The Washington herald., 1920-12-31
STALE BREAD, RICE
and COCOA MENU
ATTN. Y. BANQUET
Relief Diners Eat Same
Meal Served to Starv-
ing Children. :.
especial to Ths w.shiasten Hsr.id.)

NEW YORK, Dec. so.-If the hun
cry children of Central and Eastern
Europe could have peeped into the
grand ballroom of the Hotel Com
modore tonight they would have
beheld about 1000 men and women,
all in evening clothes apd most Of
them millipnaires. each eating a
$1,000 dinner.
But 1t was not the lavish dinner
$1,000 ordinarily would buy. sSsvory
delicacies were absent. Rattling til,
cups took the place Of clipkins cut
glasses; glittering silver. cutlery
was discarded for iron knives and
forks, and instead of guests sitting
before tables covered with immacu-
late linen the hungry children
would have seen John d. Rookie
Teller, jr., Prince Casimir Lubomir-
ski, Gen. Pershing. Mrs. August
Belmont, Otto H. Kahn. Mrs. Will
lard Straight. Mrs. Felix warburg.
Henry L. Stimson. Alfred E. Mart
ine, Herbert Hoover and scorec of
others gathered around bare wooden
tables.
A Strange Banquet Menu.
The menu Of this 100000 dinner,
which was served the guest AZ the
rate of about $50 a bite, consisted
of only three dishes. The, dishes
were:
Boiled rice.
Stale unbuttered bread.
Cocoa.
Beef stew was to have been
served instead OF rice but 1t was
eliminated on grounds Of economy.
The yellow menu card bore "a pic
ture of a ragged child. eagerly de-
vouring rice out Of tin bowl and
saying:
Thank you for saving"
Between Gen. Pershing and MI
Hoover in the center of the speak
ers' table. stood an empty chair
The empty chair was occupied by
the invisible guest"-the s,5Oo,ooo
starving children for whose beneht
the dinner was given.
Arranged by Relief Council.
The dinner was arranged by Mr..
Hoover, Gen. Pershing and Frank
lin X. Lane, of the European Relief
Council. which has undertaken to
raise s33,0oo, 900 for the relief of g.
100000 children war victims. Ten
per cent of the children are to be
taken care of by the New York
committee.
Mr.. Hoover announced that as
the dinner sold for $1,000 plate
and up, actually s2,011,22l had been
raised from 1t, since many Of the
diners had "oversubscribed." He
declared that this sum would take
care of 201,000 children until next
years harvest.
The cost of each dinner served
was % cents. but even this small
cost was not deducted from the
price paid. for all overhead had
been provided for by a special
The reason why rice,
bread and cocoa were selected, Mr..
Hoover, said, was because they rep
resent the exact fare which the
is now engaged in distribut-
ing to the destitute children through
1900 clinics, hospitals, feeding sta
tions and orphanages scattered
through eastern and central Eu-
rope.
Four portable army cooking
kitchens in which the food was pre-
pared were wheeled into the grand
ballroom to show the guests what
kind of vehicles the European chill
dren like most.
Not only were the children pres
ent in the form of an Invisible
guest" as Mr.. Hoover declared, but
a message from the children was
read. 1t was penned by Mr.. Lane
as having come from all the chill
dren in Europe. 1t said:
I'VE, the unhappy children of
Europe. send you our gratitude. BY
every wind that blows during this
long winter we will be whispering
our thanks to our American saviors.
I'VE are only boys and girls, you
know; not men and women. We
did not make this awful war. We
are its last victims, and we cannot
help ourselves; always and always
we will hate to think Of war.
ITO die in battle they say is not
hard because 1t is so quick and be-
cause it comes in a game. But to
die slowly is not easy, and to see
your playmates grow thinner and
thinner and weaker and weaker in
their cry for food-that is not easy.