kind valued at $101,000; in 1925, $1,065,000; in 1926, $264,000; in 1927, $106,000; and in 1928, $45,000. Total expenditure of cash and evaluated gifts-inkind for the first decade of AFSC work was $17,847,000.® Through its formative period when aims and procedures were being initiated and developed, the American Friends Service Committee had no documents of incorporation to attest its intention to continue. Those who served or supported it with donations of cash, work, thought, and prayer hesitated to make it a permanent agency. With the coming of the Armistice in 1918, however, the Committee expressed itself in this way: "Conditions at home and abroad have compelled us to go one mile. It is now our privilege for the sake of others to go the second mile." 7 But where were the Friends to work? In France, Russia, or elsewhere? Such questions, first asked in February, 1919, indicated increasing selfawareness. Onlv a few Friends, the Committee then believed, were by temperament and training fitted for long-term work abroad. Ought not the Committee to turn its attention homeward, and provide some type of voluntary service in this country for young men who could not accept the innovation much talked of in those early postwar days, compulsory military training in peacetime? 8 A small subcommittee on the future of the AFSC was appointed the following summer. It was their judgment that the AFSC had helped needy people abroad; enlightened its own workers; given expression to the Christian message; and
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helped to unify the Society of Friends. They advised that the next six months be given over to slow adjustment to new opportunities, to the deliberate winding-up of earlier tasks, and to pondering the problem of how best to open outlets for the idealism of young people. Wilbur K. Thomas (18831953), an active Friend of Indiana origin lately come to Philadelphia from New England, was asked to continue to serve as Executive Secretary. It was hoped that the Serbian and Russian work could be expanded. 9 By the middle of 1920, more than eight hundred persons had worked in Europe under the auspices of the Committee. 10 In October, 1920, the AFSC applied to the Treasury Department of the United States for tax exemption and permission to advertise contributions as tax-deductible. Accommodation given to the American Red Cross and the American Relief Administration was cited as precedent. 11 After investigation, including appraisal by the State Department, 1 2 Treasury officials ruled that the AFSC qualified as a taxexempt organization under tests laid down in paragraph 6, section 231, of the Revenue Act of 1918, and that by virtue of this fact and of provisions established in paragraph 11, section 214, of the same act, contributions to the AFSC were tax-deductible. 13 In January, 1922, Carolena Wood, a New York Friend, expressed hope that some British and American Friends would stay on in Germany "to help 'gather up the fragments' and further the interests of the spiritual kingdom." In March, it was proposed that the AFSC compress itself into a small standing organization capable of immediate expansion to meet material, social, and religious needs at home or abroad. In June, after more than five years of trials and experiments, the Committee undertook a basic reorganization in answer to the complex problems to which the expansion of Friends
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work had given rise. Moreover, it was decided that this work would continue for an indefinite period.14 Friends continued to hear that their work abroad must not be allowed to lapse. Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), the British economist, told Henry Scattergood how difficult it was to overstate the value of such work to the health of international relations.13 Late that autumn, the AFSC decided to keep an office in Berlin to serve as a base for workers traveling in Europe, and as an outpost for the Message Committee, then active in countries where English Friends and the AFSC were doing or had done relief work. How to spread the Quaker message has always been a problem for Quakers. In the main, they have preferred deeds, or deep silence, to words about their faith. "Our separate existence in the community of Christian churches," reads a Discipline of 1927, "is justified by our testimony to the truth as revealed to us. It devolves upon us therefore to be faithful in the expression of those principles for which our Society stands. Beliefs become vital only when translated into life and conduct. The faith of our own members should therefore find expression in work for spiritual, moral, and mental education, as well as in the improvement of social and economic conditions." 18 Does this say, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"? Quakers and their friends still wonder, but it was in line with this "standard" of the Discipline that the Message Committee hoped to present the Quaker message to inquirers, not to thrust it upon anyone. In the summer of 1923, it appeared probable that Friends would soon be recalled to relief in Germany, and it was decided to convert the Berlin office into a Quaker Center to coordinate any renewed relief work in Germany or elsewhere in Europe and to serve as a point of reference for the increas-
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ing number of Germans expressing interest in Quakerism. From this beginning, Quaker Centers for work of relief and reconciliation have been established in capitals in Europe and Asia. " I am still very much troubled at the attitude of some few members of our Committee," wrote Wilbur Thomas, the Executive Secretary of the A F S C , in August to Rufus M. Jones ( 1 8 6 3 - 1 9 4 8 ) its chairman, who was then professor of philosophy in Haverford College and was becoming recognized as the principal, though of course unofficial, spokesman of the Society of Friends in the United States. " T h e feeling seems to be that the whole work of the Service Committee should close up at a very early date and that we should pull out of the mess that is in Europe. I cannot understand it, for it seems to me that just now is the time that we ought to reap what we have been sowing." 17 Other American agencies working overseas and the people of the United States as a whole shared this desire to retire from Europe. In March, 1924, the work of the A F S C was divided into four sections: the Foreign Service Section, the Inter-racial Section, the Peace Section, and the Home Service Section. 1 8 On September 4 of the same year, the issue of continuance was defined in the following letter addressed to all members of the American Friends Service Committee and its subcommittees and to other representative Friends: Dear Friend: For seven years American Friends have been united in one common service . . . which enabled their young men to serve in a time of great national danger and at the same time be true to their peace testimony. The suffering produced by the war and lack of rain, has kept the Service Committee very active in relief and reconstruction work up to the present time. Wonderful opportunities for
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spiritual service have also developed, and efforts have b e e n made to emphasize the need for spiritual reconstruction in t h e various European countries. T h e American Friends Service Committee feels that the time has now come when Friends in America should decide whether or not the Service Committees, or a similar organization, should continue to foster such work in Europe and America. T h e problem can be stated in question form: D o the opportunities for service in Europe and our past cooperation with English Friends call for the continuance of a representative committee of American Friends? Is there work in America in which all Friends are interested that could be furthered by centralizing activities in one organization? Are there racial, social, and home service problems which could be solved to better advantage by cooperative effort? Are American Friends sufficiently united in their peace testimony to work through an organization to further educational work along peace lines among their own members, and to encourage other church organizations to take a similar stand? When it is necessary to exercise some influence in Washington, could the work be more effectively done through a central organization? . . . [signed] Wilbur K. Thomas Executive Secretary A meeting held on S e p t e m b e r 25, 1924, unanimously dec i d e d to continue. Rufus Jones s u m m a r i z e d t h e reasons for t h e decision in these w o r d s : " I c a n hardly b e a r to think w h a t would be the effect if the Service C o m m i t t e e should end its work a n d disband. . . .
I believe, instead, that w e should
gird ourselves for a forward step, into w h i c h w e should p u t t h e same e n e r g y a n d spirit that m e t the crisis of 1 9 1 7 . "
19
At
the B o a r d meeting in D e c e m b e r , Rufus Jones again spoke of the need for p e r s e v e r a n c e : " I t is our conviction t h a t n o w w h e n the world has c o m e to believe that F r i e n d s h a v e a posi-
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tive mission in the world today, it is our simple duty to take up carefully, prayerfully, and systematically those deep-lying fundamental issues of life to see whether we cannot carry our ideals more effectively into the life of the world and whether we cannot become better and more vital organs of the spirit of Christ." 20 In March, 1925, the AFSC decided to begin the process of incorporation, chiefly as an aid to more adequate financing.21 The papers, drawn in April, 1927, defined its functions: "The purpose: charitable, social, and relief work in the United States and in foreign countries on behalf of the several branches and divisions of the Religious Society of Friends in America; and in addition to the purposes and objects expressly enumerated above, to promote the general objects and purposes of the said several divisions and branches of the Religious Society of Friends and to have and exercise all powers necessary, or convenient for the same, or incident thereto." Bylaws were affixed. On May 2, 1928, eleven years and two days after its formation, the American Friends Service Committee announced its incorporation under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania.22 On June 29, 1949, the AFSC reincorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware. It may be asked: What has the American Friends Service Committee done since this first decade in the twenties? During the second ten years, 1927-37, though Quaker centers were still maintained in Europe, because of the American depression the largest activity was at home. Relief in the coal fields of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois, and homestead resettlement were urgent. Long-range interest in social and industrial problems led to the development of summer work camps and yearround educational programs under the name of Institutes of International Relations. When the streams of refugees from
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Germany began to turn to America for freedom and employment, help was given them. With the help of British Friends, relief was carried into Spain to both sides of the Civil War.-' The third decade, 1937-47, paralleled the Second World War, and again involved the Committee with conscription. European needs mounted, particularly for refugee relief and resettlement and intercession with the Hitler régime in behalf of the Jews. Help was given to Japanese-Americans during and after their relocation from the West Coast. American workers joined the British Friends Ambulance Unit for civilian relief work in China and India. In 1923 at the time of the Tokyo earthquake and following the Surrender in 1945, the AFSC carried on relief and other projects in Japan. With the entrance of the United States into the Second World War the situation of conscientious objectors to military service became acute. Could drafted men again be furloughed for relief work overseas? Persistent representation to the Congress could not accomplish this. Though the British government was willing to send pacifists abroad and even to help in defraying their expenses, the American Selective Service authorities collected the conscientious objectors in camps for what was known as Civilian Public Service. The men worked without compensation. Food, clothing, and medical care were obtained by the men themselves or through private contribution; the government provided no aid to dependents, no insurance, no postservice benefits, though toward the end of the war Selective Service opened a few government-supported camps. After an initial period in camp, those who chose to do so were permitted to work, also without pay, in public institutions for the dependent, such as state-supported hospitals for the mentally ill, institutions for the mentally deficient, and correctional institutions. Some objectors volunteered for "guinea pig" experiments in public
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health; unique among these were the louse experiment at Harvard, a step in developing the use of DDT, and work as starvation units from which it was hoped some evidence could be accumulated for use in famine areas. In the fourth decade, 1947-57, the AFSC carried relief to Arab refugees in Southern Palestine under the United Nations and developed pilot projects for relief and rehabilitation in the Near East and India. In the United States, education in race relations and peace was being intensified through press, radio, and television coverage, and both at home and abroad through conferences, work projects, and adult institutes of various kinds. Residential work camps and summer seminars brought together for systematic study and discussion of international problems American and foreign students likely to take part in the public life of their respective countries. Out of these have grown international seminars for diplomats and parliamentarians. The Society of Friends has, throughout its history, been sensitive to government action. Offices and committees in national capitals such as London, Washington, and Paris, and international centers, such as New York and Geneva, are always alert for openings to promote international understanding through unofficial conference. In 1947 the British Friends Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee together received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The AFSC spent its award on bettering relations between Russia and other nations. A gift of streptomycin for the Russian children was sent at this time. The AFSC now enters its fifth decade. Something has been carried over from each of the preceding periods. The learning process has been continuous, but much is still to be learned about the problems and potentials of cooperation between private agencies and governments. Working with
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governments is always a strain for a private organization. Vivid examples are afforded by the early experience of the Committee in obtaining permission for American conscientious objectors to work in France in 1917 and in arranging for today's pacifists to work in India, Japan, Africa, Europe, and at home. The war habit has not been broken, but practical concern for needy individuals and nations has been accepted as a duty by people of countries able to offer the means of recuperation from war devastation, or materials and services toward self-development. The American Friends Service Committee is still cooperating with governments. Though efforts on a world-wide scale are carried on by national governments or by the United Nations and its subsidiary units, there is still need for private agencies to undertake tasks that larger organizations are not in a position to perform, or of which the public is not aware. The Society of Friends continues to clarify and enlarge its concept of the relation of individual duty to shared responsibility. Where and how the way to new service may open cannot be predicted. The Committee stands ready to undertake new, needed, and unpopular tasks; to work for reconciliation by cooperation with the uncooperative; to leave adequately functioning projects in local hands; to open to as wide a public as possible the opportunity to share in its work; and to suggest ways by which men, women and children can help to meet the needs of others and help mankind break out of the pattern of war.
2 CONSCRIPTION Laws or local usage had intermittently allowed for conscientious scruple against bearing arms in the American Colonial and Revolutionary wars and in the War Between the States. In these wars Quakers had refused to do military service, and had also on occasion given relief to civilian victims of the fighting. In 1917, conscription challenged Quakers in America in two ways: first, they had to clear their pacifist members of military age from conscription for war and, second, develop alternative service that could qualify, morally and legally, in place of bearing arms. The American Friends Service Committee was founded in 1917 to help solve this dual problem. It carried on negotiations with the War Department for the release of conscientious objectors detained in Army camps and prisons, and with the State Department for passports that would enable the released men to travel to Europe where British Quakers had been carrying on relief since 1914. The newly constituted Committee also spoke out for the nonQuaker objectors held in Army camps and forts who were barred by terms of the Conscription Act and by Army regulations from all forms of alternative service. During the period of American neutrality, 1914 to 1917, American Friends sent regular and substantial contributions and a few workers to help British Friends with their relief 31
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The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags, 1
1917-1927
in France. On the eve of America's entrance into the war a Quaker Declaration was issued from Philadelphia emphasizing "the irresistible and constructive power of good-will," and pleading for "the invention and practice on a gigantic scale of new methods of conciliation and altruistic service."As soon as America became an active belligerent, a group of Friends not yet subject to the draft independently organized to train themselves for whatever field project might be feasible in Europe. At the same time six venturesome women set out for Russia. As women were not then allowed to enter Russia through Europe, the intrepid six sailed for Japan and proceeded from there to Vladivostok, continuing over the Trans-Siberian Railway to Buzuluk in Samara Province of the Volga Valley, where they joined a unit of British Friends. On the afternoon of April 30, 1917, thirteen Friends met in Philadelphia to consider what might be appropriate Quaker action in the war emergency. Henry J. Cadbury, then a professor in Haverford College, served as clerk, and drew the following minute: "We are united in expressing our love for our country and our desire to serve her loyally. We offer our services to the government of the United States in any constructive work in which we can conscientiously serve humanity." 3 Established in the Meeting House premises at the address since made familiar, 20 South Twelfth Street, Philadelphia, the American Friends Service Committee buckled to the strange but welcome obligation. A young lawyer, Vincent D. Nicholson (1891-1940), took hold of day-to-day detail as Executive Secretary. To the new enterprise young Quakers across the nation volunteered: farmers, clerks, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, engineers, teachers, students. Older men and women
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stepped out from their businesses, professions, trades, and homes, ready for toil and adventure overseas. Local Meetings sent money to the measure of their means and formed canvassing teams, sewing groups, and provisioning committees. British Quakers had begun their relief work in France in the wreckage of the First Battle of the Marae (September 6-9, 1914). By 1917 they were ready for reinforcement. Conscription had dealt severely with them, not permitting the alternative service allowed to Friends in the United States. For three years their War Victims Relief Committee had done its utmost in Holland, France, Italy, Serbia, Greece, Tunisia, Russia, as well as in the home islands. They welcomed news that Friends in America were now prepared to augment their units and send delegates to London to develop administrative collaboration. Essential to the untried Americans was the resource of British experience.4 A second event, equally heartening to the young Committee, was the prompt and cordial invitation to join the French relief work of the American Red Cross, which was preparing to enter for the first time large-scale international war relief. How this partnership was rapidly and effectively developed is told in the following chapter. How should young American Quakers meet the draft? Should they register or refuse to register? Should they refuse induction? Should they go to camp? If they put off noncooperation with the draft until they reached a camp, must they then refuse every Army order? Would they be sent to jail? How soon might they expect furlough for relief work? Letters that had no ready answers poured into the office. In point of fact, the War Department itself, its mind and energies wholly occupied with waging war, had no answers for these questions. A subcommittee of substantial Friends was named to work
34
The
Quaker
Star Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
on problems of conscription, involving delicate negotiations in which Rufus Jones, who had accepted chairmanship of the Committee some seven weeks after it was formed, 5 proved singularly adept. Section 1644 of the Selective Service Act adopted May 18, 1917, provided that "Nothing in this Act contained shall be construed to require or compel any person to serve in the forces herein provided for, who is found to be a member of any well recognized sect or organization at present organized and existing and whose existing creed or principles forbid its members to participate in war in any form, and whose religious convictions are against war or participation therein in accordance with the creed or principles of said religious organizations; but no person so exempted shall be exempted from service in any capacity which the President shall declare to be noncombatant." 6 The act gave no recognition to the "absolutist," that is, the pacifist whose principles forbade him to cooperate in any manner with conscription. Nor did the act recognize objection based upon secular interpretations and convictions. None but the so-called religious objectors, and of them onlv members of what the act accepted as Peace Churches—in their various branches, the Amana Society, the Brethren Church, the Brethren in Christ, the Christadelphians, the Church of the Brethren, the Churches of Christ, the Churches of God, the German Seventh Day Baptists, the Mennonites, the Old Order German Baptist Brethren, and the Society of Friends 7 —eleven churches in all, were specified as entitled to consideration. T h e act did not state the nature of the noncombatant work to which these individuals might be assigned. Friends initially believed that their young men would be permitted to sail without delay for the relief work overseas. Relieving French civilians, so they urged, was
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a part of America's obligation to an ally, and they pointed out that while Friends could not accept service subject to direct military order, relief work under civilian supervision "is not only supported by precedent, but, as we respectfully submit, seems clearly within the spirit and letter of the Selective Service law . . . such a course will offer the most satisfactory solution to the problem shared by the War Department and our Society." 8 In the turmoil of mobilization the fact of conscientious objection, although relatively minor, was irritating. Never could nor did the assistant secretaries in Washington fully solve it and file it away. All undaunted, the AFSC on June 4, 1917, opened a training program on the campus of Haverford College, outside Philadelphia. 9 For this one hundred and sixty prospective field workers had been chosen from a long roll of ardent volunteers, representing the eleven Peace Churches and every quarter of the nation. Had facilities permitted, the Committee could easily have doubled this first unit. 10 A rigorous six weeks' course of physical conditioning included also instruction in first aid, practice in truck and auto operation and repair, emergency carpentry, plumbing, and public sanitation, French language drill, and lectures on the situation of the French people. Each evening the men gathered for a period of silent worship. As representatives of the government, the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker (1871-1937) and several of his harassed aides approved in principle the proposed work; the French considered it a useful supplement to the war effort.11 But Mr. Baker was bound by law, fair play, and public sentiment to deny special claims. The War Department from the outset took the view that no pacifist subject to the draft who had not gone through the draft procedure was eligible for a passport. Each had to register his claim with his local draft
36
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags, 1917-1927
board, report to camp, and there await presidential definition of alternative service. T h e A F S C , however, persevered in its effort to clarify and regularize the situation of these men and to work out with Army authorities some mode of transferring them to work in France. In the early days the new Committee managed to clear a few who by reason of age, physique, or family status, as provided in Section 156 of Selective Service Regulations, were not in the opinion of their local boards likely to be called for induction in the first draft. These men guaranteed to come home if they were called. 1 " T h e Service Committee anticipated little difficulty in securing passports: A. Mitchell Palmer, himself a Quaker, as well as President Wilson's Attorney General and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in response to a telephone call from another Friend, a New York congressman, had replied: " I saw the State Department this morning. I am positively assured that passports will be issued to the Committee of Friends." 13 But very soon the State Department ruled that no passports would be issued to Committee workers without the express assent of the Provost Marshal General. 1 4 This meant that men of military age first had to obtain from their local draft boards permits to apply for passports. T o obtain such a permit, each man had to register for the draft, prove that his absence from the country would be temporary, guarantee to come home at once and at his own expense if called, and show by virtue of his general military disqualifications that it was most unlikely he would ever be called. An application was then to be forwarded to the Provost Marshal General for individual consideration and decision. 1 5 T h e men in training at Haverford grew restless. Rufus Jones addressed the problem to President Wilson. T h e R e d Cross had asked that the Unit be prepared to sail
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in early September. Would the President intercede with the State Department and with the Provost Marshal General? 16 The President's amiable reply restated but did not solve the problem.17 Meanwhile, what was the situation of objectors barred by terms of the Selective Service Act and Army regulations from any prospect of release or furlough for constructive activity? After all, the AFSC was not a travel bureau, nor was it even primarily an agency for war relief. The first, the fundamental, aim was to become an instrument for waging peace. Relief work was a means. Friends and many others more secularly minded felt that peace was being served by men who stood firm though they were denied the satisfaction of constructive work abroad. They were by far the larger number. They bore the brunt. In the First World War, the War Department reported 64,693 claims for noncombatant status. Of these claims, local draft boards recognized as valid 56,830. Of the men so recognized, 29,679 were declared liable for service; 20,875 were actually inducted. Of these some 20,000 fit objectors who reached camp, about 16,000 were there persuaded by officers and soldiers to give up their objections and sign over into combat service. Another 1,300 eventually signed over into noncombatant service under military direction. This meant that about 2,700 objectors persevered, including some whose claims had not been recognized by local boards, and also including an unreported number of absolutists who, refusing even to register, had been arrested and brought to camp by the Provost Marshal's men. Of the 4,000, principally from farms and factories, who refused combatant service, about 3,000 were members of the eleven groups listed as Peace Churches by the act. The remaining 1,000 were nonreligious objectors or members of nonstipulated churches. Of
38
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
these, about 130 were court-martialed, convicted, and sentenced. Of the Peace Church members who refused all military service, 371 were court-martialed, convicted, and sentenced. Prison terms for both categories generally ranged from three months to fifty years. One hundred forty-two objectors were sentenced to life imprisonment; seventeen to death. Altogether, about 500 objectors were court-martialed, convicted, and sentenced, generally for wilful failure to comply with lawful orders, in violation of Sections 64 and 65 of the Articles of War. About 50 of these convictions were subsequently reversed by higher authority. All death sentences were eventually commuted. 18 Generally, objector sentences were harsher in the United States than sentences imposed upon objectors in Great Britain and in Germany, or sentences imposed in the United States upon draft-dodgers, war profiteers, and grafters. 18 The thoroughgoing objectors drafted in the First World War were about 2,700 men as against the 2,810,296 men sworn into the armed forces, 20 or about one man of every one thousand. Those reported to be "draft evaders" outnumbered the thoroughgoing objectors sixty-three to one."1 At least eleven times during the war, the AFSC attempted full-scale representation to the War Department for the release or furlough of objectors and for constitutional fair play for all objectors. These attempts showed the difficulties of wartime cooperation between private bodies concerned for civil welfare and civil rights, and government departments. In December, 1917, the newly formed National Civil Liberties Bureau (now the American Civil Liberties Union) called a conference in New York of groups interested in the conscientious objector problem. AFSC representatives attended anxiously, for Red Cross field directors, the French government, and substantial contributors at home had begun
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39
to ask why the Committee was so slow in sending men abroad. Also represented were the League for Democratic Control, the New York Bureau of Legal First Aid, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Resolutions laboriously threshed out and submitted to President Wilson and his advisors mainly urged respect for the civil liberties of objectors held in Army camps and forts. The release of men to work abroad was a secondary plea. 22 In January, 1918, a bill was introduced in Congress that gave hope that objectors might be furloughed to constructive work: "Be it enacted . . . that whenever in the opinion of the Secretary of War the interests of the service or the national security and defense render it necessary or desirable, the Secretary of War be, and hereby is, authorized to grant furloughs to enlisted men of the Army of the United States with or without pay and allowances or with partial pay and allowances, and for such periods as he may designate, to admit said enlisted men into civil occupations and pursuits— Provided that such furloughs shall be granted only upon the voluntary application of such enlisted men under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of War." 2 3 Although the chief purpose of the bill was to furlough soldiers to man our farms, there was reason to believe that objectors, too, would be eligible for furloughs to farms and even, as some persisted in believing, to relief work overseas. Moreover, the bill would ease the War Department's objector burden; the Quakers urged the Department to press for its adoption. The bill passed the House of Representatives and Senate, and on March 18, 1918, was signed by the President.24 It was this act that prompted the AFSC to form the Home Service Committee, to help arrange farm furloughs for objectors. 25 The Home Service Committee later directed all
40
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
A F S C relief in the southern coal fields. As the Social Industrial Section—now the American Section—of the AFSC, it originated and developed domestic resettlement projects during the Depression and inaugurated the work camp movement, an educational and service device now used by various denominations and youth agencies throughout the world. Two days later, on March 20, the President issued an executive order that helped clarify, though it did not improve, the situation. This order stipulated that conscientious objectors were to be assigned to noncombatant work in the Medical, Quartermaster, or Engineering branch of the Army, and specified fair treatment for objectors, including those held in court-martial process. But there was no further mention of furloughing objectors to farms or overseas. The order provided no form of service outside the military organization, 26 nor were there grounds for hoping that, in its practical administration, relief work might be viewed as a form of noncombatant service. 27 T h e order, instead of improving the situation of the men who had no church to help them, made it worse. Again the War Department had shown itself as obdurate as the Friends, 2 8 yet neither side lost its temper; their correspondence continued to be respectful, courteous, and even friendly. Concurrent with these official dealings, informal accommodation was being tested. Also, in January, 1918, Elders of the Peace Churches associated with the Society of Friends on problems of the draft heard rumor of a War Department plan to turn a major portion of the objector problem over to them. 2 9 In April this rumor was confirmed. An Assistant Secretary of War asked informally if the Peace Church Elders would serve as a commission responsible for all objectors who might be furloughed to their jurisdiction. 30
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Eagerly the Elders proposed that the Peace Churches form an unpaid commission to handle all objectors, and supervise religious objectors in carefully reported work entirely removed from military direction, such as agriculture, forestry, and relief and reconstruction at home and abroad, the work to be done without federal compensation. Nine men willing to serve as commissioners were named. 3 1 Having submitted their proposals, these quiet men sat down to wait for a reply. T h e y had to wait some time. 32 In June, when Rufus Jones went to Washington to try to expedite matters, 3 3 he was told the time was not yet ripe. But a few days later he was informed, ". . . your statements have shaken my certainty that military officers can deal with the objector problem better than can civilians." This concession was followed bv another: "Secretary Baker says he will be glad to be guided by your judgment." 34 This letter was the culmination of more than a year of effort, but nothing was to come of it, and the Peace Church proposals were never realized. 35 Chiefly to accommodate the American R e d Cross, its partner in the F r e n c h work, the A F S C in March formed the Haverford Training Unit No. 2. This group was made up of conscientious objectors accepted, trained, equipped, and transported by the A F S C , who were willing to accept direct Red Cross supervision the moment they set foot in France. T h e Red Cross engaged to bear the entire field cost of these men in return for permission to use their services without restriction in work under military auspices: the unloading of hospital trains, ward attendance on wounded and shellshocked soldiers, rehabilitation of the mutilated, and relief of Army personnel from civilian chores. Objectors going into this special unit, the Red Cross stipulated, should expect a more rigid discipline than prevailed in units directed by the
42
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
Quakers, although they might transfer to Quaker units at will.36 The Furlough Act, meanwhile, had bogged down, so far as objector furloughs were concerned. Could the Army, Friends suggested, retaining ultimate authority, speed the process of furloughing objectors from the camps into immediate civilian supervision? Secretary Baker accepted the suggestion and, to bring it about, appointed a Board of Inquiry to visit all the camps in rapid circuit and interview objectors who had refused noncombatant service. The Board was given power to recommend for each man who was given audience either court-martial or furlough, according to its appraisal of his camp record and religious sincerity. The members of the board were two civilians, Julian Mack and Harlan F. Stone (Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 192541), and one soldier, Major R. G. Stoddard. All three were known to Rufus Jones and were regarded by him as excellent choices.37 Soon the board requested and obtained permission to inspect at Fort Leavenworth and elsewhere the cases of men already court-martialed, convicted, and sentenced, a function later dropped. But the main purpose of the board was frustrated; something was holding up the furloughs of the men whom it recommended. 38 Despite acute need for hands to bring in the American harvest and to further French relief and reconstruction, men were still held in the camps.39 The Red Cross appealed for four hundred men, and the AFSC urged prompt action.40 War Department functionaries soon came to see that their current arrangement for objectors, if not unjust, was thriftless, and that at least a measure of civilian participation in the affair was called for.41 Returning from Washington in late July, Rufus Jones,
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aglow with enthusiasm, burst out, "I have never had such a wonderful time in Washington as I had yesterday, and it seemed in many ways the reward of long and weary visits during the past year." 42 He had found the Board of Inquiry and War Department considering furlough for almost every man so far recommended for France, and by a special plan, for those men already in France who had not yet been drafted. So furloughed, men already abroad could work on without interruption when their numbers were called. The board had examined approximately one thousand men, ordering about one hundred and fifty into noncombatant service and another fifty into combat units. The remainder, about eight hundred men, had been recommended for furlough to farms, or France. 43 Only two of the Quaker men had been judged insincere: they had joined the Society of Friends too recently to qualify under the Army regulations.44 Because many objectors certified by the board as sincere were still being abused in camps, the Committee took advantage of the tide of good will to insist that the War Department enforce respect for its own regulations covering their case, and for the recommendations of the board. 45 Conciliatory in other matters, Secretary Baker was adamant in one. By general order, in July, 1918, he at last made it plain that political objectors were not to be recognized. They had been exposed to "kangaroo court" practice in the camps. Now they were to be exposed to court-martial and, if convicted, sent to the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks.48 Midsummer saw such objectors from camps across the nation crowded into Leavenworth, to the manifest relief of camp commanders.47 So many war-resisters accumulated there that the AFSC sent a special representative to take up residence in the town as prisoners' friend. 48 Farm furlough was an outlet for objectors who preferred
44
The Quaker
Star Under Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
work on this side of the ocean. They were assigned by state agricultural agents, many of whom were Quakers, in liaison with federal authorities, to farmers who had applied for their services.49 But men eager for toil and adventure overseas remained each morning's keen concern. Several times the War Department rebuked the Quakers for encouraging objectors to expect that furloughs might be obtained. Had not the State Department ruled that all applications for passports to relief work must be approved by the War Department? 50 From May, 1918, the Red Cross and the Quakers, by call and bv post, pressed Secretary Baker to approve the applications." Up until August he demurred. Then the War Department agreed to furlough to the AFSC forty objectors already passed by the Board of Inquiry, and all other Quaker objectors as their names were cleared. Furlough would be granted to prospective field workers only, not to men requesting office jobs.52 The War Department also returned to the State Department sole authority to grant or deny passports. 53 Now the War Department began to expedite the furloughs.54 At the end of September, fifty-one men having been furloughed for France, 55 Rufus Jones went to the Department and asked for furloughs for five hundred. In the area of Verdun the biggest project yet arranged required them, and the Committee believed that the American Red Cross and government would help pay for the expansion. 56 British Friends remarked, from time to time, that the men sent by the American Committee were a varied lot and that the contentiousness and grumbling of some of them was hard to bear, especially of the youths who seemed to doubt the value of the Quaker witness. Differences of background, temperament, and expectation plagued both contingents, but
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more exact selection, training, and much patience gradually won general forbearance. 57 That autumn the work in France went forward under the wholehearted, friendly energy of almost everyone involved, including the Red Cross men and the Allied civil and military officers.58 A word about the working strength of the two Committees: In March, 1918, the American Committee was represented in France by 149 Americans: objectors and a number of older men, and several women who served as stenographers, nurses, or social workers. In Army camps and elsewhere waiting to be trained, or in training at Haverford, or at sea en route to France were another 363 volunteers. In July, 412 persons, British, Irish, and American, were present and at work in France for the London and Philadelphia Committees. And by the peak of Friends work in France, June, 1919, seven months after the Armistice, 547 persons representing Friends were active. 59 Throughout the First World War and for some time after, most AFSC field workers wore a uniform. This was of dark gray cloth of military cut. On cap and sleeve they wore the Quaker badge, the red and black eight-pointed star, the same star that British Friends wore for their relief work in the Franco-Prussian War. Adopted by the American Friends Service Committee on November 13, 1917,60 its use made a further bond with British Friends. Today, the Quaker Star is known around the world. Prior to the Armistice, the Philadelphia office staff consisted of five secretaries, five stenographers, three clerks, and a number of part time volunteers, with the Executive Secretary, Vincent D. Nicholson. When he was drafted in late summer, 1918, Wilbur K. Thomas became Executive Secretary. 91 The Armistice relaxed but did not remove the misunder-
46
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
standings and tensions that had blocked the release for work abroad of perhaps a thousand men; twenty-seven hundred was the number the Committee could have drawn from had federal authorities and the public appreciated the potentiality of overseas relief work to build good will for America among plain people. The work, materially so urgent that its necessity had been earnestly attested by high French government officials,62 the Chief of the Red Cross French Mission,63 the President of the United States,84 and indeed War Secretary Newton D. Baker himself,65 was but a fraction of what the situation of French civilians, especially children, called for. The most persistent efforts of which the AFSC had been capable had not sufficed to release from the machinery of conscription and provide with passports more than about one hundred of the men prepared to sail. Nor in this cooperative effort had the Red Cross itself succeeded. Following the Armistice, the War Department canceled draft calls and inductions, although men under thirty-six years of age continued to be classified.6" Having worked throughout the war to draw objectors into combat or noncombatant service, the War Department now announced that it would discharge only those objectors who, while maintaining a measure of respect for Army orders and the entirety of their religious scruple, had consistently refused to do any combat or noncombatant work.87 The religious absolutists who had refused all Army orders, the religious objectors judged insincere bv the Board of Inquiry, the political objectors, and the objectors in process of courtmartial, the Department now declared were not to be discharged.68 Some four hundred were kept in Fort Leavenworth, their sentences ranging from one to fifty years and even to life imprisonment.89 In January, 1919, in response to heavy public criticism, the War Department sent the Board of Inquiry back to Leaven-
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worth, again to interview at least the religious objectors. 70 On the basis of its findings, the War Department returned 113 objectors to their camps, where they were immediately discharged. 71 How the War Department now viewed its management of the conscientious objector problem is suggested by an item given to the press for Lincoln's Birthday, 1919: "It has been our intention from the beginning to accord to all these men not only the most exact, but even the most generous justice possible." 7 2 Again the AFSC petitioned for the release of all objectors, including political objectors, and sent copies to every Friends Meeting in the nation, asking for signatures to be relayed to President Wilson and the War Secretary. 73 The Committee urged a steady pressure upon Secretary Baker and asked Joseph Tumulty, President Wilson's private secretary, to prompt the President's attention. 74 In July, 1919, a bill was introduced in the Senate "To restore to the colors and grant amnesty to soldiers, sailors, and marines, and to certain other persons. . . . " 7 6 Did this include conscientious objectors? The language was not clear. At any rate, the bill did not progress. In November, the first anniversary of the Armistice, one hundred men, for the most part political objectors, were still held in the Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks. Their sentences had not been reduced. A few Quakers were among this number. 76 A decision was now reached that, valuable as were the various amnesty campaigns, the American Friends Service Committee as such could not afford to lend them its official sanction and support because of the need to concentrate upon its relief work.77 Amnesty was petitioned for and urged in public print all through the 1920s, by many civic groups. But it was 1933 before the last conscientious objectors to the First World War were released, by amnesty of President Roosevelt. 78
3 FRANCE War relief in France, 1917-20, was the AFSC's overseas initiation. On the side of the United States, draft and passport clearance of personnel was required, as well as assurance of materials to work with. Permission to enter combat zones was needed from the French side, and arrangements had to be made for allocating and transporting supplies. French suspicion had to be abated; adjustments were necessary between the AFSC work parties and work parties of the British Friends; and large American donations had to be attracted. In Washington, in May, 1917, the Red Cross had cordially received the Friends as prospective partners in the French venture. Their chief of the French Mission, Major Grayson M.-P. Murphy, a New York banker and former student of Haverford College, and a graduate of West Point, invited two Committee members, Morris E. Leeds and J. Henry Scattergood of Philadelphia, to sail with him and his staff to France, there to confer with British Friends, 1 who had just done three years of relief work that had elicited the profound respect of all competent observers.2 Largely on the strength of President Wilson's promise to the chief of the Red Cross War Council that his administration would provide uninterrupted, adequate support to Red Cross relief in Europe, a Red Cross grant for the increase of the British and, by extension, the American Quaker work was arranged.3 48
France
49
Major Murphy now asked Morris Leeds and Henry Scattergood to draft an agreement of continuation. Hard questions first had to be faced. Could the French military authorities be persuaded to admit more Quakers to the war zone? Could financial interflow be set up between the Red Cross and the Quakers? How could American Quakers amalgamate with British Quakers in a way that would not antagonize the American public whose donations were essential? 4 Charles Rhoads, a Quaker and a Philadelphia banker, hurried to Paris to help negotiate a basis for agreement/' Because this was almost certainly the first such document ever signed between a private American field agency and a public American field agency with the object of relieving civilian victims of war overseas, the terms are here catalogued in detail. As eventually accepted by Friends in Philadelphia and London and by the American Red Cross, first in Paris, then in Washington (August 16, 1917), the agreement stipulated: 1. The AFSC shall select, train, and equip as well and as rapidly as practicable American conscientious objectors and qualified women to serve without pay in France under American Red Cross auspices. 2. Circumstances favoring, one hundred members of the Haverford Unit shall be prepared to sail no later than September 1, 1917. Other units shall follow. 3. The ARC shall transport overseas and maintain in France the members of those units. 4. To the extent that the Friends agencies themselves cannot provide them, ARC shall also provide whatever money and supplies are conceded as necessary to mutually established programs. 5. The ARC shall effect all necessary governmental arrangements overseas.
50
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags, 1917-1927
6. The term of service, with certain exceptions, shall be for one year or, if developments require, for the duration of the war. 7. Membership in the units shall not be construed as exempting from military induction, men who are subject to it. 8. Conscientious scruple against relief service under military order or for military ends shall be respected. 9. For the progress of the program, the Bureau of the American Friends Reconstruction Unit of the Department of Civil Affairs of the American Red Cross shall be formed, and to this Bureau all AFSC workers shall be joined. 10. The field work of the British and American Friends agencies shall be designated the Anglo-American Friends Mission ( Mission Anglo-Américaine de la Société des Amis), and shall be done in close collaboration with the work of the American Red Cross. 11. A Joint Anglo-American Friends Field Committee, on which an ARC representative shall sit, shall assign to groups (équipes) of not less than five AFSC workers appropriate duties and shall direct the conduct of programs mutually approved by the AFSC, the ARC, and the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee. 12. The ARC reserves the right to discipline, or to discharge and expel to the United States, any AFSC worker who fails to meet standards and requirements set as minimums by the AFSC and ARC. 13. ARC field directors shall submit to ARC Headquarters weekly reports of the current tasks and the conduct and efficiency of AFSC personnel under their direction. 14. The AFSC shall appoint one man and one woman as field representatives to supervise the welfare and conduct of its field personnel. 15. As an aid to preserving the character and unity of ARC work, AFSC personnel shall be urged to observe ARC etiquette and to wear ARC uniform (gray will be allowed) to which AFSC badges shall be attached.
France
51
16. No AFSC worker shall correspond with the press. All AFSC workers shall conform strictly to military censorship. 17. In the event of his death or injury, by accident or otherwise, no American Friends Reconstruction Unit member or his relatives or agents shall have any compensatory claim whatsoever against the ARC or AFSC. 18. The American and the British Friends and the Red Cross shall exchange relevant reports and correspondence. 19. The terms of this agreement shall be subject to periodic review and modification.6
The Paris Red Cross office issued the following general order to its American and European units and stations: "There is hereby added to the organization of the Department of Civil Affairs an additional Bureau to be known as 'The American Friends Relief (Reconstruction) Unit,' Mr. J. Henry Scattergood, chief, and Mr. Charles Evans, assistant chief." 7 All Bureaus were asked to cooperate with the new member and were cautioned that their financial transactions could be cleared only through ARC Headquarters.8 In keeping with this agreement, the first Quaker contingent was broken up into équipes and assigned to projects of the British Friends linked to those of the Red Cross.9 The Quakers shared hardships with the war victims and, like them, were sometimes under fire. There were great expectations. "The Red Cross looks on the Society of Friends as in a sense its leaders," declared a Red Cross letter handed to each Quaker worker as he docked. "There is no group of people from whom we have already learned so much or from whom we expect to learn so much, as the Friends. . . . Leave behind you on the boat all particular recognition of what you represented at home, and go about your duty simply as work to be done. You
52
The Quaker
Star Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
derive your impulse to this work from your very beautiful faith. The first thing is to learn to be tolerant. This work is the most tremendously fascinating, stimulating, developing opportunity human beings were ever called on to meet and it can be met only in a single-minded human way." 10 Not extensive actual hunger but uprooted villages and agriculture, wrecked housing, and overburdened public health facilities were the challenges in France. In May, the French government had graciously acknowledged the request of the American Friends Service Committee for leave to enter France; reservations then unspoken became apparent when the AFSC asked permission for a considerable number of American civilians of military age to move about and work in the battle zone, where even French civilians were rigidly controlled. The French authorities did not propose to clutter the combat area with civilians.11 By dint of patient and persistent parley through the Red Cross and British Friends, the AFSC gradually allayed the doubts of French officials and, by the autumn of 1917, AFSC workers were allowed free access to the field,12 the more systematically to develop the four main types of joint ARC-AFSC relief: the evacuation, resettlement, and rehabilitation of children; medical aid to refugees; house repair and the construction and erection of prefabricated houses, called maisons démontables; and emergency help to farmers. 13 ". . . Pacifist talk is to be absolutely cut out of the conversation of Quaker workers here"; Friends could work, not talk.14 Only on this condition were entrance permits granted. 15 The Service Committee pledged its workers to abide by this restriction, 18 which was in the main observed. However, in at least one instance it was broken. A U.S. Army Intelligence officer stationed near Chalons once came upon two AFSC workers setting forth their peace convictions to
France
53
people of the town.17 Reporting the incident to Philadelphia, the War Department expressed appreciation of Friends relief work, but made it clear that the "gag rule," as the young men called it, must be respected. 18 Later, even after the Armistice, the French Ambassador questioned the considerable number of Germanic names on Service Committee passport applications. The Committee agreed to supplement with further information the dossier of every applicant so named. Many of the German names were borne by Mennonites, for example, Augsberger, Hosteller, Stoltzfus, Zimmerman.19 These were examples of a test as perplexing as any that the Quakers faced in France: Could they in conscience actually sustain the agreement of collaboration they had made with the American Red Cross, unmistakably a staff, and in several respects practically an arm, of the military establishment? The Friends in Paris who negotiated the agreement foresaw no difficulty arising from the conjunction. 20 Though in no sense pacifist, the Red Cross was not antipacifist.21 When it was militarized by presidential order in August, 1917, its personnel, including the AFSC workers embraced by the agreement, were not required to take the military oath; Red Cross officials were "assimilated," not commissioned, to military rank.-2 But from the outset not only the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, and the Knights of Columbus but all other agencies involved in overseas relief experienced intimate supervision by the United States Army. For example, Army Intelligence in September issued special papers to civilian relief personnel, including the Quakers' workers. These were called carnets rouges, and they entitled the holder to stay and move about in the military zone. The carnet also placed the worker under a degree of Army regulation; he became
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The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags, 1917-1927
subject not to military orders but to military law.23 This fact could not be denied; it could only be, and was, protested. Homer Folks of the Red Cross, in charge of all the work the Red Cross and the Quakers shared, specified that in keeping with the original agreement no AFSC worker would be put to jobs that Friends representatives in Paris did not approve. Still apprehensive that the carnet system was a step toward full military supervision, Quaker workers objected to it,24 and debate continued until just before the Armistice, when the matter came to a head under increasing Red Cross and Army pressure. A particularly troublesome stone in the path of Quaker relief was a State Department ruling that no passport would be issued to a Committee worker until his case had passed the Attorney General's eye.25 The Red Cross also decided to make an investigation on its own account of AFSC applicants, attributing this decision to "particular instructions from the U.S. War College and the French and British Embassies."28 The Service Committee vigorously besought the State Department to issue passports on the strength of its endorsement alone,27 but because of the Secret Service Bureau's pressure the Red Cross declined to second this request,28 although it did from time to time ask the Justice Department to hurry the investigation of particular Service Committee applications.29 The Red Cross consistently refused to divulge the sources of its information.30 There is reason to believe that it was gathered by a private agency working under Red Cross contract.31 Red Cross programs called for Quaker field workers: it was to help provide them that the AFSC early in the spring of 1918 introduced the second training unit at Haverford College, and when that spring the shortage of trained men who had been cleared to go to Europe grew acute, the Red Cross
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55
offered to support a fresh request for passport clearance oil the strength of AFSC vouchers. But the State Department refused to waive prior federal investigation.32 The Armistice did not end this complication. 33 These were some of the European problems, but at home how was the inexperienced Committee to get needed foods and goods transported to East Coast ports, loaded on warcrowded ships, unloaded (without being lost) on French docks, and hauled up to the field depots? Who could oversee this tangle? Who would do the leg work? Relief stocks that AFSC contingents could not themselves convoy34 were dispatched in Red Cross priority space to British or French ports for the joint Red Cross-AFSC relay. The Red Cross enjoyed space priorities that military transport denied to private agencies. This advantage lent weight to its claim, made late in the first summer, that all American private agencies then working or planning work in France should come under its aegis.35 This generosity was in a way bracing but, at the same time, to accept Red Cross supervision—if only shipping supervision—would have meant that for every sack of flour, every monkey wrench, every spool of darning thread and every needle to be shipped, the AFSC first had to obtain Red Cross permission.36 The Red Cross was prompt to help with overland transportation by means of its own fleet of vehicles, or by clearing ways for the AFSC to buy at cost or load as gifts (from Henry Ford and others) auto trucks, ambulances, automobiles, motorcycles, also heavy farm tools and machinery. The Red Cross also shared its stevedore, passenger, and freight priorities, both in the United States and France, and helped the Quakers make efficient use of them. 37 Again through Red Cross accommodation, the AFSC was given use of the telephone-telegraph-cable-mail pouch web
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of the Army, Navy, Red Cross, and State Department. T h e influential Red Cross emblem appeared on all crates, bales, sacks, letterheads, and uniform coats and caps. 38 Indeed, without the ever-ready and effective aid of the American Red Cross, the A F S C could not have conveyed enough relief stocks from Philadelphia to the field to keep its workers active. T h e arrangements involved occasional though seldom critical tension; 39 rather, the harmony of these transactions was often remarked upon. To keep things moving took more than military permission, cash, and Red Cross impetus. It required the intimate cooperation and forbearance of the entire international Quaker family. In the stress and hardships of the field, British Friends could not always keep from asking why the Americans had waited three years before coming out in person to help. More galling, perhaps, to the British than this tardiness was the naive officiousness and inexperience, the boundless physical strength, the flat voices of the Americans. For their part, the Americans at first found their British co-workers stiff, lordly, and what was even more irritating to men trained from the cradle to practical skills, unhandy in the use of machinery and tools. But as the months rolled along, each band came to sympathize with the other and to see that good men had been bred on both sides of the ocean. Lifelong Quaker friendships were made in France. 4 0 Along with the negotiating, a distribution policy had to be developed. Here, too, problems were in store, especially in the sphere of allocation. Where needs outrun resources, who was to get priority? It is an axiom of relief theory that, whenever practicable, families are to be kept together, to be fed, housed, and clothed as families. For the family is always the strongest social group, and if even one family can be rescued, that family will promote the process of recovery.
