The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1917-10-27
NEW WAR CHARITY
WANTS NO MONEY
Western WOman's Idea May
Make Red Cross Society
Self-Supporting
JUNK OF EVERY
KIND COLLECTED
in New York Listen
When Told That New Scheme Will
Not Take Their Money-How it is
Working in City of Los Angeles.

NEW YORK, Oct 27.-The sight and
sound of a preposseSsing woman enter
ing a business office these days and say
ing to the boss, 81 want jus. a minute
Of your time to tell you about the war
charity enterprise butt don t want
q cent of your money now or ever. -
such q thing really can happen these
days. so it was learned authoritatively
yesterday. And partly because the
lady in question can make such speech
honestly, and largely because She can
follow this up with a two minute out
| line of a scheme for war relief that is
amazingly effective and simple, her sue
cess is destined to become historic in
the annals of war work.
Her name is Mrs Otheman Stevens,
and She and her home city of Los An
geles, which is just now all agog over
her ideas, not only are making much
money for the Red Cross without ask
ing cent from any one, but at the
same time Mrs. Stevens and those now
helping her unconsciously are inculcat
ing, by means of her new idea. a benef
icent spirit of commercial and domestic
economy which is good for the soul
in days like these.
Some notion Of what Mrs. Stevens 5
scheme has accomplished in Los Angeles
and vicinity reached Manhattan yester-
dav afternoon when one of her most
L.. Al. Il
ants, Mrs TheodoSia s. Carlin, outlined
ut the Hotel Marie Antoinette the work
Mrs. Stevens and her coworkers III the
| West have done. So remarkable has
been Mrs. StevCns's success in Los An
gcles that she is now, through Mrs.
Carlin, arranging for the starting of a
similar campaign here and it is be
lieved that by the first of the new year
the Red Cross will make the idea ma
Itional one.
Mrs. Stevens and her husband, to be
gin at the beginning, recalled about five
months ago that once upon time when
a needy friend of theirs was i'll they
had helped to tide him through his
troubles largely by the well known and
uuimaginativc method of saving the
bits of tin foil which they and their
friends ordinarily would have thrown
away. Therein lay the germ of an idea
which Mrs. Stevens has so developed
that today in Los Angeles automobiles
fly about with contributions that range
from empty cold cream bottles to blown
out auto tires and inner tubes. Billy
Sunday boosts the idea to audiences of
thousands twice q day. and regular
army officers keep an eve out all over
the big environments so that articles
formerly thought useless are now
through Mrs. Stevens. sold back to the
manufacturers after rendering full serv
ice around the environment. Bundles
OF ancient newspapers are sold at $l7
a ton and the money turned into the
Stevens treasury for the Red Cross
and 1000 women volunteer collectors OF
Los Angeles-and many men workers
too-collect and salvage and bundle
and tie and sell until the evening anC
morning arc one day.
\ big, perhaps the biggest, note il
= Stevens S salvage scheme about to bt
taken up here is that by her method
she does not merely collect Junk anC
sell it as junk; her idea is to salvage
the waste of the country, or what al
cXtravagant American thought wa
waste until Mrs. Stevens got the Lo
Angeles chapter Of the Red Cross in
tcrcsted in her project. and then ge
the manufacturers to buy back tina
waste and resell it to a satisfied
public to the mutual advantage of man
=, ufacturer and consumer. And this a
!. time when the saving of every scra1
% OF metal, glass, rubber, in fact an
i manufactured material. is not only de
!, sirable but an absolute necessity.
% As concrete instance Mrs. Steven
I heard by chance recently of big con
" tract for tvpewritng supplies whic
:. had Just been let by the war depart
ment for the army. Ordinarily ever
little metal spool wound with type
writing tape, every little tin containe
holding such spools of ribbon, the ii
boxes containing carbon paper and sin
liar seemingly unimportant items in tn