EM EM : monthly magazine - 01.09.1941, Page 6

Em Em
8 ’
Organizing Charity.
íiy CHAlftLES P. STEWART
Central Press Columnist -
WHILE warmly commendatory
Of charity to victims of overseas
war conditions, State Secretary
Cordell Hull wants it so systema*'
tized as to make it 100 per cent ef-
fective. Besides the Red Cross; it
seems that the
number of pri-
vate relief
agencies r u n s
into the hun-
dreds. Acting
each on its own,
Secretary Hull’s
idea is that they
tend to fall over
one another,
cluttering up
the job at
which they all
mean so well.
That’s why,
upon Cordell’s recommendation,
President Roosevelt recently
named his three-man national com-
mittee to give collective direction
to the miscellaneous organizations’
eiforts.
The chairman is Joseph E.
Davies, American ambassadör to
Belgium until the Germans over-
ran the country. Assocíated with
him are Charles-P. Taft of Cincin-
nati and President Frederick P.
Keppel of the Carnegie corpora-
tion. Besides funneling foreign re-
lief into -the right channels, the
committee will have charge of the
task of shaping the direction of
contributions for the benefit of our
selectees’ training centers here at
home. This latter may not be re-
lief, in its strict sense, but F. D. R.
and Secretary Hull think it needs
attending to, to make the gifts
count up to a maximum.
You don’t get far into a discus-
sion of anything relating to to-
day’s overseas situation and our
own defensive prepsirations with-
out running into the question of
priorities.
Who Comes First^
Who’s to be provided for first, if
supply sources or transportation
facilities are skimpy?
It’s quite a problem in connec-
tion with shipménts abroad. Emer-
gency-stricken peoples across the
oceans holler for many sorts of
stuff faster than we can produce
it, and if we can produce it suffi-
ciently, there’s the, everlasting dif-
ficulty of scaring up enough boats
to deliver it in. _ «*______j______
It may ánpear thát this should
not be much of a puzzle relative to
deiiveries of presents to our do-
mestio selectees’ encampments.
Yet it may be, too, even a3 to
them.
We’ve got at least one doméstic
priority already. Aluminum’s pri*
ority-ized in military aviation’s fa-
vor. Our flyers get the first crack
at it, and pots-and-pans manufac-
turers can liave only what little of
it’s left over, if any, to supply our
housewives with kitchen-ware.
Of course, I don’t think that pri-
ority will be so interpreted as to
deny cooking utensils to our selec-
tees’ camps, but it may be inter-
preted in a fashion to limit ’em on
various other things that relief so-
cieties would like to send to them.
Now, this is an extreme and im*
possible illustration—
But suppose that the priority-
fixers were to say, “Here’s a char-
ity outfit that seeks to give quanti-
ties of cigarets to our selectees,
Well, cigaret-making absorbs part
of our productive capacity, all of
which we need for defensive pur-
poses. Therefore, we deny priority
to would-be relief contributors’
cigaret offerings to our selectees’
concentrations.”
No, I lcnow it cöuldn’t happen.
Nevértheless, that’s the theöry
of prioríties.
Advisory Only ^
Of course, the new Davies-Taft-
Keppel committee isn’t as dicta-
torial a setup as the Knudsen-
Hillman Office of Production Man-
'agement’s priorities division. An
OPM division’s decision is a man-
date. The Davies-Taft-Keppel out-
fit is only advisory.
I honestly can imagine an OPM
mandate barring cigaret shipments
abroad, on the ground that cig-
arets aren’t a military necessity to
the democracies, at war against
the Axis powers, and that every
square inch inside such boats as
are available ought to be packed
with. shooting-irons, explosives, et
cetera. I certainly can’l imagine the
Davies-Taft-Keppel committee as
advising charity contributors not
to send cigs to our selectees. But
I can imagine ’em advising against
gifts for anything but absolute ne-
cessities to Britain, Greece and
China. Their mission also is to
dope out schemes of getting help
into the Axis-conquered countries
without indirectly aiding the Axis
aggregation,
It would be a fine note if we sent
clgajets into occupied France, and
Germans smoked ’em.
Joseph E. Davies
Tells of Norse Aid
Crown Prince Olav of Norway puffs
on a cigar after finishing dinner
given by the Economic Club of New
York. Making his first public ad-
dress since arrival in the U. S., he
revealed that 1,000 Norwegian
ships are carrying goods to Brit-
ain. The Prince called this the
“greatest contribution that Nor-
way is making to the allies.”
Testífies on Defetise
Secretary of Labor Frances Per-
kins testifies before the House mili-
tary affairs committee studying na-
tional defense problems. She was'
questioned at length by committee-|
men in connection with strikes inl
plants supplying defense material.J