57
France
But when the Quakers held to this axiom, it was asked by what warrant they presumed to manage families. However, in war, whether in combat areas or areas of destitution behind the lines, the man with a sack of flour is powerful—often more powerful than the man with a machine gun. This condition of relief work may be corrosive or ennobling, according to the nature of the worker. But in the end the management of families by outsiders is unavoidable. In France, where destruction of homes and farms was generally worse than actual hunger, the Service Committee, with Red Cross help, early set to work to build houses for the emergency use of homeless families. In August, 1917, a sawmill was set up in the south of France. Using French government timber, work teams made houses in transportable sections, maisons démontables. These houses were shipped north by rail and assembled by other teams for immediate use. These two- or three-room houses were stained dark brown, roofed in red tile, fitted with windows and a dark green door with a knob of white china. By the spring of 1920, a thousand such dwellings had been set up in the Clermont region.41 By the end of 1917, the Committee had brought to more than three hundred farm villages not only food, clothing, and prefabricated houses, but also seed and animals. Men had gone out to lend a hand to farmers with their harvests and, in some instances, to stay and help the neighborhoods with winter work. Let two workers tell their Winter's Tale: T H E STAR GROUCH
REMARKS
The stopped-up drain; The smoky flue; The inside pain; Too much to do.
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The The The The
1917-1927
icy walk; early night; foreign talk; lack of light.
The air that's damp; The homely daughter; O cold hard world, O cold hard water.42 The second wrote: "At first the people were suspicious of us; we were foreigners, and they didn't like us; then they were indifferent; but now we're real friends . . . to be greeted with loving smiles and handclasps in villages in which one would imagine inhabitants could never smile again." 43 For the vast destruction of French agriculture these lads could do little, but they could and did give a lift to many downcast families. 44 Medicines and medical equipment were supplied by the Red Cross, which also arranged dispensing permits. The Friends supplied some medically trained workers, physicians, nurses, orderlies. Medical stores were freely exchanged with the Red Cross as occasion required. 45 Red Cross opinion of the Quaker workers had by this time solidified: "I am easily within the truth," wrote one official, "when I say that none of the Americans who have come to France for relief work within the past year have surpassed in spirit, intelligence, or industry those who have been sent by the Friends Committee." 46 A Friend wrote, "The Red Cross people say our boys are the best because they do everything cheerfully and will always stick to their jobs and turn up every day when wanted." 47 The very few young Quaker workers who fell into unsatisfactory ways were quickly brought to terms, or recalled. 48
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59
At the end of the first twelvemonth, 236 men and 3 women were in France as the American Quaker Unit, 49 but the Committee estimated that to meet its current and pending obligations that number must be raised to 500. 50 The French government was by this time displaying real trust in the AFSC, even offering whole Departments to its care. The wreckage of Verdun was especially challenging to the imagination, and plans to penetrate that area were rapidly developed. 61 These plans collapsed before the German spring offensive of 1918. As the Armistice approached, formal relations between the AFSC and the Red Cross, "always a matter of rather delicate adjustment," struck another snag. For a variety of reasons, the Red Cross canceled its arrangement to ship AFSC supplies to France, suggesting that the Committee henceforth draw from the huge Red Cross accumulation already overseas.83 True, this arrangement would spare the Quakers many procurement and shipping difficulties, but it would also bind them to Red Cross allocation policies and, naturally, the Red Cross would give priority to its own operations. Large though the Red Cross accumulation might be, it was not inexhaustible.54 The militarization of French relief had become by this time a stiff problem. "We are having a tremendous time to keep out of military or semi-military work," Charles Evans, in Paris as chairman of the Unit, reported a few months before the Armistice. "The demands are very frequent and we hope we can be fairly consistent and yet avoid unnecessary offense." 55 To work toward a solution of this problem, American and British Quakers met in Paris. After long discussion, Charles Evans observed, "I think Morris Leeds and Henry Scattergood have done right in placing us under the American Red Cross, and not only because of the material benefits we have received." It was agreed that the time had not yet
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come for the A F S C to break away entirely, 06 although because of Red Cross domination a number of Americans had transferred into British Quaker units. 57 It appeared that if many more transferred, American Friends official relations with the Red Cross might break down completely. 58 From Camp Upton, Vincent Nicholson, who although drafted was still the AFSC's Executive Secretary, made his analysis of the legal aspects of the situation. As a member of the Bar, he wrote, "Just how much military law is applicable to such civilians as are connected by employ or voluntary service to military bodies has always been a much mooted question. . . . Civilians subject to military law are not subject to military discipline and military orders other than those designed to prevent such civilians from being a menace or handicap to efficient operations of military forces —the usual matters are those of sanitation, transportation, and the like. . . . T o be willing to serve, as long as we can do so, in a civilian's capacity, however military may be our physical or legal environment, seems to me to be consistent with our faith and to be the most rational position." 59 In promising to vouch for any young man whom the Quakers sent as essential, the Red Cross had expressed its hope that they would become a Unit representing "military virtues"—"a picked force . . . of as high a grade as the Mounted Police of Canada. Every man dependable and with • • " RO a vision. Workers already in France but not vet drafted were another problem: Must they break off, and go back to the United States? 91 There were signs that the War Department was less determined to draft these men than were some civilians." 2 T h e Red Cross stood ready to support the deferment claims of A F S C field workers, but ventured that it was not willing to hire anv AFSC field men who sought transfer
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to R e d Cross employment to postpone induction, 6:i nor would the A F S C countenance this dodge. 8 4 T h e A F S C had no authority over workers whose terms of Committee service had expired, and it left to each individual the responsibility for shaping his own course through the draft, 8 5 concentrating its own efforts on deferments for present workers. 80 General Pershing was reported as favoring a policy of keeping these men at their civilian tasks in France. 0 7 As the war drew to a close, another question came up. How would the Army demobilize the furloughed men in the Committee's field units? Could tiiey be discharged in France or must they return immediately, to the damage of the work, to the United States for discharge? T h e men had signed on with the Committee "for the duration." Would the German Surrender terminate their draft obligations? 88 In late November, 1918, the Army agreed to discharge from its camps those objectors who wanted to join the relief work in France, 0 9 but soon it faced about, announcing that all Committee workers who had been previously furloughed to F r a n c e or registered from the field had to return to the United States to obtain their papers of discharge. 7 0 Any man who preferred to stay in France might do so by requesting that his furlough or deferment be extended. Later on, he could return to collect his "absolute discharge." 71 Most of the men were willing to stay on in France, but they wanted the freedom and recognition of an absolute discharge. Then, too, once they had the discharge, the Committee could use their services without reference to Army regulation. Two Friends went from Philadelphia to Washington to talk the matter over with Major General Henry Jervey, Assistant Chief of Staff. This incredibly busy officer generously granted them an interview, and within a few minutes grasped the capital importance of keeping the lines of work
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in France unbroken. Just before Christmas, word came to the Committee that its men could be discharged on the field,™ a most unusual procedure, on condition that the Committee guarantee to retain in its own units the men thus discharged; to supply the American Expeditionary Force commander with exact lists of their names, locations, and duties; and, at the expiration of their Committee service, to return them, at its own expense, to the United States. The arrangement also covered men in Army camps awaiting assignment to the Committee's training units in the United States.73 Owing to the delays in all military paper work, this potentially most helpful system lagged. Officialdom in France "ignorant of this whole question . . . was afraid to take up" the matter without specific and detailed instructions from Washington.74 But thanks to hard work of the AFSC's administrators in Paris, four months after the promulgation of the order, of the AFSC men still in France the eighty-three subject to Army regulation had all received final papers of discharge from the Army. The papers, issued on the field by Army officers at points where the men were stationed, each ended with this caution: "Not Recommended for Re-Enlistment. This is a conscientious objector who has done no military duty and who refused to wear the uniform." Contrary to Secretary Baker's express direction, most papers carried the additional comment: "Character—Poor." 75 It was not only the men who had to be provided for. Grazing over French meadows and woods were hundreds of horses, wearing only scraps of harness, that had deserted wagon trains and cavalry squadrons during the excitement of battle. Shortly before the Armistice, some members of the Friends ploughshare contingent thought of using these horses
France
63
to help till the fields of France. This scheme was forestalled by remount men and teamsters sent out to bring the horses back to regimental lines.78 It was natural for the United States Army to want its horses back, but the military authorities were anxious to get rid of trucks and autos. They were therefore generous with these vehicles and with repair facilities for the Friends postArmistice activities.77 The Army quietly lent the AFSC twenty-four trucks and twelve motorcycles, in prime repair and ready for the hardest use, with an option on later purchases at less than cost. 78 At Campigny, the Meuse, Army officers gave the AFSC over three tons of new and used truck and auto parts and allowed the post mechanics to help Committee workers repair their vehicles. As stewards of Army property, officers also passed over to their Quaker neighbors a tacit gift of twelve large Army tractors. Foodstuffs were also given or sold below cost to the AFSC for distribution to needy civilians, though the greater part of the Army's surplus food had been bought up by the Hoover relief organization.79 In the spring of 1919, the AFSC shifted its gaze from France to the mounting needs in Serbia, Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia. With the end of fighting and the disclosure of the civil situation of the East, France appeared the lesser claimant. The AFSC's chief Paris representative was directed to consult with Herbert Hoover, who was himself turning his efficient agency, which had begun as the Commission for Relief in Belgium, toward these desperate lands. Could Friends help him in his projected effort? 80 Even if the Red Cross canceled all its subsidy, the Quakers now believed the AFSC could not only carry through its French commitment but also help with German feeding. 81 Plans were drawn to close the French work in October, 1919, and to send old
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Star Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
hands and new into the needier German field, if permission to enter could be obtained. 8 - The Red Cross had taken steps to do the same. International Quaker activity in France reached its peak in June, 1919. The nine work department rosters, Relief, Medicine, Building, Agriculture, Transport, Purchase and Sales, Equipment, Maintenance, and Works, totaled 363 American and 184 British Quaker workers. Few of the Americans wanted to stay on in France: some felt the homeward tug; the more adventurous hearts responded to the eastward call. 84 It was clear that the Red Cross subsidy of $300,000 in cash and kind, made in Januarv, 1919, 85 was to be its last to the Service Committee's French work. The London and Philadelphia Committees and the workers in the field reduced the scope of work, focusing on remaining medical requirements. The Quakers wholeheartedly united in expressing gratitude to the Red Cross for its counsel, money, and materials, its facilities of transportation and communication, and for the permissions it had helped to make available over the past two years. 86 No other organization or combination of organizations could have afforded an equal amount of support.87 An episode of more than usual interest for Friends marked the end of the French work. In the spring of 1919, the AFSC learned that the United States Army would sell the contents of five huge Engineer Corps dumps near Verdun at a price so low that die whole transaction had for the moment to be secret. 88 As the price was just within the Committee's means, the field director took action before the prize could slip away. Thereupon, the French Army offered the Committee the use of railway connections linking these dumps with the main trunk line to Paris. Committee workers eagerly began to move selected tools, building materials, implements, and
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65
machinery convertible to farm use, as well as tractors, trucks, automobiles, motorcycles, spare parts, and sundries large and small. What the AFSC could not use itself, distribute as relief in France, or store for later use elsewhere, it began to sell on the open market at prices below the inflated current prices.89 In less than thirteen months, in one region alone Committee workers distributed free, or sold at token prices to the most needy, building materials and more than 175,000 farm implements: spades, shovels, forks, hoes, rakes, axes, knives, and hooks adaptable to pruning.90 Two factors in this transaction require special mention. From the Armistice until their repatriation in February, 1920, there were about 400,000 German prisoners-of-war in France. After deep doubts about the justice of taking advantage of this compulsory labor, the AFSC agreed that it would be fair to ask some of these prisoners if they would like to help in constructive work for rehabilitation. The war was over. About 570 Germans in various camps welcomed the opportunity, and the French military gave permission. Every weekday morning for about six weeks, truckloads of these prisoners with or without guards rolled out of camp to the sites of the Friends Committee's work. They sorted and loaded materials from the dumps.91 In the evenings they were returned to camp. It was understood that if any prisoner attempted to escape, the arrangement was to be canceled. One evening two prisoners were missing, but the next morning they walked back into camp, and no others even attempted to break the rule. Before Christmas, British Friends, with whom the AFSC shared the Germans' work, conceived the plan of paying to these men's families in Germany the compensation, twenty marks a day, which the French Army would not allow the Friends to pay directly. A capital idea, said the AFSC. A
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The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
snapshot was taken of each prisoner and each man wrote a letter to go with it. Then a small party of British and American Quakers set out for Germany. There they found the families, mostly in misery and want. To each family were delivered a picture, a message from their loved one, and the money that he had earned for them. 92 About a year after the purchase of the dumps, ground was broken for a maternity hospital at Chalons-sur-Marne, paid for by profits—about $120,000—from the open and duly authorized sale of dump materials and by contributions from British Friends. 93 French officials lent the project valued counsel.94 The AFSC had had a maternity hospital in mind for at least two years, 95 and experience in Red Cross wartime emergency maternity clinics had emphasized the value of locating it at Chalons. 90 A course of nurses' training was added to the hospital's program.97 As a mark of gratitude for the help received from the American Red Cross in France, the AFSC, in June, 1922, caused a tablet to the American Red Cross to be let into the floor of the Chalons Hospital. 98 In termination, the Red Cross formally made over to the AFSC its claim to $48,076, the residue of a revolving fund maintained with them by the AFSC, 9 9 and expressed its hope that". . . the sum in question may be used by your Committee with the same conscientiousness and effectiveness as have characterized its work in France." 100 The French Army, at the same time, sold to the Committee a notable collection of surplus bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles, and spare parts. It was stipulated that these should not be resold for profit.101 Two projects now remained: the maintenance of the Chalons Hospital and the sending of circulars to the mayors of forty-seven villages in the Meuse, Somme, Aisne, and
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67
Ardennes districts, lesser places which the central government was in no particular hurry to assist. The Committee asked the mayors about their local agriculture. What extra goods and services were required to restore their tillage to full productivity? As far as possible, the AFSC supplied goods and services to meet the needs reported. 102 In the autumn of 1920, the Committee's French accounts were closed. A surplus existed, appraised at about $796,000, consisting of undistributed relief supplies, the sum remitted by the Red Cross, profits from the sale of the purchased United States Army goods, and other Committee property. The AFSC assigned this surplus as cash or kind, or both, according to need, in the following proportions: 30 per cent to the Chalons Hospital; 25 per cent to the Anglo-American Quaker fund for joint relief in Europe, which included French farm rehabilitation; 15 per cent to the purchase of motor transport for AFSC use out of Vienna; 10 per cent to AFSC feeding projects east of the Rhine; and 20 per cent to the AFSC reserve.' 03 Though the Service Committee's rate of relief in France had been too slow to meet the needs (as one Friend put it, ". . . in France, we got running at top speed just when it was time to quit 104 ), this work was the initiation and learning experience. For those who put their strength and will into it, the attempt was more than practice in saving human lives. It was the best of life itself. To make certain that their relief work in no way involves proselytizing is imperative with Friends. But on occasion relief work has aroused interest in the faith that Friends profess. The Message Committee, formed in 1922 as a subcommittee of the American Friends Service Committee, 105 responded to this interest. Through correspondence, books on Quaker faith and practice, and personal exchange, this committee helped to establish or re-establish contacts between
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1917-1927
American Friends and Europeans. I t also helped in planning journeys of visitation to F r a n c e , later to Germany, and even to Russia. In 1924, through cooperation of British and American Friends, a Quaker Center was organized in Paris to serve as a hostel for students and Quaker travelers and to afford a place where French people could come to discuss their problems and interests. Study classes and evening discussions attracted some. Active and practical concern for the reform of Paris prisons involved others, and, above all, an attempt was made to understand, and so far as possible help in resolving, conflicts between nations. 1 0 8 T h e heart of this entire program was the Meeting for Worship, held weekly, and sometimes daily. France Yearly Meeting of Friends was organized in 1933. Interim relief work in France, in Spain on both sides of the fighting line from 1936 to 1939, and in Nazi Germany was projected from the Paris Center. Other Quaker centers were later established in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva, Rome, Vienna, and Warsaw. F o r these the Paris Center was in some sense a model. 1 0 7
4 SERBIA; AUSTRIA; BULGARIA; IRELAND SERBIA
The American Friends Service Committee began its mission to Europe's needy people in midsummer, 1917, in France. Two years later, in early summer, 1919, the work there reached its peak. Believing it could carry on its remaining task in France and at the same time open other fields, the Committee gathered new permissions, fresh contingents, additional supplies, and sent them to the next sites, Serbia and Austria. The experience of working in Serbia, which lasted until the spring of 1921, though medical subsidy was continued another year, taught the American Friends Service Committee the difficulties of arranging for relief with a small, insecure, destitute, and dilatory government. Transportation was rudimentary and the Serbians were unable to control the border populations. Ten days after the Armistice, M. Stoykovitch, Minister of Commerce of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (now Yugoslavia), visited Philadelphia and attended a meeting of the AFSC, where he described conditions in his country and made a stirring plea for help. The Committee was impressed and authorized an inquiry to determine whether it 69
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ought to dispatch a delegation to help the British Friends already working there. 1 The chairman of the AFSC waited upon M. Grouitch, the Serbian Minister in Washington, to solicit advice. The Minister cabled for instructions; Philadelphia cabled queries to British Friends in London and Serbia, to the representatives in Serbia of the American Relief Administration—the great official international agency that Herbert Hoover led, and to the American Red Cross in Serbia. The advice was assembled into a formal report to the Board of the Service Committee. 2 Final determination to send a relief party was reserved until the Serbian Minister could transmit to the Committee his government's formal request. This was done on June 5, 1919. The document declared that representatives of the American Friends Committee would be welcomed by the government.1 The Paris office of the AFSC advised through its executive: "The chief value of the Serbian work for our Committee seems to me to be to hold our personnel together as a steppingstone to future work in Russia. This [is] also true of the Polish expedition planned by British Friends." 4 Six AFSC representatives sailed on July 30 for the faraway kingdom. Four weeks later they disembarked at Salonika, and proceeded to Nish, the railhead in southeastern Serbia. Here they established contact with British Friends and with the parties of the ARA, the ARC, and the Serbian Relief Fund, an Anglo-American agency that gave valued assistance to the Quakers. This first AFSC contingent was joined a month later by a second party of six.5 In the severely damaged region around Nish, work was hampered by chronic breakdown of local transportation and by the dilatory character of business dealings. After three months actual distribution began. 6 From the outset, the work enjoyed the interest and counsel
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of Madame Grouitch, wife of the Serbian Minister in Washington, and of patrons of the Serbian Relief Fund, including the Prince Regent Alexander and the Princess Helen of Serbia, a Grand Duchess of Russia, and Madame Jusserand of France.7 The Serbian government loaned a sixty-four-hectare farm (158 acres) near Leskovatz, on which the AFSC set up an agricultural training school.8 This farm was eventually returned, improved in cultivation, livestock, and productivity.® The government granted free rail transport to AFSC freight and personnel and arranged to expedite AFSC correspondence, both in and out of the country.10 Letters from Philadelphia reached the Unit with regularity, though letters sent to Philadelphia were often long delayed.11 Whether this was attributable to Serbian postal inefficiency or to censorship by the American Red Cross or by the United States consulate at Salonika was difficult to ascertain.12 At any rate, permission to use the Serbian diplomatic pouch was welcomed,13 since sure and speedy postal service is essential to all relief work. American Red Cross officials suggested that, in their opinion, reconstruction was Serbia's chief need. Hoping the AFSC would link its projects to their own,14 they agreed to expedite freight through Salonika as well as to give supplies.15 Wheat importation licenses were provided by the United States Food Administration Grain Corporation.16 The American Friends Unit distributed food, medicine, and hospital supplies, and also gave out clothing that had either been brought in or made by local voluntary sewing groups, from materials furnished by the United States.17 Meanwhile, under official sanction, one hundred Bulgarian prisoners of war had agreed to help build houses with materials supplied jointly by the Quakers and the Serbian government—materials that were to be hauled in by mule-train.
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Flags,
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The prisoners were to be paid in supplementary food and clothing. Soon the destitute families were watching these homesick men slowly give shape to their new houses. 18 In January, 1920, the Unit received a carload of clothing and some medicine from the American Red Cross, and additional supplies from the Serbian Red Cross, the Serbian Ministry of Health, and the British Joint Supply Commission. 19 The principal aim in Serbia, as the Unit came to see, was not emergency relief as such, but encouragement. The dejected populace had to be encouraged to develop their own means of subsistence. 20 But the land was full of violence. In the mountains, clan fought clan; Albanian and Bulgarian raiders fought villagers, while almost everywhere there was hostility toward Montenegrins, who had been stranded in Serbia since the war, when special arrangements between the Serbian and Austro-Hungarian governments had introduced them as emergency laborers. The Serbian government had allotted them homestead lands but had been too poor to provide implements, lumber, seed, livestock, and food to tide them over until harvest time. Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbians, and Turkish guerrillas all insisted that the homestead lands belonged to them rather than to the Montenegrins. Their armed forays made the situation desperate. Attempting to keep order, the government confiscated all of the settlers' weapons and as many of the raiders' weapons as it could apprehend. 21 In this situation, the Unit was divided. Some members ". . . agreed to ask the Government . . . that a certain number of weapons . . . be returned to settlers." Others, convinced that this course offered no permanent solution, urged that the Unit try to help the offending Albanians and Turks, who themselves had very real needs, and thus enable
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the government to provide the settlers with a firmer footing. The latter view eventually prevailed. 22 With the government's cooperation, the Unit reorganized a settlement scheme on a basis of self-help. Food, clothing, seed, tools, household equipment, and lumber got things moving in the regions of Djurakovac and Metokija. The American Red Cross allotted the Government $500,000 worth of implements and supplies stored in a depot near Salonika. Unable to pay the freight, the Serbian government transferred these goods to the AFSC. The Unit finally brought them from the depot to the field.23 In May, 1920, the Unit transferred headquarters from Nish to Pe£, where most of its child feeding, refugee resettlement, and farm rehabilitation functions were centered. A small hospital and dispensary was opened to serve Albanians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Turks impartially. Similar service, including an orphanage, was maintained at Leskovatz. In all cases, American and British Quaker personnel worked together. 24 Ten months were spent in bringing the relief work to a point where solid results could be appraised, by which time members of the Unit were serving in projects scattered about the land that had been the scene of the first shot of the First World War. At this point the AFSC in Philadelphia asked the Unit gradually to close down its projects or transfer them to the Serbian government so as to free funds for use in other fields. It was not surprising that the workers wrote back that this was not the time to close but to grow: The medical projects, especially, needed to be expanded to help reconcile local quarrels.25 As a result, full maintenance was finally provided for the hospital,26 with the orphanage of fifty children later being transferred to the Serbian Relief Fund. 27 Moreover, farm tools, drugs, hospital supplies, food, and clothing continued to arrive from the American Red Cross.28
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At the end of 1920, the AFSC in Philadelphia asked for an assessment of all parts of the current program and for advice as to continuation, particularly of the hospital. 29 The Unit (whose acting director at the time was Andrew [now Drew] Pearson) urged that the hospital be kept open one more year, with the written consent of the local and national authorities and with financial support by the two Friends Committees. 30 The British Unit expressed regret that the hospital could not be made the focus of a general program of medical and pediatric care and instruction.31 In March, 1921, Rufus Jones received a letter from M. Grouitch stating that his government hoped the AFSC would not terminate its needed and praiseworthy Serbian endeavors.32 The Committee thanked the Minister for his expression of gratitude, but repeated that the Committee's work in Serbia now had to be transferred to other hands, though subsidy for the hospital at Pe6 and the clinics at Dechani, Djurakovac, Dobrusha, Istok, and Zlocuthan would be continued for another year. 33 As representatives of the Committee, Dr. C. L. Outland and his wife, Louise, stayed on in Serbia to supervise use of the funds and work with local personnel.34 Support proved increasingly hard to raise, for the eyes of most American donors had turned to Russia.3" In April, 1922, the two Committee representatives inventoried the medicine and equipment and made them over to local authorities. They then took leave of their associates, bringing to a close the Quaker work in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.36 AUSTRIA
The AFSC contingent sent into Austria in the early summer of 1919 remained until the late autumn of 1923, and then,
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primarily because of lack of funds, devolved the bulk of the work. Quaker antituberculosis work continued into 1925. In Austria the main task was to increase the milk supply so as to strengthen the children against epidemic tuberculosis. Through a series of intricate negotiations and dealings between the Austrian government and the Reparations Commission, the American Red Cross, the American Relief Administration, and the British and American Friends Committees, the milk supply actually did increase. The Quakers successfully developed workable self-help projects among the people who were destitute through inflation, though their effort to promote fiscal relief by intergovernmental loan was not successful. The British Friends opened the relief in Austria, after a delegation from London visited Vienna in the spring of 1919. They found the city, once the capital of an empire of fiftytwo million subjects, now the head town of a truncated country of seven million bewildered, famished people. 37 Austria was blockaded and partitioned, its former units barred from trade with one another by tariff walls. Transportation had broken down; factories were cut off from raw materials, coal, and markets. Unemployment was increasing every day; cattle were being destroyed for want of fodder; and the people were becoming more and more dependent upon imported food. Deaths among children far exceeded births. 38 In 1914, it cost 4.4 Kronen to provide a child with 10,700 calories a week. The same ration in June, 1920, cost 77.7 Kronen, with costs still rising.39 As late as April, 1921, Herbert Hoover said, "So far as Austria is concerned, I can see no light ahead." 4 0 To hunger was added disease: rickets, tuberculosis, and a mysterious epidemic of encephalitis of the Vienna type, described by the Austrian neurologist Constantin von Economo (1876-1931). 4 1 This was the first epidemic of sleeping sick-
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ness (lethargic encephalitis) in Europe. The von Economo type spread to Canada and the United States between 1915 and 1926, but since then it has completely disappeared. 42 The American Friends Service Committee joined the British Friends for work in Austria in July, 1919. The Americans brought personnel as well as money, but here as elsewhere they quickly realized the worth of their British colleagues' experience and judgment in long-range planning. Assisted by the International Red Cross, the British Food Commission, and other British agencies, the British Friends had embarked on child feeding. 43 To their program, the A F S C at once added help from the American Red Cross and the American Relief Administration, through food imported on licenses denied to Austrians. 44 Both British and American Quakers at the same time pleaded with their governments for a more adequate Austrian policy, particularly in reestablishing economic ties between the fragments of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. 4 5 To help with the medical examination and increased feeding of starving children in Vienna, the American Red Cross supplied physicians and nurses, plus large stocks of food, medicine, and clothing. Quaker workers reciprocated bv helping in American Red Cross Child Welfare Centers. 16 Winter, 1919-20, found four of every five young Viennese children rachitic or tubercular, or both. 47 Second to the children's plight was that of 16,000 university students in Vienna. ". . . we have . . . the frame of a relief scheme," one student wrote, "and eagerness on the part of University authorities and students to co-operate." 4S Aided bv the World Student Christian Movement, the A F S C provided 7 0 0 of the hungriest with breakfast each morning. 4 " T h e Service Committee soon had 60 workers in Austria feeding 30,000 children dailv meals, operating farm schemes, and
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preparing other projects. The American Relief Administration provided daily supplementary food to 10,000 youths, 135,000 school children, and 30,000 children under six.50 In post-Armistice Austria it was cheaper to eat one's herd of cattle than to feed them, and farm families were too hungry to estimate capital loss. This fact combined with the wartime loss of herds and present reparation levies meant that Vienna's daily milk supply in 1920 had dwindled to 5 per cent of the prewar supply, and, owing to the transportation breakdown, at least a third of this milk was sour on delivery. The official ration at this time was twenty-eight ounces a day for a child of one year or less, or for its mother; seven ounces a day for children between the ages of one and two; for other children and adults, none. Since milk was imperative to check tuberculosis, the situation was indeed critical. 51 Some unrecorded Friend at this point hit upon a scheme. Go into the country, said he, and buy fresh cows. Bring them into the city and pen them in the old cattle market. Bring in fodder from outside, feed the cows with it, and there you are! Soon, twelve score cows were lowing in mid-Vienna! 52 Friends were helping the cows, and the cows were helping the children. Friends foddered not only their own cows but others that the municipality was helped to buy. 53 Schemes were set afoot to bring in extra hay, barley, bran, oil, and salt cake for the use of farmers in the environs. Cows were bought in Switzerland and Holland and placed on outlying farms, the farmers agreeing to provide milk to Friends Centers in the cities as token payment, thus insuring both delivery and the farmers' self-respect.84 Bulls, too, soon put in their grand appearance. In three years' husbandry, 1,650 cows and bulls were brought into Austria.55 The Quakers also brought in goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and ducks, and supplied fodder and seed on a
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token-payment basis. Milk supply and farm rehabilitation projects were opened around Bregenz, Erzgebirge, Graz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Linz, Salzburg, and Wiener-Neustadt. 56 The animals and poultry involved in these transactions were not subject, as were privately owned stock, to levy by the government, to meet reparations demands/' 7 The Austrian government participated in the program by hauling animals, fodder, and milk.58 Periodic medical examination of children insured proper allocation of the supplementary milk given out at the Centers, or bottled and delivered to homes, hospitals, and asylums59 under the direction of a spirited organization of local volunteers. 00 As a result of all these efforts, the number of tuberculosis deaths in Vienna, which had been 6,430 in 1913, declined from 11,741 in 1917 to 5,265 in 1921.61 In February, 1921, following difficult and protracted conversations with the American Relief Administration about the collaboration of British and American Quaker teams in Austria, the ARA allotted $50,000 for Quaker projects in Vienna, with the single proviso that the food from this fund be distributed to children from centers in which placards were posted announcing that the food came from the United States, via the ARA.62 On this point, Herbert Hoover was insistent, saying, in effect: Do not link yourselves publicly with British Friends: keep your people out of politics. 63 His strict ruling that American contributions required American distribution was made primarily, though not solely, to satisfy demands of the United States Congress,64 but it so strained the relations between the British and American Quaker delegations that at the close of another difficult discussion, Mr. Hoover rescinded his request.6'"5 He made over to the two Committees jointly $50,000 of ARA money for use in Poland and $100,000 for use in Russia. If the Friends worked well
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there, fresh grants were to be made. It is fair to say that Herbert Hoover himself was more friendly to this work than were some of his assistants.86 The consolidation and hopes for the expansion of relief collaboration between the American and British Friends had become the subject of tense, complex, and general debate. For Mr. Hoover it presented a dilemma. He sympathized with the Quaker work. The Friends insisted on working together, not only in Austria but in Germany as well, free from ARA control. At the same time, they were anxious for Mr. Hoover to guarantee their programs a steadily increasing flow from the ARA's vast food and cash accumulation. But Mr. Hoover also faced the American government and public on whose approval and support the ARA principally depended. He faced the American press; it was featuring stories of British diplomatic and commercial intrigue masquerading as "relief," and making assertions that the defeated nations were not really hungry. He continually had to face the claims of the immense systems he had set in motion. He had to govern as "the Chief' of the American Relief Administration.67 These complications had no real solution, and they were later to help create a most troublesome situation in Russia. In the spring of 1921 the ARA agreed to feed children over four; the Quakers, children under four.68 At this time in Vienna, the ratio of ARA staff, American and Austrian, to children fed was one to seventeen; of Friends, one to sixty.69 Reports of abject need among certain political prisoners in Hungary took two British Friends away from Vienna for a tour of inspection. In Hungary, they learned that a Russian group that had appealed to Friends to help these prisoners regardless of political affiliation was making ready to publicize their plight as propaganda. The two Quakers advised
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that Friends try to help the prisoners and their families, since the conditions were truly dreadful, but they insisted that the Russian group not be allowed to meddle. For if a Russian subsidy were accepted, it was thought that the Hungarian government might inflict still harsher persecution on the prisoners and their families.70 In this and in other troubles like it, some Quaker workers were impatient of their Committees' cautious ways. The bitter necessity of patience was hard to accept. 71 But Friends nonpolitical efforts to secure public money for relief have gone on now through four decades and Friends have found that, in the main, more relief can be administered with government cooperation than without it. And by dint of patience even in time of war, Friends have been able to perform the double duty of giving war relief and making an effort to remove causes of war. Although compelled by reparations terms to send homegrown food to the victor nations, the Austrian government continued, as well as it was able, to share in relief work for its own people 72 and to work up a sound plan for devolving the relief activities of outside organizations upon local Austrian committees. 73 Contributory to this was the garden settlement scheme on which the Quakers were working in and around Vienna. The scheme had, in 1921,70,000 members. Authorities had thrown open the old imperial hunting park and plots of city land for truck gardens. There, the poor were helping one another to build shacks with makeshift materials. The plots became scenes of thriving plants and people working. They were perhaps the happiest places in Vienna that summer. Disabled veterans and their families predominated in the settlements, rightly called Cities of Peace, which were located in more than a dozen suburbs.74 To these improvised villages and to
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nearby country villages, groups of city children were sent for badly needed holidays and extra food. The garden settlements helped poor families answer two of their most immediate needs, food and shelter, and at the same time helped them to hold together as families.75 Eventually this opportunity for new or better life was made available to some 700,000 people. Now, to expedite its own devolvement, the ARA insisted that the Quakers abandon their practice of giving food in packets to mothers for their children, and that no food be given except to children who were brought to eat it at the centers. Against this Dr. Hilda Clark, a supervisor, active with British Friends from the beginning in 1914, made vigorous protest: "What will become of children who are too young, or too weak, to be brought to central feeding stations? Where is it proposed that they will eat the food allotted to them? We beg you to reconsider." 76 The ARA amicably yielded to her advice. 77 In October, the Service Committee was able to tell Friends in London that the ARA was about to make over $35,000 worth of food to the Friends. 78 Everyone had regretted the tensions, and almost everyone had done his best to overcome them. 79 In Austria, as elsewhere, Friends kept in close touch with the personnel of the United States Department of State through reports and conversations, 80 but toward the end of 1921, some Friends came to feel that the AFSC ought to intercede more directly with the United States government in Austria's behalf. In February, 1921, the Vienna unit had urged the Committee in Philadelphia to support a current proposal by the Reparations Commission to grant credits to Austria for the purchase of raw materials and coal.81 The AFSC was divided on
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this issue; they threshed it out at length. Some members held that for the sake of its professions, reputation, and current and projected programs, the A F S C should not express a political point of view. 8 " Others believed Austria's trouble to be so deeply rooted that her only hope lay in the recovery of the whole economy. Relief could palliate, but could not cure. Some governments had informally agreed to follow America's lead in the matter of emergency loans to Austria. Dr. Hilda Clark, in an interview with Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes ( 1 8 6 2 - 1 9 4 8 ) , reported that the Austrian food supply was falling back to Armistice levels. She asked if the work of the past two years need now be lost. The Secretary of State promised to give this emergency his close attention. 83 In January, 1922, "The Committee approved of addressing a letter to the President of the United States in regard to a moratorium of the Austrian debts." M This letter included the following statement: "Austria is in straits so narrow that she . . . cannot come to any degree of stability as long as her obligations [to the United States and other countries] are such that she cannot secure a further loan to meet her most urgent needs." T h e hope was expressed that the President would urge the United States government and others to grant Austria a twenty-year moratorium on her foreign obligations. 85 To this appeal, the State Department answered, Up to the present time as far as this Department is aware, only the Governments of Great Britain, France, Japan, and Czechoslovakia have definitely signified their willingness to postpone reparation and other charges for twenty years. Holland, as one of the neutral countries advancing relief credits, has also assented, but subject to the consent of the Dutch Parliament, and this Department has not yet been advised that this consent has been obtained. According to our information, Yugoslavia, Roumania,
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and Greece have not yet signified their willingness to adhere to the financial program for the rehabilitation of Austria as proposed by the Financial Committee of the League of Nations. Although Italy has given official approval to the plan, and has agreed to it in principle, it is understood that this agreement is contingent on the granting of certain concessions to Italy by the other Allied Powers and no advice has yet been received that these conditions have been agreed to. It would appear, therefore, that even if the United States were able to give its immediate consent to defer its claims against Austria, the plan for Austrian relief could not be put into execution, as the definite and unconditional consent and co-operation of all the Powers having claims against Austria have not been obtained." 8 0
Through 1922 and 1923, milk supply, child-feeding, clothing, aid to tubercular patients, vocational training (part of an attempt to meet the alarming increase of juvenile offenses), and self-help projects, including the extension of garden settlements, were carried on by the Friends with help from the American Red Cross, the American Relief Administration, other public or private agencies, and the Austrian government. Projects were enlarged, added, or closed as circumstances permitted. In late autumn, 1923, primarily from lack of money to continue, British and American Friends began actually winding up their work and turning an increasing number of functions over to the Austrians.87 The antituberculosis effort and the cow scheme were carried into 1925. All American agencies, and British agencies, too, were finding it harder and harder to raise money for overseas relief. But the need for money was no less urgent than it had been before. 88
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BULGARIA
A tedious debate (1918-27) on whether or not to undertake reconstruction work in Bulgaria illustrates the American Friends Service Committee's problems in associating with another private agency whose first interest was to court favor with the United States Department of State. T w o weeks after the Armistice, and again a month or so later, the AFSC debated and rejected a proposal for entering the Near East.89 Here the matter rested for more than four years. In May, 1923, a Committee worker reported from Vienna the condition, made worse by recent persecution, of Bulgarians in Western Thrace. The Committee undertook to bring the situation to the attention of the authorities in Washington. 90 T w o years later, in July, 1925, a cablegram arrived from the Friends War Victims Relief Committee in London: " H a v e received urgent request Vienna administer American funds dependents political offenders Bulgaria. . . . Shall w e go forward? Welcome advice." 9 1 A few days later, London cabled ". . . decided impossible. . . . Considering independent investigation later," 92 and in a letter listed the complications of attempting to relieve these victims of political persecution.93 That autumn, Sherwood Eddy attended an AFSC session to describe conditions in what he termed ". . . the worst governed country in the world." 94 His eyewitness account of persecution and accounts by Americans of Bulgarian extraction prompted the Committee to reconsider Bulgarian relief. A delegation of three was instructed by the Philadelphia and
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London Committees to travel from Vienna to Bulgaria to investigate. 85 In November, they reported, in effect: We have investigated the relief needs of Bulgarians and of political refugees from Macedonia and Western Thrace. We have consulted Bulgarian officials, charitable organizations, and British and American diplomatic representatives. Social welfare and medical care of children is backward in Bulgaria. Within the past ten years, the nation has fought three full-scale wars, but refugees have been a burden for twenty-five years, 500,000 having entered during that time. Last autumn, the population of Sofia was 80,000; today, it is 200,000. Normal jail population in Bulgaria is from three to four thousand; there are now twice that many political prisoners in jail. Unemployment at present is about 20 per cent. There are widows everywhere, and about 20,000 orphans, 4,000 of them vagrant, ragged, starving. For them and some 16,000 needy families of refugees, the government appears to have no plans or funds. With substantial grants from the American Red Cross, the Bulgarian Red Cross is doing what it can. We recommend, therefore, that Friends consider food-shelter stations for vagrant orphans; pediatric programs; housing programs; workrooms for women refugees; small teams to encourage self-help earning projects for refugees; and close cooperation with the Bulgarian government and Red Cross. If Friends undertake child-feeding, it will cost fifteen cents a child per day.90 Friends in London and Philadelphia doubted whether they ought to attempt to help persons politically involved, but in January, 1926, the AFSC proposed general Bulgarian relief as soon as the need could be more explicitly estimated.97 In March, British Friends opened relief work in Bulgaria.
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The AFSC had not yet found the necessary money.98 In December, 1926, the Near East Relief organization in New York told the AFSC that it would contribute $5,000 if the Friends would undertake the distribution. Near East Relief proposed putting this sum into the hands of the American Minister at Sofia, who, as a staunch friend of Near East Relief, would forward allowances to the Friends. This arrangement, the offer stated, would enable the AFSC to go into Bulgaria, and would improve Near East Relief's name with the United States Department of State." The AFSC accepted, and prepared to join British Friends already in the field with a program of four thousand dailv meals for children in thirteen villages, handicraft and weaving shops, medical welfare stations in five villages, and the cooperation of the Red Cross organizations of Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, and Belgium. 100 From Sofia, the Minister had written to Near East Relief in Athens, "I shall be glad to have any suggestions from you as to the disposal of [the Near East Relief] funds and to know whether you approve of the [disbursement] plan outlined above." The plan as outlined made no mention of the AFSC. 101 Notwithstanding this omission, the AFSC in January, 1927, asked Emma Cadbury, who was working in Vienna, to go to Sofia to open work with the Near East Relief Committee's $5,000. Three weeks later came the news that our Minister had already allocated $4,000 of the $5,000 grant to other agencies.102 The Near East Relief Committee attempted to explain: Our federal charter, they said, in effect, almost binds us to work through State Department people in countries where we have no personnel. In Bulgaria, we deployed through the American Minister. Your people (presumably the British Friends) did not make themselves or their work known to him. Weary of waiting for you to claim the money, he gave
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$4,000 of it to other agencies. We do not wish to embarrass the Minister or the State Department further and we refuse to jeopardize our charter—a charter secured from Congress with the utmost difficulty and by special Act with insistence that never again would Congress so charter any private relief body.103 Did the AFSC accept this explanation? Minutes of the next Board meeting simply note that $4,000 of the promised money had been diverted. 104 In April, the Near East Relief volunteered a second letter, which stated, in effect: the United States Minister in Sofia tells us that he did not know the AFSC representative in Bulgaria; that the need for immediate relief was urgent; and that other agencies, primarily the Red Cross Societies of Bulgaria, were present and prepared to work, while the AFSC was not. He asks us to inform you that he will pay your representative in Sofia the residual $1,000.105 To this, Wilbur Thomas answered, "The American Minister knew very well what position we held in Bulgaria and he knew our representative and what was the character of the work we were [planning to do in cooperation with the British Friends]. It is quite evident, however, that others have appealed more strongly to him. . . ." 100 This concluded the AFSC's negotiations for Bulgarian relief. IRELAND
Another attempt to exploit the good reputation of the American Friends Service Committee was made during the Irish fiasco. It provoked a query by our State Department. Ireland was considered for relief by the AFSC late in 1920. Here, after almost four years of fighting, there was little likelihood of peace. British Friends were busy with impartial aid.
