The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-02-25
American Women Open
 NeW Club in London
Duchess of Marlborough and Others From United States Who Now Bear English Titles Take Keen Interest in Work
 Being Done-Much Charity Is Accomplished
nr HAYDEN CHrRcH

| top is already filled, all day long, with tireless volunteer workers, who find
 greater satisfaction in making things for the wounded, and for the men in the trenches. too, with their own lands than in simply putting the same hand into 1 their pockets and buying them The American women's committee which ex- ists in connection with the embassy here ! for the purpose of helping needy Amer jeans. will hold its sitting at the club house, and there will be all sorts of other good works in progress there.
 l While Armageddon continues. likewise, there will be no feasting at the Amer | ican Womens club. but luncheons, teas and dinners to enable the innerwoman to carry on," as the phrase goes there must be. and the cuisine is in able hands. They are those of Madame Triana, for merly of Louisiana, daughter of the | late John O'Day of Standard Oil fame,
 and widow of the late Perez de Triana, the famous Columbian diplomatist. and | they could hardly be bettered, for Mad anne Triana is famous as having the most | perfect American table, in all England. | It is often asserted that no British cook can be trained to carry out transatlantic recipes, and carry 'em out right. but the | fortunate folk who have dined with mad
 anne declare that her chicken a Ia Mary l land is perfection that her lobster la Newburg is flawless, and that her corn bread and waffles are absolutely accord | ing to Hoyle. And madame's cook is native born Britoni Needless to say, she 1 has been indefatigably drilled and for | sometime past the also British cook of l the American Women's club has been liv- | ing with madames cook and learning the | American culinary ropes from soup, even | to nuts So there will be no lack of l just like home" dishes on the menu
 there, and what that means here in Lon don, you who are so close to the original 1 flesh pots probably cannot possibly con- | ceive.
 l It gives one real thrill of patriotic pride to discover in something like detail, as the writer did the other day, in the course of a talk with Mrs. Hoover, what | a remarkable work the members of this new American organization are doing. and have been ever since the fighting
 started, not only on behalf of the wars victims in the various belligerent coun- tries, but on behalf of their less fortu- | nate fellow countrymen in England, too. Let us take the latter first.
 | We are really doing quite a good deal" | said Mrs. Hoover, fin the way Of helping Americans who are in distress either ow l ing to the war or for some other reason.
 In this we work in cooperation with the | American Society of Business Men in London, and also with the Women's s
 
 being in connection with the embassy when there were so many of our country men stranded here. The mems society deals with all the cases of single men, and we, with all the women and children | and the menfolk connected with them The individual cases number roughly ! from 30 to 35 a month and we disburse on their behalf something Ike S59o from
 our philanthropic fund. Last month in connection with this work we wrote exactly 197 letters, so you see it means quite a bit of industry.
 1 'The American working man who is out of job in England at present has bad time" she went on. sThe labor bureaus will have practically nothing to do with
 Americans, and the government factories refuse to employ them. So there is con siderable distress. Then there are a cer- | tain number of no accopnt men living over here who sink lower and lower until 1 finally they refuse to drag their families down any further, and so they desert l them, and, after seeking help through Ithe American embassy, they are handed | on to us. One of the first uses to which we put the new clubhouse was a Christ mas party for 45 children belonging to 1 Amrican families who, in one way or an- other, have lost all their American affilia- l tions. They all had lots to eat and sev- eral gifts each and were as happy as larks
 I "The claim to American nationality of
 some of our applicants is doubtful, but we never turn anybody away. At present | England is simply crowded with socie- l ties all engaged in doing one thing or an- 1 other, mostly in connection with the war, l but there seems to be no one place to which a soldier or civilian in distress can l. go and discover exactly what society it is that deals with his kind of case. He will | hx +oll | like yours but they cannot tell him who does. This we are trying to do. Here is typical example: A young Austral 1 ian soldier who had been wounded, and l who had back pay to the extent of s125 coming to him in three weeks, was dis charged from hospital permanently dis
 abled with exactly 91 in his possession. l suppose they just didn't ask him how much he had, and he was too shy to ex- plain It happened that he was one of a number of boys whom we had had in to l tea and for other entertainments at my 1 house, and so he came to us to ask if we !, could advise him what to do I investi- gated his case and called it to the att tention of our philanthropic committee and it ended in our tiding him over until he got his money That is one of many ] haphazard cases.
 1 We also have an education commit l tee for the benefit of Americans in con- nection with the society," Mrs. Hoover continued. There are certain American business men here whose incomes, ow- ling to the war, have been so badly de- pleted that they can no longer afford
 to send their children to the right kind l of schools In other words, to private schools, for the public, or so-called board schools are impossible, not from the 1 educational standpoint. but from that of accent, and other things. We arrange
 that the children of people in such cir i cumstances shall have their schooling paid for. We even deal with Scotland Yard. which turns certain cases over to us; in fact, We are caring for one little girl for Scotland Yard now Her only 4 claim. as it happens, to American help, | is that she has been in sAmerica once,
 but we are taking care of her all the same.
 | I've are stl,l carrying on our knitting | tinued. "It was started, you know. to dreds of women in that district that | were thrown out of work through the | closing down of various factories and l has been quite big success. The pre- siding genius of it is Mrs. J. w. Jen- l kins of Minneapolis. and under her able generalshp the place has turned out, among other things, 10000 pairs of socks ] for the war office, and carried out big contracts too, fer the Belgian relief com mission in the way of providing long l stockings for the children in the north l of France. Last year, for several months, | the society carried on. a typhoid and maternity hospital on the French side | of Flanders this hospital consisting of