The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-11-17
Women and Children Sadly in
Need of Clothing
MUCH SUFFERING INEVITABLE
Relief Commission Appeals to Ameri.
ca for Food and Wearing
Apparel Materials.

Unless Americans are generous be
yond any previous performance thous
ands Of people in Poland, Russia, Ser
| via, Belgium and France will die
| from cold and starvation the coming
| winter Probably the worst condi
tions will be in Servia and Poland
| where the work will be organized lat.
| ef.
just now a special effort is being
| made in behalf OF Belgium and north
| ern France and the following appeal
| is being sent broadcast over the
United States:
over three million souls in Belgium
and Northern France, mostly women
and young children, must be clothed
and shod by Christmas. If the gar
ments and shoes for these destitute
people are not forthcoming at once.
their sufferings during the winter
will become desperate.
Such is the keynote of an urgent ap
peal issued to the people of the Unit
ed States by the Commission for Re
lief in Belgium. The New York Com
mittee have received from Mr.. Her
bert Hoover. Chairman of the Com
mission, the following statement:
at appears to me that it is neces
sary for us to go frankly to the Amer
lean people and ask them to clothe
the destitute in the occupied areas of
Belgium and Northern France during
the coming winter.
There are nine million people in
these areas and of these over one
third are now either wholly or parti-
ally destitute and are today receiving
their food either wholly or partially
with out payment,
"As you know we have set up
economic measures based on the
ability of a portion of the population
TO pay for its food which, with the
contributions of other countries. en-
ables us for the present to ilnd the
bare minimum of food supplies for
the whole nine million people, but we
have no reserves with which to pro-
vide clothing for the destitute. We
now plead for help on their behalf.
Even if these nine million people
had money they could not import
clothes, or the raw materials with
which to manufacture them, through
the blockade into an area under mill
tary occupation. While the better
classes have some clothing with
which they can get along, the desti-
tute are composed of the working
classes which naturally had little re-
serves of clothing when the war
broke out. The only additions they
have received since then have been
the generous contributions from
America, Canada, and elsewhere. BY
Christmas time all the clothing which
we have in our various establish
ments will be exhausted
st is certainty that the undue ex-
posure of underclad men, women and
children to the bitter winter will
greatly increase mortality. The
clothing for these people can be pro-
vided only if we receive gift supplies
for the purpose. We must depend
upon the American people.
"We have arranged that the cost OF
transportation of clothes from any
central point in the United States to
Belgium and Northern France and of
the distribution will be paid for out
of funds which have been especially
provided so that the whole American
contributions will reach the destitute
with out one cent of deduction
In the matter OF the character of
clothing for these people, we are sur
rounded with a multitude of difficult
ties. In the first instance the drastic
sanitary arrangements made by the
Governments through whose terri
tory we must pass make the introduc-
tion of secondhand clothing
especially in the areas of the operat-
ing armies where the want will be
greatest, practically impossible.
"We therefore must ask frankly for
new clothing and more particularly
for unmade material. Not that the
destitute in Belgium and Northern
France are not intensely grateful for
secondhand clothing, but as matter
of necessity, we are forced to ask on
ly for unworn stuffs
ut must be borne in mind that
those for whom we appeal are living
under almost total industrial paraly-
sis; that many millions of them are
idle, and that the cry we have from
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