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Should the American Committee join them? After long discussion, the Americans decided that for them to do so . . might be considered as an unneutral act," but that they could, and would, send money to the British Friends program. 107 In February, 1921, Philadelphia received word that a group known as the American Committee for Relief in Ireland, whose roster of field workers included the names of American Quakers, alleged that it was directly connected with the Friends Service Committee of America. 108 Wilbur Thomas cabled the Friends War Victims Relief Committee, London: "Group Friends sailed for relief Ireland were not sent by any Friends committee and receive no support from us. Some splendid men but not under our auspices. We expect send our money Irish relief directly to you." 109 In a letter of explanation to our State Department, Wilbur Thomas further disavowed any connection between the AFSC and the American Committee for Relief in Ireland. That group, he added, was making use of every opening to trade on the name of Friends, on the names of individual American Friends on its field roster, and on American Friends contributions, received through the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee. The AFSC had been asked independently to join this program of relief in Ireland, but had declined to do so when denied control over the distribution of its own supplies. The American Friends Service Committee, so this communication to our State Department ended, was determined to do nothing that might jeopardize its nonpolitical character and reputation. 110
5 GERMANY At the invitation of Herbert Hoover, then Chief of the American Relief Administration, the American Friends Service Committee in February, 1920, entered Germany to begin and to carry through large-scale feeding of the children of the recent enemy. The expense was borne by the ARA, by the American Red Cross, and by the AFSC itself with help from German-American societies and from the public. The German government furnished supplies, transport, and warehousing. German volunteers worked as colleagues of the Quakers. The first individual in history to conceive and to marshal large systems of international relief was Herbert Hoover (1874). Historians divide his relief activities into four phases. The first phase was his management of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, from November, 1914, to August, 1919, a responsibility that he assumed as a private volunteer. Administering civilian relief in occupied areas and behind the Allied lines in Belgium and in northern France, the CRB expended 4,988,059 metric tons of food and supplies, valued at $861,340,244.21.' The second phase was the organization of the initial work of the American Relief Administration, with which Mr. Hoover,' who was also serving O as head of the United States Food Administration, intended to replace the CRB. This overlapped the first phase, and extended from 89
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April, 1917, to June, 1919. At this time Mr. Hoover supervised the collection, transportation, and distribution of 23,103,266.2 metric tons of food and related relief supplies, valued at $3,050,496,599.23. The third or Armistice phase, November, 1918, to August, 1919, saw the ARA under Mr. Hoover as Director General of Relief distribute 4,178,447.7 metric tons valued at $1,101,486,783.34. In the fourth and final phase, the reconstruction period, from August, 1919, to July, 1923, the Hoover workers distributed 1,571,534.1 metric tons valued at $220,704,581.78. The grand total amounted to 33,841,307 metric tons of food and related supplies valued at $5,234,028,208.56. 2 The heart of the labor was the work for children: "Probably from the beginning fifteen to twenty million children were built back to strength." 3 Those competent to judge because of personal participation or independent study concur that the vigor and order of this stupendous undertaking were made possible and maintained by the genius and courage of its Chief. The ARA worked eastward from the English Channel to the Ural Mountains. It even carried some relief as far as Port Arthur and Vladivostok. From the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean, the Hoover organization operated lines of shipping, railroads, communications, and a vast web of warehouses. In addition to the projects of food distribution, it opened and supported systems of sanitation, reconstruction, even civil regulation. Goods and facilities allocated by the United States government and European governments, to which were joined public contributions from many lands, were used effectively. The ARA became so large, complex, and influential as to constitute almost a supergovemment. It closed its work in midsummer, 1923, deep in revolutionary Russia. As a corollary to its broad relief work, "We sought
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diligently," writes Mr. Hoover, "to sustain the feeble plants of parliamentary government which had sprung up. . . . A weak government possessed of the weapon of food and supplies for starving people can preserve itself more effectively than b y a r m s . " 4 In the question of the food blockade that F r e n c h and British politicians kept clamped on Germany after the Surrender, evidence affirms that more than any other individual it was Herbert Hoover who brought Marshal Ferdinand F o c h ( 1 8 5 1 - 1 9 2 9 ) , Georges Clemenceau ( 1 8 4 1 - 1 9 2 9 ) , David Lloyd-George (1863-1945), and Winston Churchill (1874— ) to give way, open the ring, and let the food go through. 5 F r o m the first days of the war, Mr. Hoover had opposed the food blockade: To lower the morale of the enemy by reducing his food supply was one of the major strategies of the war. I did not myself believe in the food blockade. I did not believe that it was the effective weapon of which the Allies were so confident. I did not believe in starving women and children. And above all, I did not believe that stunted bodies and deformed minds in the next generation were secure foundations upon which to rebuild civilization. The facts were that soldiers, government officials, munitions workers and farmers in enemy countries would always be fed; that the impact of blockade was upon the weak and the women and children. Moreover, because of the food blockade, Germany had no need to spend money abroad and she would have long since gone broke if she could have bought what her public would have demanded. I insisted that the war would not be won by the blockade on food for women and children, but by the blockade on military supplies and by military action. There were important Englishmen who agreed with me. 6
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Effects of the post-Armistice blockade reached beyond the German diet. Until the blockade was removed, full effort to deal with "the greatest famine [confronting Europe] since the Thirty Years W a r " 7 could not begin. But on the economic side, famished Germany could not work, and trade could not recover. A collateral effect was the danger to the farmers of the United States. To supply wartime home and Allied needs, they had built up production to abnormal levels, on the basis of federal farm price guarantees. To ensure supply from the United States (and Canada) at a time when European shipping was being diverted from food runs to the Indies and the Southern Hemisphere to help transport our troops, the Allies had approved these guarantees despite the resulting high cost of the foodstuffs that their people needed and could not obtain from other sources. As a result, though post-Armistice regulation still kept our prices well within 125 per cent of April, 1917, levels, United States food prices were now markedly higher than prices in the Indies and the Southern Hemisphere, where there was vast accumulation. However, now that the war was over, ships were available to bring this food to the European victors. To keep its price from rising to United States' prices, the Allies, especially Great Britain, were determined to break the United States guaranteed farm prices. If the German blockade were not lifted (so the British reasoned), and the Central European market, by whatever credit makeshifts, were not opened to the flow of United States produce, United States food prices would collapse. Congress was not prepared to support a growing surplus that could not be absorbed. Mr. Hoover felt this urgency with special force. As United States Food Administrator he had encouraged and in large part directed the wartime farm build-up—a build-up that the French and British had sup-
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ported with purchases in large measure paid for out of special credits from the United States. In these circumstances, Mr. Hoover now devised and struggled to secure the adoption of feasible and comprehensive ways of relieving the price differentials, but the British, especially Winston Churchill, who in this was vehemently supported by Marshal Foch, insisted that the Germans should obtain no foreign food until they accepted the peace terms being drafted at Versailles.8 On February 19, 1919, Mr. Hoover addressed a memorandum to the American Peace Commission on Relief Negotiations with the Allied Governments, in which he declared, "The uses to which the blockade of foodstuffs is being put are absolutely immoral. I do not feel that we can, with any sense of national honor and dignity, longer continue to endure this situation. . . . I wish to solemnly warn the Peace Conference as to the impending results in the total collapse of the social situation in Europe." 9 In private hearings, the British leaders, especially Prime Minister Lloyd-George and Lord Robert Cecil (1864-1958), then serving as chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, had begun to give ground to such representations. But Mr. Hoover's memorandum did not wake the French—Premier Clemenceau, Foreign Secretary Stephen Pichon ( 1 8 5 7 1933), and Marshal Foch, any more than had his previous warnings. Mr. Hoover now insisted that the issue be removed from the morass of subordinate committees and be taken as a single confrontation to the Supreme Economic Council. This group refused it, and referred it to the Supreme War Council. Saturday, March 8, 1919, this body—the gathered chiefs, with experts from their delegations, and a few Americans, led by Mr. Hoover—met in the Quai d'Orsay in secret session. Here, the French gave way. The Council ordered
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Hoover's terms enacted. Five days later, Mr. Hoover, with an Allied delegation supervised by the British Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss (1864-1933), met German delegates at Brussels and there perfected an accord to revictual Germany.10 This process was begun.11 Later, in his Memoirs (Vol. I, p. 352) Mr. Hoover wrote, The maintenance of the blockade on food during those four months from the Armistice until March was a crime in statesmanship and against civilization as a whole. But no one who reads the documents of the time, the minutes of a hundred tense meetings, will ever charge that crime against America. And yet we in America have had to suffer from the infections of revenge and bitterness which for a generation poisoned German life. Nations can take philosophically the hardships of war; when the fighting is over they begin to bury the past as part of the fight. But when they lay down their arms and surrender upon promises and assurances that they will be no longer attacked and that they may have food for their women and children, and then find that the worst instrument of attack upon them is maintained—then hate never dies. In after years, the mine they had planted blew up in the faces of the world peace-makers.
Addressing a public meeting at Haverford College in December, 1920, Mr. Hoover declared: "I have no desire to play upon your emotions. My one desire is to appeal to your common sense. . . . We have insisted that the life of children is a first charge upon the obligations of every nation— in each and every locality where we are today maintaining this service of relief you will find by analysis that the nation is unable to supply or borrow a single dollar with which to secure American relief commodities. . . . Two more years of American relief means to these children survival. . . . They form the foundations of the state in Central and Eastern Europe. If we abandon them, they form the inhabitants of
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the jails of the world. Our children will have to build them. . . . Peace is not made by documents. Peace is made only in the hearts of men. . . ." 1 2 In "An Interview with Herbert Hoover," reported by I. F. Marcosson in the Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1921, Mr. Hoover states, "There is no more inconceivable folly than this continued riot of expenditure on battleships at a time when great masses of humanity are dying of starvation in certain parts of the world, parallel with bursting warehouses of rotting food in other places. The continued waste of the world's energies and resources in such foolishness instead of moving these commodities to centers of famine is one of the most amazing failures of statesmanship of our times." In short, Herbert Hoover saw the peoples and the resources of the western world as a whole, and grasped the core of Europe's predicament: Without sufficient food, there could be no social order. While Mr. Hoover was doing so much to restore Germany, the Quakers were active too. In midsummer, 1919, Dr. Alice Hamilton, with Jane Addams, Carolena Wood, and two or three British Friends, surveyed German needs for the American Friends Service Committee. They reported deaths attributable to the post-Armistice blockade at 700,000 and incidence of tuberculosis among German children at 35 per cent. Of pregnant women, 70 per cent were critically undernourished, and 30 per cent died in childbed.13 In December, 1919, a comprehensive census was taken on the basis of the weight-height ratio—the Rolirer Index, at the time "the greatest scientific investigation of the physical result of undernourishment ever taken." 14 This indicated that in Germany there were 10,000,000 critically hungry children, at least 1,000,000 of whom were in immediate danger of death by starvation.15 By summer, 1920, the incidence of tubercu-
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losis among school children had risen to 90 per cent. 16 "As we went about," wrote one of the Quaker party, "there rang in my ears the words of the desperate mother to the prophet: 'I have . . . but a handful of meal in the barrel, and a little oil in the cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.' 1 7 So far has Germany gone." 18 Defeated, deceived by their leaders, bewildered, and embittered, Germans in all walks of life sought outside their country for signs of understanding and a measure of human concern. Many looked hopefully to America, one of the few countries relatively untouched by the war, to supply materials for relief and reconstruction. In the autumn of 1919, Herbert Hoover asked a few members of the Friends Committee to meet him for luncheon in a Philadelphia restaurant. There he quietly inquired whether the American Friends Service Committee would go in and undertake the entire responsibility for distributing relief in Germany. The American Relief Administration would support the work with funds and goods and services in substantial, mutually acceptable amounts, while the Friends Committee would make every effort to raise supplementarv money, would pay the overhead for AFSC workers, and would direct the distribution of relief by local German groups. These arrangements would be subject to mutual review the following summer. 19 In his letter of confirmation to Rufus Jones, Mr. Hoover wrote, Despite the losses and suffering imposed upon the American people by the old German Government, I do not believe for a moment that the real America would have any other wish than to see any possible service done in protection of child life, wherever it is in danger. We have never fought with women and children. I particularly turn to you because I am anxious that efforts of this
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kind should not become the subject of political propaganda. The undoubted probity, ability, and American character of the Quakers for generations will prevent any such use being made of your service. . . . I believe that there are many patriotic American citizens of German descent who will be willing and anxious to contribute to your Society for this work. . . . Subscriptions to you under these arrangements will secure a much larger result in actual food delivered than through any other sources. 20 T o an associate Mr. Hoover wrote, " I t is with this Committee that I have chosen to cooperate and with this Committee alone—a fact that I have emphasized very strongly in the United States . . . it is so easy to slip. . . . I commend [the Friends] as the only Society that should be supported by people of German descent in the United States for this work. . . . Moreover, the Quaker spirit of pacifism . . . will do some people in Germany good. . . . I know that you and the whole European A. R. A. organization will cooperate with the Friends Committee in the same spirit." 2 1 On November 6, 1919, the A F S C decided, "With some realization of the great responsibility and wonderful opportunity involved . . . to accept Mr. Hoover's invitation and to undertake the relief work for the children of Germany." 2 2 By so doing the A F S C became, in one respect, a branch of the ARA, which (though private) was itself in some ways an arm of the United States government. 2 3 By terms mutually acceptable, the A F S C agreed to pay the overhead cost of its own money-raising and administration and to supervise and control field distribution, whether of goods supplied bv itself or by the ARA. A F S C personnel or German volunteers, working in cooperation with the A F S C , the ARA, or the German government, were to be under OuaV.cr direction. For its part, the ARA agreed to supply the A F S C with goods and nionev; to pav all loading, transport.
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and insurance costs, over land and by water, from points of origin to German ports; to store AFSC supplies in the German warehouses of the ARA, so far as was practicable; and to tide the AFSC over gaps in its own provisioning. The ARA held space priorities in ships of the United States Food Administration Grain Corporation, and would use this space to haul AFSC supplies. The German government was to haul the goods to inland distribution points. Cable facilities were opened, passports speeded, credits arranged, invoice systems reconciled, and cargoes checked and traced by the ARA. The ARA also agreed to go to market for the Quakers, a service that might save the Quakers as much as 40 per cent of the wholesale cost of certain items sold in the United States. 24 In addition to this, Herbert Hoover accepted chairmanship of the AFSC's subcommittee for child relief in Germany, Austria, and Poland.2"' These were excellent arrangements, but vexing questions soon arose. External political pressures assailed the ARA. These the ARA could not avoid passing on to the Quaker Committee in the form of increased dictation. The prospect of upheavals in Germany—the result of misery and persisting violence, led the ARA to caution the Committee against too rapid expansion of its work. For who could foretell how much support of the Germans the Congress and the public would tolerate? The American press already was full of claims that the Germans were being coddled. However, the German government eagerly accepted the offer of relief extended in December, 1919, and, through the Spanish Legation, then representing our government in Berlin, rapidly executed the formal entry papers. 26 The German Ministry of National Economy guaranteed exemption from custom charges, taxes, and internal shipping costs on Quaker goods, with free warehouse space at the port of Hamburg,
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and first-class freight priorities, plus free travel and free telephone, telegraph, and postal service for the Quaker workers.-7 The government earnestly desired to assist in every way. These perquisites were quickly supplemented with grants of flour and sugar to the value of $2,400,000. 28 German Army trains and field kitchens were made available. Army doctors, nurses, and cooks were allowed to volunteer. Hospitals, schools, and barracks were opened to the Quakers as distribution centers.29 The AFSC began its actual relief on the afternoon of February 26,1920. At 4:00 P.M., 100 children gathered in the Kinder Klinik in Berlin where each received a big cup of hot cocoa. Within three days, 5,500 were receiving daily supplementary food in the Berlin schools; seven days later, the number had increased to 14,700, and plans called for a daily ration to 85,000 children in Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, and Chemnitz. 30 Expectant and nursing mothers, certified by physicians as critically needy, were included in the steadily enlarging program. Their daily supplement was about 660 calories; the children's was 400. 31 By April, 1920, the AFSC was feeding 240,000 Germans daily; by the end of April, the figure had been raised to 366,000. 32 The food shipped in had amounted to 7,500 tons of flour, lard, chocolate, sugar, beans, and the like, with about 108,000 cases of milk concentrates. 33 Herbert Hoover's genius, a steady and amazing source of practical help, also had produced a scheme by which Americans of ordinary means could make extraordinary use of their dollars for relief. This was the Food Draft Package Plan, predecessor of the CARE program that developed after the Second World War. Instituted by the ARA in December, 1919, the plan gave Americans an opportunity to buy $5.00
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drafts from their local banks. These were forwarded to ARA representatives in Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Czecho-Slovakia, who delivered food to the value of the drafts to the persons named by the donor. (The same service was later extended to Russia.) It was understood that the ARA would reckon the value of the food put up in each package at current American prices, but because the ARA bought food in huge amounts, it purchased at less than current prices. There was, therefore, a gross profit on each package. This profit, less overhead, was turned back into the ARA's general relief fund, or allotted to other agencies for their relief needs. The banks that sold and forwarded the drafts performed this service without compensation. By the active help of the American Bankers Association through some 4,500 of its members, the plan became an immediate success.34 In the methodical German manner, a union was formed in May, 1920, of the chief German social welfare agencies to help coordinate foreign aid with Germany's own efforts. This widely representative interparty, interdenominational body of delegates included the following organizations: Association of German County Administrations Bureau of Health Caritas Society for Catholic Germany Central Committee of the Lutheran Home Mission Board Central Committee for Workers' Welfare Council of National Societies for Social Hygiene German Child Welfare Council German Red Cross Ministry of Food and Agriculture Ministry of the Interior Ministry of Labor
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National Congress of Social Agencies Prussian Council of Cities Prussian Ministry of Welfare Representatives of the Laboring Classes Representatives of the Middle Classes Representatives of the Teaching Profession Its name was the Deutscher Zentralausschuss für die Auslandshilfe (German Central Committee for Foreign Relief), abbreviated to the initials DZA.35 In consultation with British and American Quaker representatives, Germany was organized into eight relief districts, with a central office in each district: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Ruhr-Westphalia (Essen) British Occupied Territory (Cologne) North Prussia-Mecklenburg (Hamburg) Brandenburg-Pomerania-North Saxony (Berlin) West Saxony-Thuringia (Leipzig) Hessen-Baden-Wurtemburg (Frankfurt a/M) East Saxony-Silesia (Dresden) Bavaria (Munich) 36
Two or more AFSC workers were sent to each of these headquarters, except Cologne, which was under the British Friends, to coordinate and inspect the allocation, transportation, and distribution of supplies; to help organize and direct the district's local volunteer groups; to arrange for the medical examination of mothers and children seeking rations; to make periodic reports, inventories, and audits; to enable efficient, honest, nonpartisan, and friendly local implementation of this program. The DZA was supervised by an official of the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the central office and
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warehouses of which were at Hamburg. Each local committee was required to provide insurance against fire and theft, and to guarantee replacement of lost supplies. 37 On the back of the food cards issued to children medically certified as being most undernourished appeared the following message, in German: "This food is contributed by Americans and is distributed by the Religious Society of Friends who, for 250 years, have held that love and goodwill, not war and hatred, will bring about better world conditions." The signature was that of the American Friends Service Committee, Children's Relief Mission for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) from America, in conjunction with the American Relief Administration's European Children's Fund; Herbert Hoover, Chairman. 38 From the moment that the AFSC decided to enter Germany, it sought contributions from the American public using, as it had done in France, the double theme of need and opportunity. Overhead expenditure was kept at 2 per cent of the total budget. Every cent given for relief was spent for relief; maintenance of workers was paid by members of the Society of Friends; overhead absorbed no part of the general contributions. 39 Americans of German descent were the first who were asked to contribute. Mr. Hoover took the view that these German-Americans were perhaps the only Americans whom the AFSC should approach. 40 Wilbur K. Thomas, Executive Secretary of the AFSC, was confident that once the GermanAmerican groups were thoroughly interested, the Committee could collect $10,000,000 from them. 41 In 1920 more than three hundred German-American societies were persuaded to take part in the work, 42 nothwithstanding the bitterness that had been heaped upon their members in wartime. 43 Though the Chief of the American Rhineland Commission, Pierre-
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pont B. Noyes, reported that so terrible was the hunger that without food efforts to keep order in the Rhineland must be despaired of, and though this expressed the common view of officials in the field, most American newspapers persisted in disparaging the need for aid.44 The main reservoirs of ARA funds were grants from governments, public contributions, and the Food Draft Package profits. As these were not enough, Mr. Hoover urged a general American appeal by all the agencies at work in Central Europe, in the name of the European Children's Fund, which was the ARA's branch for raising funds.45 A united drive would be less expensive and, if jealousy and competition could be put aside, would produce considerably more money for the children than appeals by individual agencies.46 Because doubts were arising about the size and steadiness of German-American donations, the AFSC decided that a major public drive should be launched, either alone or through the European Children's Fund. But before this could be done, the German government had more clearly to describe its own effort, for unless it could show that it was straining every tax resource to care for its own children, few Americans could be expected to respond to the appeal.47 At the end of June, 1920, a conference was called by Mr. Hoover in New York. It was attended by representatives of the ARA warehouses, the ARA's European Children's Fund, the AFSC, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the YMCA, and the Y W C A . As chairman, Mr. Hoover called for "cooperation and mutual assistance . . . not for consolidation of effort." 48 He suggested forming a new moneyraising association which all the organizations represented there could join. The suggestion was followed, and the European Relief Council was formed.49 In time it was also joined by the American Red Cross, the Federal Council of
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Churches, the Knights of Columbus, and the National Catholic Welfare Council. Although the AFSC did not relish involvement in "big-time charity" organized in lavish offices and drawing rooms, it hoped that this experiment might bring results that would augment its own appeals. At this time the ARA said that it would turn over its own work in Austria and Poland to the Quakers. As a result, large commitments would have to have been made that would inevitably have modified the German program and the AFSC's relations with the German government and the home public. A few days after the New York City conference, however, Herbert Hoover called the executives of the AFSC into his office and told them that the Austria-Poland offer was rescinded/'0 Offsetting this reversal was the likelihood that the Committee would be more free to enter Russia when the way opened.51 Mr. Hoover instructed his staff to give all possible help to the Quaker drive,52 and issued a $2,000,000 supplementary grant, stipulating that it be expended before the year was out.53 To build the German program to a high level whose maintenance could not be assured was a risk,54 but the Committee decided to carry on in Germanv until the summer of 1921.55 By July, 1920, after five months in Germany, about $3,000,000 worth of food had been purchased by the AFSC. Twenty-five American representatives were in the field, coordinating the services of about 20,000 German volunteers. Daily food was now provided to 632,000 children and expectant and nursing mothers, in 3,892 feeding centers: schools, day nurseries, hospitals, and churches. The largest center, Berlin, served 35,000 supplementary meals a day. Recipients who could do so were asked to contribute 25 pfennigs toward the cost of the food. After six or seven weeks of daily half-liter portions of cocoa, or rice or pea or bean soup, with bread or a roll, the children showed gains in
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weight of from four to eight pounds. All this might have appeared to be a huge program, but it was really very little compared to the immensity of need. The current plan was to cut back during the summer harvest season, then to carry the load at the 600,000 figure from September 1 through the winter and spring to June 1, 1921. This would cost about $6,300,000." The financial outlook was not good, but even 600,000 daily meals only met a small part of the need. The cereal crop in Germany in 1920 came to only 55 per cent of normal.68 The AFSC, therefore, had to try to double its planned load and reluctantly had to decline the German government's request to feed young people over fourteen years of age.59 This European crop failure coincided with a sharp falling-off in American contributions. 60 But there had come into Germany, so far, additional relief goods worth $5,000,000 from American and European sources unrelated to the Quaker work.61 In September, Mr. Hoover offered an emergency grant that would carry a daily program of 625,000 meals up to February 1, 1921. Perhaps the AFSC would have to close in Germany at that point. Meanwhile, for every dollar Friends could raise, the ARA donated another half dollar and there was the small but steady subsidy derived from Food Draft Package profits on the five million pounds of additional American food brought into Germany by that agency.62 In November the AFSC, backed by unexpended AFSC reserves, by the hope of continued German government subsidies in kind, by Food Draft Package profits, and by the hope of funds from fresh solicitations, decided to attempt a daily program for a million children through the winter and on to the next midsummer.63 The American yellow press still insisted that relief in Germany should stop; that it was the
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Germans' turn to suffer; that the Quakers were in Germany only to proselytize and pamper a well-fed, guilty people. 64 Contributions from German-American societies had not come up to expectation, 65 though some made notable efforts to help. For example, the Turnverein of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, petitioned the Alien Property Custodian to release its assets so that they could be sold and the entire proceeds given to the AFSC. But this petition was denied. 66 The Committee now concurred with Mr. Hoover that after June of 1921, it should turn over the responsibility for feeding Germany to the German people themselves.67 But the German government could neither rally more food at home nor buy more food abroad until some sort of credit was established by the men wrestling with the reparations problem. 88 A careful census taken at this time in a representative district showed that of a composite population of 5,000,000, the number of critically undernourished children under fifteen years of age and of expectant and nursing mothers was about 2,000,000, a figure far above previous estimates. The Friends asked how many of these needy people the government could support. The answer came: Not more than 500,000, at the most. How many, from present and prospective resources, could the Quakers feed? At most, not more than 700,000. Who then was going to care for the others? 69 It was also doubtful whether the local committees of Germans could withstand the pressures to give the work a political or sectarian character, and whether enough hardheaded idealists could be found among interested Germans to hold the program to an efficient level.70 On the American side, Mr. Hoover wrote in January, 1921: "From the beginning, the American Relief Administration has been compelled to occupy the position of guarantor to the Friends Service Committee in its undertakings for the
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feeding of German children, arising from the fact that the Friends Service Committee has no certainty of resources with which to undertake the risks of continuous forward operation extending over many months." 71 Relations between the Quaker German representatives and the ARA at this time and for some months to come were complicated by Herbert Hoover's becoming a member of President Harding's Cabinet. Mr. Harding was outspoken in support of German feeding. 72 Herbert Hoover, too, wished to help the Quakers. His young official colleague, Christian A. Herter (1895), was less certain.73 By March, 1921, the end of their first twelve months in Germany, the American Quakers had made available about 100,000,000 meals, from carefully distributed feeding stations. Herbert Hoover, through the ARA, had so far supplied about $6,000,000 in money, goods, and transportation. 74 Student feeding got under way that spring. It, too, raised many questions. One of the most vexing was that of student political activity.75 Communist riots in the Ruhr and other regions excited hungry students, but the progress of Friends work was only slightly affected by these disturbances. At times, the Quaker food trucks and trains were the only transport that the strikers allowed to pass. Popular respect for this work continued even in the areas of major turmoil.76 The worst time of year in hungry lands is not, for the most part, winter, but late spring and early summer when resistance is low and every bin is bare. Nature does not hurry. This is also the time of floods and ruinous rains, or droughts. Consequently, the AFSC stepped up its springtime feeding to 935,000 daily supplemental meals, and strove successfully to reach the 1,000,000 mark before the end of June.77 The increase had gotten support from the German-American societies, aroused by Ferdinand Thun, of Reading, Pennsyl-
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vania.78 Had the Turnvereinen not stepped forward at this juncture, the AFSC might have had to say: In Germany, we are defeated. That autumn, the State Department instructed Ellis Loring Dresel, a representative in Germany, to study "the American organizations now operating in Germany, and give particulars as to German efforts for alleviating distress." To his technical report, Dresel added, "I cannot speak too highly of the quiet, tactful, and efficient manner in which representatives of the American Friends Service Committee have carried on their work. . . . I hear nothing but praise from officials of the German Government as well as from the various German societies co-operating . . . there is no doubt but that this feeding of children has had a far-reaching effect in preventing a further spread of radicalism, particularly among the working class and unemployed." In closing his report, Dresel urged his superiors to recommend the AFSC for a federal allotment to support its program through the spring of 1922. 79 Larger ARA grants, although not direct federal grants of funds, were stimulated by such reports. The AFSC decided to try to carry on through another winter and spring. 80 It had been suggested that the AFSC might do well to post the American flag in each of its German offices and feeding stations. The Quakers referred the question to the United States Charge d'Affaires in Berlin, who advised that in his opinion such display was not appropriate within a nation still technically at war with the United States. 81 In many other instances, State Department representatives greatly helped the Quakers, in Germany and at home. When the Friends went into Germany, Dr. Frederick Keppel, an old friend from his War Department days, had inquired what support he might recommend to his new em-
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ployers, the American Red Cross, in Washington. While the Red Cross never supplied any large-scale aid for Germany to the Service Committee, it did provide many useful services, such as access to the communications relay center that it operated in Berlin. On one occasion the Red Cross did give the AFSC 500,000 yards of cotton flannel and, later, large gifts of yard goods, knitting wool, and pajamas. 83 Each year in Germany, the Service Committee had to decide on hundreds of appeals that individuals addressed to the Red Cross in America and that the Red Cross handed on to the Committee. In general, it was impossible to act upon special pleas, whether they came from prisons, schools, hospitals, orphanages, parents and guardians, or from children themselves. The policy was hard to maintain. Those who established and obeyed it knew many bitter hours. But what alternative was there without sufficient funds? 84 In October, 1921, the AFSC decided to spend less for child relief and more for students and a clothing program, and gradually to shift its activity from Germany into Russia.86 For Committee use, the German-American societies had so far raised about $1,300,000, and it was hoped they would continue their earnest, friendly, but still insufficient efforts by contributing to the DZA, which was in training to take over from the Friends and carry on by means of 40,000 German volunteers already enlisted in the work.86 Through the quiet help of the American Red Cross, the AFSC had managed to discourage the German Red Cross from attempting to assume full, rather than associate, control of the DZA.87 Prospects for grants from the German government and public, as well as from abroad, were better than fair, and the time was coming when the DZA could be a self-directing body. Pending final transfer, the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture took control of feeding work, subject to AFSC inspection and
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review. The work in Upper Silesia and in the Saar Valley continued under the AFSC. 8 8 In January, 1922, the Committee reduced its field staff of Americans to seven 89 on the principle that "no foreign relief agency should exercise control over the charitable work in any given country longer than is absolutely necessary." 90 Daily meals had been reduced to 500,000. 91 On August 1, 1922, the DZA was in a position to carry on alone. Committee work in Germany had been brought to its scheduled end. Now the Friends could put their hands to needs farther east. 92 Close and productive ties had developed between Committee workers and German government officials. Friends were impressed by the simplicity of life and the evident sincerity of many of the builders of the German Republic, and by their struggle to resolve Germany's economic and political dilemmas in the interests of the people as a whole. A New Year's tea at which the President, Dr. Friedrich Ebert (18701925), and Mrs. Ebert entertained the entire Quaker delegation and their German colleagues93 is still remembered with gratitude. Dr. Ebert has been referred to as "the true leader for an incipient democracy." 94 The second, wholly unanticipated, phase of American Friends Service Committee work in Germany was in several respects the more difficult. Immediately after the war the problem had been to find food. Those dreadful years were followed by what seemed to be recovery, but the unsteady platform upon which this recovery was erected crashed down under forces that had been gathering strength since 1914, indeed since 1870. Germany's temporary easement had hidden for a time the fundamental insecurity: agriculture and industry disordered, reserves, credits, markets gone, and worst of all, perhaps, German fortitude, which friend and foe
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alike acknowledged, at last broken. Germany's young men, by the hundreds of thousands, were maimed or dead. Obsessions took hold: greed, hatred, revenge, idleness, boredom, drunkenness, wantonness, despair, and the desire for death. German and foreign relief organizations, including the AFSC, were called upon in the early spring of 1923 to help in the French-occupied Ruhr Valley, which was gradually "sliding into chaos." 95 The Committee pondered the matter, especially the problems that would arise between the Quakers and the State and War Departments of the United States, the French Military Occupation, and the German government. The Philadelphia office cabled for more information. The reply gave assurance that the German government was eager for Quaker aid; the French might permit it; and without relief from outside, open warfare was likely to break out. The Committee then listed those on whom it could rely to support such promises as it might make. 96 Pending a decision, the AFSC asked the United States War Department to distribute Army surplus foodstuffs stored in Coblenz. 97 The German government and the DZA, which had worked along steadily since the Quakers left, formally besought the AFSC to renew its help. The Friends decided that their representatives in Europe, and Wilbur Thomas, the Executive Secretary, also then in Europe, should make a thorough study of the DZA's accomplishments and its prospects in the Ruhr. Perhaps DZA effort would suffice.98 In April, Wilbur Thomas cabled, "DZA functioning effectively Ruhr. Believe Friends should not take charge under present conditions, but Homer Morris remaining special Quaker commissioner Ruhr headquarters. Many opportunities for services reconciliation." 99 Unless the French occupation forces began to interfere, the DZA program might prove to be enough. 100
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In August, 1923, however, Dr. Otto Wiedfelt (1871-1926), the German Ambassador to Washington, attended a meeting of the Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. He put the case for immediate outside help in the strongest possible terms. 101 His urgency seconded reports received from Friends in Europe and from American officials, particularly Commissioner Noyes. 102 Through taxation, borrowing, and begging, the German government was struggling to take care of the children and the scarcely less desperate adult population. President Ebert's appeal to the Quakers through our State Department was the appeal of a man with his back to the wall. His situation was rendered more acute by the refusal of some wealthy Germans to pay extra taxes. 103 Finally, in September, seven and a half months after the request, the Committee started feeding in the Ruhr. 104 At this point something happened that Quakers must never forget. Henry T. Allen (1859-1930), our general commanding in the Ruhr, offered to help raise money for the work. He said that conditions of life, especially the life of children, compelled assistance. This conviction was shared by most of his command. His offer was accepted, and soon there was formed in the United States the "National Committee to Appeal for Funds for German Child Feeding." 105 Hard work by General Allen, who returned for the purpose, and his board provided within a period of weeks some $250,000 for AFSC distribution. Prospects of more money were excellent. 108 Well might the Quakers, called to Germany a second time, be grateful for the help of this determined soldier, regarded by many as the best divisional commander in the United States Army.107 Help came from another quarter, too. The old friend, ARA, in a state of "absolute liquidation . . . and . . . physically about to withdraw from Europe," 108 offered Food Draft
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Package profits, about $20,000 monthly, to the Quakers. Mr. Hoover also said a few old ARA hands would be glad to help keep the system moving, but the Quakers at this juncture had their hands full of other matters and suggested that the package plan be devolved on General Allen and his associates. 109 When feasible, the DZA was to collect a token fee for food consumed, although no one was excluded because of inability to pay. All unused food was to be considered Committee property. The DZA was to guarantee a distribution based solely upon relative need, with children having absolute priority. These terms were made subject to mutual revision or termination, but the Quakers were granted the final word on all points in question. 110 Professor Haven Emerson of the Columbia University Medical School and Professor E. M. Patterson of the University of Pennsylvania, with Henry Tatnall Brown of the AFSC, joined the Quaker team to counsel and help direct the work. 111 Final instruments of cooperation were drawn up and signed between the Allen Committee, whose name was now changed to "American Committee for the Relief of German Children," and the AFSC on December 14, 1923. 112 Backed by a large board of eminent persons, this committee set its goal at $3,000,000, of which about $1,700,000 had already been raised, and the AFSC authorized its field workers to gear up to a million daily meals by February 15, 1924. 113 President Ebert's pleas were widely circulated, as were endorsements by Herbert Hoover. The AFSC devised ways to make vivid the picture of the distressed Ruhr to people in the United States. 114 Hardest hit were the children of middle-class families, whose incomes, in large part fixed, were engulfed by inflation. Itself on the brink of economic collapse, the German government had no foreign credit with which to purchase
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food, nor could it obtain food or money grants from other European governments. General Allen appealed to the public: "American food at this time in very large quantities will d o much to save the German nation and Western civilization from sinking into chaos." 115 As before, the American yellow press persisted in trying to convince the public that harsher treatment would cure what was wrong with Germany, 119 but in spite of this opposition, more than $2,757,000 was raised by public subscription before the end of March, 1924.117 These contributions witli grants from the German government saved the relief program. Full support by General Dawes, Owen D. Young of the Reparations Commission, and other men of equal reputation was a powerful encouragement to the public to give— encouragement that was still urgently needed.11S Workers in the field reported epidemic tuberculosis, pellagra, and scrofula among the children.119 It was learned through unimpeachable reports that in the second quarter of 1923, more than 4,500 dogs had been officially slaughtered in Berlin for food. Four-fifths of the city's families lacked the barest necessities. Most unskilled German workers were receiving only some 10 per cent of their 1914 wages, and the cost of food had doubled, trebled, quadrupled. The unemployed numbered 5,000,000; but the dole was available for only 1,500,000. W i t h the dole, the bread winner could buy one pound of black bread a day for his family, and nothing else. Everywhere in Germany deaths exceeded births, in some localities by 50 per cent.120 In February, with the approval of the French Ambassador Margerie in Berlin, General Allen went to General Degoutte, commander of the French occupation forces in the Ruhr, to seek permission to bring food supplies into the Ruhr over the French-controlled railways free of French
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transportation charges and customs exactions. General Allen had prompted the AFSC to ship ten tons of food over one of the French-controlled lines as a final test of the French military's refusal to cooperate.122 General Degoutte consented to pass a number of plainly marked and registered food cars, to halve the tariffs on AFSC food, and to waive import duties altogether. He refused, however, to admit additional DZA workers to the zone without long delays.123 And there were other worries, too. An English Friend wrote to Rufus Jones to tell him of the sad case of some five hundred men of the Ruhr who were being held as political prisoners and hostages by the French. Friends had had a Question asked about them in the House of Commons, but so far nothing had come of it. ". . . We wondered very much whether it would be possible for Friends in America to approach the French Ambassador at Washington and ask him whether he could see his way clear to press for the amnesty of these prisoners," prisoners whose trials, reputed to be farces, and convictions were causing great bitterness.124 The AFSC decided not to make a formal representation to the French Ambassador, but rather to send two Friends to Washington to talk with him informally, as private citizens. The two Friends who made the visit reported a pleasant meeting, "but," they said, "we are unable to state whether any definite results have been secured." 125 Even sadder was the case of some six hundred children abandoned by their American soldier fathers in and around Coblenz with their needy German mothers. The Service Committee petitioned the War Department either to contribute to the relief of these mothers and babies or to bring their situation sharply to the attention of the fathers. It must be said that a few of these men were eager to bring their children and wives to the United States, but regulations
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made this difficult, if not impossible. Most of the soldiers involved had run away. All had been under the command of General Allen. To this petition Secretary of War Weeks responded: "The situation alleged in your letter is most unfortunate and arouses the sympathetic concern of all of us. Your suggestions would meet with a ready response from the Department were such action possible. I am, however, reluctantly forced to the admission that no legal authorization exists for our participation in such relief work as suggested by you." 126 Friends did what they could for these women and children.127 In April, 1924, the AFSC again decided to try to increase daily meals to 1,000,000 through the next month, and then to cut back to 500,000 though the summer. Something also had to be done to help undernourished DZA workers.128 "For your information," states a Quaker cable from Berlin in May, "since stabilization of mark, steady improvement economic situation. Mission believes worst time danger general breakdown passed. If Dawes Report put into effect and currency remains stable, emergency such as last autumn and winter will not return. However, undernourishment accentuated by recent distress still exists and requires carrying our program as minimum. Middle class depending on fixed income which now vanished face hopeless future. Also tuberculosis will be serious problem several years. Government must provide these needs but not sufficiently able this year. Next stage foreign relief concentrate as above. Believe state reached when foreign appeals large general relief detrimental social conscience which has grown during period distress. Child feeding should continue by turning over to German organization as in 1922. . . ." 129 If the German situation really improved and the German-
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American societies were more ready to support the German agencies, the Friends might be able to leave Germany and turn their attention to needs in Austria, Poland, and especially Russia. But if the betterment in Germany's economic situation were not real, the Service Committee would be called upon again. 130 The Allen Committee had topped its three-million-dollar goal by $5,000. This money, less collection costs (about 7 per cent), 1 3 1 had been almost entirely spent, principally for food. 182 Now the Allen group disbanded, assigning remaining funds and pledges, amounting to about $150,000, and large orders of cod liver oil, sheeting, dressings, clinical equipment, and clothing, to the DZA.133 In acknowledging the aid found by General Allen, the Quakers stated that . . the funds which were turned over to us by your Committee have been a challenge to the German government and the more interested people in Germany . . . in a spirit of high idealism, and in spite of much adverse criticism [you and your associates] have made the people of the U.S. realize that this was not a partisan, but a humanitarian work." 134 Beyond estimation, too, had been the collaboration of the British Friends. The German government itself had all along done many times as much relief work as foreign sources had contributed, paying for it through a special tax, and through contributions from municipalities and responsive individuals.135 The AFSC put Allen's closing grants into DZA hands, turned over to it 5,000 tons of its own food and 121,000 cases of concentrated milk, and devolved to it full responsibility for further work.136 Technical details of the AFSC Ruhr program tell something of "relief science" at that time: The typical daily diet supplement in the Ruhr was about 680 calories—fats, 6.4
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per cent; cocoa, 2.3 per cent; sugar, 11.3 per cent; milk concentrate, 19.7 per cent; flour, 34.6 per cent; rice, 20.2 per cent; corned beef, 5.5 per cent. Of the food allotted, expectant and nursing mothers had received 1.8 per cent; youths between fifteen and eighteen years, 1 per cent; school children, 88.7 per cent; small children and infants, 8.5 per cent.1*7 From the feeding centers in the Ruhr a total of about 250,000,000 meals had been provided. The transfers to the DZA and the closing of its own offices and stations ended the American Friends Service Committee's relief work in Germany on October 1, 1924.138 Enough food was in store to support the DZA's planned 300,000 daily meal program through April 1, 1925. It was expected that municipalities whose own warehouses, volunteers, and food preparation systems were rapidly improving, would be ready to take feeding over from the DZA. The DZA expected to carry on antituberculosis efforts through 1925 and 1926 with support from German sources, public and private, and with the help of German Quakers, whose embracing of the principles of the Society of Friends may be considered one of the few wholesome aspects of this German postwar epoch.139 No account of Quaker work in Germany can be complete without a summary of Friends persistent efforts, from the outset, to secure relief grants from the Government of the United States. Needs as large as those of Germany could not possibly be met by private contributions. Government grants of some sort were imperative. To encourage such appropriation became a central aim of the relief agencies, including tlie Friends Service Committee. Senator Medill McCormick of Illinois (brother of the editor of the Chicago Tribune), sojourning in Berlin during Decern-
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ber, 1920, visited the Quaker office there and gave his check for the children. With it the Friends Committee bought underwear, which was given to the children at a Christmas party that the Senator attended. This was a scene of intense jubilation, and one of great happiness for Mr. McCormick. 140 Had the Service Committee been as fortunate in its dealings with all American senators and representatives, the happiness of giving and receiving on both sides of the ocean would have been more general. In March, 1921, Herbert Hoover besought our Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, to press the Congress for funds sufficient to support a full-scale program, a program that would help more than one or two out of every ten children. Mr. Hoover's appeal was fully supported by the principal State Department officials in Germany. 141 In November, 1922, the AFSC made a similar plea to President Harding. 142 Public sentiment for appropriation of this kind seemed strong; but that portion of the press and public that approved French methods in the Ruhr opposed it. 143 Again in the spring of 1923, the Service Committee called upon President Harding to consider seriously the possibility of a general reconstruction conference to which delegates of all the former Allies should be invited. Such a conference, the Friends felt, might lead to a coordinated intergovernmental program of relief. 144 In December of that year, Mr. Hoover declared it essential that the United States, together with other nations, allow the German government to buy food with United States credits guaranteed by other governments, 145 but nothing substantial came of these proposals. In February, 1924, Representative Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, arranged for Wilbur Thomas and General Allen to testify in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations
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Committee as to the urgency of Germany's food situation.1*6 The close of this hearing ". . . found the Senate Committee members who were quite hostile at first, genuinely interested in the situation," 147 full of sympathetic questions about relief in Germany, and apparently more ready to weigh the subject of congressional appropriation.148 Friends doubted, however, that Congress would act at that session.149 In March, Senators Borah, Dill, La Follette, Norris, and Shipstead publicly announced that they would support a German relief appropriation.1™ Energetic, skillful work had brought the House of Representatives to introduce a bill to appropriate $10,000,000 for the relief of German children, a bill that passed the House on March 25, 1924. Friends expected the bill to pass the Senate with little opposition;151 nevertheless they and others worked hard to make sure it did pass,152 arguing that the AFSC could well manage a program of that size to the satisfaction of the Congress and the President; that the AFSC would be distributing relief through the DZA, which had demonstrated competence and efficiency; and that Quaker relief would be, as always, absolutely nonpartisan.153 In the Senate, the bill was held in committee and never reached the floor. Evidence is clear that certain senators believed the Congress had no constitutional right to appropriate tax money for the relief of foreign nations. Other senators declared they would not vote for such appropriation until wealthy German-Americans themselves did more to help the work abroad. Still others expressed sharp dissatisfaction with the relief policies of the German government. Swallowing its disappointment over the bottling up of this $10,000,000 bill, the Service Committee next proposed an American loan to the German government to increase its food purchasing power.154 Nothing came of this. The Dawes Re-
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port drew attention from the dangerous condition of the children of Germany.185 America, it seemed, was tired of helping Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Poland, the Balkans, Greece, Russia, and the Near East, as well as Germany.168
6 POLAND AND UPPER SILESIA POLAND
The intergovernmental experience of the AFSC in Poland revolved around the struggle to check the epidemic of typhus fever that, through Poland, threatened all Europe. The disease was brought in by the millions of refugees entering Poland from the East. Here the Quaker concept of nonpartisan relief was threatened by the attempts of others to use food as a political weapon. For a period of four years from the spring of 1920, the Quakers held a firm line. They were helped by the ARA and ARC, as well as by the weak and harried Polish government, which finally under political and commercial pressure asked them to withdraw. It was in the spring of 1920 that the American Friends Service Committee sent their delegates to join the British Friends in Poland in work that then was looked upon as a step toward full-scale work in Russia. All efforts toward relief that summer were hampered by the Bolshevist invasion and the measures to repel it.1 Although the Treaty of Riga in October ended actual warfare in Poland, local flare-ups continued. Wrecked and looted by Reds and Whites, eastern Poland faced the winter almost bare of food, clothing, shoes, and medical supplies. Little was left of agriculture, transportation, and civil maintenance. 2 122
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With the ratifying of the treaty, relief had freer scope, and if the Friends could not at once expand in Russia, they could at least make a fresh start here. Recovery in Poland would be slow.3 The fierce national pride of the Polish was more suited to political action than to patient reconstruction, besides which the Polish people lacked experience in the public administration of social welfare. The most dangerous feature of the situation was the typhus epidemic that had ranged in the battle places for the past four years. British Friends, in answer to the Polish government's despairing plea,4 had plunged into the struggle to control the infection, but in the winter of 1919-20 the disease assumed proportions hitherto unknown in the history of the world.5 For this reason, and for political reasons, European governments, notably the French, tried to help the enfeebled Polish government. 6 But, as one American Army officer in Warsaw cabled to Philadelphia, "Situation for the present is beyond control." 7 The refugees swarming into Poland from the east, many of whom had already contracted the disease, brought typhus-transmitting lice. 8 The nature of typhus is suggested by its more common names: hospital fever, jail fever, lice fever, famine fever, spotted fever, or putrid fever. Where crowds live in filth and hunger they are subject to epidemics. During the Crimean War (1854-56), for example, typhus mortality among French troops was enormous. The incubation period is about ten days. The crisis is marked by extremes of fever (103 to 106 degrees) and pulse rate (100 to 120) accompanied by delirium. Other symptoms are spots and foul odors. DDT, first proved effective against typhus-bearing lice in the Naples epidemic of the winter of 1943-44, has since then checked the epidemic recurrence of this ghastly sickness. Antityphus work, ". . . as filthy a task as man's folly ever
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set his goodness to work on . . . begun by British Friends in southern Galicia, was rapidly extended into several valleys of the Carpathian Mountains. 9 The arrival of AFSC personnel just before the epidemic reached its peak gave new hands and new funds to the work, which was enlarged with Warsaw as its center. 10 For the month of April, 1920, typhus deaths in Poland were reported as 235,000. 11 Friends efforts took the form of systematic delousing of persons, clothes, and habitations and distributing extra food to children predisposed by hunger to infections; clean housing was provided for refugees previously huddled together in filth; and specific remedies were supplied to hospitals. A typhus sanatorium was opened at the charming mountain resort, Zakopane.12 With aid from the American Red Cross and American Relief Administration these countermeasures gathered speed and force. But they were still insufficient to check the epidemic. 13 In the autumn of 1920, the Friends, the American Red Cross, the ARA, and the Polish government, led by Dame Rachael Crowdy of England, petitioned the League of Nations for assistance.14 The League referred the matter for study and action to a subsection on epidemic control. 15 So terrible had the problem grown that this group of experts almost gave up in despair. 16 At this time Gertrude Powicke, a very able worker who had done excellent service in France as well as Poland, contracted the disease and died. The Poles, who respected the spirit she represented, and who loved her for herself, asked their priest for permission to bury her in consecrated ground. Bound by canon law to refuse their petition, the priest suggested that her grave be dug outside but parallel to the churchyard wall. The villagers gathered at this spot, and her body was silently laid in the earth. Next morning it was observed that the wall had bulged to include the grave of
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this Quaker woman. Rufus Jones often told this story, his face aglow with enthusiasm for this act of Christian sympathy. Donations in America for Poland were insignificant compared with the need. Work in a field so far removed from the experience of most people, with a people chronically afflicted with what seemed to be unwarranted political disorder, was curtailed for want of public support.17 But the American Relief Administration through its Children's Bureau had raised $2,000,000 to continue feeding in Armenia, Yugoslavia, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, and Poland, and the AFSC hoped a portion of this sum would be allotted to its work.18 We should remember that the ARA was a vast semigovernmental structure, and that the history of its operations, which were exceptionally complex, has never fully settled the problem of its motivation. Although its critics have sometimes accused the ARA of being politically reactionary, in Poland, as in Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, the Balkans, the Baltic States, the Near East, and the wilderness of revolutionary Russia,19 it acted vigorously and effectively on a large scale. In August, 1920, "the Chief" (as Herbert Hoover is still affectionately referred to by the veterans of his organization) sent this message to the ARA stations in Poland: "It is impossible to define policies from the United States, but we want to show every practical zeal in feeding Polish children even in territory occupied by the Bolsheviks." 20 Did this mean that the ARA, like the AFSC, the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee, and the American Red Cross, had bound itself to a nonpartisan policy? Friends hoped so. Yet reports kept reaching Philadelphia that ARA and Red Cross personnel accepted partisan advice from the British, French, and Polish military.21 The fact remained that here as else-
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where, however nonpartisan the will, the food available was insufficient. 22 To feed one group of children, another group had to go without. Friends were clear that they themselves could not take part in any program based on standards other than those of relative need (in itself no easy standard, if one holds but five loaves and two fishes). They would see whether the ARA and the American Red Cross, from whom the Quakers also received supplies, were equally determined that no fraction of their huge, but neither boundless nor sufficient, stores should be diverted into the channels of Polish politics.-' Initial signs augured well. Late in 1920, efforts of the ARA, the ARC, the British War Victims Relief Committee, and the AFSC delegations to coordinate their programs on common standards met with success.24 At the end of that year, twenty AFSC workers helped by Polish volunteers were providing four main types of aid: child feeding, from the Friends own supplies and supplies donated by the ARA for use in areas not covered by its own work; student relief—food, clothing, loans of money; medical relief, chiefly typhus prevention and care; and general refugee aid, milk supply, help to farmers and home industries, and aid to families of the middle class rendered destitute by inflation. 25 To the extent of its resources, the AFSC was also, at the special request of the United States State Department, helping Russian émigrés. This was always done with the full knowledge of the local Polish authorities. 26 Early in 1921, ARA field supervisors insisted on Mr. Hoover's rule: American contribution, American distribution. The two Quaker delegations, British and American, replied that their work could not be divided. As in Austria, so here— a compromise was effected. 27
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In Germany, it was the American Friends who performed the bulk of the relief work; in Poland, the Friends were second to their chief supporters, the ARA and ARC. 23 Both the British and American Friends Committees were careful that the ARA and ARC should receive full credit for the work that they supported.29 The Quakers had no reason to complain of ARA and ARC methods, 80 but they hoped that they themselves could gradually shift over into Russia. 31 The ARA in Warsaw now decided to supply food to youths up to eighteen years of age, and asked the AFSC group to supply personnel. This allowed the AFSC to devote more of its own supplies to hospitals and antityphus work. The work was strengthened by grants from the League of Nations and ARC, and the teams were enlarged by demobilized Polish physicians and nurses. The Red Cross asked the AFSC to help broaden child care. This request contradicted rumors that the Red Cross was preparing to leave Poland. 32 The AFSC plan, in the spring of 1921, was to go on distributing ARA and ARC supplies from ARA warehouses, and sending teams of trained workers into children's institutions that the ARC would open and supply. The teams would help put these institutions into running order and would remain until the local staff felt able to carry on. Ten teams would be needed, each led by a Polish-speaking nurse and a child welfare worker. Could the AFSC find twenty women so qualified? The Red Cross agreed to furnish milk dispensaries, nurseries, and orphanages if the AFSC could find Poles to manage them under Quaker supervision. A stipulation was attached that credit for the American Red Cross contributions must be announced by placards at each location.83 Decision on proposals of this kind was generally left by the AFSC to its field units or was made by the Committee
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itself according to advice from the field. In this instance, the Committee in Philadelphia decided to accept the Red Cross offer as far as its resources would allow.35 Meanwhile, the AFSC was negotiating with the American Relief Administration for 150 tons of cottonseed meal 36 and $50,000 worth of food.37 The successful outcome prompted the AFSC in Warsaw to ask Philadelphia to try to get more meal for the dairy program, and more food to expand the refugee work for which the ARA in Warsaw had no directives.38 Then came the welcome word that the ARA in New York had ordered its London branch to set up a special credit for AFSC use in Danzig, for Russian refugees. 39 Emphasis now began to change, from care for permanent residents of Poland to care for Russians fleeing into Poland and Poles returning homeward after long displacement in Russia.40 The shift was even more pronounced in the American Relief Administration and American Red Cross, that is, in official and semiofficial circles than in the Quaker work. Because the Friends generally were more concerned about the people omitted by the big agencies and did work that others were not prepared to undertake, both the ARA and ARC looked to them to give a lead in coping with the rapidly worsening refugee plight. The ARA and ARC were looking toward departure, and it was therefore agreed that the Poles must come to the rescue. The Polish government had contributed to the Anglo-American Friends program Army horses to plow the land,41 Army vans to haul the food, and Army physicians and nurses to help plan for antityphus work and feeding. 42 At a gathering of representatives of the ARA, the ARC, the Friends, and Hugh Gibson of the United States Legation, called together by the Polish government in January, 1922, to confer unofficially on the refugee problem, it became ap-
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parent that an intergovernmental loan for refugee relief could not be obtained; the Polish mark was too unstable. Nor was any foreign bank prepared to make a private loan without some stronger guarantee. No representative could commit his agency to a definite joint program, but all agreed to pool information for a joint report. They offered themselves as individual trustees of any private loans that their report and the representations of their agencies might secure from foreign sources. Five million dollars, the sum proposed, would enable refugee work to continue at its present level through 1922. 43 Here, apparently, the matter stopped. The immediate problem was money for the care of refugees still making their way into eastern Poland. Russia's staggering need could not be allowed to wipe out the consciousness of Poland's need. The campaign for funds proceeded against heavy odds.44 In the spring of 1922, the AFSC offered relief to refugees camped in the hills of the Vilna region, the former battle sector of east Poland, fought over first by the Germans and Russians, then by the Polish-Russian Reds and Whites. Some ten thousand families were living in dens and shot-riddled dugouts or in shanties thrown together from wreckage of the field. Food, clothing, medicines, and seed were given, and the Polish government was persuaded to lend one thousand Army horses on a cooperative basis. It was among these people and the other repatriates and refugees—about one million five hundred thousand altogether—that starvation reached its peak in Poland.45 Anglo-American Friends begged the Polish government for more building materials, freight and refugee transport, and more horses and fodder. During the winter of 1922-23 an average of ninety thousand refugees a month poured in, having walked the thousand miles from Russia subsisting on
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roots and grass. First the children, then their elders were stricken by tuberculosis. No less than three hundred thousand orphan waifs roamed about in bands. 46 An orphanage and an agricultural school for homeless boys were established at Kolpin. 47 But in September, 1923, the Warsaw Quaker Office received a formal communication from the Polish Ministry of the Interior declaring that the work of the joint Anglo-American Friends organization had been of such benefit to the Polish people . . that after December 31st next, the Polish people will not require aid from this generous source." 4fi Friends surmised that political and commercial considerations rather than the actual physical improvement of the situation had dictated this request. 49 On the leaving day, however, an official stay was telegraphed to all the Friends units: "The Ministry of the Interior considering the difficulties connected with the liquidation of the work on 31st December prolongs hereby the term for three months up to 31st March, 1924." But word of the official ouster had reached the American newspapers in October, and this virtually terminated the donations that might have sustained the Quaker program through the remaining three months/'1 To facilitate the transfer of responsibility, a group of Polish citizens called "The Committee for Help in the Polish Eastern Borders" was organized by the Quaker workers to carry on the Kolpin orphanage and school, and some of the reconstruction projects. 52 A few Friends were to stay on to help the transition. The Society of Friends was allowed by the Polish government to maintain a small Center in Warsaw as an international religious outpost.53
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UPPER SILESIA
Upper Silesian relief was undertaken in the midst of preparations for a plebiscite to be conducted by the League of Nations. The political situation was explosive. Germany and Poland bitterly contested control of this densely populated mining and industrial region. The Allies at Versailles had given up attempts to reconcile the conflicting claims in which the French also had much at stake. The plebiscite was scheduled for March 20, 1921. Upper Silesia was in the hands of the Inter-Allied Plebiscite Commission, which was made up of French, British, and Italians. No American troops were stationed there. A few Italian soldiers were assigned to keep order in one sector, while the British contingent consisted of about fifty officers. The French, however, had brought in a full division at combat strength. This force made little attempt to protect German inhabitants from terrorism organized bv Poles. Finally the British asked for troops and were sent a Scots regiment that gave the Germans a measure of security. Before the arrival of the AFSC, the Poles controlled a loose relief program already set up by the ARA, with headquarters in Warsaw. The first requirement was to establish the AFSC program as nonpartisan; the second, to hold all future work to strict neutrality. 54 Feeding children in the midst of bitterness and rioting was bound to be difficult. 55 The American Friends Service Committee made an attempt, bringing in two-thirds of the food from Hamburg and one-third from Krakow. Arguments or encounters with brigands often delayed the trains, however. One supply train arrived in Kattowitz with girl soldiers
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perched atop the roof of every car, each carrying a musket almost taller than she. 56 By January, 1921, the AFSC personnel had built up the program to a daily level of 28,000 supplementary meals for children in 62 towns and cities; the 262 centers and kitchens were staffed by local volunteers, each committee in charge being exactly one half German and one half Polish.57 Only when the volunteers grasped the importance of helping the children were they able to rise above partisan rancor. 68 The Plebiscite Commission helped by providing special passes. United States passports and AFSC credentials often carried no weight with sentries or police. Even papers issued by local authorities were not always honored by men guarding important routes and intersections. 59 The problems of expediting food from Krakow vexed the AFSC workers, for German or Polish locomotive engineers sometimes refused to man the trains, bring them to the borders, or take them across.60 Because the AFSC feeding was carried on solely on the basis of relative need, and because America's concern for the plebiscite was generally believed to be that of a nation interested in fair play, the supplies eventually reached the children.61 In Upper Silesia hunger took its toll, not so much in children's lives as in children's health. This was also true of Silesia as a whole. For example, in Breslau, a city better off than any in the plebiscite region, an actual count showed that 4,600 children fainted from hunger in the classroom in November, 1923. It was to counteract the consequences of deprivation on both children's bodies and minds that the AFSC had entered Upper Silesia.62 Economic recovery was slow; chaotic politics, the need for markets and transport, unemployment, sharp, persistent hunger, and disease stood
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in the way. As late as autumn, 1923, four out of five Upper Silesian children were anemic, tubercular, rachitic, or stunted. 83 In a report from Kattowitz, Howard Brinton wrote, "Having seen our work from both the home and foreign ends, I think I can truly say that it is much easier and more interesting to give things away than to find the wherewithal to give. It is also quite impossible to appreciate the size and importance of this work by looking at it from the other side of the Atlantic." 64 The plebiscite passed without serious disturbance. 85 By a large majority, Upper Silesia voted to join itself to Germany, but Poland, supported by the French in an intricate manipulation of the terms, contrived to gain title to the rich mining districts. Large-scale disturbances and riots in the summer of 1921 seriously disrupted the feeding and for a time it looked as though the program could not be carried through, owing to transportation stoppage. 66 As the rioting subsided, the feeding work resumed its pace. 67 That winter, 1921-22, the AFSC and ARA drew plans to turn the management of relief in the German sector of Upper Silesia over to the German government in April, 1922, with the expectation that the ARA in Poland would be able to continue its function of supply.68 Similar arrangements were prepared for devolving the program in the Polish sectors upon the Polish government. This schedule was followed through. Children in Upper Silesia sent the Quakers letters, verses, and drawings to thank them for the food. 69 This happened in every country where the Quakers came to help. It is hoped that these children who are themselves now parents of a new generation of imperiled children preserve some recollection of this work of international sympathy.
