Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-01-24
TO AID NEBRASKANS.
STATEMENT GIVEN our BY THE
RELIEF COMMISSION.
About 24O Car Loads Of Provisions
and Clothing Raised-Local Distribu-
ting Committees at Work in Twenty
six Couuties-A Double Suicide.

w. n. Mason, President of the Nebras-
ka State Relief Commission, has made
the following statement in regard to the
reorganization and work of the commits
sion:
"The commission is not one-man con-
Germ ut all, as, in addition to myself, the
following gentlemen are members OF it:
Rev. l.. p. Ludden, Secretary; j. III. Nc
Clay, Lincoln, Treasurer; Rev. Joseph T..
Duryea, Omaha: G. ]. Ernst, j. w. Hart
lev and A. j.. Sawyer. Lincoln; Henry
Sprick, Fontanelle and :. Is. Thompson,
Broken Bow; making in all nine members
composing the commission. We have an
auditing committee, and record is kept
of everything that is received and paid
out, and the auditing committee audits
all the accounts At the last meeting of
the regular working majority we author
lied Rev. l.. +. Ludden to incur inciden-
tai expenses. the principal item of which
is the salary of one stenographer All
the bills are to be submitted to the COM
mittee for approval.
"When we first organized the commits
sion we had nothing TO dispense and our
idea was to get people interested In the
movement TO raise funds without solicit
ing aid or advertising the State adversely,
and we have been successful in obtaining
large contributions in this way. We de-
cided that we would try to organize Oma-
la in quiet way and get our people to
do what they can TO aid sufferers. We
do not want to prey upon the citizens OF
Omaha, as they have so many charitable
causes that they are taking care of now,
but we merely wanted TO stimulate the
movement.
"We do our work in systematic man
ner, and wherever Il county has applied
for relief we have uniformly required the
people of that section 10 call public
meeting and appoint central committee,
comprising two members of the county
board and from five TO seven citizens sat
isfactory to the people of the section TO
constitute the central committee, with
whom we transact our business, and that
central committee appoints committee
of three in every precinct where there is
destitution, and this last committee acts
as visiting committee. We have eff
fected organization of committees in this
way in twenty-six counties.
Among others who have already given
us relief from outside points are: Mrs. &.
l.. Burrows, of Savanna, ILL.,, who has
donated a carload of coal. We have
just received check from William III.
Allen, of Boston, Mass, for $15S, and
the other day the same gentleman sent
us check for $500 besides lot of good
clothing +. ii. Hummel has sent us
$25, and the proprietors of a coal mine at
Athens, ILL.,, have promised to send US
the output for half day Of their coal
mines. which will amount to about four
teen carloads of coal. and the Burlington
Road has consented To transport 1T free.
1--WE have already distributed about 200
carloads Of provisions, coal and clothing,
and about forty more carloads are now
In the course of transportation. l should
estimate that we have already disbursed
about S11 1.50O for the relief of the suf-
ferers. This is the amount of cash paid
out UP to date. 1t was arranged at the
meeting last week that there would be
one or two members of the commission
in the office at Lincoln from now on SO
as to attend to the prompt distribution of
supplies"