The sun., 1908-06-10
FREE LUNCHEON ROOM OPENS
MORE THAN 200 Boys AND GIRLS
FED AT NOON.

Wezonued ot Conference WIN Cnhri.
table ORGANIZATIONS. whose Agents Say
Conditions Have Been Exaggerated.
The Children's Relief Society, as the
organization calls itself which came into
being as q result Of the public knowledge
Of the distress suffered by some Of the
East Side children who had to 60 hungry
TO school. opened it's first luncheon shop
yesterday at noon at the corner Of Canal
and Forsyth streets. There was a great
rush Of children who had been supplied
with tickets for lunch by their teachers
or by members of the investigating COM
mittees. More than two hundred boys
and girls whose ages seemed to run from
Q to II years were fed. There we're about
equal numbers Of boys and girls. But the
children who were supplied with tickets
we're by no means all who turned up at the
lunch room. Many others came and said
that although they had no tickets they
were hungry. Eggs, milk and bread and
butter we're the staples.
Yesterday being the first day. the children
unsupplied with tickets were fed just the
same as the others, but their names and
addresses were taken. and later in the day
investigators started out to verify the
children's reports Of themselves. II the
Investigations reveal cases Of real need.
tickets will be supplied to these children
hereafter. but il not, the ticketless will go
lunchless next time IL they happen to be
the same who came to the food corner
yesterday.
Besides investigating the ticketless, the
management has determined upon fuller
or second investigation Of all cases pre-
sented, 40 that the work may be carried
on to the best end, and with this aim the
society purposes asking the established
charitable societies to send their expert
enced investigators around to make inde-
pendent reports on the merits OF the cases
presented In the applications for relief
which come in. 1t is expected that the
Charity Organization Society, the Associa-
tion for Improving the Condition Of the
Poor the University Settlement and other
organizations will lend their cooperation.
No tickets were sold yesterday and it Is
hardly expected that any appreciable
number Of tickets will be sold at any time.
or certainly not at present. although it is
the desire of the committee that people
who can buy tickets at a moderate price
will do sd IL the work can be carried on
for sufficiently long time or can be ex-
tended so as to provide these lunching
facilities on a larger scale. Money is still
coming in to the comrlittee. both to
Isidor NJ. Levy. 800 b. ,adway, and to
Prof. Hamilton, head worker Of the Uni
versity Settlement, 1874 Eldridge street.
A check for 500 was received yesterday
by Miss Julia Richman from Bishop Potter,
who wrote that he sent it as evidence of
his heartfelt sympathy with the noble work
which was being carried on.
The publicity the Children's Relief
Society has had Of late led to conference
which was held at the Nurses Settlement,
in Henry street. late yesterday afternoon
by representatives Of the older organized
charity societies Of the city. with some
members Of the new society at which there
were some free criticisms Of the newly
undertaken work and some sharp defences
Of il. The conference was called by C. c.
Birmingham, who wanted a committee
appointed to arrange for a working accord
between teachers and all the regular or
ganixations and to consider possible
plan for the establishment of regular
lunch rooms in the schools under the direc-
ton Of the Board Of Education il the sense
OF the meeting should be that such move
ment should be undertaken.
Most OF the time Of the conference was
spent in the usual familiar contentious Of
sl - II
that in the recent furore over hungry school
children conditions had been exaggerated
and that all the real distress could and
should be cared for by those societies. and
in some warm declarations in favor of such
free and untrammelled relief for immediate
distress as the newly formed society could
render.
Mr.. Birmingham said that the recent
outburst had its ludicrous side in the idea
OF getting up movement to feed starving
children, il they are starving, just at the
end Of the school year.
DR.. Waldeman Of the United Hebrew
Charities told Of investigating forty three
cases Of alleged distress reported in the re-
cent olamor and finding that thirty-twc
we're already on the society's records. OF
the thirty-two twenty five had been relieved
and seven had been refused or the eleven
new cases seven received relief; in four cases
relief had been refused for what we're re-
garded as sufficient reasons. In Ave months
there had not been more than seventy-five
applications received through the school
teachers in the district below Fourteenth
street. Organized charity. he said. was
naturally shocked by attempts Of unor-
ganized bodies to come into the field and
appeal 10 public sentiment. The doctor
said that he had received letter from one
Of his sooiety's regular beneficiaries saying
that recently six different Investigators
had called on him to find out il he was hun
gry. The doctor seemed to think the in
oident spoke for itself.
Commissioner Higgins OF the Board Of
Education was bitterly opposed to any
thing that savored Of charity to q school
child He could not understand nor could
he find the reason for this sudden wave Of
suffering from hunger, and he knew the
district, having been for thirty years in
business on the Bowery.
Dr.. Lee K. Frankel OF the Hebrew Chari-
tiaa tho,, chit from the rarort ~ nplv thraa