7 R U S S I A :
1 9 1 7 - 1 9 2 1
In 1656, George Fox (1624-1691), pioneer in organizing the Society of Friends, wrote to "the Czar of Muscovy and all his heads and princes" 1 in the same tenor that he wrote to other rulers: "Ambition and pride, loftiness and haughtiness, stop the ear from hearing the Lord . . . and from hearing the cry of the poor, the blind and lame. He that regards not the poor regards not his maker." Three centuries of sympathy with the Russian people have led Quakers to encourage peaceful relations with them. For example, there was William Penn's (1664-1718) association with Peter the Great; John Bright's (1811-1889) stand against the violent and almost universal passion of Englishmen in favor of the Crimean War; Joseph Sturge's (1795-1859) journey of reconciliation after the British raid on Finland at the end of that war; the association of John Bellows (1831-1902) and his American counterpart Joseph S. Elkinton (1830-1905) with Russian peace sects and their cooperation with Count Tolstoy and the Tolstoyans in moving the Doukhobors to Canada in 1898. In the same tradition are recent visits of British and American Quakers to the Soviet Union. In 1932, Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for religious and social studies, published a book entitled: Seeing Ourselves through Russia. In 1949, a working party of the American 134
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Friends Service Committee issued a pamphlet on The United States and the Soviet Union, subtitled Some Quaker Proposals for Peace (Yale University Press). This was the first in a series of three peace essays related to the East-West turbulence. T h e Quaker contribution to agricultural, educational, and social reform in Russia is represented by Daniel Wheeler (1771-1840), who drained some six thousand acres of St. Petersburg marshland and introduced improved farming methods; Stephen Grellet (1773-1855), who, after establishing terms of intimacy with the Czar Alexander I I (18181881), visited and secured some betterment in schools and prisons over a wide area; and William Allen (1770-1843), who out of a lifelong interest in Russian problems suggested to the Czar that since English prisons were in great need of improvement, perhaps the Russians could set the British a good example by renovating their entire penal system. A British Quaker who recently returned from Moscow remarked upon "the difficulties facing anyone now going to work with, or in, the Soviet Union who has not got something equivalent to the Quaker ticket. And," he added, "you don't get that under about 300 years." T h e British Friends who initiated war relief in central Russia in 1916, largely in an effort to repair health services that the mobilization of physicians had disrupted, soon saw, as did all competent observers, that Russia was hungry as a result of war demands, insufficient planting, and a series of local crop failures. These factors were aggravated by the Revolution. Transportation had broken down, the currency was depreciated, and foreign credit destroyed. 2 Conditions grew steadily worse.3 In the spring of 1920, a call was heard from the Patriarch at Moscow, "Help us or w e die!" 4 In the Volga Valley, with a population of twenty million, more than
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half the people were critically undernourished. In the province of Samara, the living were too weak to bury the dead. Through 1921, the rainfall in the famine district was two and a half inches, as against a normal fall of fourteen inches. Half the horses, two-thirds of the cattle, and most of the hogs died for want of pasture. Elsewhere, plagues of grasshoppers and locusts destroyed the crops. Hundreds of thousands of families roamed the country in search of food. Cholera, typhus, and black plague became epidemic. Late that winter, in Buzuluk, a town and district in the province of Samara, starvation mortality rose to 1 per cent per day. From Kazan to Astrakhan, the entire Volga Valley was stripped of food. Attempts to bring food from other parts of Russia failed through lack of transport, and the only hope was foreign aid.5 Ruth Fry, a member of the British Friends relief team, reported from Samara in January, 1922: "The number of people affected by the famine is 33 million, of whom 19 million are seriously hungry. The foreign agencies combined cannot possibly feed more than 7,200,000, and the Soviet government, 2,135,000; making a total of under 9,335,000. Even allowing for some increase of feeding, this leaves ten million people to die." 6 Later a cablegram to Philadelphia stated that the official government report from Buzuluk was "too appalling to transmit." 7 In these circumstances, it was necessary to feed both parents and children. If only the children were fed, their parents abandoned them, so urgent was their own need to search for roots, grass, and scraps of leather to cook for soup.8 It was estimated that some 2,140,000 children, straying in bands, faced the winter of 1923-24 homeless and adrift.9 In 1917, ten years of relief negotiation was begun by the American Friends Service Committee with the Russian gov-
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eminent, at first under Alexander Kerensky (1881), later under the Bolsheviks. The first groups of American Friends to volunteer for work in Russia consisted of the six intrepid women10 who sailed by way of the Pacific in July, 1917. From Vladivostok11 they proceeded to Buzuluk, arriving in September. Here they joined the British Friends and worked among the hosts of refugees driven from their homes by the advance of the Central Powers in 1915. The Czarist authorities had rounded up these wanderers in the Volga Valley.12 Funds for work in Russia were hard to raise in both England and America during the Revolution, but in the spring of 1918 the British antipathy temporarily subsided, and the mayors of several English cities consented to chair Friends appeal meetings. People of every station attended.13 Americans were less ready to give than were the British. It was found by the Philadelphia fund raisers that the farther west they went, the more opposition they encountered.14 Hostility to the new régime in Russia was stimulated by the press.15 Herbert Hoover voiced a common feeling toward the Friends ideal when he remarked, "Yes, I know you people stand for that way, and perhaps it is the best way after all, but there are many people you can't treat that way." 16 The American Friends Service Committee sought closer ties with the Mennonites, who had religious connections with Russia, and the YMCA,17 which had been a trusty supporter throughout. In January, 1918, the AFSC asked the American Red Cross to help provision the work at Buzuluk, pending support from the United States government.18 Cables from the field called for an immediate $150,000.19 In an earlier famine in 1891 and 1892, under the vigorous leadership of Clara Barton (1821-1912), the Red Cross had carried substantial, systematic aid to the people of the Volga Valley.
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This work had been actively aided by Count Tolstoy. When food from the Red Cross relief ship reached St. Petersburg, ". . . little boys on the streets carried American flags of their own make. One little fellow had made the Russian flag on one side and the American flag on the other side of his device." 20 In the early months of 1918 the Red Cross, though interested, now found it inexpedient to undertake work in Russia or to subsidize the AFSC. But in March the Friends renewed their plea for subsidy, asking for collaboration as close as they had enjoyed in France. Again the Red Cross praised the Quaker work, but denied the Quaker application, owing to our government's lack of a clear policy in regard to Russia.1'1 It should be noted that all this time the Red Cross was doing its best to help the AFSC secure passport clearances to Russia, both from the United States and France, and to speed Quaker shipping.2* In midsummer, 1918, British relief work in Russia was interrupted bv travel and shipping restrictions imposed by the British Foreign Office.23 Only two British workers remained in Moscow.24 One of them reported that Lenin was thought to favor the Quaker work, but that Trotsky, commander of the Red Army, feared that it might somehow interfere with efforts to beat back the Czech and Russian counterrevolutionary forces moving against Moscow.2"' It was at this point that the local representatives of eight governments officially entrusted to an English Quaker a diplomatic errand that no one of them could, or would, attempt. Czech forces near Ufa and their White Russian allies had recently seized and imprisoned as hostages several women and children of families known to be pro-Bolshevist. Up to this time, hostages had not been taken by either side. The Bolshevik government, joined by local officials of Great
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Britain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States, as well as officials of the International Red Cross, decided to protest. They asked St. John Catchpool, an English Quaker worker, to carry their papers of protest and appeal for release through the battle lines to the commanders in the field. Catchpool accepted the mission and was accredited by the several governments and the Red Cross as their representative. Against his wishes, the Bolshevik government detailed guards to go with him, and telegraphed a request for safe-conduct. After various difficulties, he reached the Czech commanders, who ordered him taken on to Ufa, where the prisoners were being held. There he was allowed to visit the hostages. Late at night, he was awakened by two Czech soldiers at his door. With them was a French officer who was helping the Czechs to organize their military mission. Catchpool was escorted to the courtyard, and placed in a prison van. In the morning, a military tribunal charged that his credentials were false, his pass to enter Ufa a forgery, and that he himself was a Bolshevik spy. The first charge was nullified by a spectator who examined the seals on his papers and declared them genuine. The second was nullified by the Mayor of Ufa who testified that he himself had signed the pass. The third charge, that Catchpool was a spy, was lost in an angry dispute between the French officer who had brought the charges and other members of the court. Under armed escort, Catchpool was taken away and sent over the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, where he was released. Not until he reached Japan did he learn that the Red Army had retaken Ufa and released the hostages.26 In December, 1918, a letter reached Philadelphia from Anna Haines, who was by this time in Vladivostok, having left the work in Buzuluk that intense local military action
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had temporarily disrupted. She and four others of the six women who formed the original party were working with the American Red Cross, distributing medical assistance among refugees crowding into the city. The other member of their group was working with British Friends and Russian volunteers in the interior.27 The American Red Cross in Vladivostok had allotted a small sum for food for a children's asylum in Buzuluk and was now trying to arrange for the transportation to other areas of some twenty thousand refugees stranded in Siberia. The money for both these projects originally came from the Red Cross in Washington, which still declined to help the Quaker work directly.28 The AFSC agreed to meet the personal expenses of Anna Haines and her colleagues while they continued in Vladivostok with the Red Cross.29 In February, 1919, the State Department informed the AFSC that it was prepared to issue passports to Russia for accredited personnel.30 The Committee began to enlist and train workers, but the opening was soon restricted by a new ruling that Quaker workers would be allowed only in certain specified locations.31 A cable from the field reported that "Frequent inquiries amongst consuls, military missions, and government officials have received the same replies for the last four months. Nothing is known. There are no plans published even amongst those who are working for the public good and whose very work depends on being prepared for the future." 82 In April, 1919, however, a startling letter was received from Paris. William C. Bullitt and Lincoln Steffens, sent as journalists to Russia by Colonel Edward House (1858-1938), President Wilson's advisor, had just returned. They reported to the Allied governments that they had brought an actual
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draft settlement intended to terminate Allied-Soviet hostilities in Russia and on its borders. The Russians wanted peace and food, and would give the former for the latter. "This is true," wrote the AFSC Paris office, "in spite of the evasive handling of the subject by Mr. Lloyd-George before the British Parliament the other day." The draft settlement could not be accepted, however, because such action would recognize the Soviet régime. President Wilson and others, though not the French themselves, were said to favor de facto recognition of the Soviet régime and full-scale intergovernmental relief, on one condition: the Soviets had to agree to stop fighting. If they agreed, the Allies would stop supplying the Czarist admiral Alexander Kolchak ( 1875-1920) and his forces. The titular Russian government had appointed Admiral Kolchak supreme ruler of Russia in November, 1918, at Omsk. Mr. Hoover considered that armed intervention had proved useless. Order must be restored. There is nothing more that can be done, by the Allies, except to let the revolutionaries crumble and wear themselves out: the pendulum will swing back, he said.33 At this time it was rumored that Dr. Fridtjof Nansen ( 1861-1930 ), explorer and philanthropist, was trying to work out, with the support of General Jan Smuts ( 1870-1950 ) and the help of neutral countries, a scheme for sending food and medicine to Russia. Distribution was to be nonpolitical. Dr. Nansen had assurance that the anti-Soviet blockade would let these shipments go through. But he was countered by opponents to the plan who argued that even if relief supplies could get through the blockade, transportation in Russia was so inadequate that the supplies could not be delivered at the points of greatest need. Of the 64,000 versts (42,435 miles) of railroad in operation in Russia before the war, said Mr. Hoover, only 22,000 versts ( 14,583 miles ) were fit
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for use, while the rolling stock was almost a total wreck. Under such circumstances, starvation in Russia was bound to be frightful. The French feared that if American relief organizations were admitted to Dr. Nansen's project, American financial interests would capture the Russian market. The French maintained that any relief for Russia should go through an intergovernmental agency, supported by the League of Nations, the League of Red Cross Societies, and the Comité International de la Croix-Rouge. Dr. Nansen himself expected that the American Red Cross would not be included in whatever program was worked out, owing to its close ties with the United States government. He hoped that the Friends could be worked into a subsidiary role.34 To this Mr. Hoover did not agree. Quakers might be murdered in Russia or seized as hostages. "We could not make any impression on him," one Friend asserted, "nor he on us." 3r' It was at this point, in the autumn of 1919, that Herbert Hoover suggested that the Friends go into Germany. It appeared that he believed food could keep communism out of Germany, and that starvation could kill it in the Bolshevikcontrolled areas of Russia. The AFSC, though not for any political considerations, was prepared to send workers both to Germany and Russia, and Mr. Hoover declared that if the occasion should arise, he would call upon the Friends to help in Russia.36 The committee that Dr. Nansen eventually developed some two years later resembled the one the French had originally proposed. British Friends worked with it for a time, but severed their connection in the autumn of 1922, not because they had lost confidence in Dr. Nansen, but because ". . . the mixture of big business and philanthropy is one which is certainlv open to misunderstanding and to our
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minds is very unwise." Various private relief societies and several of the continental committees also broke away from Dr. Nansen's effort.37 Apart from the work that the Nansen Committee performed, the grand scheme that Fridtjof Nansen and Herbert Hoover had outlined to the AFSC in Paris —full-scale, intergovernmental relief in Russia, with participation by the Friends—proved void of result. The League of Nations refused it; the French now actively opposed it. In some quarters the view prevailed that the French, rather than the Russians, were responsible for the failure, a view that Herbert Hoover himself was reputed to share.38 In May, 1919, Friends learned that the American Red Cross in Vladivostok, having judged the needs of local refugees to be beyond its means, was doing medical work for the Kolchak forces, helping wounded Czech soldiers to return to their homes, and training army nurses.39 The AFSC had not secured American Red Cross aid for Russia but it did not stop trying. The relationship between the Red Cross and the Quakers had to be redefined. The Red Cross was not now inclined to subsidize agencies over which it did not exercise full control. The Quakers were not prepared to go under Red Cross control, but they needed the support that Red Cross affiliation would bring. The Quakers' connection with the American Red Cross in France was a disadvantage in dealing with Bolshevik authorities.40 In November the AFSC recorded in its Minutes: "It still seems impossible for us to do any work in European Russia, but we trust that the doors may open soon." 41 The French work was drawing to a close. Finally, in December, 1919, the Red Cross agreed to support AFSC applications for passports to the Ukraine and to turn over for AFSC distribution supplies that it was not in a position to distribute.42 The Ukrainian government, which was represented,
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though not recognized, in Washington, promised to furnish additional supplies and internal transportation, 43 and the AFSC agreed to undertake a program on this basis. The decision gratified the American Red Cross.44 With the American Relief Administration agreeing to provide supplies,40 the project got under way—although the only work begun was in those eastern districts of Poland claimed also by the Ukraine. American newspapers continued to circulate inaccurate or false information on conditions in Russia and the difficulties attending all efforts for relief.46 Late in January, 1920, the Red Cross told the Quakers of a recent conversation between Dr. Judah Magnes, of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Major Allen Wardwell, U.S. Army, formerly American Red Cross Commissioner to Russia, in which the Major had reported that he, the director of Red Cross Foreign Operations, and the chief of the State Department's Russian Division, together with a number of prominent citizens, had addressed a letter to officials of the American Red Cross, asking that the Red Cross seek State Department permission ". . . to send into Petrograd at once the American Red Cross stores and supplies now at Riga and Reval . . . on condition that the Soviet Government will permit the American Red Cross to distribute these supplies in Petrograd in accordance with a system worked out by the A.R.C." These supplies had been sent to Riga and Reval in expectation of the fall of the Petrograd to the Youdenitch Army, the commander of which, Nikolai Youdenitch (1862-1933), was a Czarist general. His attack on Petrograd did not succeed, and he retired. Major Wardwell believed the Soviet government would accept the plan. The State Department had indicated its tentative approval. Major Wardwell thought that only one Red Cross director would oppose it. Participation by the Joint Distribution Committee and the
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American Friends Service Committee was to be included. 47 The AFSC urged the Red Cross to agree. 48 Almost four months later, the Red Cross announced that ". . . no steps toward the distribution of relief supplies in Petrograd or elsewhere in Soviet Russia" would be taken for fear of political implications. 49 A British Friend went to Copenhagen in February, 1920, to talk with Maxim Litvinov (1876-1951), then Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs, about the admission of more relief workers. Mr. Litvinov was more reluctant to discuss the matter than Soviet representatives in London had been. The Friend wondered whether the Russians in London had not privately advised their government to block the Quaker application. Mr. Litvinov declared that his government was opposed to the admission of a large party under foreign auspices, but that the Friend to whom he was speaking, and one representative each from the Danish Red Cross and one from the Norwegian Famine Committee, all of whom were then in Copenhagen, could enter Russia to distribute food and medicine. He supplied them with documents— rather uncertain credentials, the men thought—and told them to go ahead. 50 That spring, an American Quaker returning to his post in Germany from a tour of American Relief Administration work in Czecho-Slovakia and Poland, wrote, "I took up our work . . . again among these poor children who mean harm to no one. I feel so sorry sometimes that they have to be alive, but they are alive and they are going to be part of the world's next generation. Therefore, it behooves us to see that they grow up to be responsible men and women with whom we will want to live." 6 1 In such a mood, the AFSC now sent two workers to Lithuania to try to effect a freer opening for the AFSC into Rus-
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Flags,
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sia. 52 The British Friends meanwhile continued with their projects in Russia, with the help of AFSC remittances and A F S C personnel still in Russia. 53 By April, 1920, the American Friends Service Committee was critically involved in what proved to be a tedious negotiation between the American Red Cross, the American Relief Administration, and the United States Department of State over aid to Americans imprisoned by the Bolsheviks: especially Captain Emmet Kilpatrick, of the American Red Cross, who had served with the anti-Bolshevik Lithuanian Army in 1918. He had been arrested and was being held for alleged counterrevolutionary activities at the Crimean Front where he had gone "by special permit on a sight-seeing trip, just prior to his proposed departure for the United States." '4 The A F S C had considered taking part in an American multiagency attempt to help "Siberian prisoners," that is, war prisoners of several nationalities in Siberia, but owing to other commitments did not see its way to join in this campaign/'5 British Friends in Moscow had been able to help their own fellow-countrymen imprisoned there and, in a few instances, to secure their release, a service that elicited the official thanks of the British Foreign Office. 56 Captain Kilpatrick's situation was brought to the Service Committee's attention by the Red Cross in November. The Committee asked British Friends to extend relief, 57 but Soviet authorities refused to permit relief through any private agency. They would be willing, they said, to negotiate directly with the United States government for the relief and release of the prisoners. The prisoner Kilpatrick, they said, is being given "every comfort which Russia is able to afford her inhabitants." ss
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In January, 1921, Herbert Hoover informed the Service Committee that American relief in Russia was contingent on the release of the prisoners. The American Relief Administration was prepared to advance $100,000 worth of food to the Service Committee's Russian program as soon as the prisoners were free. The Service Committee transmitted this information to its representative in Moscow for relay to the authorities, and informed Hoover of its action.59 The State Department, which could not act directly because doing so would constitute de facto recognition of the Soviet government, 60 joined the Red Cross in asking the Quakers to see that American citizens held in Russia as war prisoners, detained American Red Cross personnel, and stranded private persons received enough to eat.61 The Service Committee agreed to make another effort to help Captain Kilpatrick.62 Anna Haines cabled that he and other detained Americans would be released ". . . as soon as the American Government asks for their release in the ordinary way as done by many other governments." Captain Kilpatrick regularly received food parcels from the Czecho-Slovakian Red Cross. Friends agreed to supply him if he ran short.63 A few days later, the Service Committee was given a copy of a cable sent to Washington by a Red Cross Commissioner: ". . . Kilpatrick until now at Moscow as hostage has been condemned to twenty years imprisonment at hard labor. This measure taken avowedly as retaliation by Bolsheviks for alleged condemnation of a Russian Communist in America. . . . Sincerely hope you can secure energetic action this matter from new Administration." 64 Christian A. Herter wrote that ". . . the Russians could do nothing which would militate more against the possibility of their ever getting a trade agreement than this further
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capture of an American relief official [Kilpatrick]." This was also the opinion of his chief, Herbert Hoover, who was by this time President Harding's Secretary of Commerce.85 In May, 1921, the Red Cross conceded that the American Friends Service Committee was not equipped to deal with the release and repatriation of war or political prisoners in Russia or elsewhere. The AFSC simply did not have the policy, authority, money, workers, or time for efforts of this kind.66 It was obvious that responsibility for the relief of thirty or forty American prisoners in Russia belonged to the State Department. 67 But the AFSC cabled to the field: ". . . Hoover . . . says American public will not stand refusal from Service Committee [to] use public subscriptions for welfare Americans." 68 The American Relief Administration in London cabled the ARA in New York, citing impartial evidence from Moscow, that the Quakers were doing all they could for Captain Kilpatrick and the other Americans in prison; that the prisoners really were not badly off; and that the ARA ought not to push too hard.69 The ARA insisted: ". . . Chief cannot find any justification in Friends excuses for not taking full responsibility . . . and sees no reason for depending on Czechs. If Soviets place any restrictions on Friends delivering ample food to every American . . . prisoner we certainly not inclined to extend further aid." 70 In July, Secretary of State Hughes asked the AFSC what direct news it had of the American prisoners in Moscow, and whether Friends had helped them. The AFSC replied that the prisoners were well, and fairly treated. "We give them food." 71 A statement was released to the press.72 The AFSC had helped and would continue to help Americans imprisoned in Russia to the extent of its ability to do so, without jeopardizing the larger responsibility of Russian child feeding. The American prisoners were better fed than almost an}'
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other group in Russia. In mid-August, 1921, a cablegram announced the solution of the problem: . . no need our now feeding American prisoners as all now released." 74 So ended this predicament. To resume the main theme: In June, 1920, the AFSC asked the United States Department of State to modify its policy on passports for the sake of Russian child feeding. 75 There was at this time no United States safeguard against possible fraudulent commercial transactions in Russia; no protection to American goods or citizens engaged in Russian trade; and no deviation from the policy of nonrecognition. At this point the State Department announced that restrictions against private American-Russian trade in nonmilitary commodities had been lifted. 76 It advised that relief supplies could now be sent to Russia without violating any policy of the State Department or the War Trade Board.77 This was the result of arduous interagency negotiation in which the Quaker committee had played a leading part. For more than four years, the British and American Friends Committees had struggled to obtain from their governments and from official agencies clear permission and guarantees of at least basic cooperation and of support for increased relief to civilians over whom the Soviet government claimed jurisdiction. This remonstrance was the most difficult that the Quaker Committees had undertaken, owing to press hostility toward any dealings with the Bolsheviks, and the governmental wavering between policies of counterrevolutionary intervention, the strict maintenance of a so-called cordon sanitaire, actual trade with the Soviets, token recognition, and plain inaction.78 In August, the State Department informed the Friends that if their workers were willing to go at their own risk and to make no claim upon the United States for protection, and
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if they would surrender their passports at the border to a United States representative, expecting them to be returned at the time of their final exit, they might proceed. 79 The next day, August 18, 1920, the State Department telegraphed to Philadelphia: "Recent events may require a change in our decision. . . . Please take no action pending receipt of further letter." At a State Department-Red Cross conference with the Quakers it was learned that neither official agency would officially sanction American relief in Russia as long as the Soviets insisted on full credit and control, and that the onlv relief that might eventually be formally approved would be relief directed toward undermining Soviet influence. Pending some change in this attitude, the Friends were blocked from full-scale activity in Russia.80 In the summer of 1920, American and British Friends were making every effort to coordinate their relief activities. But the American Relief Administration kept pressing the Americans to sever connections with the British. ". . . It is only fair to the American people," said Mr. Hoover, "if the funds they provide are to be used [through the American Friends Service Committee], that the service should be conducted wholly under the American flag." 81 As stated in Chapter 5, the necessary adjustment required many months during which the AFSC was pressing for permission to expand into full-scale work.82 On the Russian side, too, there were hesitations, but word came from Reval in August that, given some respite by the Allies, the Soviet government might allow a few more workers to enter. The Soviet authorities still distrusted the motives and activities of the American Relief Administration and the Red Cross.83 The American Friends Service Committee, however, had no desire and indeed was not in a posi-
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tion to accept the role merely of supplier to Russian distribution agencies. 84 In September, 1920, word came from Moscow that one British and one American Friend accompanying a large shipment of milk concentrate, drugs, and clothing would be allowed to go to Reval where a Friend would meet them to help conclude arrangements with the government for an Anglo-American Quaker feeding program.85 This was good news indeed, the first time, said Wilbur Thomas, "that the Soviet Government has definitely invited a relief agency to undertake work, so far as we know." 8 6 Rufus Jones reported that officials of the State Department were "sympathetic." 87 Friends independently had agreed to make clear to the Soviet authorities their disapproval of the violence of the régime.™ The Russian officials claimed the right to administer the distribution of the goods the Quakers expected to supply, but agreed to allow the Quakers to inspect the distribution. 89 The Red Cross now shipped to Reval for Quaker use $50,000 worth of foodstuffs, medicine, and clothing. 90 These supplies were welcomed, but Red Cross workers were not admitted. 91 Anna Haines, who had returned to the United States, now sailed to Reval and traveled to Moscow to negotiate with the Soviet officials in the name of the American Friends Service Committee. 92 At the time of her first journey to Russia the Czar still ruled from the Winter Palace; she had seen Kerensky replace the Czar; she had seen Kerensky overthrown. Obliged to leave her work in Buzuluk, she had crossed Siberia with four other women to carry on relief work in Vladivostok. Now she was returning to the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, having circled the globe. The agreement which she, representing the American
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Friends, and Arthur Watts, representing the British Friends, now concluded with the Soviet Commissariat of Supplies in Moscow in December, 1920, provided that supplies furnished jointly by the two Quaker agencies were to be shipped to Reval, turned over to the Commissariat's local representative, and at the Russian government's expense transported to Moscow and stored in heated, lighted, and adequately staffed warehouses. No supplies were to be moved from these warehouses except on signed orders of the Friends. Goods were to be allotted free to government institutions on a basis acceptable to the Friends and the Soviet government.83 And it was finally agreed to admit more workers into Russia provided they brought supplies in considerable amount. Foodstuffs furnished by the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, and the Save the Children Fund would also be admitted.®4 The Soviet government knew that the Quakers did not sympathize with their régime.95 The Friends stressed their nonpolitical motivation and undertook to be patient in dealing with officials and to use great care not to arouse suspicion.86 Wilbur Thomas observed, "No matter what country we work in, we are more or less under the direction of government officials and must work accordingly."87 National governments studied the differences that distinguished one foreign agency from another, and based their official attitudes on what they considered significant.98 Early in 1921 obstacles at last gave way, releasing, if not a flood, at least a flow of food for the wandering children.99 This, the AFSC had been working for since July, 1917. The United States Department of State urged the Friends to accept a Red Cross request for antituberculosis work among children in the Crimea. This project was delayed owing to political stress between the Red Cross and the
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Kremlin.100 Earlier, the State Department, having no resources available for the purpose, asked the Friends to assist some 100,000 Crimean refugees crowded into Constantinople. Because of lack of funds, the AFSC had been obliged to decline.101 The Service Committee, gratified to see signs of increasing confidence, continued to keep the Red Cross and the State Department informed regarding negotiations with the Soviet government.102 Inactivity on the part of the American Relief Administration had raised harsh comment both in the United States and in Russia. Herbert Hoover had no confidence in the Soviet leaders,108 but since the ARA had intervened with the State Department in behalf of Quaker passports to Russia,104 the AFSC now renewed its search for persons qualified to work in Russia. Appropriate workers were hard to find.105 Late in January, 1921, the Soviet government asked the American Red Cross and the American Relief Administration to channel future distribution through the American Friends Service Committee, a request that these agencies hesitated to accede to or deny.108 At the same time the Friends were told that they could send more workers for the provinces, provided these workers brought with them the supplies they would distribute.107 The Soviet government was still afraid that foreign relief would jeopardize the Revolution.108 In February, the AFSC reported to the State Department that, together with British Friends, it had sent $300,000 worth of food and supplies to Russia, and was preparing to send another $200,000 shipment, including $50,000 worth of medical supplies from the Red Cross and $100,000 worth of milk concentrate and cottonseed oil from the American Relief Administration.109
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Herbert Hoover, preparing to join President Harding's Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce, concluded his personal connection begun in 1917 with the AFSC "in view," he said, "of its very complex diplomatic relationship . . . with not only enemy countries, but also with Bolshevik Russia and the indeterminate relationship of our government to these situations. . . . This does not," he continued, "in the slightest degree alter my interest in this good work or my desire to continue in its support." 110 The Committee was extremely sorry to see this association end.111 Mr. Hoover had been a staunch friend, he was close to government officials, and was in many respects the Committee's strongest supporter. To avoid anti-Jewish sentiment in the United States, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee entrusted its distribution in Russia to the Friends. The work paid for by the Jews included, but was not limited to, victims of pogrom..112 The question now arose, should the Friends for the sake of Russian child feeding accept funds from groups at home that were alleged to be pro-Soviet? 113 In spite of rising unemployment in the United States, labor groups were rallying to support the Quaker work.114 They were suspicious of official agencies.115 Herbert Hoover said that the Russian refugees presented a dilemma "for which there is no solution so far as I can see until the Bolshevik Government falls." 116 He thought that ARA relief in Finland had been a major obstacle to Bolshevik expansion.117 He added, "The value of American relief cannot be capitalized in any direct expansion of American trade. No man connected with American relief of this character can suffer the suggestion that our work abroad has been done with a view to obtaining orders in the future for American goods. The sole idea has been the social and economic restoration of Europe, and through that regeneration, the economic safety of the United States. If Europe is
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plunged into chaos, America, too, will have an economic demoralization. My firm conviction is that our relief is neutralizing the ferment." 118 By indemnifying $2,000,000,000 worth of American securities owned abroad at the outbreak of the war, by purchasing $2,225,000,000 worth of foreign securities during the War, by granting $10,000,000,000 in the form of war loans, and by direct relief valued at $2,500,000,000, the United States, as Hoover pointed out, had already subsidized Europe to the extent of $16,725,000,000. It was a bargain price.119 Hoover went on to say: " . . . American relief has not only impressed the gospel of self-help and self-sufficiency among nations that might now be world charges, or worse, but has reared a bulwark against Bolshevism on the very soil in which this pernicious poison takes easiest and quickest root." 120 At the moment, in Central Europe alone, more than twenty-five thousand local committees collaborated with the ARA.121 Given these declarations, it was natural for the Soviet government to entertain suspicions of the ARA and of the American Red Cross, which always worked closely with it.122 That the AFSC should also come under the suspicion of the Soviet régime was natural; yet, neither the central nor the local governments attempted to confiscate the Quaker stores. Casual pilfering of Quaker food was less in Russia than in either France or Germany, or later in Spain in 1939, where the Friends performed impartial civilian relief on both sides of the fighting line, and lost some food by Nationalist seizure.123 But an equivalent of the supplies that were taken was later made good. In the spring of 1921, the government representative at Reval, Maxim Litvinov, told the Friends that he would accredit no new workers until the United States admitted a
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Soviet trade delegation, but eventually delicate negotiations in London and Moscow induced the Soviet government to reopen the gate to American Quaker relief workers.124 In spite of the complications, the Quakers succeeded in distributing in the month of May, 1921, 3.75 tons of rice, 2 tons of oatmeal, 1 ton of dried vegetables, 8.4 tons of vegetable oils, 16.5 tons of lard, 3.5 tons of cocoa, 57,000 cans of concentrated milk, 32.2 tons of soap, and 10,675 yards of cloth. 125 These supplies were furnished by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the American YMCA, the Student Christian Movement, the Save the Children Fund, the American Red Cross, and the American Relief Administration, or they were purchased with money raised by the AFSC. 1 2 6 In relation to the needs of Russia, the total volume was minute. Though Mr. Hoover and the Red Cross felt that the Soviet government was playing the Quakers against the ARA and State Department, 127 to have accepted supervision by the ARA would, from the AFSC point of view, have jeopardized the donations of labor groups that felt they could rely upon the Quakers. On the other hand, the Federal Council of Churches would not support the AFSC unless it was affiliated with the ARA. 128 The AFSC might possibly have gone forward independently with support of labor groups and the Jewish Committee, but this was by no means certain. 129 Hoover's irritation over rising criticism of the ARA's alleged political activities was obvious and was made much of by the press.130 The Soviet government was well aware that unless great quantities of food could be secured, the Revolution might break down under the violence and despair engendered by starvation. 131
8 R U S S I A :
1 9 2 1 - 1 9 2 7
At Riga, on August 2 0 , 1 9 2 1 , an accord was reached. Because the terms of this agreement underlay all future work of the American Relief Administration and the American Friends Service Committee in Russia, they are here transcribed in full: AGREEMENT
BETWEEN
THE
AMERICAN
RELIEF
ADMINISTRATION
AND T H E R U S S I A N SOCIALIST F E D E R A T I V E S O V I E T R E P U B L I C
a famine condition exists in parts of Russia, and Mr. Maxim Gorky, with the knowledge of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, has appealed through Mr. Hoover to the American people for assistance to the starving and sick people, more particularly the children, of the famine stricken parts of Russia, and W H E R E A S Mr. Hoover and the American people have read with great sympathy this appeal on the part of the Russian people in their distress and are desirous, solely for humanitarian reasons, of coming to their assistance, and W H E R E A S Mr. Hoover, in his reply to Mr. Gorky, has suggested that supplementary relief might be brought by the American Relief Administration to up to a million children in Russia. T H E R E F O R E It is agreed between the American Relief Administration, an unofficial, volunteer American charitable organization under the chairmanship of Mr. Herbert Hoover, hereinafter called the A.R.A., and the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic hereinafter called the Soviet Authorities, 157 WHEREAS WHEREAS
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T h a t t h e A.R.A. will extend such assistance to the Russian people as is within its power, subject to the acceptance and fulfillment of t h e following conditions on the part of t h e Soviet Authorities w h o hereby declare that there is need of this assistance on the part of the A.R.A. T h e Soviet Authorities agree: First: T h a t the A.R.A. may bring into Russia such personnel as the A.R.A. finds necessary in the carrying out of its work and t h e Soviet Authorities guarantee them full liberty and protection while in Russia. Non-Americans and Americans who have been detained in Soviet Russia since 1917 will b e admitted on approval by the Soviet authorities. Second: T h a t they will, on demand of the A.R.A., immediately extend all facilities for the entry into and exit from Russia of the personnel mentioned in ( 1 ) and while such personnel are in Russia the Soviet Authorities shall accord them full liberty to come and go and move about Russia on official business and shall provide them with all necessary papers such as safe-conducts, laissez passer, et cetera, to facilitate their travel. Third: T h a t in securing Russian and other personnel the A.R.A. shall have complete freedom as to selection and the Soviet Authorities will, on request, assist the A.R.A. in securing same. Fourth: T h a t on delivery of the A.R.A. of its relief supplies at the Russian ports of Petrograd, Murmansk, Archangel, Novorosiisk, or other Russian ports as mutually agreed upon, or the nearest practicable available ports in adjacent countries, decision to lie with t h e A.R.A., the Soviet Authorities will bear all further costs such as discharge, handling, loading and transportation to interior base points in the areas where the A.R.A. may operate. Should d e m u r r a g e or storage occur at above ports mutually agreed upon as satisfactory such demurrage and storage is for the account of the Soviet Authorities. For purposes of this agreement the ports of Riga, Reval, Libau, H a n g o and Helsingfors are also considered satisfactory ports. Notice of at least five days will b e given to Soviet representatives at respective ports in case the Soviet Authorities are expected to take c.i.f. delivery.
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Fifth: That they will at their own expense supply the necessary storage at interior base points mentioned in paragraph (4) and handling and transportation from same to all such other interior points as the A.R.A. may designate. Sixth: That in all above storage and movement of relief supplies they will give the A.R.A. the same priority over all other traffic as the Soviet Authorities give their own relief supplies, and on demand of the A.R.A. will furnish adequate guards and convoys. Seventh: That they will give free import re-export and guarantee freedom from requisition to all A.R.A. supplies of whatever nature. The A.R.A. will repay the Soviet Authorities for expenses incurred by them on re-exported supplies. Eighth: That the relief supplies are intended for children and the sick, as designated by the A.R.A. in accordance with paragraph (24), and remain the property of the A.R.A. until actually consumed by these children and the sick, and are to be distributed in the name of the A.R.A. Ninth: That no individual receiving A.R.A. rations shall be deprived of such local supplies as are given to the rest of the population. Tenth: That they will guarantee and take every step to insure that relief supplies belonging to the A.R.A. will not go to the general adult population nor to the Army, Navy or Government employees but only to such persons as designated in paragraphs (8) and (24). Eleventh: That Soviet Authorities undertake to reimburse the A.R.A. in dollars at c.i.f. cost or replace in kind any misused relief supplies. Twelfth: That the A.R.A. shall be allowed to set up the necessary organizations for carrying out its relief work free from governmental or other interference. The Central and Local Soviet Authorities have the right of representation thereon. Thirteenth: That the Soviet Authorities will provide:
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A. The necessary premises for kitchens, dispensaries, and, in as far as possible, hospitals. B. The necessary fuel and, when available, cooking, distributing and feeding equipment for the same. C. The total cost of local relief administration, food preparation, distribution, etc., themselves or in conjunction with local authorities. Mode of payment to be arranged at later date. D. On demand of the A.R.A. such local medical personnel and assistance, satisfactory to the A.R.A., as are needed to efficiently administer its relief. E. Without cost railway, motor, water or other transportation for movement of relief supplies and of such personnel as may be necessary to efficiently control relief operations. The Soviet Authorities will for the duration of the A.R.A. operations assign to the A.R.A. for the sole use of its personnel, and transport free of cost, such railway carriages as the A.R.A. may reasonably request. Fourteenth: In localities where the A.R.A. may be operating and where epidemics are raging, the A.R.A. shall be empowered by the Soviet Authorities to take such steps as may be necessary towards the improvement of sanitary conditions, protection of water supply, etc. Fifteenth: That they will supply free of charge the necessary offices, garages, store-rooms, etc., for the transaction of the A.R.A. business and when available heat, light and water for same. Further that they will place at the disposal of the A.R.A. adequate residential quarters for the A.R.A. personnel in all localities where the A.R.A. may be operating. All such above premises to be free from seizure and requisition. Examination of above premises will not be made except with the knowledge and in presence of the chief of the A.R.A. operations in Russia or his representative and except in case of flagrant délit [sic] when examined will be held responsible in case examination unwarranted. Sixteenth: That they will give to the A.R.A. complete freedom
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and priority without cost in the use of existing radio, telegraph, telephone, cable, post, and couriers in Russia and will provide the A.R.A., when available and subject to the consent of competent authorities, with private telegraph and telephone wires and maintenance free of cost. Seventeenth: To accord the A.R.A. and its American representatives and its couriers the customary diplomatic privileges as to passing the frontiers. Eighteenth: To supply the A.R.A. free of cost with the necessary gasoline and oil to operate its motor transportation and to transport such motor transportation by rail or otherwise as may be necessary. Nineteenth: To furnish at the request of the competent A.R.A. Authorities all A.R.A. personnel, together with their impediments and supplies, free transportation in Russia. Twentieth: To permit the A.R.A. to import and re-export free of duty and requisition such commissary, transport and office supplies as are necessary for its personnel and administration. Twenty-first: That they will acquaint the Russian people with the aims and methods of the relief work of the A.R.A. in order to facilitate the rapid development of its efficiency and will assist and facilitate in supplying the American people with reliable and non-political information of the existing conditions and the progress of the relief work as an aid in developing financial support in America. Twenty-second: That they will bear all expenses of the relief operation other than A. Cost of relief supplies at port (See paragraph 4). B. Direct expenses of American control and supervision of relief work in Russia with exceptions as above. In general they will give the A.R.A. all assistance in their power toward the carrying out of its humanitarian relief operations. The A.R.A. agrees:— Twenty-third: Within the limits of its resources and facilities,
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to supply, as rapidly as suitable organization can be effected, food, clothing and medical relief to the sick and particularly to the children within the age limits as decided upon by the A.R.A. Twenty-fourth: That its relief distribution will be to the children and sick without regard to race, religion or social or political status. Twenty-fifth: That its personnel in Russia will confine themselves strictly to the ministration of relief and will engage in no political or commercial activity whatever. In view of paragraph ( 1 ) and the freedom of American personnel in Russia from personal search, arrest and detention, any personnel contravening this will be withdrawn or discharged on the request of the Central Soviet Authorities. The Central Soviet Authorities will submit to the chief officer of the A.R.A. the reasons for this request and the evidence in their possession. Twenty-sixth: That it will carry on its operations where it finds that relief can be administered most efficiently and to secure best results. Its principal object is to bring relief to the famine stricken areas of the Volga. Twenty-seventh: That it will import no alcohol in its relief supplies and will permit customs inspection of its imported relief supplies at points to be mutually agreed upon. The Soviet Authorities having previously agreed as to the absolute sine qua non of any assistance on the part of the American people to release all Americans detained in Russia and to facilitate the departure from Russia of all Americans so desiring, the A.R.A. reserves to itself the right to suspend temporarily or terminate all of its relief work in Russia in case of failure on the part of the Soviet Authorities to fully comply with this primary condition or with any condition set forth in the above agreement. The Soviet Authorities equally reserve the right of cancelling this Agreement in case of non-fulfillment of any of the above clauses on the part of the A.R.A. Made in Riga, August Twentieth, Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-one.
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On behalf of Council of Peoples Commissaries of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. [Signed] Maxim Litvinov. Assistant Peoples Commissary for Foreign Affairs. [Signed] Walter Lyman Brown Director for Europe. On behalf of the American Relief Administration. An eyewitness said: "The speeches, without which no such occasion is complete, followed. Maxim Litvinov made the most of his opportunities to give the affair a political significance. Walter Lyman Brown followed and very deliberately indicated that as far as the A.R.A. was concerned the Riga Agreement had no political significance whatever." 1 On August 23, 1921, the AFSC, which had already expended $1,000,000 in Russia, announced the opening of a campaign in the United States for $5,000,000 for the relief of children in the Volga district. On the same day, the Friends Service Committee met to prepare instructions for members delegated to attend a conference with Mr. Hoover in Washington to insist that the AFSC be allowed to maintain its autonomy in Russia.2 Wilbur Thomas reported that Herbert Hoover said Russia faced "unprecedented disaster, owing to her new economic system. The problem before us," he continued, "is not the reformation of Russia's economic or political systems, but the relief of terrible physical needs. Outside political intervention can solve nothing, nor must we stoop to the use of food as an instrument of politics. The United States intends neither to recognize Russia nor to interfere with American efforts to relieve Soviet Russia." Mr. Hoover insisted on guarantees and safeguards. He said we must be ready to cooperate with European organizations, but "we must be zealous to retain.
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our American character, for only so can we strongly appeal to the impulsive generosity of America. . . . Upon this basis alone can the ARA secure United States governmental relief supplies." Rufus Jones suggested that the AFSC be assigned a district of its own and be permitted to continue working with the British Friends. Mr. Hoover restated the need for coordination in all departments of the work, and added that if the AFSC did not toe the line, the ARA would cut Friends off from its support. Rufus Jones conceded the ARA's right to do so.3 Finally, the roll was called. The American Red Cross offered to supply doctors and medicines. The YMCA said it would stand free of the tangle, but would try to stir up interest among American students in helping Russian students. The YWCA agreed to help the YMCA. The Knights of Columbus offered no individual proposal. The Catholic Welfare Council and the Federal Council of Churches made no commitment. The Jewish Joint Distribution Committee stood by the AFSC. With close attention to the requirements of the ARASoviet Agreement entered into four days earlier at Riga, the following terms of association were drawn up and provisionally accepted: 1. The Russian famine is too large to be relieved completely by any group of private agencies. 2. Therefore, child-feeding and medical aid are to have prior claim on the attention and efforts of this group. 3. By this instrument all members here present become affiliates of the ARA. They are to coordinate their efforts for Russian relief with one another and with the ARA. 4. E a c h member agency is to deal with the Soviet authorities only through the ARA.
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5. All food and supplies contributed by the Unted States Government and the American public for distribution in Russia through the member agencies are to be distributed as gifts of the United States. 6. The ARA is to furnish to distributing member agencies at cost its facilities for the transportation of relief goods to Russia, and inside Russia, as well as its facilities for storage. 7. Distribution personnel of the member agencies are to be subject to ARA supervision as set forth in the Riga Agreement. 8. Member agencies recognize the validity of, and agree to abide by, decisions and actions taken by the ARA in keeping with the terms of the Riga Agreement. 9. The American Friends Service Committee is assigned a separate area in Russia wherein it agrees to work under the ultimate direction of the American Relief Administration.4
The tenor of this meeting and the spirit that underlay these negotiations was summed up by a remark made by Herbert Hoover as the delegates rose from their long sitting: "I'm in this situation: we want money [for relief in Russia] but we don't want to ask for it." 5 Wilbur Thomas cabled British Friends, "Cooperation Hoover means accept Riga Agreement working in assigned area according our methods and ideals, but first must be known as American, second under Hoover, third deal with Soviets through Hoover director. These conditions final. Cable your advice and procedure if we accept or reject." u British Friends cabled reluctance to continue with the AFSC in Russia if the AFSC were to be bound by the ARA. Nor was the AFSC itself clear that it ought to yield to this requirement. Conceding would cut off support from the labor groups, and make more difficult the task of finding qualified persons willing to work in Russia. The AFSC decided to give up affiliation with the ARA unless Herbert
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Hoover would permit ( 1 ) cooperation with Friends from other countries; ( 2 ) direct access to Soviet officials; ( 3 ) acceptance of contributions with the understanding that on no account were they to be turned over to the ARA; ( 4 ) AFSC autonomy within the assigned area; and ( 5 ) control over its own fund-raising publicity. 7 A delegation was appointed to wait upon Mr. Hoover with these provisos. He at this time wrote to Rufus Jones " . . . a militant group of red-minded people are trying to undermine the ARA through the AFSC." He cited one instance in Seattle, another in New York.8 Rufus Jones replied that neither he nor the Committee could accept the imputation of disloyalty. Rufus Jones said, "I am concerned solely with human service and getting as much of it done as possible. . . . I am convinced that we have been perfectly fair and square and honorable in our relations with you and with your great [organization] and I think you will find that we shall play up like men in this Russian situation." 9 Workers in the field appealed for rush shipments. Mr. Hoover publicly endorsed the AFSC's appeal. He assured the Quakers that, so far as the ARA was concerned, the needs of children stood above all other considerations. Yet already the ARA was finding that Russian social workers hesitated to take part in its field operations for fear of being listed as counterrevolutionaries.10 It was only natural, therefore, for the Quaker field personnel to reiterate that the ARA connection hampered them. Wilbur Thomas wrote, "The political situation here and Mr. Hoover's position is such that it was either accept . . . or withdraw entirely from Russia until the ARA was through feeding. This latter we seriously considered, but we felt we ought to do what we could to help in this time of need." 11 As worked out with Mr. Hoover, the arrangement was this:
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the AFSC should work at its own projects in its own area, subject only to final review by the ARA; American and British Quakers were to work together under special ARA consent; the Quakers were to share the ARA's resources and facilities, and cooperate but not become amalgamated with the ARA. These terms were not unlike those that the AFSC had negotiated with the American Red Cross in France. 12 As Wilbur Thomas pointed out, if the AFSC hoped for continuing support from the American public, it must be careful to avoid a British color by too close association with the work of British Friends. The message of Friends was neither American nor British; it was the Christian message.13 Some British Friends held to their doubts about the wisdom of the AFSC's connection with the ARA and advised the Committee in Philadelphia to reserve a substantial sum against a possible day when some sudden difficulty might oblige the AFSC to support its Russian program wholly out of its own funds. 14 All in all, the situation was extremely difficult. To add to the anxiety, Mr. Hoover criticized some technical aspects of the Committee's field work and of its methods of raising money. He took the view that the Quaker effort suffered from want of system.15 Also he warned the Friends of a movement among working men to organize a great "American Relief Committee" to replace so-called religious and bourgeois organizations.16 The Hearst press in October, 1921, began to print reports from Russia sent by Anna Louise Strong, whose enthusiasm for the Soviet experiment was later to become familiar. She had gone to Russia for Hearst and other publishers and had undertaken to write publicity for the AFSC as well. Her reports were sharply critical of Allied intervention. The State Department promptly asked the AFSC to define its connection with this reporter. The Committee asked Miss Strong to
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modify her copy: "Unless there is some vital principle at stake, . . . it is far better to conform to the wishes of our State Department" than to jeopardize the larger work.17 The AFSC, as "the American Friends Unit," was now assigned to work in the Minsk and Buzuluk areas in partnership with the ARA and separate from British Friends. Murray S. Kenworthy, acting director of the Unit, was made a member of the staff of Colonel William Haskell, the ARA's director in Russia.18 It was reported, in November, that in the area of Buzuluk alone 600,000 people were starving. The ARA predicted 2 million famine deaths. 19 Twenty-two warehouses were in operation in the Volga Valley. Warehouses had also been established in Moscow and Petrograd. The AFSC was gearing its program to numbers suggested by the ARA. 20 In November, 1921, the Quakers with Mr. Hoover championed a Congressional appropriation for the Russian children. The goal was $50,000,000. In Hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, December 13 and 14, Mr. Hoover's proposal was scaled down to $20,000,000. 21 For the grant by Congress, which was known to have President Harding's support, the AFSC pushed hard, pointing out that this was not a political question but life or death for fellow human beings. 22 The act passed by Congress, December 20, 1921, authorized the President through agencies he selected to purchase and distribute relief grain, seed grain, and preserved milk, using for this purpose not more than $20,000,000 of United States Grain Corporation funds. These goods were to be shipped in American bottoms only, whether privately owned or owned by the United States Shipping Board. The whole transaction was to be reported by the President to the Congress not later than December 31, 1922. There was no
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indication, however, that the AFSC was to have any share in the program, which the President left to the ARA. 23 The ARA was now feeding daily meals to 1,200,000 Russians; the AFSC, to 100,000. By the most careful estimate, 13,000,000 people were starving. At current relief costs, the Congress had therefore appropriated enough to save one person out of six. The willingness of Congress to appropriate tax money to help a people whose government was so feared, joined with unwillingness to appropriate enough really to reduce the misery, illustrates the strangeness of the times and the uncertainty of legislative thinking. The Quakers besought the public to give additional help. 24 Mr. Hoover announced that the Soviets had agreed to add the equivalent of $10,000,000 in gold, provided the congressional appropriation were actually spent, " . . . a sum of money," Mr. Hoover put it, "that will provide for the major food needs of Russia so far as internal transportation there can meet the situation . . . the generosity of Congress has solved the big issue so far as it physically can be solved." 25 Against continuing popular assertions that the Bolsheviks shrugged off the famine, the Quakers cited this gold offer.26 An effort to create interest in a congressional appropriation for medical supplies failed.27 That same December (1921), the Doukhobors of Canada asked the Quakers of America to distribute, by means of Doukhobors still in Russia, money which had been collected in Canada. 28 At this time the "Friends of Soviet Russia," an American organization that had at one time approached the Quakers, openly admitted that some of its collections went to the Russian Red Cross. It was true that AFSC representatives in Moscow had dealings with the Russian Red Cross, which was recognized by the International Red Cross in Geneva. 29 Also, "American Medical Aid to Russia," a group that declared
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itself politically neutral, although its distribution was controlled directly by the Soviet Commissariat of Health, asked the AFSC to assist with distribution. Listed on its executive committee were the names of American physicians of the highest skill and reputation. 30 Later, with active ARA cooperation, this same group established and equipped a large hospital in Moscow.31 The charge that American relief helped Soviet attempts to re-establish trade with the United States and to gain political recognition was attracting wide attention and hindering the collection of funds. 32 At this time there arose, "the Clogged Ports Issue"—an exceedingly complex and difficult controversy that ran on for almost a year, and that unsteadied the relations between the Quakers, the ARA, the Government of the United States, and the public. The question was this: Did ice and military traffic so block the Baltic ports and the railroads of Russia as to warrant limitation of relief shipments? Early in 1922, Herbert Hoover asked Wilbur Thomas to come to Washington. He confirmed what Friends had feared ever since the Congressional appropriation. The American Relief Administration supplies would so fully engage the ports and railroads of Russia as to preclude the admission of supplies for other agencies. The Quakers were at this time pleading both for cash and goods in kind—including grain from Western farmers. Their appeal was at the point of fruition. 33 Rufus Jones wired Herbert Hoover for reconsideration and time, suggesting the public at least be reminded that the AFSC could store goods in European warehouses until spring and the probable clearing of Russian ports and railroads. Public confidence in the Committee's ability to bring gifts in kind to the areas of need must be kept.34 Mr. Hoover then replied that he was will-
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ing "to answer in the way I conscientiously feel is necessary those direct inquiries that come to me daily." 35 The AFSC cabled Friends in London: "We need definite authoritative statistics continuous daily food tonnage facilities Russian ports and railroads to Samara. . . . Urgent." 36 Word came from a British Friend just returned from Russia that the ports of Riga, Reval, and Libau were not going to be permitted to clog, either with ice or stalled trains, and that the AFSC could confidently collect or buy, and ship.37 Also the Black Sea ports were open.38 To some observers it appeared that if the ARA hoped to send vast quantities of food to Russia before the grave emergency anticipated in the spring and if, as a semipublic agency utilizing public money, it hoped to encourage Congress to make fresh appropriations, its Russian policy would have to be reappraised. Press attacks on estimates of the capacity of the ports became intense. To one inquirer, Mr. Hoover wrote that first he had been blamed for trying to persuade someone else to carry the Russian burden that he alone had had the resolution to assume. Now he was being berated as an ineffectual administrator. "Yet I have put together," he wrote in February, 1922, "more than $47,500,000,"39 for relief in Russia, "against less than $2,000,000 from all the rest of the world." He now agreed to issue to the press a statement that if, because of transport blockage, the AFSC ran short of supplies; for its projects in Russia, the ARA would supply replacements. He also said that he hoped full shipping could be resumed with the thawing of the Baltic ports, adding that if the AFSC ran short of money for Russia he would tide it over with sums from the Congressional appropriation, providing the AFSC conform "in a general way to what we believe is a sound basis of distribution." 40
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In May, in an article in The Nation, Mr. Hoover wrote, "I have no doubt that suffering in Russia will continue for many years, and that while the great famine-drought may happily be cured by the arrival of the next harvest it will not end the necessity for charity in the saving of human life and in the protection of the health of the children." 41 Alongside the claimed or actual retarding at the ports had been the problem of enlisting the full support of the Russian authorities. When the ARA came into Russia in September, 1921, its workers had been irritated by the dilatory nature of Russian business methods, but like the Friends, they had soon established harmonious relations with individual officials.42 "Every official of the Government" of the Tartar Republic who "accompanied us on our inspection trips outside Kazan," wrote an ARA representative, "is willing to put all the machinery of the Government at our disposal to help the situation, and we are convinced of their sincerity and ability to help. From the moment of our arrival they have given us their time, attention, motor and water transportation, and every suggestion for future work has received a promise of full co-operation. The President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Agriculture were with us on our trip down the river, and they realize fully the gravity of the situation. . . . The necessary thing to be remembered is that to make the work a success the government must be used and must be brought into the work." 43 The Quakers reported from Moscow, "Local and central authorities trust us in a remarkable degree and rely on our doing our very best and most gratefully accept the small amount we are able to offer." 44 ARA supplies, warehouses, and vans were everywhere respected, even by bands of otherwise unrestricted looters and bandits.45 In February, 1922, the government again agreed to pay for the internal
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transportation of the Friends supplies, for their warehousing and office and living quarters, their Russian clerical help, and the general overhead costs in the field.48 American workers who could be spared from work in Germany were now being transferred to Russia.47 But passport difficulties again became acute. The United States Department of State issued a passport to an AFSC worker worded in such a way as to place him under the authority of the ARA. The AFSC protested, but was informed that Mr. Hoover had requested that this be made the comprehensive policy.48 Friends reminded the ARA of their desire to retain identity in Russia, calling attention to the fact that the Riga Agreement had said nothing of ARA passport control over other agencies.49 They were informed that during a recent security campaign the ARA had induced President Harding, who approved Friends Russian work both in principle and practice, to instruct the State Department to issue no passports to Quaker workers whom the ARA had not endorsed. 50 "This ruling," Mr. Hoover now said, "was necessary at the time to insure unity of effort in securing protective agreements and effective co-ordination during the period of organization. The experience of the past few months has shown that it is no longer necessary, nor in the interest of harmony, for the American Relief Administration to assume responsibility for the personnel in Russia of other organizations." Accordingly, he asked the State Department to cancel the former request.51 "We are just beginning to see light," Wilbur Thomas wrote to Rritish Friends in Warsaw, "after a long, extremely complex, difficult, and hazardous season of trouble with the State Department and the public over our work in Russia. Many of our Executive Board have often said, 'What's the use? Let's close the Service Committee and get some peace.' Criticisms
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made from the field and in this country, of our so-called subservience to the State Department, have been uninformed, irresponsible, and very damaging. We are doing our level best in an almost hopeless situation." 52 The Red Cross in those times of controversy was often a source of encouragement. "Service to humanity," they said, "does not involve taking sides in a controversy, but does involve service to those who need service. If we can be of help to you, please advise." 5 3 It was the Red Cross that helped the Friends with Russian shipping all through 1922 and 1923. As Wilbur Thomas wrote them, "It is very gratifying to us that year after year we are able to work even more harmoniously with you, and that as we approach the new year, 1923, there is a far better understanding between our two organizations than there ever has been." 54 Throughout the whole decade from 1917 to 1927 the American Red Cross and the American Friends Service Committee exchanged information, extended courtesies to one another's workers, cooperated in purchasing, in cash and kind collections by local volunteers, in shipping, and, as far as means allowed, in relief to needy individuals. The central officers of each were for the most part friendly, and prompt to come to one another's aid, and in the field there was steady comradeship. Early in 1922 the ARA asked the Quakers to supervise the distribution of all medicine and clothing. The Quakers accepted, hoping that these programs could be expanded. 55 There was, however, an obstacle. Though relations were satisfactory with local Soviet officials in general, the AFSC workers occasionally had trouble with the Soviet Red Cross, to which was entrusted the dispensing of their medical supplies. The AFSC vigorously maintained its right to ultimate control and immediate inspection. 56 By this time it was rumored that the ARA was about to
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leave Russia. Philadelphia was worried, and the speculations reached the field. From Sorochinskoya the home office was reminded that neither the weather nor the ARA could be predicted. 57 The prospect of spring was alarming. The fact was worse. Russian population at this time was about 131,000,000; the active typhus cases reported were 26,000,000; the number of physicians, 33,000, mostly in the cities. The country people were practically unattended. For instance, rural Buzuluk reported a physician-population ratio of one to 28,700. 58 At the same time, in the medically most neglected district of the United States, a rural Kansas region, the physician-patient ratio was one to 3,645. In the early spring of 1922, human bodies lay piled in heaps. When the ground thawed, the Quakers gave extra rations to some of the men so they could rally sufficiently to be able to help the Quakers dig burial pits. 59 The trains that brought the relief supplies were pulled by wood-burning locomotives built in the 1880's. They were guarded by Red Army soldiers, many of whom had to be helped down off the roofs of the cars by their stronger comrades when at last the trains drew into the station. But in no instance was it evident that the seals on the food cars had been broken. Local individuals occasionally pilfered food; never did raids on food by government, military, or bandit gangs occur. Fridtjof Nansen confirmed this fact in a letter to the English Friends committee. Known loss of the Friends relief supplies in Russia during the ten years they worked there has been carefully evaluated at one-half of 1 per cent. 60 Distribution by villagers' committees was the only system possible for the short-handed Quaker units. The villagers maintained continuous inspection and swiftly corrected deviations from the accepted plan. The Quakers were con-
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vinced that the distribution proceeded strictly on the basis of relative need. But at home, especially in the Middle West, there was continuous criticism, sometimes more, sometimes less, claiming that the Soviet authorities through their control of the railroads duped the Quakers and influenced the distribution of relief supplies. "Everything considered," reported Murray Kenworthy, who was in charge at Buzuluk, "I am inclined to praise the Russian railroad officials, rather than to find fault. . . . The Government has given us ready assistance all along the line. . . . So far as we can see we have the approval and hearty support of the Government." 61 A damaging press attack on the morning of February 9, 1922, in the Chicago Tribune, featured a report headlined: "Lenin Selects Chicago for a Big Fund Drive." Allegedly, this drive was to be engineered by the "American Committee for Russian Famine Relief," a Chicago group for which the American Friends Service Committee had agreed to help distribute. The Tribune named nine United States senators, eight representatives, thirteen governors, one cardinal, one archbishop, and twenty-three Protestant and Roman Catholic bishops as sponsors of the Committee. Also linked to the Chicago group, so the Tribune said, were American Medical Relief to Soviet Russia, Friends of Soviet Russia, and the Russian Red Cross. Covertly directing the Chicago group was Dr. D. H. Dubrowsky, said to be the chief Soviet agent in America since the deportation of Ludwig Martins. The Tribune attributed its information to Herbert Hoover, who had purportedly received it from the Department of Justice. 62 Next day the Chicago group publicly declared the whole report a malicious fabrication, and demanded a congressional investigation, both of itself and of the ARA's purported antiSoviet activities in Hungary, Poland, Russia, and the United
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63
States. Coming at a time when Mr. Hoover had warmly praised the AFSC's Russian work to President Harding, this flare-up was unsettling to the Quakers, dependent as they were on the good will and confidence of the ARA, our government, and the public. 84 Herbert Hoover wrote to Rufus Jones: You will realize that I went into the Russian situation with great unwillingness, under pressure that I was not doing the right thing unless I lent my influence to it. I have succeeded in building up some $50,000,000 which probably . . . could not have been accomplished by anyone else. From a personal point of view, I have every reason to regret that I ever touched a situation that is so pregnant with mud and personal vilification. . . . I am continually sending out general statements and assurances to individuals that they should support the Friends Service Committee. . . . I had hoped that the Committee would keep itself free from association with radical groups, for I cannot conceive a greater negation to all that the Quakers stand for than a regime that carries on its banners "Religion is the Opiate of the People." If you are in doubt as to the ramifications of any of these people I would be glad to help you. You are doing a great work and I want you to succeed.65 Christian Herter, Mr. Hoover's assistant, now asked in effect: Does or does not the AFSC mean to sever its connection with the leader of the charge against my chief? 06 The AFSC in Philadelphia replied: "Our connection with the [American Committee for Russian Famine Relief] was made solely from a desire to promote the cause of Russian relief. Since Mr. Hoover objects, the AFSC will sever its connection." 67 Mr. Hoover asked the AFSC to engage publicly on his behalf against the slanders of the radicals. 68 The special AFSC meeting called to consider this communication was a critical occasion. After long deliberation,
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Charles Evans and Charles Rhoads were selected to prepare a letter to the Socialist organ, The Call, the paper that most systematically criticized Mr. Hoover. The AFSC disavowed all part in the attacks and tendered its solid thanks to Herbert Hoover for his continuous and substantial services to the American Friends Service Committee,69 which from then on had no further dealings with the Chicago group.70 In Russia, ARA-AFSC relations were still good.71 One hundred thousand daily meals and increasing medical and clothing service was the AFSC's April program, 1922,72 which it planned to continue through the spring until the harvest.71 But this feeding rate was soon doubled.74 Occasionally, for lack of supplies, the unit was obliged to buy in Europe, a practice that depleted food resources in other needy countries and did not sit well with American contributors who expected the AFSC to patronize American food growers. Also the unit was trying to strengthen local food production.75 After much negotiation, Soviet permission was obtained to expand work in White Russia, using grants from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.76 Late in April, 1922, supported apparently by Senator Borah, the American Committee for Russian Famine Relief renewed its call for congressional investigation.77 The AFSC insisted that it took no part in urging this.78 Twelve days later, on May 10, the State Department, for reasons undisclosed, informed the American Committee for Russian Famine Relief that there was no objection to its raising funds for relief of Russia.79 Only momentarily quieted, the Chicago group pressed freshly to attack the National Information Bureau, a self-appointed monitor of loyalties, the ARA and Mr. Hoover, the United States National Chamber of Commerce, and others.80 Some weeks later Mr. Hoover, because of a Soviet policy
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to tax the Russian recipients of ARA grain, told the AFSC he would support no further efforts to obtain congressional appropriations for relief.81 In spite of these variations of feeling at home, relations with the ARA in the field continued to be cordial, thanks to Colonel Haskell, who gave a broad interpretation to the terms of the original agreement. In June, The Literary Digest, a magazine often used by the ARA, accurately announced that the American Red Cross was thinking about leaving Russia.82 Though the famine had abated, aid from America was still imperative. 83 A Quaker representative just returned from the field was positive that without American aid in the spring, starvation in the famine areas would have become almost universal. He also reported that the Soviet authorities had used every means in their power to move grain from the less afflicted areas into the famine districts, and to secure supplies from outside Russia, adding that in the preceding winter, cargoes had been delayed by rerouting to avoid track blockage. Some other cargoes, transferred into ships small enough to get through the narrow channels opened by ice-breakers, had been damaged or mislaid. The difficulties were indeed complex.84 Reports of drought that summer, 1922, soon convinced the AFSC that it must get ready, not to leave Russia, but on the contrary to rush supplies to Russia before the coming winter. Early in July, however, Herbert Hoover wrote to Rufus Jones: "The American Relief Administration will obviously wish to readjust its policies with the arrival of the present harvest in Russia. I, therefore, wish to take this opportunity to suggest that if the American Friends Service Committee intends to continue work in Russia, it should be prepared to make all arrangements independently after September 1st [1922]."85 To this, the AFSC replied that it expected to work on in Russia for "another year." 86
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Next, on receipt of more accurate information, 87 the ARA reversed its decision and conceded that the famine was far from ended. A general campaign was launched in the United States for money to feed a million Russian children through the coming winter and the spring of 1923. Money, clearly, would be very hard to raise. Clearly, too, the Quakers would have to face the necessity of reviewing their agreements with the Soviet government. 88 Murray Kenworthy had returned home too ill with typhus to continue leading the Moscow Unit. It seemed best for Wilbur Thomas or some member of the Executive Board to go to Russia to help make the fresh agreements that were required. 89 To restore its authority and regularize relations with the Soviet authorities and the cooperating relief agencies, the ARA resigned itself again to firmness and patience. 90 The Riga Agreement had become virtually inoperative.1'1 In late September the Quakers broached the question of formal separation from the ARA and a new agreement with the Soviet government. A cablegram to the Home Committee summarizes the situation: "Haskell, ARA, says if we sign separate agreement [with the Soviet Government for independent action here] we are in Russia on our own responsibility 100 per cent [No supplies from ARA,] no ARA obligations to extend assistance our personnel. No forwarding shipments to us unless by arrangement with ARA in USA. . . . Shall we sign Anglo-American Quaker agreement with Soviet? We are agreeable if you can supply us direct America. What are financial support prospects America? Advise shipping to . . . Riga." The American and British Quakers were now working together so closely that any new agreement with the government would serve both programs. 92 But the ARA still considered the AFSC units its wards and
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allowed them the use of its facilities and resources. On the other hand, the Service Committee workers did not consider themselves "an integral working part of the ARA organization." When they told Colonel Haskell that they were about to break off entirely from the ARA, he smiled and said, "Well, the old hen cannot mother her chicks forever." 93 The Quakers' new agreement was completed in October and stipulated that the American and British Friends would feed 200,000 children and adults in the Buzuluk and Pugachev regions daily until July, 1923; supply at least 500 horses for the local plowing; expend at least £.20,000 worth of clothing and £10,000 worth of medicines and medical supplies, and supply not less than 16,000 tons of other food, and twenty tractors. The Soviet government agreed to ease travel in and out of Russia; allow the Quaker workers free movement within Russia; desist from interfering with their Russian helpers; pay for the internal transportation and storage of supplies; charge no customs duties; and provide free communication, garaging, and truck and automobile repair. The government also engaged to provide buildings for use as feeding centers, hospitals, and clinics. The Quakers were to manage and provision these centers and their programs and submit periodic reports. This contract was subject to termination bv either party on two months' notice.94 But relations with Soviet officials continued to be uneven.51' Always there were three watchwords: firmness, patience, forbearance. The famine was not over. During its worst period in the Pugachev and Buzuluk districts the percentage of persons having less food than required to sustain life was 68 and 94 per cent respectively. If the government persisted in exporting grain, the position of the foreign agencies would be made
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virtually untenable. At home, donations for Russia were meager. After careful figuring the AFSC set its budget for the year 1923 at $2,675,000—for food, medicine, clothing, and sundries to be distributed through child welfare centers. No reconstruction projects were to be attempted until the need for emergency relief abated. 97 Even this minimum program would mean hard work for the finance committees at home. 98 The AFSC applied to the United States Treasury Department for a license to send medical narcotics to Russia. The Department regretfully denied the application on the ground that the Soviet government had not ratified the Hague Opium Convention, and therefore was not a qualified recipient of narcotic drugs from the United States, which was a signatory nation. 99 Meanwhile, some Friends were not clear that the British and American committees had acted correctly in instructing the Moscow unit to sign a separate agreement with the Soviet government without first clarifying their obligations with the ARA.100 But on November 10, 1922, the government at Moscow sent an ultimatum to all the foreign agencies in Russia. It expressed gratitude for the help received and went on to say: "The worst period of the famine has already passed and . . . life is entering into its normal course." Russia now had to revive its industry and agriculture and set about the task of human reconstruction, though resources were much reduced. The government went on to state that the amount and type of foreign aid that would be accepted was now to be limited. Henceforth, all foreign agencies, including the Friends, were to bear the entire cost of internal transportation, warehousing, and payments to Russian personnel, and all agencies were to be coordinated with those of the Soviet
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government. The Friends, although asked to bring more Russian personnel into their activities, were to retain full control of distribution. No new projects were to be opened in areas served by similar Soviet government projects. The Friends were to provide certain foods and supplies to governmental projects and to consult the government before expanding their units or opening student-feeding centers. The relief of professors and teachers also was to require government consent. Supplies brought into Russia by the Friends were now subject to customs charges, and food parcels were to be distributed, preferably, to Soviet Trade Union members. The presence of more foreign workers than were absolutely required for minimum efficiency was discouraged. This long exposition ended with the implication, no less clear for being courteously worded, that unless the foreign agencies, including Friends relief, accepted these terms the Soviet government would not feel obliged to fulfill any commitments previously made. It hoped that by coordinating short-range and long-range efforts the foreign agencies would work harmoniously and effectively toward the further benefit of the Russian people.101 The Friends made the best of these terms and continued in Russia for five years. The central government, still very new to its responsibilities, progressed to its own more normal problems. Export of grain continued—as is clearly indicated by letters from Soviet officials that Christian Herter showed to a Quaker representative in Washington—despite the fact that some three million Russians, by the Soviets' own statement, were still dependent on foreign food. On the basis of these admissions, said Mr. Herter, the ARA had decided to make no general appeal for Russian children and to feed no Russian adults that winter.102 Was the Soviet government justified, as some informed observers held, in exchanging at
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least some quantities of grain for otherwise unobtainable foreign credits, which in turn could be used to purchase locomotives for hauling grain into the famine districts and to buy farm machinery for use in the coming spring? 103 This question was not answered. At any rate, the ARA was closing out its Russian work, including the Food Draft Package system, which "in addition to the great saving of life . . . has avoided the diversion of money into various channels where it might have been used for propaganda." Quaker help in collecting medicine and clothing for Russia had again been requested by the ARA. . . we feel that you share with us," they said, "gratitude to the real doers of the job—the band of Americans in the field who have faced the rigors and dangers of present Russian life." 104 On into 1923, the AFSC Moscow office worked to regularize its situation in connection with the ARA and the Soviet government. The AFSC was to provide to Soviet government projects what food, medicine, and clothing it could spare from its own diminishing bins and bales; to help supply and help manage a number of government-controlled hospitals, clinics, and orphanages, and continue its own projects to the limit of its resources. The Soviet government agreed to help supply a few of the AFSC's medical projects. All back accounts between the AFSC and the ARA were settled. A letter from a Friend in Washington urged that if the AFSC could act quickly Mr. Hoover might help secure surplus United States Army medical essentials for use in Russia,10"' but nothing came of this. A few weeks later, with encouragement from Senator Borah and Senator Wadsworth, the AFSC urged that a rider allotting a large consignment of surplus army blankets and other goods useful to Friends relief be
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attached to an army appropriation bill, but this also came to nothing. A major disappointment was the ARA's definite decision late in January, 1923, to cut off what remained of its own feeding work in Russia.107 Later, large stocks of its leftover food were transferred to the Quakers: "forty seven hundred sixty tons . . . cost Hamburg." 108 The following Quaker cablegram was sent from Moscow to Philadelphia in January, 1923," Request permission extend feeding immediately." The urgency was so apparent that, though there were no funds in sight to back the increase, Philadelphia replied: "Go ahead." This decision ran counter to settled policy in regard to deficit financing. By dint of extra canvassing the discrepancy was made up. The need in the Pugachev and Bashkir regions remained ghastly.109 Various impediments, among them the current recession, obstructed the American Friends Service Committee's nationwide appeal for Russia late in the winter of 1923.110 The ARA had said that hunger in Russia no longer reached the dimensions of starvation, yet the Quakers were reporting desperate conditions.111 Both could not be right about the actual condition, a fact that the public quickly recognized. The Chicago Tribune featured its own Moscow correspondence: "Famine Over in Russia." 112 Several of the AFSC's largest, hitherto most friendly donors asked that their money be returned.113 Attitudes and actions of Soviet officials added to the complexity of these anxious days. Only by constant firmness were the Quakers able to arrange for the distribution of the residual supplies of "American Medical Aid for Russia." That agency had defaulted in its contract to supply governmentoperated hospitals, despite an active money-raising effort led by eminent physicians, Dr. Harvey Cushing, Dr. Charles H.
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Mayo, Dr. William H. Welch, and the Surgeon-General of the United States, Dr. M. W . Ireland.114 Because the Soviet government confiscated virtually no grain in the districts for which it was primarily responsible, and because the AFSC workers believed the problem was inflated by the press at home, they put their own effort into remonstrance with the local authorities involved,115 pointing out that moving grain or any other foodstuff from one part of a hungry country to another does not add to the total food resources.116 At bottom, the problem was political and related to collectivization. Friends were in Russia to help the people, not to join in spectators' debate. Realizing that Soviet grain policy would not change if they left the field in protest, the Quaker relief teams stayed in Russia, unwilling to break off the feeding of children and other urgent child care. In April, 1923, the AFSC made a fresh attempt to secure an official reconsideration of Europe's civil situation by the Government of the United States. To President Harding the Committee addressed an appeal on the basis of its experience in France, Serbia, Austria, Germany, Poland, and Russia, and in the light of conditions prevailing in the Occupied Ruhr, on the Polish-Russian frontier, in Turkey, in the Near East, in India, and in Great Britain, where unemployment was causing great distress. The appeal was urgent: ". . . hope has been lost and despair has seized great parts of the population like a disease." The plea pressed for a . . new and real Peace Conference" grounded "on the recognition of some such fundamental basis as the complete brotherhood of mankind. To you the executive head of this great nation we turn, confident that you and your Administration are in sympathy with the purpose of our appeal, and we ask that you exercise the great powers which have been entrusted to you by your fellow citizens for the salvation of the nations." 117
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As the days of spring grew longer, the AFSC began to plan the next phase of its Russian work: The feeding must continue, at least through the coming harvest, probably beyond. Hospital supplying and repairing, medical aid to mothers and children, orphanage aid, antimalaria measures, and agricultural reconstruction should also go forward, it was hoped on a more adequate scale. About twelve AFSC workers and as many representing the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee had agreed to stay, but care in the selection of well qualified persons to join them was still essential. It was clear that as the urgency of the need abated direct dealings with officials would increase. The Friends War Victims Relief Committee, it was learned, planned to devolve most of or all its projects onto trained Russian staff in the autumn, and to merge itself with the Council for International Service, a new British Friends Committee formed to carry on Friends Centers, rather than relief.118 The Americans moved into an expanded effort against malaria and typhus, and began the reconstitution of their children's sanitarium at Totskoy, originally opened by the government, but closed in 1920. Here the Quakers treated sufferers from malaria and tuberculosis. For the first time they undertook systematic mental therapy for children affected psychologically by tuberculosis. From Buzuluk the Committee also opened a colorful and useful project of supplying draft horses to peasants. Russia needed at least ten million horses to replace those lost during the war, the Revolution, and the famine.119 Over long routes across Siberia through Tashkent, a trip requiring two months or more, Russians and a few Quakers-turned-drovers began to bring great herds of horses, an adventure unforgotten by the riders. A son of Count Tolstoy was one of them. Bv arrangement with Buzuluk officials, the AFSC turned the
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horses over to the peasants on pay-as-you-can contracts for $15 to $20 a head, funding the scheme themselves. All transactions were put on a gold-currency basis, with the government waiving its horse tax. Each farmer getting a horse had to promise to take proper care of it and share its use with his neighbors. By the end of September, the drovers, making round trips, had brought into the Buzuluk region more than 43,000 horses. 120 Through the spring of 1924, the AFSC maintained its feeding program for ten thousand children in orphanages and ten thousand women and children in their homes. 121 Maternity assistance was substantally increased as were supplies to hospitals and clinics, and for work to combat typhus and tuberculosis. Quinine was made available at token prices, for the treatment of tropical malaria brought in by local peasants returned from Turkestan, where they had gone in search of food. Tractor-ploughing, cooperative planting, and cottage industries were organized in the Buzuluk region 122 where there had not been a good harvest since 1915. But difficulties continued. There was sporadic punishment of Russians who had helped the American Relief Administration or the Quakers. 123 There was also a controversy about the agricultural training school for three hundred orphans, which the Friends had opened at Oomnovka. The government did not want religion taught there, and Friends did not want atheism taught there. An effort was under way for an accommodation. 124 There were novel difficulties about cashing checks. 12 ' But characteristically, these problems were not uniform. In some matters the government was obliging, notably in the clinical and farm rehabilitation work. Perhaps this was because the Interallied Commission in Russia had agreed to sell farm machinery to the Quaker farm projects. 126 At home, the problem was money. "Committee finds busi-
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ness depression affecting all drives. Advises most drastic expense cut possible immediately," was the warning cabled out in June, 1924.127 In January, 1925, the unit proposed a permanent program of family relief and nurses' training in Moscow. T h e Home Committees cautioned that the program would have to subsist on a very limited budget. 1 " 8 T h e work at Buzuluk had now closed. The A F S C was clear that it could not undertake the relief of political prisoners in Europe, as had been requested in some quarters.129 In July, 1926, the Philadelphia Committee learned from London that Anna Haines, the senior member of the AFSC's team in Russia, had been summoned for questioning about Friends purposes in Russia and their possible connections with Russia's free religious bodies.130 After extended correspondence and discussion, the English and American Quaker committees agreed that they would keep working in correct relation with the Soviet authorities as long as possible and, at the same time, without in any way proselytizing, make use of every opportunity for spiritual fellowship with the Russian people. 131 An A F S C cablegram to British Friends enlarged upon this hope: "Our Committee approves plans nurses school Russia. Believe Russian government should put buildings in shape. Our Committee proposes find minimum fifteen thousand dollars first year. Lesser amount next two years if you approve project. About how much will you undertake to find? W i l l not notify unit on action until w e hear from you." 132 So long as money could be found, a most uncertain prospect, the Friends were determined to witness through their deeds. In the end the project of a school of nursing had to be given up.133 A vocational school for girls at Sorochinskoya established and maintained by the A F S C did, however, include nurses' training. This school continued in connection with the
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Totskoy Sanitarium, under Friends direction, through 1927. Responsibility for support of the sanitarium was returned to the government in October, 1928. With the exception of nine months' interruption caused by fierce local military action in 1917 and 1918, the American Friends Service Committee, in collaboration with British Friends, other private agencies, the American Relief Administration, other agencies of governments, and agencies of the Soviet government, had been actively represented in Russia in one way or another for ten years. The American Friends work had been opened by the party of women who joined the British Friends at Buzuluk in September, 1917. The most intense period began with the Riga Agreement in August, 1921. The decline of this phase in late autumn, 1922, was marked by the Soviet restrictions on the work of all foreign agencies in Russia. But the Russian people still needed outside help. The Quakers, unwilling to give up, carried on a series of prolonged and difficult negotiations by which they retained permission to continue a variety of projects with varying degrees of official sanction and participation until the summer of 1927. It then became apparent that the benefits to be achieved on the basis of the very limited American funds now available for work in Russia would not warrant further efforts. Hence, the American Friends Service Committee then virtually closed its work in Russia. The last act was the transfer of the financing of the Totskoy Sanitarium to Soviet hands in October, 1928. A memorial addressed to the American Friends Service Committee in November, 1923, by the Peasant Mutual Aid Committee of Sorochinskoya, ends with this assurance: "We promise that if ever some misfortune befalls the American people, the Russian people will apply all efforts to give assistance." 134
9 EPILOGUE Like the phenomenon of world war, systematic international relief to war victims was, as has been said, unknown prior to the twentieth century. Tribes had fought with tribes, empires with empires or with barbarians, parties had fought parties in civil conflict, nations had warred against nations, but never before had so large a part of the world and so great a proportion of mankind been engaged in one war. In older times, responsibility for the relief of noncombatant victims had devolved upon women, friendly clans, merciful military officers, or persons religiously impelled. Such work as that of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) and her associates in the Crimean War and Clara Barton (18211912) in the Civil War had been directed chiefly toward relieving wounded or sick soldiers. Even Red Cross organizations did not become involved in civilian war relief on a large scale until 1914. It was Herbert Hoover who first conceived and carried through enormous projects of international relief. Out of his experience in evacuating American and British civilians from the ports of the Low Countries at the outbreak of the First World War grew the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the subsequent American Relief Administration, which eventually reached out from Belgium all the way into revolutionary Russia, and from the Mediterranean to the Arctic 191
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Ocean. Mr. Hoover's spontaneous response to the unforeseen need and the systematic relief that he conceptualized and carried through rescued more children from death by hunger and the diseases brought on by hunger than any other work in the history of mankind. To these programs and to the affiliated work of Red Cross agencies, most British, continental, and American governmental and private programs came to be attached. Among them was that which was established and developed by members of the Society of Friends in the United States of America. Though opposed totally to war, the Quakers were nonetheless able to cooperate for civilian relief with both private and governmental agencies. Long peace had not prepared the Society of Friends in America to meet the requirements that war and their profession of Christian pacifism suddenly thrust upon them in the dreadful year 1914. During America's three years of neutrality neither the suffering in Europe, nor the example of British and Irish Friends, nor the recollection of witness maintained in earlier American wars, nor promptings of the Divine Spirit had stirred them to corporate action for the relief of war victims. It is true that statements were issued and considerable sums of money were regularly sent abroad; also a few individuals went as volunteers to help relieve distant needs. But not until the United States of America entered the war did American Friends as a society undertake sustained effort. More explicitly than any other single stimulus, the enactment of conscription called forth Quaker action. Let it be repeated that Friends were not content with simply trying to secure for themselves and their sons exemption from combat duty. If Quakers were to be satisfied with exemption from fighting, they had to find and carry out some appropriate contribution to relieve civilian suffering. This sense of re-
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sponsibility the Quakers shared with the great majority of their fellow countrymen who were willing to serve in the fighting forces. In the United States Conscription Act of 1917, noncombatant service or exemption was provided for religious men who objected to bearing arms because of belief. But facing squarely the problem of conscription, Friends found few precedents to guide them. There was also uncertainty on the government's side. One War Department official confessed: "The C.O. problem is almost as bad for us in this office as it is for men like yourselves." 1 Harder than the plight of Quaker youths was that of objectors who were not members of recognized Peace Churches, men who based their claim upon humanitarian or political rather than religious considerations, and by the so-called absolutists who refused even to register for the draft. These men bore the brunt of the testimony against war. It is a credit to the Quakers that, in their eagerness to get on with relief work overseas, they did not lose sight of these isolated witnesses. The formation of the American Friends Service Committee in the spring of 1917—". . . the safety valve for Friends at a time when they would have flown to pieces on talk, if they could not act," 2 helped the several branches of American Friends eventually to come together. Conscription faced them all; they were all derived from the same stock; all in some way and in some measure responded to the common call. The degree of unity among American Friends today can be traced back to that vital spring. What was in the minds of the thirteen Quakers who gathered in Philadelphia, the last afternoon of April, 1917? They believed that the American membership of the Society of Friends would rise to the immediate emergency, but they could not possibly foresee that the agency that they initiated
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that afternoon would carry Friends to duties self-assumed in all quarters of the globe; to the Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks; the corridors of Whitehall; the wreckage of Verdun; the black mountains of the Adriatic; the tar-paper shanties on the once-imperial hunting grounds outside Vienna; Berlin's slums; even to the typhus-infested dugouts of the Vilna hills, and the famine-stricken villages of the Volga Valley. Their immediate purpose was to devise a plan to carry their younger members through the war. They had no idea that in the next decade their simple committee would be incorporated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and become an agency to be looked to as a model by the federal government in the Depression; that within twenty years the American Friends Service Committee would venture into the area of aerial bombing and back-alley terror of the Spanish Civil War; within thirty years into the tragic problems of Asia and the Levant; within forty years into Detroit, Little Rock, Washington, and other centers of decision between capital and labor and between the white and colored races. What was immediately apparent was the fact that the new Committee had caught the imagination and enthusiasm of Friends across the nation, especially of the young Friends. Indeed, when we consider the response and the verve of the unit of young men whom the AFSC began to train at Haverford College for relief work overseas we are reminded of William James's appeal for a "moral equivalent of war." "The war against war," the psychologist-philosopher wrote in 1910, the last year of his life, "is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. . . . What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. The war-function has grasped us so far; but constructive interests
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may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden." 3 But it was also plain that to conserve this enthusiasm and bring it to bear when and where it was needed, the new Committee had at once to negotiate with governments and governmental bodies, with our War Department in regard to draft status; with our State Department for passports; with the American Red Cross for procurement, transportation, and allocation of supplies; and with the French authorities for leave to enter, move about in, and ship supplies to combat zones. British Friends were already in the field. They set the example for most working arrangements. The negotiations with governments that inevitably underlay every phase of war relief were often carried on by busy officials outside the range of their major duties. Occasionally the results of Quaker negotiations appeared in laws and regulations. This was the case in the Selective Service provisions for conscientious objectors to military service. Sometimes they influenced or were embodied in intergovernmental arrangements, as in the Riga Agreement between the Soviet authorities and the American Relief Administration, which, like the American Red Cross, was a staff, in some sense actually an arm, of the Government of the United States. Agreements of this class can be found in published histories of the Red Cross and the ARA, as well as in the archives of the American Friends Service Committee. It was natural that between our State and War departments, on the one hand, and the Quakers on the other, dayto-day relations during active war were necessarily uneven, sometimes tense, sometimes cordial. "Help us to stem the tides of hunger and disease that threaten European children!" pleaded the Quakers. The governments paid attention
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and reached out helping hands, demonstrating the possibilities, not wholly realized even today, of cooperation for urgent objectives between agencies of national states and private voluntary agencies. T h e earliest and clearest example of such cooperation was the original Agreement of August, 1917, between the American Red Cross and the American Friends Service Committee. Yet in spite of this first step there was inevitable strain in working with and yet avoiding working under the government-financed organizations. T h e American Red Cross and the American Relief Administration functioned mainly by means of money and supplies made available from taxes paid by the same public to which the Quakers appealed for voluntary donations. To satisfy the Congress, the Red Cross and the A R A were, to degrees that varied with the public temper, frequently obliged to take stands to which the Quakers had to take exception without, at the same time, alienating the public on which they were dependent for their own support. Examples of this problem were the feeding programs in Germany and in Russia. Even the close field collaboration of the American with the British Quakers presented a difficulty when the A F S C was asked to use funds allocated by the American Congress from taxes. It was always maintained that American money must be dispensed by Americans. Added to this was the tendency of labor and liberal groups as donors, and of some Quakers, to regard as reactionary the semigovernmental organizations. Further, it appears that staff subordinates occasionally disrupted good relations worked out by the heads of the AFSC, the Red Cross, or the A R A . Understandings arrived at by the chiefs in private conference, or by representatives of the various agencies actually in the field, were occasionally frayed at the edges by office interference. It is obvious, however, that
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despite minor difficulties, real comradeship was felt among the executives in charge, among personnel in the various offices, and among the obscure and happily interdenominational relief workers who ran about in pursuit of their duties at the farthest reaches of the distribution web. Lasting friendships were made in the years of this great endeavor. Another source of complication was the press. Through ignorance or what at times appears to have been deliberate falsifying, especially in reports of food needs in Germany and Russia, the collection of funds for relief purposes was sometimes made virtually impossible. The direct result of such irresponsibility was more dead children. When the American Friends Service Committee and, by association, the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee realized that they were harnessed to the milk wagon with horses of another size and color, namely the Red Cross and the ARA, they did their best to pull their weight. But the problem of keeping the vehicle on the road, as Friends saw the road, was not always easy. The very much smaller Quaker horses were sometimes in the position of constraining their huge teammates. Government officials and directors of organizations variously attached to governments were most of them as anxious for the suffering children and their hungry parents as were the Friends, but their training and official responsibilities often led them to different modes of action. It is to the credit of all that, in spite of strain, forward movement was maintained. Significant, too, is the fact that today, forty years later, Friends and governments are still working together. Other difficulties should be noted before we pass on to a review of the lessons taught by the work in each country and by the experience of the decade as a whole. Owing to the unpredictable factor in contributions and
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costs, neither the British nor the American Friends Committee was able to budget far in advance. There were many anxious days of waiting for the income from emergency appeals. But in the long sweep, public giving showed that relief and reconstruction, not destruction, was the real impulse of America. In the matter of personnel, all the agencies, including the A F S C , found it hard to recruit workers whose performance in the field held to a uniformly high level. The conditions of the work taxed personal stability. "Members of our mission," Philadelphia once wrote to Frankfurt, "must remember that they are not only saving the lives of human beings, but that they are acting as representatives of a much larger group of people back home. When they cut loose entirely from the Home Committee they soon begin to flounder about." 4 Francesca Wilson, a veteran of British Friends relief, wrote in 1944: All relief workers long to leave behind them something permanent that will live on after the emergency is over. They can probably do this best by training the nationals, whom they are helping, to carry on when they are gone and by supporting the local social services rather than by trying to supplant them. . . . Foreigners engaged on relief may be more effective ambassadors than those appointed by the State. They are not hedged round with pomp and officialdom, careful whom they know and what they see and say, but they live and work and suffer and hope with ordinary people. And it is because they are ambassadors that they may be immeasurably important. . . . It is difficult to choose the right people for relief work abroad. Upheavals attract the unbalanced as well as those with constructive powers. People who have made a mess of their lives in their own country are eager to leave it, and they may get excellent testimonials from friends who think they will make good somewhere else—and prefer to see them there. . . . Many adventurous
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people, both here and in the USA, are trying to climb onto the bandwagon of relief. They are suffering from a kind of claustrophobia, from being shut up in their own country for more than four years and feel an intense nostalgia for foreign lands—easily camouflaged as a desire to do good. But a spirit of adventure is not a bad thing, provided there is something else. Specialist qualifications, organising powers, gift of improvisation, linguistic talent—all of these things are necessities, but not enough. Those who go out to relieve the sufferings of the starving, the diseased, and the uprooted, and to bring healing to sick minds, must have a gift for service and something that one can only call charity —not in its debased sense, but in its original and dynamic meaning.5 No British or American field worker and only the few members of the office staff in London and Philadelphia were paid. Maintenance and occasional dependency allowance was the financial provision. This was not the case with the personnel of governmental bodies or of most other private relief agencies. T h e representatives of other American organizations were generally provided with living conditions as nearly equal to the home standards as circumstances allowed. The living standards of most American Friends Service Committee representatives were kept to what was considered the minimum for efficiency. British Quaker workers endeavored to live as nearly as possible at the standard of the people among whom they worked. These variations suggest more basic differences that influenced relationships between the Friends units and other agencies, and even between the American and British Friends. The work of the British Friends was governed more by a desire to make a clear demonstration of principle than to carry out a large-scale program of relief. American Friends were influenced by a desire to provide as much relief as pos-
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sible without sacrificing their ideal. American governmental agencies and those working directly with the government sought to achieve the largest programs their appropriations, allotments, and collections would allow, in the interest of relieving as many persons as possible and with the hope of winning good will abroad. In this respect, their programs were forerunners of America's Marshall Plan and Point IV, of the British Colombo Plan, and of United Nations' Social and Technical Assistance. A third difficulty encountered by the AFSC should be mentioned in this context, namely, its failure to obtain special grants from the Congress, or a predictable share of the grants allotted by the Congress to the Red Cross and the ARA. Though the Committee consistently refused to enter controversy that might color its nonpolitical, nonpartisan character and reputation, and though it faithfully fulfilled its obligations to the government and the affiliated agencies, at no time was it given special grants or specific shares in grants to the other organizations that would have enabled it to plan ahead and enlarge its programs in keeping with its own reading of the needs. A factor in this situation, especially as regards work in Russia, was the ambivalence on the part of the Congress toward appropriating public tax funds for the relief of a people whose government was so feared, joined with unwillingness to appropriate enough resources to meet the desperate need. An effort to persuade the President and the Congress to call for a conference on world reconstruction and a general revision of the peace terms also failed. A fourth difficulty was the unavoidable fact that Friends were obliged by their home governments to postpone entrance into each new field until some degree of order had been established. In areas of general violence, systematic large-scale relief is impracticable.
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As the lessons learned and patterns set in France, in the years 1917 to 1920, continue to shape A F S C decisions, so, forty years later, the ardor of those pioneer days still provides a challenge to the Committee. I t was in F r a n c e that the Friends Service Committee first pledged itself to work with a public American relief agency. There, too, the A F S C first met and dealt with official efforts to militarize its program and its personnel. In France, American and British Friends first tested their solidarity in day-to-day association for the benefit of a people foreign to both. For F r a n c e , the A F S C also learned how to raise and maintain the flow of money; how to sclect, buy, ship, allocate, distribute (not waste) relief food; how to set up and administer a big medical program; how to recruit and manage workers pressed by government demands and beset by the restlessness of youth. T h e AFSC's first improvisations on the field, the Army dump sales and the activating of German prisoners-of-war, were performed in France. And though, it was said, ". . . we got running at top speed just when it was time to quit," the AFSC's departure was an orderly devolvement. Four years later, the first Quaker Center on the Continent was organized in Paris. Serbia, 1 9 1 9 - 2 1 , illustrated the problems of relief in a small land whose people are divided into bitter factions virtually beyond government control and so dejected by poverty as to see scant utility in any form of cooperative self-help. Like the subsequent German mission, the Austrian mission, 1919-23, was the AFSC's first encounter with the special problems of a defeated people, and with the harsh criteria of continuing collaboration with an agency, the ARA, that had to answer to the United States government and the Allies for any substantial failure of its gigantic undertakings. Conversations between the British Quakers working in
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Vienna and the Americans, who joined them in the summer of 1919, soon established the fact that Austria's condition called for a threefold effort to supplement the feeding program. The milk supply had to be built up to defend the weakened children against tuberculosis. Family self-help opportunities were needed to promote family survival through an indeterminate period of unemployment and inflation. And revision of the economic limitations imposed by the Allied Powers had to be encouraged. Blockade, loss of territory, economic partition, and severe reparations levies had been added to the economic toll of Austria's war effort. Though objecting to the AFSC's collaboration with the British Friends War Victims Relief Committee, both the Red Cross and the ARA, which in Austria eventually worked up to 400,000 daily meals, helped the American Friends Service Committee. Friends and other private agencies using public funds face hazards that forethought and the exact definition of each agency's jurisdiction can reduce, but not entirely remove. Though the concept of private social action subsidized by public funds is now established, agencies that apply this method still have to be no less exact than in the 1920's in framing the terms of their association. To supply milk the Friends improvised the successful Cow Scheme in Austria. They also imported livestock and feed, and set up husbandry systems to enlarge relief. To promote family self-help and aid families to keep together, the British Friends improvised the Garden Settlement Scheme. Eventually 700,000 people found opportunity in these Cities of Peace. To help university students, the Friends cooperated in the plan they suggested. Finally, to improve Austria's economic situation, Friends twice appealed to the United States
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government, first through Secretary of State Hughes and later through President Harding. Both efforts were the expression of the concern of a few individuals. Both might have progressed further had the full membership of the Philadelphia and London Committees grasped the capital importance of concerted, persevering work in the sphere of political decision. In Austria, the Quaker missions saw what a small, active staff could accomplish. On the other hand, the official missions seemed sometimes to be actually encumbered with personnel. The German mission, 1920-24, was begun in the midst of evils generated by certain of the Allied politcians' deliberately continuing to deprive Germany of food after the war. As a statesman, Herbert Hoover saw that order could not be restored in Europe if food were not forthcoming. He courageously fought the post-Armistice blockade imposd by Allied politicians. He was determined that German feeding "should not become the subject of political propaganda." He asked the Quakers to take the lead. With his pledge of ARA endorsement, technical assistance, and provisions, and "with some realization of the great responsibility and wonderful opportunity involved,"6 the AFSC began supplementary feeding, in Berlin, in February, 1920. By the end of the first year the Friends had served one hundred million meals. By June, 1921, they were distributing a million meals daily. Even with ARA help, the AFSC could not support the growing burden. It reached out to the German-Americans, its first minority, and to labor groups with good effect, though much of organized labor distrusted the AFSC's chief sponsor, Herbert Hoover. Church-related agencies were asked to help, though several of the largest were too timid to speak up publicly for German feeding. They felt, with Mr. Hoover,
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that ". . . we want the money but we don't want to ask for it." Much of the press persisted in condemning German children to the penalties of further hunger. In Germany the concept and the practice of systematic social action had long ago been firmly established. Seldom if ever has the AFSC worked with a government as earnest to assist or an organization as effective as the Deutscher Zentralausschuss fur die Auslandshilfe. Facing the stupendous problem, this free union of public and private bodies brought war-damaged tools and the responsiveness of local volunteers —eventually 40,000 persons—to bear upon the need with intelligence and devotion. Sustaining, too, was Herbert Hoover's help, notwithstanding his occasional exasperation in the face of popular attack or what must have seemed to him the AFSC's limitations. No less instructive was the initiative of General Henry T. Allen and the response of the officers and men of his command. It was also in Germany that the American Friends Service Committee first came to the help of needy students. Attempts to meet their want, confusion, and despair did much to interest field workers and the Home Committee in the special problems of history's only continuing republic, the young people of the world. Interest in German young people continued and developed, after the AFSC finally devolved its German relief in October, 1924, and was extended to Serbian, Austrian, Polish, and Russian youth. Later the AFSC used its good offices for American young people involved in the perplexities and dislocations of the Depression, and to youth in Asia and elsewhere during and following the Second World War. Today outreach to young people is perhaps the principal contribution and challenge to the present generation of the American Friends Service Committee. In Poland, 1920-24, where the dominant emergency was
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epidemic typhus, the AFSC for the first time took part in large-scale public sanitation, principally delousing, and medical programs of a scope and urgency beyond its previous experience. Though the extreme danger drew all the agencies, the Friends, the Red Cross, the ARA, the government, and representatives of the League of Nations into close collaboration, politics intruded, for Poland was at that time the scene of revolution and counterrevolution. Because the issue was in doubt, foreign intervention was intense. This occasioned the almost continuous risk of using relief food as a weapon, a complication that the AFSC had not previously encountered. Struggles for control on the eastern border, where crowds of refugees and bands of homeless starvelings roamed in desperate search of food, further tested the AFSC's ability to administer relief according to its own criteria. Moreover, in proportion to the need, American donation for the work in Poland was wholly inadequate. Finally, Poland was the first country that the AFSC was asked to leave. In March, 1924, after four years' work, the AFSC devolved its projects and withdrew at the Polish government's request. Looking back, the AFSC saw Poland only as a working sojourn in the midst of interminable, ghastly need. The experience in Upper Silesia, 1920-22, gave instruction in the difficulties of nonpartisan relief where political parties try to exploit food in order to influence an election. From 1917 to 1927, the ten years' experience in Russia, that maelstrom of agony, required everything—and more— that had been learned in the other fields. "Help us or we die!" pleaded the Patriarch from Moscow.7 Looking backward, as through the big end of a telescope, we have watched the Quakers enter Russia and move about among the peoples for whom the prelate raised his supplication. From those scenes of peaceable intervention, what can
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be derived? No group of Americans has worked as long or as intimately among the Russian people as did the British Friends and their American colleagues. No agency has so persevered to help the Russian people by criteria drawn from Christian teaching. As we think about the Russian famine and the decisions and activities of agencies that responded, several points become clear: 1. The situation epitomized in the Steffens-Bullitt Report presented to the Powers at Versailles in April, 1919, appears to have indicated an opening for step-by-step attempts to rationalize relations between the Soviets and the Powers. It also indicated a way to stem starvation by intergovernmental action. The Powers rejected the opportunity. They later set aside the excellent plan for intergovernmental relief submitted by Fridtjof Nansen, though this substitute did not entail the recognition by the Western Powers of the Soviet government. 2. Vital time was lost while the United States government hesitated to develop a coherent policy toward the Soviet régime. Apparently unable to grasp the central fact of the Russian situation, namely, that famine feeds irrational behavior, the State Department wavered among several courses: establishing a cordon sanitaire, administering compassionate relief, furnishing counterrevolutionary supplies, introducing armed intervention, and maintaining a policy of inaction. As a result, through the period of famine incubation the Red Cross also hesitated either to take the field itself or to help the Quakers to do so. The ARA first refused to commit itself to systematic action; then, when it began to supply relief, placed restrictive conditions on its subsidies to other agencies, including the Friends. Meanwhile, influenced by irresponsible or ill-informed elements of the press, the public that had generously supported relief to other nations became
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confused as to the need and value of relief in Russia, and the credibility of Quaker appeals. In passing, it is interesting to notice that the State Department, the Red Cross, and the ARA at various junctures all asked the Quakers to perform tasks that they themselves declined to undertake; for example, antituberculosis work in the Crimea and aid to the Russian refugees crowding into Constantinople. 3. From the outset, the official American agencies were aware of the counterrevolutionary potentials of relief. The Soviets, though determined to suppress all counterrevolution, saw relief as indispensable to the Revolution. Without great quantities of foreign food, the Revolution might break up. American Red Cross supplies, for example, if distributed by Friends, were acceptable; American Red Cross personnel were not welcome. Friends work, wholly nonpolitical, had to thread this political strait. 4. Mr. Hoover's attitude toward work in Russia was not a simple one. That he wanted America to help the people, especially the children, cannot be doubted; yet he opposed the Revolution. At this time he held a high appointive office, and was to win within seven years the highest elective office. This helps to explain the ARA's delay in going into Russia, and the course followed in the clogged ports and Chicago Tribune controversies, both of which were further complicated by the propaganda of partisan relief organizations. It is evident that Mr. Hoover thought, in the Russian episode at least, that several of the AFSC's decisions and activities were dictated more by good will than by good sense. He did not hesitate to override AFSC arrangements. The lack of response to AFSC appeals for funds for Russian feeding indicates that Mr. Hoover's attitude was widely shared. His question was this: We want to help the children, but can we trust the Bolsheviks?
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5. Finally, at Riga, in August, 1921, more than four years after the first reports of critical food shortages in Russia, the American Relief Administration and the Soviet government came to terms. The agreement signed by Walter Lyman Brown and Maxim Litvinov was the first instrument of cooperation between an American agency supported at least in part from congressional grants and the Soviet government. It was also the Soviet government's first written admission of the fact of famine in the home of Revolution. Four days after the Riga Agreement, at an interagency conference in Washington, Mr. Hoover said: The problem before us is not the reformation of Russia's economic and political systems, but the relief of terrible physical needs. Outside political intervention can solve nothing, nor must we stoop to the use of food as an instrument of politics. The United States intends neither to recognize Russia nor to interfere with efforts to relieve Soviet Russia . . . we must be zealous to retain our American character, for only so can we strongly appeal to the impulsive generosity of America. . . . Upon this basis alone can the ARA secure United States governmental relief supplies.8
With its resources, its method, and its zeal, the ARA now entered Russia. Its course was defined by a local representative in these terms: "The necessary thing to be remembered is that to make the work a success the [Soviet] government must be used and must be brought into the work." 9 But the American Friends Service Committee, and by extension the British Friends, now found that if they wished to share ARA resources they must accept a degree of ARA direction. Moreover, formal affiliation with the Hoover organization complicated Friends relations with labor and liberal groups at home whose continuing support the Friends also required. Individual Friends workers expressed dissatis-
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faction. The Federal Council of Churches and other bodies made it clear, however, that they could not support the AFSC unless it continued to be affiliated with Mr. Hoover. 6. Several questions arise in regard to the Russian situation: If the Soviets had not imposed the grain tax, or if they had not exported grain, would the American Congress have made additional relief appropriations to supplement their $20,000,000 appropriation of December, 1921? In view of the grain dispersions, should the American Friends Service Committee have left Russia, or at least stopped distributing grain foods? When, and to what extent, should any private relief agency lend itself to public controversies that relate to its practical affairs? 7. Finally, it appears that Friends relations with the American official bodies and the Soviets described a curve. There were three phases: The American Friends Service Committee began work in Russia without the full cooperation of either the American government or the Russian revolutionaries. Persisting through tedious negotiations, it eventually gained increasing sanction and support of both. Then, the rise was sharp. Both the ARA and the Soviet government after the Riga Agreement gave the AFSC full formal recognition and, in separate agreements, both gave assurances of cooperation. Friends proceeded on the high road for about a year, from the autumn of 1921 to late summer, 1922. Then the AFSC and the ARA began dealing separately with the Soviet authorities, the ARA insisting on exact fulfillment of the Riga Agreement. The AFSC, however, continuing to amalgamate its Russian programs with those of British Friends, withdrew from the ARA, and made a separate agreement with the Soviet government: ". . . we are in Russia on our own responsibility 100 per cent." So far, so good. But less than three weeks later,
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in November, 1922, the Soviets announced severe restriction of all foreign agencies, including Friends. The Friends made the best of the restrictions, for the need was desperate. In their area, the Pugachev and Bashkir regions, it was ghastly. Though the A R A left Russia in the spring of 1923, though recession at home curtailed funds, though the central Soviet government increased the pressure in the provinces, local officials and citizens' committees did their utmost to assist the Friends, and the Friends kept working. They found the Soviet government a tough bargainer, but it was obvious that its attitude derived at least in part from preoccupation with the problems of a tremendous territory and the inadequate number of qualified personnel to serve the civil administration. Consistently refusing to accept the role of mere supplier to Soviet distribution agencies, consistently cooperating with a variety of agencies for the further benefit of the Russian people as far as its own unwavering criteria and the government's narrowing sanctions would allow, the American Friends Service Committee, eventually alone, persevered in Russia through 1927. This book is a chronicle of negotiation, a manual of Quaker relief experience, a catalogue of precedent for cooperation. The first Friends in America intended that their Society, under Divine direction and power, should bring into being as a human experience the Kingdom of God in the vast N e w World. This hope was the basis of William Penn's "Holy Experiment." Though it was the emergency of conscription in 1917 and Europe's war-generated needs that spurred the Society of Friends in America to initiate, carry on, and develop the American Friends Service Committee, Friends hope their Society will continue as something more than almoner to an unredeemed community. The Quakers are often reminded that they might be a more effective instrument for
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Peace if their members were less anxious for the favor of the public at large. Forty years ago, the conscience of America toward needy civilians overseas was given expression by the great official agencies. These agencies in their turn were challenged by the American Friends Service Committee, and the Philadelphia Committee was itself called to account from London and the field by the example of the British Quaker workers. No rosters of personnel are included here; they can be found elsewhere; but text and footnotes cite the names of a number of the men and women who managed the work. Herbert Hoover, Wilbur Thomas, Rufus Jones—these three stand out by reason of their exceptional contributions. Herbert Hoover, the only one of this triad who is still alive, is a massive figure in whom at least three natures uniquely contend and blend. He is a genius of practical administration, a giant of active, purposeful energy, and an idealist seeking throughout his life, amid the clamorous confusions of his age, to answer a call heard in early youth. Wilbur Thomas was an impressive personality held in high esteem by his associates, a man whose example enlisted the active commitment of others in the struggle against need. Rufus Jones was in his time the speaking voice of the Society of Friends; indeed in some respects it can be said that he spoke for all Christians in America and England. The forty years' endeavor of the American Friends Service Committee for relief and reconciliation has been instructive in a number of ways. It has shown that: 1. Conditions of human need in regions of political instability attract two essentially different types of relief organization. 2. Relative need has been, and must be, the only basis
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for the distribution of relief supplies and services by Friends. Political relief subverts the purpose of relief and is self-defeating. 3. To work without pay and live near the local standard is an uncommon but effective witness. 4. The relationship between the relief worker and the recipient is delicate and often entails tension. 5. It is harder to organize relief programs than to maintain them; it is harder to devolve ongoing relief programs onto local groups than to continue them. 6. It is less difficult to distribute food and clothing than to exert a reconciling influence. 7. In relief work, as elsewhere, to be so faithful to Truth as to be uninfluenced by success or failure is supremely difficult. World War. Relief. World War. Relief. Korean War. Relief. Now the slavery of war continues as the East-West turbulence called "the Cold War." Governments that only forty years ago were reluctant to seek political advantage in the plight of desperate people now assume that others' destitution is another arena for competition. The Society of Friends regards its programs as instruments brought to bear in a different warfare, one in which the liberating energy is the love of Jesus Christ.
NOTES CHAPTER 1
QUAKER R E L I E F
1. The Book of Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends . . . (Adopted by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting). 1927, p. 7. 2. No Cross No Crown, edition of 1682, p. 82. 3. Annual Financial Statements (audited and summarized), AFSC, Phila., 1917-1927 (Audited Accounts). 4. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 19, 1917. 5. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 15, 1918. Report, Executive Secretary, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., May 23, 1918. 6. Audited Accounts, op. cit. 7. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 26, 1918. 8. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 25, 1919. 9. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 6, 1919. 10. Press release, AFSC, Phila., June 22, 1920. 11. AFSC, Phila., to G. V. Newton, Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Internal Revenue, U.S. Treasury Dept., Washington, Oct. 21, 1920. 12. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 1, 1921. 13. Office of the Collector, 1st District Penna., Bureau of Internal Revenue, U.S. Treasury Dept., Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 20, 1920. Ephraim Lederer, U.S. Treasury Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 28, 1921. 14. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, March 23, and June 1, 1922. 15. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 22, 1922. 16. The Book of Discipline, op. cit., p. 45. 17. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, Aug. 3, 1923. 18. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 26, 1924. 19. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 25, 1924. 20. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 2, 1924. 21. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 25, 1925. 22. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 6, Dec. 1, 1927; May 2, 1928. 23. John Forbes, The Quaker Star under Two Spanish Flags, 19371939 (unpublished). 213
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CONSCRIPTION
1. Rufus M. Jones, A Service of Love in War Time Macmillan, 1920), pp. 3-5. 2. Ibid., p. 7. 3. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 30, 1917. Present were:
Henry J. Cadbury Arabella Carter William H. Cocks Henry Comfort Jesse H. Holmes Homer L. Morris Vincent D. Nicholson
(New York,
Charles J. Rhoads Alfred G. Scattergood Anna Walton Barnard Walton L. Hollingsworth Wood Stanley R. Yamall
4. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 25 and Aug. 24, 1917. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila, Oct. 3, 1917. AFSC, Phila, to FWVRC, London, July 16, 1918. 5. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, June 11 and July 16, 1917. 6. These stipulations were modified and expanded by the "Executive Order of March 20, 1918: published to the Army as War Department, Washington, D . C , March 23, 1918, General Orders, No. 28 (383.2A.G.O.) By Order of the Secretary of War: Peyton C. March, Major General, Acting Chief of Staff. Official: H. P. McCain, The Adjutant General." (Executive Order, March 20, 1918). 7. Second Report of the [U.S.] Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War: On the Operation of the Selective Service System to December 20, 1918. Section VIII. Washington, D . C , Government Printing Office, 1919. 8. AFSC, Phila, to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Sept. 18, 1917. See also Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, to AFSC, Phila, Aug. 21; Rufus Jones, Henry Cadbury, and others, AFSC, Phila, to Newton D. Baker, Sec, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Aug. 28, 1917. 9. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, June 4, 1917. 10. Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila, to Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, July 27, 1917. 11. Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila, to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Aug. 31, 1917.
Notes
12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.
25.
215
F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 10, 1917. AFSC, Phila., to E. M. Mills, Turlock, Calif., Sept. 28; to Felix Frankfurter, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Oct. 3, 1917; to E. H. Stranahan, Oskaloosa, Iowa, April 25, 1918. (Copy) A. Mitchell Palmer, Democratic National Committee, Washington, to W. W. Cocks, New York, May 14, 1917. U.S. State Dept., Washington, to E. L. Brown, Moorestown, N. J., June 11, 1917. "Information for Male Persons of Military Age Desiring to Leave the United States" and Paragraph D, Compiled Rulings of Provost Marshal General, by H. L. Watson, Captain U.S.A., Office of the Provost Marshal General, U.S. War Dept., Washington, sent to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 16, 1917. Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to Woodrow Wilson, President, The White House, Washington, Aug. 15, 1917. Woodrow Wilson, President, The White House, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 28, 1917. Figures from Second Report of the [U.S.] Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War, op. cit.; and Mulford Q. Sibley and Philip E. Jacob, Conscription of Conscience; the American State and the Conscientious Objector, 1940-1947 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1952), pp. 11-16. Ibid., p. 14. Press release, National Civil Liberties Bureau, New York, Aug. 7, 1918. Second Report of the [U.S.] Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War, op. cit., p. 1. Sibley and Jacob, Conscription of Conscience, op. cit., p. 14. Ibid., p. 12. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 24, 1917. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 15, 1918. Union Calendar No. 113, 65th Congress, 2d Session. H.R. 9100. Report No. 295. In the House of Reps., Washington, Jan. 22, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, March 5. James A. Norton, ARC, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., March 10. AFSC, Phila., to Paul Furnas, Indianapolis, March 18. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 21 and 23, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 21 and 23, 1918.
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26. Executive Order, March 20, 1918, op. cit. 27. AFSC, Phila., to Paul Furnas, AFSC, Indianapolis, March 25; to E. P. Punke, Elliott, 111., April 3, 1918. 28. F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., April 12, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to W. R. Guthrie, Camp Sevier, S.C., April 13; to G. L. Bender, Elkhart, Ind., April 30, 1918. 29. AFSC, Phila., to Levi Mumaw, Scottdale, Pa., Dec. 3, 1917; to E. Stanley, Wichita, Kans., Jan. 25, 1918. 30. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 1, 1918. 31. AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, April 10, 1918. Compare proposals prepared by AFSC, National Civil Liberties Bureau, and other groups in conference, New York, Dec., 1917. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 24, 1917. 32. AFSC, Phila., to Paul Furnas, AFSC, Russiaville, Ind., June 27, 1918. 33. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 13, 1918. 34. F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., July 1, 6, and 9, 1918. 35. Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to R. R. Drange, Kinross, Iowa, June 21; to L. Lippincott, Riverton, N. J., July 24, 1918. 36. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 28 and April 9, 1918. 1st Annual Report, Charles Evans, AFSC, Chief, Bureau of Friends Unit, ARC, Paris, to ARC. Washington, and AFSC, Phila., Oct. 19, 1918. 37. F. A. Evans, AFSC, Phila., to Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, July 18, 1918. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. 38. F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., June 4, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to R. H. Thompson, Camp Jessup, Ga., June 19; to C. Saylors, Camp Funston, Kan., June 25; to Paul Furnas, AFSC, Leavenworth, Kan., June 25, and Oskaloosa, Iowa, Aug. 27; to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Roxbury, Mass., June 26; to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Camp Upton, N.Y., Sept. 9, 1918. 39. F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, June 28, 1918. 40. AFSC, Phila., to R. C. Stoddard, Major, U.S. Army, Chairman, Board of Inquiry, U.S. War Dept., Washington, July 2; to F.P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, July 18, 1918. 41. AFSC, Phila., to Paul Furnas, AFSC, Indianapolis, July 26, 1918.
Notes
217
42. Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Richmond, Ind., July 24, 1918. 43. Press release, National Civil Liberties Bureau, New York, Aug. 7, 1918. 44. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC., Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. 45. AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. W a r Dept., Washington, Aug. 28, 1918. 46. General Order, J. B. Wilson, Adj. Gen., U.S. W a r Dept., Washington, to All Department Commanders in the United States, July 30, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Rockwell, Paullina, Iowa, Aug. 19, 1918. Compare with Memorandum, Conversation, L. H. Wood, AFSC, Phila., Roger Baldwin, National Civil Liberties Bureau, New York, and Newton D. Baker, Sec., U.S. W a r Dept., Washington, at Washington, Jan. 10, 1918. Documentation of extreme, illegal practice against conscientious objectors held in United States Army camps and prisons includes: Paul Furnas, AFSC, Indianapolis, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 13, 1917. AFSC, Phila., to G. V. Mills, Camp Lewis, Wash., and to C. R. Saylors, Camp Funston, Kan., Oct. 27, 1917. G. F. Hanson, Camp Funston, Kan., to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 6, 1917. A. E. Loewen, Camp Funston, Kan., to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 28, 1917. Memorandum, H. P. McCain, Adj. Gen., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to Newton D. Baker, Sec., U.S. War Dept., Jan. 11, 1918. L. R. Waggener, Camp Funston, Kan., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 12, 1918. H. M. Lane, Camp Meade, Md., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 22, 1918. S. R. Yamall, AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington; and to T. A. Sykes, Lawrence, Mass., April 26, 1918. Paul Giddings, Adj. Gen., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., May 6, 1918. S. R. Yamall, AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. W a r Dept., Washington, May 8, 1918. Minutes, and Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., May 23, 1918. B. F . Whitson, Media, Pa., to AFSC, Phila., July 8, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to J. J. Jessup, Berkeley, Calif., July 24, 1918.
218
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
S. W. Smith, Camp Cody, N.M., to AFSC, Phila., July 31, 1918. Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Camp Upton, N.Y., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 28, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to W. C. Moffitt, Ackworth, Iowa, Sept. 21, 1918. J. H. Kershner, Wichita, Kan., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 4, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to M. T. Emerson, Wichita, Kan., Jan. 20, 1919.
47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.
53. 54. 55. 56. 57.
58.
The War Department's Bureau of Information and the public press were on the lookout for evidence of collusion for draft evasion between the AFSC and various radical political groups. At no time was there such collusion. See AFSC, Phila., to E. H. Stranahan, Oskaloosa, Iowa, May 3; to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Haverford, Pa., July 30, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to H. M. Lane, Camp Meade, Md., July 16, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., July 13, 1918. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila.. Aug. 27, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 21, 1918. Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., to Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, June 25, 1918. Rufus Jones, AFSC, Haverford, Pa., to R. C. McCrea, U.S. War Dept., New York, Aug. 16, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Camp Upton, N.Y., Aug. 22, 1918. M. Churchill, Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Director, Military Intelligence Division, U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 31, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Sept. 7, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 26, 1918. Memorandum, Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to R. C. McCrea, U.S. War Dept., New York, Oct. 1, 1918. Lewis Gannett, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 3, 1918. Cablegram, AFSC, Malbray, France, to AFSC, Phila., July 28, 1918. William C. Biddle, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., July 31, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, July 11; to L. T. Pennington, Newberg, Ore., July 25; to David Edwards, President, Earlham College, Richmond, Ind., July 26, 1918. Report, Executive Secretary, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. 1st Annual Report, Charles Evans, AFSC, Chief, Bureau of
Notes
59.
60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.
219
Friends Unit, ARC, Paris, to ARC, Washington, and AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. Charles Evans, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., April 9, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 12 and 21, May 23, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, May 21; to J. E. Miller, Elgin, 111., July 31, 1918. Report, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 13, 1917. Report, Wilbur Thomas, Executive Secretary, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. For example, Memorandum, Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to R. C. McCrea, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Oct. 1, 1918. For example, H. C. Davison, ARC, Washington, to Henry J. Cadbury, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 9, 1917. For example, Woodrow Wilson, President, The White House, Washington, Aug. 28, 1917. For example, F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 10, 1917. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 21, 1918. Ibid. AFSC, Phila., to R. L. Barnes, Camp Sevier, S.C., Dec. 10, 1918; to J. H. Kershner, Wichita, Kans., Jan. 4, 1919. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 21, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 23, 1919. Press release, Committee on Public Information, Washington, Jan. 23, 1919. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Tan. 23, 1919. Press release, National Civil Liberties Bureau, New York, Jan. 23, 1919. F. P. Keppell, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 12, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to Newton D. Baker, Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, Feb. 5, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to Joseph Tumulty, Private Secretary to President Wilson, The White House, Washington, March 18, 1919. 66th Congress, 1st Session, U.S. Senate, July 21, 1919. A Bill (S. 2535). Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 23, 1919. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 6, 1919. Sibley and Jacob, Conscription of Conscience, op. cit., p. 16.
220
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
CHAPTER 3
1917-1927
FRANCE
1. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 13, 1917. 2. For example, AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Aug 31, 1917. 3. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 25, July 16 and 26, 1917. Morris Leeds, AFSC, London, to Charles Evans, AFSC, Phila., July 26, 1917. Homer Folks, ARC, Paris, to Morgan Hayes, ARC, Washington, Sept. 19, 1917. Report, Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1, 1918. 4. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, London, to Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Phila., July 25, 1917. G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., July 27, 1917. Henry Cadbury, AFSC, Phila., to H. P. Davison, ARC, Washington, Aug. 27, 1917. 5. G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, to Morris Leeds and Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, Aug. 6, 1917. H. P. Davison, ARC, Washington, to Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 8. 1917. 6. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., July 11 and Aug. 8; to G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, Aug. 7, 1917. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., July 19 and Aug. 16, 1917. Report, Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. I. 1918. 7. General Order No. 21, Homer Folks, Director, Department of Civil Affairs, ARC, Paris, Sept. 19, 1917. 8. Ibid. 9. Report, Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1, 1918. 10. Ibid. 11. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., May 18, 1917. Morris Leeds, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., July 11, 1917. 12. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Homer Folks, ARC, Paris, Sept. 10 and 13, 1917. 13. First Annual Report, Charles Evans, AFSC, Chief, Bureau of Friends Unit, ARC, Paris, to Headquarters, ARC, Paris, Oct. 19, 1918.
Notes
221
14. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., July 11, 1917. 15. Homer Folks, Department of Civil Affairs, ARC, Paris, to H. H. Harjes, Major, Army of the United States, Mission MiUtaire Americaine, Headquarters, U.S. Army, Paris, Sept. 26, 1917. 16. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 9, 1917. 17. M. Churchill, Colonel, U.S. Army, Chief, Military Intelligence Branch, U. S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., July 24, 1918. 18. Ibid. The AFSC replied, "To the extent that any of our workers have given grounds for such a report, they have violated the positive instructions given to all our workers that they are not to discuss their views on war, either with soldiers or civilians. We think you know that all of those in charge of the work of our organization are firmly convinced that there should be absolutely no propaganda of any kind on the part of any of our workers in France." The Committee also asked the names of the two men who had jeopardized the continuance of relief. AFSC, Phila., to M. Churchill, Colonel, U.S. Army, Chief, Military Intelligence Branch, U.S. War Dept., Washington, July 26, 1918. 19. AFSC, Phila., to His Excellency, the French Ambassador, Washington, Nov. 26, 1918.
20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
Passports for men so handicapped were very hard to clear all through 1918. See Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Homer Folks, ARC, Paris, Jan. 5, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Levi Mumaw, Scottdale, Pa., April 8; to U.S. State Dept., Washington, May 4, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 13, 1918. M. Sartiges, Sec., French Embassy, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 14, 1919. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., July 4, 1917. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 28, 1925. H. E. Wells, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 11, 1917. Memorandum, AFSC-FWVRC Joint Executive Committee, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 6, 1918. Ibid. U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 25, 1917.
222
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
26. E. P. Keech, Division of Personnel, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 20, 1917. 27. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 21, 1918, and March 23, 1919. 28. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 1, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Paris, April 2, 1918. 29. Report, Executive Secretary, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., May 23, 1918. 30. F. P. King, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., April 12, 1918. 31. AFSC, Phila., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, April 22; to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, April 27, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 23, 1918. 32. U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., June 10, 1918. 33. AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Dec. 19, 1918. 34. G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, to Headquarters, ARC, Washington, July 27, 1917. 35. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 24, 1917. Press release, G. M.-P. Murphy and others, ARC, New York, Aug. 29, 1917. 36. Ibid. Press release, ARC, Washington, Sept. 7, 1917. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 19, 1917. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 4, 1917. 37. AFSC, Phila., to H. P. Davison, ARC, Washington, Dec. 6, 1917; to Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, Jan. 12, 1918. AFSC, Paris, to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 2; to C. H. Connor, ARC, Washington, Jan. 23, 1918; to AFSC, Phila., March 27, 1919. Report, Executive Secretary, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 1, 1922. 38. AFSC, Phila., to H. V. Chase, Kansas City, Mo., Feb. 19, 1918. 39. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Homer Folks, Director, Dept. of Civil Affairs, ARC, Paris, Oct. 19, 1917. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 13, 1917; May 23, 1918. Memorandum, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC Workers Going to France, June 27, 1918. Cunard Steamship Co., Ltd., New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 6, 1919. 40. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 21, 26, Oct. 9, Nov. 6, 1917; June 3, July 24, 1918. AFSC Phila., to G. L. Bender, Elkhart, Ind., May 27, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 21, 1918; March 26, 1925.
Notes
223
41. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, Aug. 27, 1917. Report, Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1, 1918. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., May 28, 1918. Press release, AFSC, Phila., March 26, 1920. 42. Anonymous, quoted in Rufus M. Jones, A Service of Love in War Time, op. cit., p. 225. 43. Ibid., p. 225. 44. Report, Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1, 1918. 45. Report, James Babbitt, M.D., AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 15, 1917. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Homer Folks, ARC, Paris, Jan. 12, 1918; Jan. 18, 1919. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 12, 1920. 46. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Paris, to T. Nicholson, Richmond, Ind., Mar. 8, 1918. 47. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila, June 2, 1918. 48. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., July 24, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Aug. 22 and Sept. 23, 1918. 49. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Homer Folks, ARC, Paris, June 22, 1918. 50. Report, Selection Committee, AFSC, Phila, to AFSC, Phila, Aug. 22, 1918. 51. Report, Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, Oct. 24, 1917. Report, Charles Evans, AFSC, Riverton, N . J , to AFSC, Phila, Dec. 24, 1918. 52. AFSC, Phila, to Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Richmond, Ind, April 22, 1918. 53. AFSC, Phila, to Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, Oct. 24, 1918. 54. E. E. Metter, ARC, New York, to AFSC, Phila, Jan. 17, 1919. A. H. Gregg, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila, Jan. 29, 1919. AFSC, Phila, to A. H. Gregg, ARC, Washington, Feb. 4, 1919. 55. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, May 18 and Aug. 12, 1918. 56. Memorandum, AFSC-FWVRC Joint Executive Committee, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Sept. 6, 1918. 57. Lewis Gannett, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Sept. 10, 1918. 58. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Sept. 11, 1918.
224
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
59. Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Camp Upton, N.Y., to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 9, 1918. 60. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Homer Folks, ARC, Paris, Jan. 12, 1918. 61. "The Red Cross would fairly howl if the boys making good here were pulled out." Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 6, 1918. 62. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 15, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Benjamin Doane, New York, April 2, 1918. 63. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to G. M.-P. Murphy, ARC, Paris, Sept. 15, 1917. Bulletin, AFSC, Phila., to Friends Meetings, U.S.A., Oct. 17, 1917. 64. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., May 10, 1918. 65. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., May 9 and 28, 1918. 66. Report, Draft Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., May 23, 1918. 67. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 18, 1918. 68. AFSC, Phila., to H. N. Wright, Newberg, Ore, Nov. 18, 1918. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Dec. 4, 1918. 69. R. J. Herman, General, U.S. Army, Adj. Gen, U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila, Nov. 22, 1918. 70. R. C. McCrea, U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila, Dec. 10, 1918. 71. Ibid. 72. Henry Jervey, Major General, U.S. Army, Asst. Chief of Staff, U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila, Dec. 21, 1918. 73. Henry Jervey, Major General, U.S. Army, Asst. Chief of Staff, U.S. War Dept., Washington, to F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Dec. 21, 1918. AFSC, Phila, to Henry Jervey, Major General, U.S. Armv, Asst. Chief of Staff, U.S. War Dept., Washington, Dec. 28, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Jan. 10, 1919. AFSC, Phila, to W. F. Lent, Captain, Army of the United States, Camp Dix, N.J., Jan. 21, 1919. 74. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Feb. 1, 1919. J. H. Branson, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, July 1, 1919. 75. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, April 15, 1919. 76. Report, Agriculture Section, American Friends Reconstruction Unit, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Oct. 1, 1918.
Notes
225
77. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., March 20, 1919. 78. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., March 5, 1919. Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., July 11, 1919. 79. Report, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 15, 1919. 80. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to Herbert Hoover, Paris, Aprii 25, 1919. 81. Ibid. AFSC, Phila., to E. T. Sanders, ARC, Washington, May 19, 1919. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, May 26, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, May 27, 1919. 82. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, London, to AFSC, Phila., May 29, 1919. 83. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 9, 1919. 84. Ibid. 85. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Jan. 23, 1919. 86. AFSC, Phila, to ARC, Washington, June 11, 1919. 87. AFSC, Phila, to John Moffat, Federation of American Agencies for Relief in France, New York, Aug. 6, 1919. AFSC, Phila, to V. Smucker, Orrville, Ohio, Dec. 5, 1919. 88. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila, March 5, 1919. L. R. Thomas, AFSC, Paris, to Chief, American Friends Reconstruction Bureau, AFSC, Paris, March 10, 1919. 89. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, May 27, 1920. 90. Press release, AFSC, Phila, May 14, 1920. 91. Press release, AFSC, Phila, June 3, 1920. 92. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Dec. 20, 1919.
93. 94. 95. 96. 97.
The entire cost of carrying out this scheme was 4.2 per cent of the total of the payments, 475,000 marks. The average individual payment was 820 marks. Press release, AFSC, Phila, June 3, 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila, May 14, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Jan. 23, 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila, April 6, 1920. Report, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, Dec. 1. 1920. Report, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila, April 29, 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila, April 6, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, May 27, 1920; June 25, 1923.
226
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
98. Minutes, AFSC, Phila.; June 19, 1922. 99. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 30, 1919; Feb. 26, 1920. 100. E. P. Bicknell, Deputy Commissioner to Europe, ARC, Paris, to Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 5, 1920. 101. Memorandum, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 18, 1920. 102. James Norton, AFSC, Paris, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, June 23, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 2, 1920. 103. Audited Accounts, op. cit. 104. H. T. Richardson, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 16, 1920. 105. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1921; Jan. 1, 1922. 106. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 25, 1923; July 23, 1925. 107. For example, Clarence Pickett, AFSC, Phila., to Mahlon Harvey, AFSC, Paris, May 20, 1935. CHAPTER 4
SERBIA; AUSTRIA; BULGARIA;
IRELAND
1. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 21, 1918. 2. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 27 and May 22, 1919. 3. S. Y. Grouitch, Minister, Legation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Serbian Legation), Washington, to AFSC, Phila., June 5, 1919. 4. Charles Rhoads, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 18, 1919. 5. Report, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1920. 6. Ibid. 7. M. R. Greene, Serbian Aid Fund, New York, to AFSC, Phila., July 19, 1919. Serbian Relief Committee of America, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 12, 1920. 8. Memorandum, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to Serbian Ministry of Agrarian Reform, Belgrade, Oct. 15, 1919. 9. Report, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1920. 10. Memorandum, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to Serbian Ministry of Agrarian Reform, Belgrade, Oct. 15, 1919. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Serbian Legation, Washington, March 27, 1920. 11. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Nish, Serbia, April 9, 1920. 12. Serbian Legation, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., March 31, 1920.
Notes
227
13. Cablegram, Consul, U.S. State Dept., Salonika, Greece, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 17, 1920. 14. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 24, 1919. 15. Lawrence Lippincott, AFSC, Salonika, Greece, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 28, 1919. 16. H. M. Smith, Grain Corporation, U.S. Food Administration, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 18, 1919. 17. Report, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1920. 18. Ibid. 19. Andrew Pearson, AFSC, Leskovatz, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1920. 20. Reports, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 3, 1919, and May 16, 1920. 21. Report, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1920. Report, Fred Libby, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., June 7, 1920. 22. Report, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1920. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. C. L. Outland, M.D., Public Health Service, U.S. Treasury Dept., Tarboro, N.C., to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 9, 1921. 25. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Nish, Serbia, March 5, 1920. Report, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1920. Report, Fred Libby, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC Phila., June 7, 1920. Memorandum, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Pe6, Serbia, July 8, 1920. 26. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Andrew Pearson, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, Dec. 2, 1920. Report, Andrew Pearson, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 23, 1920. 27. Fred Libby, AFSC, Vienna, to Kendall Emerson, ARC, Paris, Nov. 16; to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 20, 1920. 28. Ibid. 29. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Andrew Pearson, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, Dec. 2, 1920. 30. Report, Andrew Pearson, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 23, 1920. 31. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 15, 1921. 32. S. Y. Grouitch, Minister, Serbian Legation, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., March 16, 1921. 33. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Hon. S. Y. Grouitch, Minister, Serbian Legation, Washington, March 31, 1921.
228
34. 35. 36.
37. 38.
39. 40. 41. 42.
43. 44.
45. 46.
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
Report, Andrew Pearson, AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 3, 1921. Report, C. L. Outland, M.D., AFSC, Pe6, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 31, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Outland, M.D., AFSC, Pe£, Serbia, March 30, 1922. C. L. Outland, M.D., AFSC, Pec, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., April 1 and 15, 1922. Helen King, American Missions [sic], Vranje, Serbia, to AFSC, Phila., May 7, 1922. Sixth Report (October 1918—March 1920), FWVRC. London, Spring, 1920. Ibid. Frederick Kuh, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 30, 1919. Report, An Address, August Bohm, M.D., Chief, Municipal Physicians, Vienna, Jan. 20, 1920. Report, S. A. Moffat, Commissioner, ARC, Vienna, to ARC, Washington, Jan. 31, 1920. John Fisher, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC. Phila., May 17, 1920. Memorandum, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 1, 1920. I. F. Marcosson, "An Interview with Herbert Hoover," Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1921. T. R. Forbes, Ph.D., Asst. Dean, Medical School, Yale University, New Haven, to Author, Nov. 25, 1957. Ibid. Mosquito-borne encephalitis, a somewhat different type, has appeared in the United States in recent years, most frequently in the Southwest. John H. Donnelly, M.D., Director, Local Health Services, New Mexico Department of Public Health, Santa Fe, N.M., to Author, Sept. 15, 1958. Sixth Report, FWVRC, London, Spring, 1920. W. T. Thorn, Jr., AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., April 7, 1920. Report, Fred Fellows, FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Mav 6, 1920. Report, Edith Pye, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., July 1, 1921. Press release, FWVRC. Vienne, Jan. 1920. Report, Francesca Wilson, FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 6, 1920. F. M. Dearing, Asst. Sec., U.S. State Dept., Washington, to to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 17, 1922.
Notes
229
47. Report, Edith Pye, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., July 1, 1921. 48. AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 27, 1920. 49. John Fisher, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., May 15, 1920. 50. Ibid. 51. Report, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 5, 1920. 52. Report, FWVRC, Vienna, to F W V R C , London, Feb. 16, 1920. Press release, AFSC-FWVRC, Vienna, Oct. 30, 1920. 53. Report, FWVRC, Vienna, to FWVRC, London, Feb. 16, 1920. 54. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 30, 1920, and Sept. 1, 1921. 55. Report, AFSC-FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1, 1922. 56. Report, FWVRC, Vienna, to FWVRC, London, Feb. 16, 1920. 57. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 30, 1920. 58. Report, AFSC-FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1, 1922. 59. Report, FWVRC, Vienna, to FWVRC, London, Feb. 16, 1920. Report, AFSC-FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1, 1920. 60. Report, FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 2, 1920. 61. Report, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 8, 1922. 62. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, London, Feb. 3, 1921. 63. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, London, Feb. 4, 1921. 64. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 11, 1921. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Robert Yamall, AFSC, Berlin, Aug. 27, 1920. Cablegram, Robert Yamall, AFSC, Berlin, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 1, 1920. Edgar Rhoads, Wilmington, Del., to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 3, 1920. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Fred Libby, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany; to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London; to Robert Yarnall, AFSC, Berlin, Sept. 10, 1920. Memorandum, Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 11, 1920. FWVRC, London, to FWVRC, Vienna, Sept. 25, 1920. Memorandum, Conference, AFSC-FWVRC, Berlin, Sept. 30, 1920. H. T. Richardson, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 16, 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 17, 1920. AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 28, 1920.
230
The Quaker
Star Under Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Hoover, American Relief Administration (ARA), New York, Jan. 31, 1921.
68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.
77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.
Although the ARA at this time had a rule against feeding adults, some eleven hundred Viennese school teachers were now receiving food from the ARA directly. Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, Vienna, to Edith Pye, FWVRC, London, Jan. 31, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, London, Feb. 3 and 4; to AFSC, Warsaw, Feb. 4, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 11, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Clement Biddle, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 25, 1921. Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, Vienna, to Edith Pye, FWVRC, London, March 2, 1921. AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., March 15, 1921. Clement Biddle, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila. Feb. 8, 1921. Confidential Report, Hilda Clark, M.D., and Kathleen Courtness, FWVRC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 20, 1920. For example, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Vienna, Feb. 1; to Clement Biddle, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 25, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Hilda Clark, M.D., F W V R C , Vienna, March 18, 1921. Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, to Alice Clark, FWVRC, London, Aug. 24, 1921. Press release, AFSC-FWVRC, Vienna, Sept. 1, 1921. Ibid. Memorandum, Conference, ARA-AFSC-FWVRC and others, Vienna, March 17, 1921. AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., April 29, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, Aug. 29, 1921. Cablegram, ARA, New York, to ARA, London, Aug. 31, 1921. Ibid. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Oct. 3, 1921. For example, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 13, 1921. For example, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Vienna, Feb. 12, 1921. Report, AFSC, Vienna, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 1, 1921. C. Norment, AFSC, Phila., to P. Allinson, AFSC, Vienna, Aue. 19, 1921.
Notes
231
83. Hilda Clark, M.D., FWVRC, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 29, 1921. 84. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1922. 85. AFSC, Phila., to Warren G. Harding, President, The White House, Washington, Feb. 9, 1922. 86. F. M. Dearing, Asst. Sec., U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 17, 1922. 87. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 24, 1923. 88. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 25 and Dec. 24, 1925. 89. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 29, 1918; Jan. 23, 1919. 90. AFSC, Phila., to James Bell, AFSC, Vienna, July 3, 1923. 91. Cablegram, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., July 11, 1925. 92. Cablegram, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., July 15, 1925. 93. Fred Tritton, FWVRC, London, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., July 16, 1925. 94. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Carl Heath, FWVRC, London, Oct. 8, 1925. 95. Report, Delegation to Bulgaria, International Service Committee of British and American Friends [no city], to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 12, 1925. 96. Ibid. 97. Cablegram, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 12, 1925. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Carl Heath, FWVRC, London, Dec. 1, 1925. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 28, 1926. 98. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 25, 1926. 99. L. W. Archer, Near East Relief, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 16, 1926. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Dec. 21, 1926. 100. Emma Cadbury, AFSC, Vienna, to Charles S. Wilson, Minister, U.S. Legation, Sofia, Dec. 25, 1926. 101. Charles S. Wilson, Minister, U.S. Legation, Sofia, to Near East Relief, Athens, Dec. 22, 1926. 102. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 5, 1927. 103. L. W. Archer, Near East Relief, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 22, 1927. 104. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1927. 105. L. W. Archer, Near East Relief, New York, to AFSC, Phila., April 6, 1927. 106. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to L. W. Archer, Near East Relief, New York, April 7, 1927. 107. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 23, 1920; Jan. 13, 1921.
232
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Star Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
108. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, Feb. 8, 1921. 109. Cablegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Feb. 5, 1921. 110. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, Feb. 8, 1921. CHAPTER 5
GERMANY
1. Surface, Frank Macy and Bland, Raymond L., eds., American Food in the World War and Reconstruction Period: Operations of the organizations under the direction of Herbert Hoover, 1914—1923 (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1931), p. 7. 2. Ibid, p. 7. 3. Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (2 vols.): I. Years of Adventure, 1874-1920; II. The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1 9 2 0 - 1 9 3 3 (New York, Macmillan, 1951, 1952), II, p. 22. 4. Ibid., I, 301. 5. Hoover's version of this remonstrance and negotiation appears in his Memoirs, I, chapters 33 and 39. Also see S. L. Bane and R. H. Lutz, eds., The Blockade of Germany after the Armistice, 1918—1919: Selected documents of the Supreme Economic Council, Superior Blockade Council, American Relief Administration, and Other Wartime Organizations (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1942). Organization of American Relief in Europe, 1918-1919, including negotiations leading up to the establishment of the Office of Director General of Relief at Paris by the Allied and Associated Powers (Docs.) (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1943). 6. Herbert Hoover, Memoirs, op. cit., I, p. 257. 7. Ibid., p. 288. 8. Ibid., chaps. 34 and 39. Will Irwin, Herbert Hoover, a Reminiscent Biography (New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1928), chap. 18. 9. Quoted. Ibid., p. 225; also in Eugene Lyons, Our Unknown Ex-President (New York, Doubleday Doran, 1948), p. 182. 10. Herbert Hoover, Memoirs, op. cit., I, pp. 3 4 2 - 3 4 7 . Will Irwin, Herbert Hoover, op. cit., chap. 20.
Notes
233
11. Herbert Hoover, Memoirs, op. cit., pp. 347-352. 12. Stenographic Report, An Address, Herbert Hoover, Haverford College, Haverford, Pa., Dec. 15, 1920. 13. AFSC, Phila., to Clement Biddle, Phila., Sept. 18, 1919. 14. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 11, 1921. 15. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 10, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, March 11, 1920. 16. Henry J. Cadbury, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 24, 1920. 17. I Kings 17: 12. 18. Carolena Wood, quoted in Rufus M. Jones, A Service of Love in War Time (New York, Macmillan, 1920). p. 259. 19. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to Rufus M. Jones, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 17, 1919. 20. Ibid. 21. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to Walter Lyman Brown, ARA, London, Dec. 9, 1919. 22. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 6, 1919. 23. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to S. N. North, Walton, N.Y., Dec. 1, 1923. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Henry T. Allen, Gen., U.S. Army, Washington, Dec. 3, 1923. 24. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1; to Walter Lyman Brown, ARA, London, Dec. 9; to ARA, London, Dec. 23, 1919. 25. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1; to Walter Lyman Brown, ARA, London, Dec. 9; to ARA, London, Dec. 23, 1919. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 20 and 30, 1919; Aug. 1, 1920. 26. Report, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 18, 1919. 27. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 30, 1920. 28. ARA, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., June 20, 1920. 29. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 18, 1920. 30. Press release, AFSC, Phila., March 12, 1920. 31. Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., March 15, 1920. 32. Press release, AFSC, Phila., May 8, 1920. 33. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 12, 1920. 34. Press release, ARA, New York, Dec. 27, 1919. Second Annual Report, Aug. 1919—Aug. 1920, ARA, New York, Oct. 4, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to all AFSC representatives, Europe, Oct. 12, 1920.
234
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
35. Press release, AFSC, Phila., May 14, 1920. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to H. H. Schmidt, $3,000,000 Campaign, New York, Sept. 19, 1922. 36. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 1, 1920. 37. Press release (Robert Yamall), AFSC, Phila., Jan. 15, 1921. 38. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 4, 1922. 39. Audited Accounts, op. cit. 40. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 24, 1919. 41. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Clement Biddle, AFSC, New York, Jan. 12, 1920. 42. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to A. R. Fry, London, March 29, 1920. 43. AFSC, Phila., to Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, March 15 and April 15, 1920. Howard Brinton, AFSC, Chicago, to AFSC, Phila., April 27, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to E. Shalberg, Boston, May 4, 1920. 44. Press release, AFSC, Phila., May 8, 1920. 45. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to Rufus M. Jones, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1, 1919. AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Phila., June 16, 1919. 46. Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 22, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, Feb. 24 and April 17, 1920. 47. Press release, AFSC, Phila., May 27, 1920. R. A. Jackson, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., June 3, 1920. 48. Minutes, European Relief Council, New York, June 23, 1920. 49. Ibid. 50. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, and to James Speyer, New York, June 29, 1920. 51. Ibid. 52. Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, to all Directors of European Children's Fund, June 30 and July 1, 1920. 53. Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., June 30, 1921. 54. Henry J. Cadbury, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 24, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 30, 1920. 55. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 27, 1920. 56. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., May 28, July 9, and Aug. 1, 1920. Report, Edgar Rhoads, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., July 9, 1920. 57. Ibid. 58. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 20, 1920.
Notes
235
59. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 1 and Sept. 24, 1920. 60. ARA, New York, to Directors, European Children's Fund, Sept. 8, 1920. 61. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 20, 1920. 62. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 3, 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 12, 1920. 63. AFSC, Phila., to Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, Nov. 15, 1920. Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 17, 1920. 64. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Feb. 18, 1921. 65. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 3, 1920. George Sylvester Viereck (1884) damaged the effort of the Friends and Mr. Hoover to work with the German-American societies for the German children:
66.
67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.
AFSC, Phila., to G. S. Viereck, New York, March 8, 1921. G. S. Viereck, New York, to AFSC, Phila., March 9, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to T. Rammeke, Phila., April 1, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, April 7; to J. A. Storch, New Orleans, April 21; to B. C. Smith, New York, May 10; to Charles Evans, AFSC, Phila., and to Rufus Jones and Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Paris, June 17; to the German-American societies, July 18; to J. C. Rhoads, AFSC, Phila., Julv 28, 1921. Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., June 20, 1921. H. H. Schmidt, $3,000,000 campaign, New York, to William Webb, Detroit, July 7, 1921. Press release, AFSC, Phila., July 8, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to U.S. Alien Property Custodian, Washington, Oct. 22, 1920. U.S. Alien Property Custodian, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 26, 1920. AFSC, Berlin, to ARA, London, Jan. 24, 1921. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27; to C. A. Brady, PeeksldU, N.Y., Feb. 3, 1921. AFSC, Berlin, to Walter Lyman Brown, ARA, London, Jan. 26, 1921. Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Berlin, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Haverford, Pa., March 21, 1921. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1921. Warren G. Harding, President, The White House, Washington, to Walter G. Thun, $3,000,000 Campaign, Phila., June 3, 1921.
236
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
73. For example: AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Feb. 25, 1921. 74. Press release, AFSC, Phila., March 5, 1921. 75. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 5, 1921. 76. Press release, AFSC, Phila., March 25, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to William Webb, Detroit, April 23, 1921. 77. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., June 3 and July 6, 1921. 78. Minutes, Executive Committee, AFSC, Phila., April 6, 1921. 79. Report, Ellis Loring Dresel, Commissioner, U.S. State Dept., Berlin, to U.S. State Dept., Washington, Jan. 26, 1921. 80. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 24, 1922. 81. Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to Walter Lyman Brown, ARA, London, Feb. 10, 1922. 82. James Norton, AFSC, Paris, to AFSC, Berlin, June 17, 1920. 83. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila. Nov. 24, 1920. Report, Elh's Loring Dresel, Commissioner, U.S. State Dept., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, Jan. 26, 1921. Report, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 1, 1921. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, 1921. 84. AFSC, Phila., to C. M. Wood, Mt. Kisco, N.Y., Jan. 10, 1920. Cablegram, AFSC, Frankfort, Germany, to AFSC Phila., Jan. 24, 1921. 85. AFSC, Phila., to ARA, New York, Jan. 24, 1922. 86. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 18 and Nov. 17, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Ferdinand Thun, $3,000,000 Campaign, Phila., April 12, 1922. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 4, 1922. $3,000,000 Campaign, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 17, 1922. 87. AFSC Phila., to G. C. Sloan, ARC, Washington, Aug. 2, 1921. 88. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 23, 1922. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 1, 1922. 89. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 1, 1922. 90. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Ferdinand Thun, $3,000,000 Campaign, Phila., April 12, 1922. 91. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 24 and March 28, 1922. 92. Report, Executive Board, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 1, 1922. 93. Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, July 4, 1957. 94. AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 3, 1922. 95. Cablegram, Hans Gramm, Berlin, to Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1923.
Notes
237
96. Minutes, AFSC, Phik., Jan. 25 and Feb. 7, 1923. 97. Cablegram, Gilbert MacMaster, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 31, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 14, 1923. 98. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 15, 1923. 99. Cablegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Essen, Germany, to AFSC, Phila., April 18, 1923. 100. An Address, Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Mooretown, N.J., to Friends, Moorestown, N.J., May 1, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 2 and June 12, 1923. 101. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 14, 1923. 102. Commissioner Noyes had been calling for more food for the Rhineland since the spring of 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 9, 1920. 103. Cablegrams, Gilbert MacMaster, AFSC, Berlin, to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Dec. 8; to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 10, 1923. Friedrich Ebert, President, German Republic, Berlin, to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Dec. 11, 1923. Gilbert MacMaster, AFSC, Berlin, to DZA, Berlin, Dec. 23, 1923. DZA, Berlin, to AFSC, Berlin, Feb. 29 and March 1, 1924. 104. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 7, 1923. 105. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 27, 1923. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Oct. 30, 1923. 106. An Address, Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, to Mass Meeting, North Turner Hall, Chicago, Nov. 1, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 22, 1923. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Nov. 30, 1923. AFSC, Phila., to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Dec. 3 and 6, 1923. Cablegram, Friedrich Ebert, President, German Republic, Berlin, to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Dec. 11, 1923. Cablegram, Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, to Friedrich Ebert, President, German Republic, Berlin, Dec. 13, 1923. Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, to Henry Tatnall Brown, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 14, 1923. 107. AFSC, Phila., to John W. Weeks, Sec. U.S. War Dept., Washington, Nov. 6, 1924.
238
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108. Mowatt Mitchell, Asst. Director, ARA, London, to Gilbert MacMaster, AFSC, Berlin, Oct. 25, 1923. 109. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 8 and 22, 1923; Jan. 12, 1924. AFSC, Phila., to A. Wildman, Selma, Ohio, Nov. 8; to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Dec. 3, 1923. 110. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 15 and May 6, 1924. 111. Cablegram, Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, to Friedrich Ebert, President, German Republic, Berlin, Dec. 13, 1923. 112. Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, to Henry Tatnall Brown, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 14, 1923. 113. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, 1924. 114. Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, to Friedrich Ebert, President, German Republic, Berlin, Dec. 12, 1923. AFSC, Phila., to J. Merle, Chalons-sur-Marne, France, Jan. 17, 1924. 115. AFSC, Phila., to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Dec. 3, 1923. 116. Henry Tatnall Brown, AFSC, Berlin, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 20, 1924. 117. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 25 and March 27, 1924. 118. AFSC, Phila., to J. F. Meyer, Columbus, Ohio, March 4, 1924. 119. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 24, 1924. 120. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 30, 1924. 121. Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, Berlin, to H. Degoutte, Commanding General, French Army of Occupation, Mainz, Germany, Feb. 16, 1924. 122. Allen Committee, Berlin, to Alfred Lowry, AFSC, Essen, Germany, Feb. 10, 1924. 123. William Eves, AFSC, Essen, Germany, to DZA, Berlin, March 10, 1924. H. Degoutte, Commanding General, French Army of Occupation, Mainz, Germany, to Henry Tatnall Brown, AFSC, Berlin, March 28, 1924. 124. Edith Pye, FWVRC, London, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 28, 1924. 125. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 27 and May 22, 1924. 126. AFSC, Phila., to John W. Weeks, Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, Nov. 6, 1924. John W. Weeks, Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 11, 1924. 127. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 15, 1924. 128. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 10, 1924.
Notes 129. 130. 131. 132. 133.
134. 135. 136.
137. 138. 139.
140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151.
239
Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 20, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 22, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 25 and March 27, 1924. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Oct. 21, 1924. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Henry T. Allen Committee, New York, Oct. 21, 1924. Report, German Mission, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., April 1, 1925. Minutes, AFSC, Phila. July 23, 1925. Compare Robert Yamall, AFSC, Berlin, to Henry T. Allen, Allen Committee, New York, Sept. 9, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 27, 1924. Gilbert MacMaster, AFSC, Berlin, to Clement Biddle, AFSC, New York Dec. 10, 1924. Report, German Mission, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., April 1, 1925. Report, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 3, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 15, 1924 and July 23, 1925. Report, German Mission, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., April 1, 1925. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 12 and July 17, 1924; July 23, 1925. Report, German Mission, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., April 1, 1925 Press release, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 1, 1921. W. J. Meyers, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 11, 1922. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to E. K. Balls, FWVRC, Buzuluk, Russia, Jan. 3, 1923. Press release, AFSC, Phila., May 21, 1923. Herbert Hoover, Sec., U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, to Hamilton Fish, Jr., Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, Dec. 8, 1923. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Warsaw, Feb. 5, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, 1924. AFSC Phila., to Hamilton Fish Jr., Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, Feb. 6, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, 1924. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Curtis, AFSC, Berlin, March 7, 1924. Cornelia Young, AFSC, St. Louis, to Gilbert MacMaster, AFSC, Berlin, March 25, 1924.
240
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
152. Press release, Alien Committee, Washington, April 8, 1924. 153. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Hamilton Fish, Jr., House of Representatives, Washington, April 2, 1924. 154. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to George W. Pepper, U.S. Senate, Washington, May 8, 1924. F. B. Willis, Commerce Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington, to T. T. Frankenberg, Columbus, Ohio, May 8, 1924. W. B. Wolfe, Office of D. A. Reed, U.S. Senate, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., May 10, 1924. 155. AFSC, Phila, to AFSC, Warsaw, May 23, 1924. 156. F. B. Willis, Commerce Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington, to T. T. Frankenberg, Columbus, Ohio, May 8, 1924. CHAPTER 6
POLAND AND UPPER SILESIA
1. Cablegram, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, to AFSC, Phila, July 26, 1920. AFSC, Phila, to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Aug. 3, 1920. Cablegram, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila, Aug. 16, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Sept. 30, 1920. 2. Fred Libby, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila, Oct. 4, 1920. Frank Walker, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila, Oct. 23, 1920. 3. AFSC, Phila, to C. M. Biddle, AFSC, New York, Aug. 3, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Nov. 18, 1920. 4. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, London, to AFSC, Phila, May 29, 1919. 5. Cablegram, 'Gilchrist, Col,' U.S. Army, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila, Feb. 26, 1920. 6. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, London, to AFSC, Phila, May 29, 1919. 7. Cablegram, 'Gilchrist, Col,' U.S. Army, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila, Feb. 26, 1920. 8. Ibid. 9. Press release, AFSC, Phila, Dec. 7, 1920. 10. AFSC, Phila, to AFSC, Pec, Serbia, March 12, 1920. 11. Press release, AFSC, Phila, Dec. 7, 1920. 12.
Ibid.
13. Cablegram, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, to AFSC, Berlin, Dec. 16, 1920. 14. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, Geneva, to AFSC, Berlin, Dec. 23, 1920. Report, AFSC, Geneva, to AFSC, Phila, Jan. 21, 1921.
Notes
241
15. Cablegram, Ruth Fry, F W V R C , London, to AFSC, Warsaw; and telegram, A F S C , Frankfurt, Germany, to A F S C , Berlin, Dec. 16, 1920. 16. Report, AFSC, Geneva, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 21, 1921. 17. Wilbur Thomas, A F S C , Phila., to W . R. Fogg, AFSC, Warsaw, Dec. 23, 1920. Cablegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Warsaw, Aug. 31, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 22, 1921. AFSC, Warsaw, to A F S C , Phila., F e b . 1, 1922. 18. Press release, ARA, New York, May 26, 1919. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 9, 1920. 19. Frank Walser, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., May 24, 1920. 20. Edgar Rickard, ARA, New York, to A F S C , Phila., Aug. 5, 1920. 21. Frank Walser, AFSC, Warsaw, to A F S C , Phila., Aug. 13, 1920. 22. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 2, 1920. 23. Report, Subcommittee on Poland and Russia, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 25, 1920. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 1, 1920. 24. F W V R C , Warsaw, to F W V R C , London, Nov. 18, 1920. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 22, 1920. 25. Ibid, 26. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to W . R. Fogg, AFSC, Warsaw, Dec. 23, 1920. Memorandum, W . R. Fogg, AFSC, Warsaw, to All Members, Local Units, Poland Mission, AFSC, Poland, Dec. 29, 1920. F W V R C , Warsaw, to F W V R C , London, June 13, 1921. 27. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1, 1921. F W V R C , Warsaw, to F W V R C , London, Jan. 20 and Feb. 3, 1921. Cablegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Warsaw, Feb. 3, 1921. Cablegram, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 8, 1921. 28. AFSC, Phila., to E. A. Steiner, M.D., Long's Peak, Colo., Aug. 2, 1921. 29. Report, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 2, 1921. 30. For example: F W V R C , Warsaw, to F W V R C , London, June 29, 1921 31. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 22, 1921. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 1, 1922. 32. W. R. Fogg, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 21 and March 2, 1921.
242 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.
47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
Ibid. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, March 18, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, March 18, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to ARA, New York, March 25, 1921. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., April 12 and 18, 1921. Report, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., April 18, 1921. Cablegram, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., April 21, 1921. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., May 11, 1921. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Warsaw, May 13, 1921. R. F. Allen, Assistant Commissioner for Europe, ARC, Paris, to E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, Dec. 20, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Haverford, Pa., Feb. 16, 1921. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 28, 1921. Report, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. [n.d.], 1922. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, March 23, and June 1, 1922. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Oct. 13, 1922. AFSC, Phila., to Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, March 16, 1922. Report, AFSC-FWVRC Mission, Warsaw, to Polish National Government, Warsaw, Sept. 1, 1922. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 25, March 15, and Sept. 27, 1923. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Sept. 19, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 25, 1923. Ministry of Interior, Republic of Poland, Warsaw, to AFSCFWVRC Mission, Warsaw, Sept. 27, 1923. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 27, 1923. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 31, 1923. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Warsaw, Oct. 13, 1923. Cablegram, AFSC-FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 18, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 25, 1924; July 23, 1925; and March 25, 1926. Press release, AFSC, Phila., May 18, 1926. Ministry of Interior, Republic of Poland, Warsaw, to AngloAmerican Relief Mission (Society of Friends), Warsaw, June 18, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 25, 1924.
Notes
243
54. Report, Howard Brinton, AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., March 25, 1921. 35. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1921. 56. Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, June 22, 1950. 57. Ibid. 58. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1921. 59. Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., May 12, 1921. Report, Howard Brinton, AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 10, 1921. Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, June 22, 1950. 60. Ibid. H. C. Perry, AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 16, 1921. 61. AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., March 21, 1921. ARA, Warsaw, to ARA, New York, Oct. 4, 1921. Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, June 22, 1950. 62. Ibid. Howard Brinton, AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 13, 1921. ARA, Warsaw, to ARA, New York, Oct. 4, 1921. 63. Press release, AFSC, Breslau, Poland, Jan. 4, 1924. 64. Report, Howard Brinton, AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., March 25, 1921. 65. Homer Morris, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Breslau, Poland, Oct. 19, 1921. 66. H. C. Perry, AFSC, Kattowitz, Upper Silesia, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 16, 1921. ARA, Warsaw, to ARA, New York, Oct. 4, 1921. Homer Morris, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Breslau, Poland, Oct. 19, 1921. Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, June 22, 1950. 67. ARA, London, to ARA, Berlin, Feb. 20, 1922. 68. ARA, Warsaw, to ARA, New York, Oct. 4, 1921. Press release, AFSC, Breslau, Poland, Jan. 4, 1924. 69. See the Upper Silesia Papers of Howard Brinton, Pendle Hill,. Pa.
244
The Quaker
Star Under Seven Flags,
CHAPTER
7
RUSSIA:
1917-1927
1917-1921
1. Henry J. Cadbury, ed., Annual Catalogue of George Fox's Papers; compiled in 1694-1697 (Philadelphia and London, 1939), p. 56. 2. Anna Haines, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1 and Feb. 26, 1918. 3. Cablegram, Raymond Robbins, Commissioner to Russia, ARC, Moscow, to ARC, Washington, Feb. 28, 1918. 4. An Appeal, Georgi Dolgorukov, Patriarch, Russian Greek Orthodox Church, Moscow, to "Citizens of America," March 20, 1920. 5. Report, Russian Commissioners, Near East Relief, New York, to Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, Sept. 20, 1920. Cablegram, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 28, 1921. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 11, 1921. An Appeal, Praesidium, RSFRS, Moscow, to All Citizens, RSFRS, Aug. 16, 1921. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 13, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 18, 1921. A. P. Cotterell, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 2, 1921. Cablegram, Nancy Babb, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 5, 1921. 6. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, Buzuluk, Russia, to FWVRC, London, Jan. 12, 1922. 7. Cablegram, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 12, 1922. 8. Cablegram, AFSC, Sorochinskoya, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 30, 1922. 9. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 28, 1923. 10. Anna J. Haines, R.N., who led the party, and Nancy Babb, Emilie C. Bradbury, Amelia Farbiszewski, Lydia Lewis, and Esther White. 11. Telegram, Roger Baldwin, AFSC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila.. Aug. 9, 1917. ARC, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Haverford, Pa., Aug. 20, 1917. 12. Anna Haines, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1 and (cablegram) 6, 1918. Mary Hoxie Jones, Swords into Ploughshares (New York, Macmillan, 1937), pp. 51 ff.
Notes
245
13. FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 27, 1918. Minutes, Friends Meeting for Sufferings, London, to AFSC, Phila., March 3, 1918. 14. Robert Tatlock, FWVRC, Oskaloosa, Iowa, to AFSC, Phila., May 4, 1918. Cablegrams, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC-FWVRC, Buzuluk, Russia, June 7 and Dec. 16, 1918. 15. AFSC, Phila., to E. T. Colton, YMCA, New York, Dec. 31, 1918. 16. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, April 26, 1919. 17. AFSC, Phila., to A. N. Davis, Brookline, Mass., Feb. 26, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC) Vladivostok, Dec. 16, 1918. 18. ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 10, 1918. L. H. Wood, AFSC, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 10, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Jan. 10, to ARC, New York, Jan. 11, 1918. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, Jan. 12, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 15, 1918. 19. AFSC, Phila., to Elliott Wadsworth, ARC, Washington, Jan. 18, 1918. 20. Clara Barton, The Red Cross in Peace and War (Washington, American Historical Press, 1898), p. 188. 21. AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Jan. 19 and April 10; to Anna Haines, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, April 20; to G. B. Case, ARC, Washington, June 27; to FWVRC, London, July 16, 1918. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 30, March 12, and May 23, 1918. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 12, 1918. Raymond Robbins, Commissioner, ARC, Moscow, to ARC, Washington, Feb. 22, 1918. Anna Haines, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 26, 1918. ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., March 8 and June 28, 1918. FWVRC, Moscow, to FWVRC, London, Aug. 21, 1918. 22. Report, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 22, 1918. Robert Tatlock, FWVRC, Vladivostok, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 27, 1918. FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 29 and (cablegram) Dec. 24, 1918. 23. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 9 and 13, 1918.
246
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
24. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to ARC, Washington, Nov. 20, 1918. 25. E. St. John Catchpool, FWVRC, Moscow, to FWVRC, London, Sept. 2, 1918. 26. E. St. John Catchpool, FWVRC, Moscow, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Sept. 2, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Editor, The New Republic, New York, Jan. 2, 1919. (An Article) E. St. John Catchpool, The Friend, Phila., July 13, 1950. 27. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC), Vladivostok, Dec. 16, 1918. 28. Robert Tatlock, FWVRC, Vladivostok, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 27, 1918. FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 29 and (cablegram) Dec. 24, 1918. Cablegram, Gregory Welch, FWVRC, Vladivostok, to Ruth Frv, FWVRC, London, Jan. 10, 1918, and (letter) Feb. 26, 1919. 29. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC), Vladivostok, Dec. 16,1918. 30. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 12, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC), Omsk, Russia, April 24, 1919. 31. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 22, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to Lucy Biddle Lewis, AFSC, Paris, May 28, 1919. 32. Gregory Welch, FWVRC, Novi Nikoliavsk, Russia, to FWVRC, London, Feb. 26, 1919. 33. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, April 26, 1919. 34. Ibid. Lucy Biddle Lewis, AFSC, Grange-le-Comte, France, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., April 30, 1919. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Cablegram and letter, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 10, 1922. 38. Eugene Lyons, Our Unknown Ex-President, (New York, Doubleday Doran, 1948) pp. 189 ff. 39. FWVRC, Vladivostok, to AFSC, Phila., May 23, 1919. 40. Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 18, 1919. Friends Mission, Tokyo, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Dec. 12, 1919.
Notes
247
41. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 20, 1919. 42. AFSC, Phila., to Ukrainian Federation, New York, Nov. 3; to Friends of the Ukraine, Washington, Dec. 8, 1919. Ukrainian Federation, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 10 and 15, 1919. 43. Diplomatic Representative, Ukrainian Peoples Republic, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 17, 1919. 44. AFSC, Phila., to Friends of the Ukraine, New York, Dec. 29, 1919. 45. Friends of the Ukraine, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 7, 1920. 46. Anna Louise Strong, Seattle, Wash., to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, 1920. 47. Copy, Memorandum, Conversation between Dr. Judah Magnes, J.D.C., and Allen Wardwell, Major, U.S. Army, (ARC) New York, Jan. 28, 1920. Dr. Judah Magnes, J.D.C., New York, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 3 and 11, 1920. 48. AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel], ARC, Washington, Feb. 10 and April 13, 1920. 49. Livingston Farrand, ARC, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., April 24, 1920 (Enc.). 50. H. J. Bakert, FWVRC, Stockholm, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Feb. 29, 1920. 51. William Eves, AFSC, Berlin, to AFSC, Phila., May 15, 1919. 52. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 26 and April 20, 1920. 53. See Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Mme. Lomonoffoff, Chicago, May 28; also cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt a/M, Germany, July 23, 1920. 54. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 21 and 23, 1921. 55. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 8 and 29, 1920. Press Release, AFSC, Phila., May 28, 1920. See AFSC, Phila., to A. B. Bing, Siberian War Prisoners Relief Group, New York, Oct. 8, 1920. 56. FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 10, 1920. 57. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Reval, Esthonia, Nov. 18, 1920. 58. Soviet Govt., Moscow, to FWVRC, Moscow, Jan. 4, 1921 (in reply to FWVRC, Moscow, to Soviet Govt., Moscow, Dec. 30, 1920). 59. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1921.
248
60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.
72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Moscow, Jan. 27; to Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, Jan. 31, 1921. Copy, E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to ARC, Paris, Feb. 8, 1921. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 21 and 23, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, March 12, 1921. Anna Haines, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., March 14, 1921. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., March 23, 1921 (Enc.). Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., April 14, 1921. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., May 5, 1921. Compare Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., May 24, 1921. Cablegrams, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Moscow, May 25 and 26, 1921. Cablegram, ARA, London, to ARA, New York, May 26, 1921. Cablegram, ARA, New York, to ARA, London, May 31, 1921. Charles Evans Hughes, Sec., U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., July 23, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Charles Evans Hughes, Sec., U.S. State Dept., Washington, July 26, 1921. Press release,"AFSC, Phila., Aug. 1, 1921. Ibid. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 10, 1921. Cablegram, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila, Aug. 10, 1921. AFSC, Phila, to Bainbridge Colby, Sec, U.S. State Dept., Washington, June 14, 1920. AFSC, Phila, to FWVRC, Riga, Latvia, June 15, 1920. Press release, U.S. State Dept., Washington, July 7, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila, July 22, 1920. AFSC, Phila, to FWVRC, London, July 24, 1920. Main aspects of the struggle, as carried by the AFSC, are told in the following papers: 1917 Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Oct. 8, 1917. FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila, Dec. 13, 1917. 1918 Minutes, AFSC, Phila, Jan. 15 and 30, March 12 and 21, April 1, May 8 and 23, Aug. 22, Sept. 3 and 26, Nov. 21, 1918.
Notes
249
Reports, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., July 30 and Aug. 14, 1918. AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Jan. 10; to ARC, New York, Jan. 11; to Elliott Wadsworth, ARC, Washington, Jan. 18; to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Jan. 19; to Anna Haines, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, Feb. 1; to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, April 10; to Anna Haines, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, April 20; (confirmation) to G. B. Case, ARC, Washington, June 27; to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, July 18; to Charles Jenkins, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 13; to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC) Vladivostok, Dec. 16; to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Dec. 19; (cablegram) to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC) Omsk, Russia, Dec. 20, 1918. Anna Haines, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 1 and (cablegram) 6; (Moscow) to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 26, 1918. L. H. Wood, AFSC, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 10 and Oct. 26, 1918. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to Charles Evans, AFSC, Paris, Jan. 12, 1918. Stanley Yamall, AFSC, Germantown, Pa., to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Haverford, Pa., Feb. 26, 1918. Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 12, June 12, Aug. 29, Sept. 9 and 13; to ARC, Washington, Nov. 20; (cablegram) to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 24, 1918. FWVRC, Moscow, to FWVRC, London, Aug. 12 and 21, Sept. 2, 1918. ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 10, March 12, (G. B. Case) June 28, 1918. Raymond Robbins, Commissioner, ARC, Moscow, to ARC, Washington, Feb. 27, 1918. 1919 Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 10, 23, and 31, Feb. 12 and 25, May 22, July 10 and 20, Sept. 24, Nov. 20, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to Clarence Pickett, Oskaloosa, Iowa, April 21; to Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC), Omsk, Russia, April 24; to Lucy Biddle Lewis, AFSC, Paris, May 28; to U.S. W a r Trade Board, Washington, July 14; to N. I. Ardan, Niagara Falls, N.Y., Sept. 8; to Jane Addams, Chicago, Oct. 3; to Ukrainian Federation, New York, Nov. 3; to Friends of the Ukraine, Washington, Dec. 8 and (New York) 29, 1919. Gregory Welch, FWVRC, Vladivostok, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Jan. 10, 1919. Anna Haines, AFSC (and ARC), Omsk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 18, 1919.
250
The Quaker
Star Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Paris, to Ruth Fry, F W Y R C , London, April 26, 1919. Lucv Biddle Lewis, AFSC, Cambridge, England, to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 29, 1919. Howard Brinton, AFSC, Phila., to E. \Y. Taber, New York, Oct. 22, 1919. Vincent Nicholson, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 18, 1919. Friends Mission, Tokyo, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Dec. 12, 1919. F W V R C , Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., n.d. iprobablv December 1919). U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., May 16, 1919. U.S. War Trade Board, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., July 21, 1919. Ukrainian Federation, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 10 and 15, 1919. Diplomatic Representative, Ukrainian Peoples Republic, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 17, 1919. 1920 Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 29, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to Dr. Judah Magnes, J.D.C., New York, Feb. 5; to F. P. Keppel, ARC, Washington, Feb. 10 and April 13, 1920. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 22, 1920. Friends of the Ukraine, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 7, 1920. F . P. Keppel, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 28 and March 2, 1920. Copy, Memorandum, Conversation between Dr. Judah Magnes, J.D.C., and Allen Wardwell, Major, U.S. Army (and ARC), New York, Jan. 28, 1920. Dr. Judah Magnes, J.D.C., New York, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 3 and 11, 1920. Anna Louise Strong, Seattle, Wash., to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7, 1920. George Vincent, President, Rockefeller Foundation, New York, to AFSC, Phila., March 2, 1920. Livingston Farrand, ARC, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila. (Enc.), April 24, 1920. 79. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, July 26; to Bainbridge Colby, Sec., U.S. State Dept., Washington, Aug. 6; to F W V R C , London, Aug. 10, 1920. U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 17. 1920.
Xotes
251
80. U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 24, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, Aug. 25; to FWVRC, London, Aug. 30; to Rufus Jones, AFSC, New York, Sept. 17, 1920. 81. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1921. 82. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 24, 1919, and Sept. 30, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to Clement Biddle, AFSC, New York, July 6, 1920. FWVRC, Warsaw, to FWVRC, London, Aug. 8, 1920. FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 18 and Oct. 24, 1920. Release to Friends Papers, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 28, 1920. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Oct. 22, 1920. Friends of the Ukraine, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 27, 1920. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 26, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to F W V R C , London, Feb. 18, 1921. 83. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Aug. 18, 1920. 84. AFSC, Frankfurt a / M , Germany, to AFSC, Phila., Aug 20, 1920. 85. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 20, 1920. Report, Interview between Robert Yarnall, AFSC, and Representative, Soviet Govt., Berlin, Sept. 28, 1920. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 14; to Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Soviet Govt., Moscow, Oct. 18, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 14, 1920. 86. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, ARC, Washington, Sept. 18, 1920. 87. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 30, 1920. 88. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Haines, c / o ARC, Winchester, Va., Oct. 13, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Oct. 14, 1920. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 19, 1920. Beulah Hurley, AFSC, Berlin, to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Oct. 21, 1920. 89. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to FWVRC, London, Oct. 21, 1920. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Pec, Serbia, Oct. 21, 1920. Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Oct. 26, 1920.
252
90. 91. 92.
93.
94. 95. 96. 97. 98.
99. 100.
101.
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
Report, Fred Libby, AFSC, Reval, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 20, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to F. P. Keppel, ARC, Washington, Oct. 19, 1920. FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1921. Doremus Scudder, Siberian Commission, ARC, Omsk, Russia, to "Any Officer of the American Red Cross," June 2, 1919. AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt a/M, Germany, Oct. 14 and Nov. 26, 1920. Fred Libby, AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 29, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to Lillian Wald, New York, Dec. 2, 1920. Memorandum between AFSC-FWVRC and Commissariat of Supplies, Soviet Govt., Moscow, Dec. 13, 1920. Commissariat of Supplies, Soviet Govt., Moscow, to AFSCFWVRC, Moscow, Dec. 30, 1920. Cablegrams, AFSC, Frankfurt a/M, Germany, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 18 and 21, 1921. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to FWVRC, London, Oct. 21, 1920. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 14, 1920, and April 4, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, Oct. 22, 1920. For example, FWVRC, Warsaw, to FWVRC, London, Oct. 28, 1920. For example, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, to M.C.H. Haylar, Paris, Jan. 4, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Livingston Farrand, ARC, Washington, Jan. 27, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1921. Anna Haines, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 20, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to Livingston Farrand, ARC, Washington, Jan. 27, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Feb. 4, 1921. E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 8, 15, and 21, 1921. Cablegrams, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Frankfurt a/M, Germany, Feb. 17, 18, and (letter) 25, 1921. U.S. State Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 23, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, Nov. 23, 1920. Report, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 24, 1920.
Notes
102.
103.
104.
105. 106. 107. 108. 109.
110.
111. 112.
253
Henry Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 27, 1920. For example, AFSC, Phila., to U.S. State Dept., Washington, March 12, 1921. For example, E. P. Bicknell, ARC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., March 17, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to K. Durant, New York, Jan. 6, 1921. An Address, Dr. Judah Magnes, J.D.C., Medical Relief for Soviet Russia Organization, Opera House, Phila., Jan. 18, 1921. M. A. Best, AFSC, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 7 and 8, 1921. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., April 3, 1921. FWVRC, Moscow, to FWVRC, London, Aug. 8, 1920. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 21, 1921. Press release, AFSC, Phila., April 29, 1921. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, July 28, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to William Allbright, Birmingham, England, Jan. 23, 1922. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 1, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Outland, M.D., AFSC, Pe6, Serbia, Aug. 6, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1921. FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Jan, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Anna Louise Strong, Seattle, Wash., Feb. 10, 1921. Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Moscow, to Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, April 14, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to H. I. Bowditch, Boston, Dec. 16, 1920; to Norman Davis, Acting Secretary, U.S. State Dept., Washington, Feb. 17, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 27, 1921. Copy, Arthur Bullard, Chief, Division of Russian Affairs, U.S. State Dept., Washington, to E. P. Bicknell, Director, Foreign Operations, ARC, Washington, March 15, 1921. Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., March 3, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1921. Alfred Scattergood, AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, March 24, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24, 1921. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC. Phila., Jan. 4, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, April 15, 1921.
254
113. 114.
115. 116. 117.
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 26, 1921. Memorandum, Conference between AFSC and Joint Distribution Committee, Phila., May 6, 1921. Cablegram, Felix Warburg, J.D.C., London, to J.D.C., New York, May 26, 1921. Herbert Lehman, J.D.C., New York, to AFSC, Phila., June 18, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Lehman, J.D.C., New York, June 20, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to B. C. Smith, New York, April 18, 1921. I. F. Marcosson, "An Interview with Herbert Hoover," Saturdaxj Evening Post, April 30, 1921. Memorandum, Conference of European Relief Council, ARA, Washington, Aug. 24, 1919, by Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 22 and Oct. 29, 1921. Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 25; (Phila.) to Herbert Hoover, Washington, Sept. 16 and 26, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to Cornelius Kruse, Urbana, 111., Sept. 27; to Dr. Sydney Strong, Seattle, Wash., Dec. 21, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Anna Haines and Arthur Watts, AFSC, Moscow, Sept. 17; (cablegram) to AFSC, Warsaw, Sept. 19 and Nov. 4; to P. Morosoff, Doukhobor Famine Relief Committee, Saskatoon, Sask., Canada, Dec. 21, 1921. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 31; (telegrams) to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 9 and Nov. 1; to AFSC, Phila., Sept. 10, 1921. Telegram, William F. Kehoe, New York, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, Sept. 1, 1921. John P. Gregg, ARA, Moscow, to ARA, Washington, Sept. 6, 1921. W. A. Albright, AFSC, Minsk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Oet. 22, 1921. Telegram, Warren G. Harding, President, The White House, Washington, to Allen Wardwell, Russian Famine Fund, New York, Nov. 22, 1921. Frances Witherspoon, American Medical Aid to Russia, New York, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 29, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to K. Durant, New York, Aug. 1, 1921. Also see FWVRC, London, to FWVRC, Moscow, Aug. 3, 1921. I. F. Marcosson, "An Interview with Herbert Hoover," Saturday Evening Post, April 30, 1921. Ibid.
Notes
255
118. Ibid. 119. Ibid. 120. Ibid. 121. Ibid. 122. Minutes, ARA, New York, May 24, 1921. 123. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 6, 1921. J. V. G. Forbes, A Short Account of the Collection, Administration, and Distribution of Relief for Spanish Civilians by the American Friends Service Committee during the Spanish Civil War (unpub. thesis, University of Rochester), 1942, pp. 86 ff. 124. Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., April 4 and (Berlin) 26, 1921. Anna Haines, AFSC, Moscow, to Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Soviet Govt., April 7, 1921. Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Soviet Govt., Moscow, to Arthur Watts, FWVRC, Moscow, April 4, 1921. AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, to AFSC, Phila., May 2, 1921. Report, All Russian Famine Relief Committee (Maxim Gorky, Leo Kamenev, Maxim Litvinov, and others), Moscow, July 20, 1921. Cablegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, July 27; (letter) to AFSC, Vienna, Aug. 10; (telegram) to Russian Famine Fund, New York, Aug. 12, 1921. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Aug. 11, 1921. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 23, 1921. 125. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 31 and Sept. 17, 1921. 126. Ibid. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Outland, M.D., AFSC, Pe£, Serbia, Aug. 6, 1921. 127. Cablegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, London, to AFSC, Phila., May 25, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Rufus Jones, AFSC, South China, Maine, Aug. 18, 1921. AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Aug. 19, 1921. 12S. Memorandum, Conference of European Relief Council, ARA, Washington, Aug. 24, 1919, by Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila. 129. Ibid. 130. Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Hoover, Washington, Sept. 26, 1921. 121. See H. H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923 (New York, Macmillan, 1927), pp. 49 ff.
256
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
CHAPTER
8
RUSSIA:
1917-1927
1921-1927
1. H. H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923
(New
York, Macmillan, 1 9 2 7 ) , pp. 4 9 ff. 2. Minutes, A F S C , Phila., August 2 3 , 1 9 2 1 . 3. Memorandum, Conference, European Relief Council, ARA, Washington, Aug. 2 4 , 1 9 2 1 , by W i l b u r Thomas, A F S C , Phila.
4. Ibid. 5. Ibid.
6. Cablegram, A F S C , Phila., to F W V R C , London, Aug. 26, 1921. 7. Minutes, A F S C , Phila., Aug. 30, 1 9 2 1 . 8. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Rufus Jones, A F S C , Phila., Sept. 10, 1 9 2 1 . 9. Rufus Jones, A F S C , Phila., to Herbert Hoover, Washington, Sept. 16, 1 9 2 1 . 10. ARA, Moscow, to ARA, London, Sept. 11, 1 9 2 1 . Cablegram, A F S C , Phila., to Anna Haines, A F S C , Reval, Sept. 16, 1921. 11. Wilbur Thomas, A F S C , Phila., to A F S C , Moscow, Sept. 17, 1921.
12. Ibid.
13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21.
Christian A. Herter, U . S . Commerce, Dept., Washington, to Wilbur Thomas, A F S C , Phila., Sept. 2 2 , 1 9 2 1 . Wilbur Thomas, A F S C , Phila., to Ruth F r y , F W V R C , London, Sept. 16, 1 9 2 1 . Cablegram, F W V R C , London, to A F S C , Phila., Oct. 3, 1921. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Rufus Jones, A F S C , Phila., Nov. 1, 1 9 2 1 . Minutes, A F S C , Phila., Sept. 2 2 , 1 9 2 1 . Wilbur Thomas, A F S C , Phila., to A F S C , W a r s a w , Nov. 4, 1921. Memorandum, Conference ( M o s c o w ) , William Haskell, Colonel, U.S. Army, Director, ARA, R u s s i a — M u r r a y S. Kenworthy, A F S C , Moscow,'Nov. 29, 1921. New York Herald Tribune (Paris E d i t i o n ) , Sept. 3, 1 9 2 1 . Press release, A F S C , Phila., Oct. 2 1 , 1 9 2 1 . Joseph I. F r a n c e , U.S. Senate, Washington, to A F S C , Phila., Nov. 2 8 , 1921. Hearings, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 67th Congress, Second Session, on H . R . 9 4 5 9 and H.R. 9 5 4 8 for Relief of Distressed and Starving People of Russia, Dec. 13 and 14, 1921, Washington.
Notes
257
22. The New York Times (editorial), Dec. 17, 1921. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 19, 1921. 23. AFSC, Phila., to J. G. Smith, National Information Bureau, New York, Dec. 29, 1921. 24. Press releases, AFSC, Phila., Dec. 20 and 28, 1921. 25. Telegram, Herbert Hoover, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 31, 1921. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Outland, M.D., AFSC, Pec, Serbia, Jan. 4, 1922. 26. FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Moscow, Jan. 12, 1922. 27. AFSC, Phila., to Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, Jan. 20, 1922. 28. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to P. Morosoff, Doukhobor Famine Relief Committee, Saskatoon, Sask., Canada, Dec. 21, 1921. 29. AFSC, Phila., to Dr. Sydney Strong, Seattle, Wash., Dec. 21, 1921. 30. American Medical Aid to Russia, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 29, 1921. 31. For Example: see Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 14, 1923. 32. Ralph Easley, New York, to Allen Wardwell, Russian Famine Fund, New York, Dec. 23, 1921. 33. From the outset, the AFSC had sought, often successfully, from foundations, factories, farms, and families for gifts-in-kind as well as money—clothing, soap, medicine, machinery, milk, and grain. Indeed, the Commission for Relief in Belgium, from which grew the ARA, had itself gone to countless doors with this appeal. One CRB volunteer later told how it had occurred to him in Minnesota, in 1914, to ask local millers to donate amounts of flour to serve as nest eggs or magnets, for like amounts of wheat or flour by local civic groups and farmers. The scheme had taken hold. By encouraging other local groups to pay for milling and by stirring a friendly rivalry between the towns, four times the bulk of flour that actual fund solicitation could have brought had been obtained. Whole towns turned out to watch the loading of their flour and, with hurrahs, to speed the trains upon their way to ports. Whole Belgian towns turned out to receive these gifts. In the autumn of 1921, much the same sort of plan had struck the Quakers; they persuaded people to give maize, then persuaded railroads to haul it free. They even arranged to sell all contributed com not suitable for milling and replace it with millable com. Chicago railroads said they would do the hauling free, if Mr. Hoover asked them. But Mr. Hoover's staff reported
258
The Quaker
Star Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
that he was otherwise occupied. The AFSC decided to go ahead anyhow. AFSC, Phila., to Edgard Rickard, ARA, New York, Nov. 30, 1921. William C. Edgar, Minneapolis, Minn., to Herbert Hoover, ARA, New York, Dec. 8, 1920. AFSC, Phila., to E. A. Hirschman, York, Pa., Dec. 21, 1921. 34. Telegram, Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Hoover, Washington, Jan. 4, 1922. 35. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 6, 1922. 36. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to F W V R C , London, Jan. 14, 1922. 37. Cablegram, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 14, 1922. 38. Ibid. 39. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Paxton Hibben, New York, Feb. 3, 1922. Henry Scattergood, AFSC. Phila., to Rufus Jones, AFSC. Haverford, Pa., Feb. 6, 1922. Executive Board, AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Hoover, Washington, Feb. 9, 1922. 40. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila.. Feb. 13, 1922. 41. Herbert Hoover, The Nation, New York, May 10, 1922. 42. For example: see ARA, Petrograd, to ARA, Riga, Sept. 6, 1921. 4 3 . John P. Gregg, ARA, Moscow, to ARA, New York, Sept. 6, 1921. 44. FWVRC, Moscow, to F W V R C , London, Oct. 28, 1921. 45. Cablegram, ARA, Petrograd, to ARA, New York, Dec. 8, 1921. 46. AFSC, Phila., to William Webb, Detroit, Mich., Feb. 9, 1922. 47. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 11, 1922. 48. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to J. G. Smith, National Information Bureau, New York, Jan. 19, 1922. 49. AFSC, Phila., to Perrin Galpin, ARA, New York, Jan. 20, 1922. 50. G. B. Christian, Jr., Secretary to President Harding, The White House, Washington, to Mrs. Henrv Villard, New York, Jan. 26, 1922. 51. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Charles Evans Hughes, Sec., U.S. State Dept., Washington, Jan. 20, 1922. 52. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to F W V R C , Warsaw, Feb. 26, 1922. 53. J. B. Payne, Chairman, Central Committee, ARC, Washington, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Julv 1, 1922. 54. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to B. A. Harlan, ARC, Washington, Dec. 22, 1922.
Notes
259
55. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Outland, M.D. AFSC, Pec, Serbia, Jan. 31, 1922. 56. Homer Morris, AFSC, Sorochinskoya, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., April 28, 1922. 57. Homer Morris, AFSC, Sorochinskoya, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., March 23, 1923. 58. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to C. L. Danan, M.D., New York, April 29, 1922. Report, Medical Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila., May 1, 1922. 59. Homer Morris, AFSC, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, July 30, 1950. 6 0 . Fridtjof Nansen, Lvsaker, Norway, to FWVRC, London, June 27, 1922. FWVRC, Buzuluk, Russia, to FWVRC, London, May 24, 1922. Homer Morris, AFSC, Pendle Hill, Pa., to Author, July 30, 1950. 6 1 . Murray S. Kenworthy, AFSC (formerly in Buzuluk, Russia), to AFSC, Phila., June 28, 1922. 62. Chicago Tribune, Feb. 9, 1922. 6 3 . Press release, American Committee for Russian Famine Relief, Chicago, Feb. 10, 1922. 64. AFSC, Phila., to Herbert Hoover, Washington, Feb. 11, 1922. 65. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., Feb. 13, 1922. Press release, Herbert Hoover, Washington, Feb. 12, 1922. 66. Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., March 1, 1922. 67. AFSC, Phila., to Christian A. Herter, U.S. Commerce Dept., Washington, March 4, 1922. 68. Herbert Hoover, Washington, to Rufus Jones, AFSC, Phila., March 6, 1922. 69. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 7, 1922. 70. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 4, 1922. AFSC, Phila., to American Committee for Russian Famine Relief, Chicago, April 6, 1922. 71. Lucy Elliott, AFSC, Samara, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., April 6, 1922. 72. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 6, 1922. 73. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., April 20, 1922. 74. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Moscow, May 16, 1922. 75. Report, Murray S. Kenworthy, AFSC, (formerly in Buzuluk, Russia), to AFSC, Phila., June 1, 1922. 76. Memorandum, Conference (Warsaw), Representative, Soviet Govt.—James Dunn, AFSC, Warsaw, Feb. 15, 1922.
260
77.
78. 79. 80.
81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.
90. 91.
92. 93. 94. 95.
The
Quaker
Star
Under
Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
J. C. W i g h a m , F W V R C , Moscow, to Soviet Commissariat f o r F o o d Supplies, Moscow, M a r c h 10, 1922. A F S C , M o s c o w , to A F S C , Phila., Sept. 24, 1922. F o r m letter, A m e r i c a n C o m m i t t e e for Russian F a m i n e Relief, C h i c a g o , to t h e M e m b e r s of t h e U.S. H o u s e of R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s a n d S e n a t e , W a s h i n g t o n , April 21, 1922. A F S C , Phila., to American C o m m i t t e e for Russian F a m i n e Relief, C h i c a g o , April 29, 1922. C o p y , U.S. S t a t e D e p t . , W a s h i n g t o n , to American C o m m i t t e e f o r Russian F a m i n e Relief, Chicago, M a y 10, 1922. A m e r i c a n C o m m i t t e e for Russian F a m i n e Relief, C h i c a g o , to A F S C , Phila., M a v 16 and 22; to J. P. Burling, D e s Moines, Iowa, M a y 27, 1922. W i l b u r T h o m a s , A F S C , Phila., to R u f u s Jones, A F S C . South C h i n a , M a i n e , July 15, 1922. Literary Digest, J u n e 17, 1922. A F S C , Phila., to E. A. Nash, N e w York, J u n e 30, 1922. R e p o r t , M u r r a y S. K e n w o r t h v , A F S C ( f o r m e r l y in Buzuluk, R u s s i a ) , to A F S C , Phila., J u n e 28. 1922. Minutes, A F S C , P h i l a , July 7, 1922. A F S C , P h i l a , to H e r b e r t Hoover, W a s h i n g t o n , July 11. 1922. Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 22, 1922. Christian A. H e r t e r , U.S. C o m m e r c e D e p t . , W a s h i n g t o n , to L. A b r a h a m s o n , Minneapolis, M i n n , Sept. 28, 1922. Minules, A F S C , P h i l a , July 10, 1922. M e m o r a n d u m , C o n f e r e n c e , A F S C - F W V R C , Buzuluk. Russia, to A F S C , P h i l a , Aug. 20, 1922. See H. H . Fisher. The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923 ( N e w York, Macmillan, 1 9 2 7 ) , C h a p . 8. W i l b u r T h o m a s , A F S C , P h i l a , to W i l l i a m Albright, A F S C , B i r m i n g h a m , E n g . . Aug. 30, 1922. Beulah H u r l e y , A F S C , Moscow, to A F S C , P h i l a , Sept. 6, 1922. A F S C , M o s c o w , to A F S C , Phila.. Sept. 24, 1922. C a b l e g r a m , A F S C , Moscow, to A F S C , P h i l a , Sept. 11, 1922. Minutes, A F S C , P h i l a , Sept. 22, 1922. W a l t e r W i l d m a n , A F S C , Moscow, to A F S C . P h i l a , O c t . 16 a n d 26, 1922. A g r e e m e n t , R e p r e s e n t a t i v e Plenipotentiary, Soviet G o v t , M o s c o w — A F S C / F W V R C , Moscow, Oct. 25, 1922. See A F S C , B u z u l u k . Russia, to A F S C . P h i l a , Sept. 19, 1923. Also, C o m m i s s a r i a t for Public Health, Soviet G o v t , M o s c o w , to A F S C , P h i l a , M a y 16. 1925. Also, P r e s i d e n t , O o v z e d C o m m i t t e e for F a m i n e Relief, Buzuluk
Notes
96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101.
102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113.
261
Executive Committee, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, May 27, 1927. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Aug. 16, 1923. H. H. Fisher, The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923, op. cit., p. 471. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Oct. 16, 1922. FWVRC, London, to FWVRC, Moscow, Oct, 27, 1922. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 23, 1922. FWVRC, London, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 11, 1923. U.S. Treasury Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 20, 1922. AFSC, Sorochinskoya, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 6 and 12, 1922. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 23, 1922. Acting Representative Plenipotentiary with All Foreign Relief Organizations, Soviet Govt., Moscow, to Caroline Norment, Friends Mission, Moscow, Nov. 10, 1922. See also Copy, "Policies and Regulations for New Program of Famine Relief," (Commissariat unspecified), Soviet Govt., Moscow, to AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, Nov. 13, 1922. S. E. Nicholson, AFSC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Dec. 19, 1922. The New York Times, Feb. 21, 1923. Murray S. Kenworthy, AFSC, Phila., to George Warner, Phila., March 28, 1923. J. H. Stutesman, ARA, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Nov. 10, 1922. S. E. Nicholson, AFSC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 4, 1923. S. E. Nicholson, AFSC, Washington, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 19, 1923. Beulah Hurlcv, AFSC, New York, to AFSC, Phila., Jan., 26, 1923. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Moscow, April 12, 1923. Cablegram, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 17, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 22 and March 15, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 25, 1923. New York Herald Tribune, March 8, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 15, 1923. Chicago Tribune, April 28, 1923. Harry Timbres, AFSC, Chicago, to AFSC, Phila., April 29, 1923. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Sept. 27 and Oct. 9, 1923.
262
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
114. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Feb., Feb. 14 and April 3, 1923. Cablegram, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Feb. 24 (and correspondence) Feb. 15, March 6, April 14, and May 30, 1924. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Moscow, Feb. 26,' 1923. Telegram, Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to American Medical Aid for Russia, New York, Feb. 16 (and from Moscow bv cablegram) May 3, 1923. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to T. Scattergood, Phila. April 13, 1923. American Medical Aid for Russia, New York (press release) March 15; to Johnson and Johnson Co.. New Brunswick, N.J. April 17; to Bell Telephone Co., New York, Aug. 15, 1923. 115. AFSC, Sorochinskoya, Russia, to Plenipotentiary for Dealing with Foreign Organizations, Soviet Govt., Moscow, March 10, 1923. AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., June 4, 1923. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to American Medical Aid for Russia, New York, Feb. 24, 1923. 116. Cablegram, FWVRC, London, to FWVRC, Buzuluk, Russia April 21, 1923. Walter Wildman, AFSC, Moscow, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC Phila., June 23, 1923. 117. Charles J. Rhoads and Murray S. Kenworthy for AFSC, to Warren G. Harding, President, The White House, Washington, April 11, 1923. 118. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., June 25, 1923. 119. Report, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 4, 1923. 120. Reports, AFSC, Buzuluk, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., June (n.d.) 1923, and Jan. 4, 1924. 121. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 27, 1924. 122. Report, Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 7, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 7, 1925. 123. E. H. Vail, AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 22, 1924. 124. Report, Medical Committee, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Phila.. May 1, 1924. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., May 22, 1924. 125. AFSC, Moscow, to AFSC, Phila., March 21 and April 28, 1924. Cleaver Thomas, AFSC, Moscow, to Charles Jenkins, AFSC, Phila.. April 16, 1924. 126. Reports, AFSC, Sorochinskoya, Russia, to AFSC, Phila., Julv 1 and Oct. 17, 1924. 127. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to AFSC, Moscow, June 10, 1924.
Notes
263
128. Report, Ruth Fry, FWVRC, London, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 7, 1925. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Jan. 7, 1925. 129. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., July 23, Sept. 24, and Dec. 2, 1925. AFSC, Phila., to FWVRC, London, Feb. 23, 1926. 130. Copy, Minutes, Council for International Service, Society of Friends, London, to AFSC, Phila., July 22, 1926. 131. Copy, Minutes, Council for International Service, Society of Friends, London, to AFSC, Phila., July 22; and Alice Nike, C.I.S., London, to Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., July 29, 1926. 132. Cablegram, AFSC, Phila., to Friends House, London, Aug. 12, 1926. Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila., to Mrs. J. M. Davis, Brighton, Mass., Aug. 28; to Carl Heath, Friends House, London, Oct. 11, 1926. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 17 and 18, 1926. 133. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., March 24 and Dec. 1, 1927. AFSC, Warsaw, to AFSC, Phila., Jan. 21, 1928 134. Press release, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 23, 1923. CHAPTER 9
EPILOGUE
1. F. P. Keppel, Asst. Sec., U.S. War Dept., Washington, to AFSC, Phila., March 7, 1918. 2. Paul Furnas, AFSC, Indianapolis, to AFSC, Phila., April 20, 1918. 3. William James, "The Moral Equivalent of War," Essays on Faith and Morals (Ralph Barton Perry, ed.) (New York, Longmans, Green, 1943), p. 311. 4. AFSC, Phila., to Clement Biddle, AFSC, Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 25, 1921. 5. Francesca M. Wilson, In the Margins of Chaos (London, John Murray, 1944), pp. 268, 280. 6. Minutes, AFSC, Phila., Nov. 6, 1919. 7. An Appeal, Georgi Dolgorukov, Patriarch, Russian Greek Orthodox Church, Moscow, to "Citizens of America," March 20, 1920. 8. Memorandum, Conference, European Relief Council, ARA, Washington, Aug. 24, 1921, by Wilbur Thomas, AFSC, Phila. 9. Report, John P. Gregg, ARA, Moscow, to ARA, New York, Sept. 6, 1921."
RELATED READING BOOKS
Bane, S. L., and Lutz, R. H., eds., The Blockade of Germany after the Armistice, 1918-1919: Selected Documents of the Supreme Economic Council, Superior Blockade Council, American Relief Administration, and Other Wartime Organizations (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1942). Organization of American Relief in Europe, 1918-1919, Including Negotiations Leading up to the Establishment of the Office of Director General of Relief at Paris by the Allied and Associated Powers (Docs.) (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1943). Barton, Clara Harlowe, The Red Cross in Peace and War (Washington, D.C., American Historical Press, 1899). Bicknell, Ernest P., Pioneering with the Red Cross: Recollections of an Old Red Crosser (New York, Macmillan, 1935). In War's Wake, 1914-1915: The Rockefeller Foundation and the American Red Cross Join in Civilian Relief (Washington, D.C., American National Red Cross, 1936). With the Red Cross in Europe, 1917-1922 (Washington, D.C., American National Red Cross, 1938). Brinton, Howard, Friends for 300 Years: The History and Beliefs of the Society of Friends since George Fox Started the Quaker Movement (New York, Harper, 1952). Dulles, F. R., The American Red Cross: A History (New York, Harper, 1950). Fisher, H. H., The Famine in Soviet Russia, 1919-1923: The Operations of the American Relief Administration (New York, Macmillan, 1927). Fisher, H. H., and Brooks, Sidney, America and the New Poland (New York, Macmillan, 1928). Fowler, Bertram, Food, a Weapon for Victory (Boston, Little, Brown, 1942). Fry, Anna Ruth, Three Visits to Russia, 1922-1925 (London, J. Clarke, 1942). A Quaker Adventure: The Story of Nine Years' Relief and Reconstruction (London, Nisbet, 1943). 265
266
The Quaker
Star Under Seven
Flags,
1917-1927
Fry, Joan Mary, In Downcast Germany, 1919-1935 (London, J. Clarke, 1944). Gay, George I., Commission for Relief in Belgium: Statistical Review of Relief Operations. Five years, November 1, 1914, to August 31, 1919, and to Final Liquidation (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1925). Gay, George I., and Fisher, H. H., eds., Public Relations of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (Docs.) (2 vols.) (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1929). Hall, Willis H., Quaker International Work in Europe since 1911 (Chambéry, France, 1938). Hayes, Dennis, Conscription Conflict: The Conflict of Ideas in the Struggle For and Against Military Conscription in Britain between 1901 and 1939. With an introduction by Clement Davies (London. Sheppard Press, 1949). Challenge of Conscience: The Story of the [British] Conscientious Objector of 1939-1949 (London, Allen and Unwin, 1949). Hiebert, Peter Cornelius, and Miller, O. O., Feeding the Hungri/: Russian Famine, 1919-1925 (Scottdale, Pa., Mennonite Central Committee, 1929). Hoover, Herbert Clark, Memoirs (New York, Macmillan, 1951, 1952) (vols. I and I I ) . Irwin, Will, Herbert Hoover: A Reminiscent Biography (New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1928). Jones, Mary Hoxie, Swords into Ploughshares: An Account of the American Friends Service Committee, 1917-1937 (New York, Macmillan, 1937). Jones, Rufus M., A Service of Love in War Times: American Friends Relief Work in Europe, 1917-1919 (New York, Macmillan, 1920). Jörns, Auguste, The Quakers as Pioneers in Social Work (Thomas Kite Brown, trans.) (New York, Macmillan, 1931). Kellogg, Walter Guest, The Conscientious Objector. Introduction bv Newton D. Baker (New York, Boni and Liveright, 1919). Kraus, Hertha, International Relief in Action, 1914-1942: Selected Records, with Notes (Scottdale, Pa., The Herald Press, 1944). Sibley, Mulford Q. and Jacob, Philip E., Conscription of Conscience: The American State and the Conscientious Objector, 1940-1947 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1952). Siney, Marion C., The Allied Blockade in Germany, 1914-1916 (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1957). Surface, Frank Macy, and Bland, Raymond L., eds., American Food in the World War and Reconstruction Period: Operations of the Organizations under the Direction of Herbert Hoover, 1914-1924
Related
Reading
267
(Docs.) (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1931). Thomas, Edward, ed., Quaker Adventures: Experiences of Twentythree Adventurers in International Understanding (New York, Fleming H. Revell, 1928). Thomas, Norman, The Conscientious Objector in America (New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1923). Vining, Elizabeth Gray, Friend of Life: The Biography of Rufus M. Jones (Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1958). Wilson, Francesca M., In the Margins of Chaos: Recollections of Relief Work in and between Three Wars. With a foreword by J. L. Hammond (London, John Murray, 1944). Wilson, Roger Cowan, Quaker Relief: An Account of the Relief Work of the Society of Friends, 1940-1948 (London, George Allen and Unwin, 1952).
REPORTS
American Civil Liberties Union, Annual American Friends Service Committee, Numbered Bulletins, 1917-1928; 1917-1937. British Friends War Victims Relief 1917-1927. (London)
Reports, 1917-1927. Annual Reports, 1917-1927; and Unnumbered Bulletins, Committee, Annual
Reports,
PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED BY PENDLE HILL, WALLINGFORD,
PENNSYLVANIA
Bi:nton, Anna, Toward Undiscovered Ends: Friends and Russia for 300 Years (1951) Brinton, Howard H., Sources of the Quaker Peace Testimony (1941) Cidbury, Henry J., Quaker Relief during the Siege of Boston (1943) Wilson, Roger Cowan, Relief and Reconstruction (1943)
268
The Quaker Star Under Seven Flags,
1917-1927
PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED BY T H E RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION, N E W YORK
Administration of Relief Abroad series (1943) Donald S. Howard, ed. Barton, J. L., The Near East Relief, 1915-1930 Davison, H. P., The American Red Cross in the Great War, 1917-1919 Fisher, H. H., The American Relief Administration in Russia Forbes, John Van Gelder, and the American Friends Service Committee, Recent Relief Programs of the American Friends in Spain 1937-1939, and France, 1941-1942 Jones, Rufus M., The American Friends in France, 1917-1919
INDEX Addams, Jane, 95 Alien Property Custodian, 106 Allen, General Henry T., 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 204; Allen Committee, 113, 117 Allen, William, 135 Alternate service, 18, 31 American Bankers Association, 100 American Committee for Relief in Ireland, 88 American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), archives, 9, 195; formation, 7, 15, 31, 69; address 1917-1960, 32; incorporation, 22, 27; tax exemption, 23; financial statements, 21, 22; reorganization, 23, 24; sections, 25; cooperation with governments, 30; home service, 39; coal fields, 40; homesteads, 27; cooperation with British Friends, 64, 76, 79, 122, 146, 150, 151, 167, 187, 196; German Child Feeding, 8 9 - 1 2 1 ; Russia, ten years' service, 136, 165, 179, 183; association with ARA, 97, disassociation from ARA, 181; passim American Peace Commission on Relief Negotiations with Allied Governments, 93 American Relief Administration ARA), 7, 10, 15, 23, 75, 76, 77, 81, 89, 90, 106, 112, 124, 125, 144, 152, 154, 161-164, 173, 175, 205
Amnesty, 47 Armenia, 125 Army dumps, 63, 64, 201; French army surplus, 66; German army equipment, 99 Austria, 7, 15, 69, 7 4 - 8 3 , 100, 117 Baker, Newton D., 35, 4 1 - 4 4 , 46, 47, 62 Barton, Clara, 137, 191 Bellows, John, 134 Blockade, food, 91, 92, 93, 94 Board of Inquiry, 46 Breslau, 132 Bright, John, 134 Brinton, Howard, 133 British and American Quaker teams, 78, 79, 126, 129, 130, 150, 151, 167, 168, 175f., 180, 181, 190, 196, 198, 199, 208 British Friends, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33, 44, 45, 50, 52, 59, 60, 65, 66, 68, 70, 73, 85, 88, 122, 123, 135, 137, 140, 152, 153, 192, 195 Brown, Henry Tatnall, 113 Brown, Walker Lyman, 163, 208 Bulgaria, 8 4 - 8 7 Bullit, William C., 140 Buzuluk, 32, 136, 137, 139, 151, 175, 187, 189, 190 Cadbury, Emma, 86 Cadbury, Henry J., 10, 32 Canada, 92, 134, 169 CARE, 99 Carnets rouges, 53, 54
270
Index
Catchpool, St. John, 139 Catholic Welfare Council, 104, 164 Cecil, Lord Robert, 9 3 Centers, 25, 187; Amsterdam, 68; Berlin, 24, 6 8 ; Copenhagen, 68; Geneva, 6 8 ; Paris, 68, 201; Rome, 68; Vienna, 6 8 ; Warsaw, 68, 130 Chalons, 52; Maternity Hospital,
66
Christian pacifism, 192 Churchill, Winston, 91, 9 3 Civil Liberties Union, American, 38 Clark, Dr. Hilda, 81, 82 Clemenceau, Premier Georges, 91, 93 Clogged Ports, 170, 171, 207 Cold War, 17, 2 1 2 Colombo Plan, British, 2 0 0 Commission for Relief in Belgium ( C R B ) , 63, 89, 191 Committee for Russian Famine Relief, 177; Chicago group, 178 Conscientious objectors, 28, 30, 40, 193; numbers of, 37, 38; release of, 47; Africa, Europe, Japan, India, USA, 30; see also Conscription Conscription, 28, 3 1 - 4 7 , 192, 193; British, 3 3 Cow scheme, 77, 83, 202; milk, 75, 78, 202 Crimean War, 123, 134, 191 Crowdv, Dame Rachael, 124 Cushing, Dr. Harvey, 185 Czecho-Slovakia, 100 Dawes Report, 116, 120 D D T , 123 Deutscher Zentralausschuss für die Auskindshilfe ( D Z A ) , 101,
109, 110, 111, 113, 1 1 5 - 1 1 8 , 204 Discharge from U.S. Army, 61,
62
Doukhobors, 134, 169 Dresel, Ellis Loring, 108 Ebert, President Friedrich, 110, 112, 113 Eddy, Sherwood, 84 Emerson, Dr. Haven, 113 Evans, Charles, 51, 59, 178 Family as social group, 56, 81, 189, 2 0 2 Farm groups, 20 Federal Council of Churches, 103, 156, 164, 2 0 9 Federal investigation, 54, 5 5 Fellowship of Reconciliation ( F O R ) , 39 Foch, Marshal Ferdinand, 91, 93 Food and Agriculture, German Ministry of, 101, 109 Food as a weapon, 18, 91, 122 Food Draft Package Plan, 99, 103, 105, 1 1 2 - 1 1 3 , 184 Ford, Henry, 55 Fox, George, 134 France, 4 8 - 6 8 , 201; passim Friends Ambulance Unit ( F A U ) ,
28
Friends of Soviet Russia, 169 Friends Service Council, London,
20
Friends War Victims Relief Committee, 7, 15, 33, 84, 88, 125, 126, 187, 197 Fry, A. Ruth, 8, 136 Furlough, 43, 44; farm, 39 Gag rule, 53 Garden settlements, 80, 81, 83,
202
Index German prisoners of war in France, 65 German Republic, 110 German-American, 89, 97, 102, 1 0 3 , 106, 107, 109, 120, 2 0 3 Germany, 63, 8 9 - 1 2 1 , 2 0 4 Girl soldiers, 131 Gorky, Maxim, 157 Grain Corporation (United S t a t e s ) , 98, 1 6 8 Grain dispersal (Russia), 181, 183, 209 Grellet, Stephen, 135 Haines, Anna, 139, 147, 151; summoned for questioning, 189 Hamburg, Port of, 9 8 ; city, 99; feeding, 131 Hamilton, Dr. Alice, 9 5 Harding, President, 107, 119; cabinet, 107, 173, 177, 186 Haskell, Colonel William, 168, 180, 181 Haverford College, 9, 25, 35, 94 Haverford Training Unit, 41, 45, 194 Herter, Christian A., 107, 147, 177, 183 Hitler, 2 8 Hoover, Herbert, 15, 63, 70, 75, 78, 79, 8 9 - 9 7 ; 99, 102, 104, 106, 107, 119, 125, 137, 141, 142, 143, 147, 148, 150, 153, 155, 156, 163, 164, 1 6 5 - 1 6 7 , 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 179, 184, 191, 192, 203, 204, 207, 209, 2 1 1 ; Chairman, A F S C subcommittee, child feeding, 98; termination of chairmanship, 154 Horse tax, 188 Horses, 62, 128, 181, 187 House, Colonel Edward, 140
271
Hughes, Charles Evans, 82, 119, 148, 2 0 3 Human Rights Commission ( UN ) , 17 Interallied Commission in Russia, farm machinery, 1 8 8 Ireland, Dr. M. W . , 186 Irish Friends, 192 James, William, 194 Japanese relocation, 2 8 Jewish Joint Distribution Association, 103, 144, 154, 156, 164, 178 Jews, 2 8 Jones, Mary Hoxie, 8 Jones, Rufus M., 8, 25, 26, 34, 36, 4 1 , 42, 44, 74, 96, 115, 125, 151, 166, 170, 179, 2 1 1 Kansas, 1 7 5 Ken worthy, Murray, 176, 180 Keppel, Frederick, 108 Kerensky, Alexander, 137, 151 Keynes, Maynard, 2 4 Kilpatrick, Captain Emmet, 146, 147, 1 4 8 Knights of Columbus, 53, 104, 164 Kolchak, Alexander, 141, 143 Korea, 16, 2 1 2 Krakow, 131, 132 Labor, 20, 196, 2 0 3 League for Democratic Control, 39 League of Nations, 15, 83, 124, 127, 131, 142, 143, 2 0 5 Leavenworth, Fort, 42, 43, 46, 47, 194 Leeds, Morris E., 48, 49, 59 Lenin, 138, 176
Index
272
Litvinov, Maxim, 145, 155, 163,
208
Lloyd-George, 91, 9 3 Little Rock, 194 Macedonia, 8 5
Maisons démontables,
52, 57
Marshall Plan, 2 0 0 Mayo, Dr. Charles H., 186 Medical Aid for Russia (Americ a n ) , 169, 185 Mennonites, 20, 34, 137; see also Peace Churches Message Committee, 24, 6 7 ; message of Friends, 167 Middle West, criticism in, 176 Morris, Homer L., I l l Murphy, Major Grayson M.-P., 4 8 Nansen, Dr. Fridtjof, 141, 142, 143, 175, 2 0 6 Nazi Germany, 6 8 Near East Relief, 86, 8 7 Nichols, Dr. Roy F., 10 Nicholson, Vincent D., 32, 45, 6 0 Nightingale, Florence, 191 Nobel Peace Prize, A F S C and Friends Service Council, 29 Norwegian Famine Committee, 145 Opium Convention, Hague, 182 Orphans, wandering children, 130, 152, 188; abandoned, 115 Outland, Dr. C. L. and wife Louise, 74 Palmer, A. Mitchell, Attorney General, 3 6 Passports, 7, 36, 44, 46, 54, 138, 140, 143, 149, 153, 173, 1 9 5 Patterson, E. M., 113 Peace Churches, 20, 34, 35, 38, 40, 41, 193
Peace testimony, Society of Friends, 17, 2 6 Pearson, Andrew (Drew), 7 4 Pendle Hill, 134 Penn, William, 17, 210, 134 Pershing, General, 61 Plebiscite, Upper Silesia, 131 Point 4, 2 0 0 Pickett, Clarence E., 10 Poland, 7, 15, 70, 78, 100, 117, 122-30 Powicke, Gertrude, 124 Press, 79, 114, 197, 2 0 6 ; The
Call,
178;
Chicago
118, 176, 185, 2 0 7 ; American, 144; The
Tribune,
UkraineLiterary
Digest, 179; The Nation, 172; Saturday Evening Post, 95
Prisoners of war, German, 65, 6 6 ; Bulgaria, 7 1 ; political prisoners, Hungary, 79f.; Ruhr, 115; Americans in Russia, 139, 146, 147, 162 Private agency, 29, 49 Red Cross, American, 7, 10, 15, 23, 33, 38, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 63, 64, 70, 71, 73, 75, 76, 85, 109, 124, 143, 147, 152, 164, 174, 179, 192, 196; militarized, 53; Bulgarian, 85, 86; Danish, 145; German, 109; International, 76, 169; League of Red Cross Societies, 142; Russian, 169 Refugees, 27, 128; Bulgaria, Montenegro, 7 2 ; Constantinople, 153, 2 0 7 ; Russian, 129, 154 Relief Districts, German, 101 Reparations Commission, 75; General Dawes, Owen D. Young, 114
Index Rhineland, 1 0 3 Rhoads, Charles, 49, 178 Riga, 144; agreement, 157ff., 163, 165, 195; new agreement, 180 Rohrer Index, 9 5 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 47 Ruhr, French-occupied, 107, 111, 114, 117, 118, 119 Russia, 7, 8, 9, 15, 22, 23, 29, 32, 33, 70, 78, 100, 104, 117, 122, 127,134-190 Saar Valley, 110 Salonika, 70, 71, 7 3 Salvation Armv, 5 3 Save the Children Fund, 152, 156 Scattergood, J. Henry, 24, 48, 49, 51,59 Second World War, 16, 2 8 Selective Service, 2 8 ; Civilian Public Service, 2 8 ; government camps, 2 8 ; mental hospitals, 28; Selective Service Act, 34, 195 Serbia, 7, 8, 15, 23, 33, 63, 6 9 - 7 4 Serbian Relief Fund, 7 3 Smuts, General Jan, 141 Social Welfare Agencies, German, 1 0 0 - 1 0 1 Society of Friends (Quakers), 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 42, 54, 55, 57, 66, 68, 75, 102, 113, 143, 195, 210, 2 1 2 ; distribution of branches, 19, 20; Quaker Declaration, 32; witness, 4 4 Sofia, 86, 87 Spain, 28, 68, 155 Spanish Civil War, 194 Spanish Legation, 9 8 Star, Quaker, 4 5 Steffens, Lincoln, 140; Bullitt Report, 2 0 6
Steffens-
273
Stone, Harlan F . , U.S. Supreme Court, 4 2 Strong, Anna Louise, 167f. Student feeding, 107, 109 Sturge, Joseph, 134 Supreme Economic Council, 9 3 Tartar Republic, 172 Thomas, Wilbur K., 23, 25, 26, 45, 87, 88, 111, 119, 151, 152, 165, 166, 167, 170, 173, 174, 180, 2 1 1 Thrace, 84, 85 Thun, Ferdinand, 107 Tokyo earthquake, 2 8 ; after surrender, 28 Tolstoy, Leo, 134, 138; son of Tolstoy, 187 Trotsky, 138 Tumulty, Joseph, 47 Tunisia, 3 3 Turkish guerrillas, 7 2 Typhus, 122, 123, 124, 126, 136, 180, 194, 2 0 5 ; prevention, 127 Ultimatum to all foreign agencies to leave Russia, 182; Request to leave Poland, 130, 2 0 5 Unemployed, dole, 114 Uniform, 4 5 U.S. Food Administration, 8 9 ; Grain Corporation, 98, 168 Upper Silesia, 110, 2 0 5 Vilna region, 129 Vladivostok, 32, 137, 140, 151 Volga Valley, 136, 137, 168, 194 Wadsworth, Senator, 184 Watts, Arthur, 152 Welch, William H., M.D., 186 Wemyss, Sir Rosslyn, 9 4
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