New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-05-03
and Soup
Menu as Colby
Defends Treaty
1000 Workers in Jewish
War Sufferers Campaign
at Starvation Dinner
Hear Plea for Sympathy
30 or 40 Desert ssFeast''
Secretary Of State Scoffs
at Americanization of
the l. eague Covenant

The 1000 workers for the Greater
New York Fund for Jewish War Suf-
ferers who received elaborate invita-
tiors to "starvation dinner" did not
fully comprehend the qualifying word
Their minds received it, analyzed it
automatically and accepted it, but
there was no reaction beneath their
waistcoats or bodices. 1t meant little
more to them than the accompanying
announcement that Bainbridge Colby,
Secretary of State, was to speak, or
the "R. S. V. P" in the corner.
But when the 1000 men and women
crowded into the Cascades ballroom
at the Biltmore last night in response
to the invitation, their very dia-
phragms contracted in dismay in SYM
pathy with the sudden void discovered
below.
Seven tables on trestlcs ran the
length of the room. Each was covered
with brown paper. In front of each
of the 1000 chairs was a plate of
unfinished wooden veneer such as might
be used at picnic. On each plate was
tin cup and hunk of bread of gray
ish hue and most forbidding aspect.
Each cup was about half full of a
grayish watery fluid, which might have
become pea soup if it had stayed on
the stove.
There were no spoons. The soup
could be drunk. or could be sopped up
with the bread. There were no knives
! or forks. There was no need for them
The table was spread. There was to
be nothing more. 1t was a "starva-
ton" dinner, as the guests suddenly
realized.
Some thirty or forty Of them, after
a
glances, turned in their tracks and
marched out to the cloakroom and
Forty second Street to be reassured by
the twinkling signs of restaurants and
reinforced by planked steaks, or some
thing equally strengthening.
The rest stayed, however, consumed
the soup and bread and listened
hungrily to the addresses. Secretary
Colby declared that the world was on
bu, of utter disaster" and that
ty. America was "profteering" in
ease and fancied isolation, he said,
soothing its conscience with talk of
"Americanization," while it should be
playing its part in the world.
"We are told," said Mr.. Colby, chat
the cardinal principle of American
policy is isolation. I deny it; it is
not the fact historically, and if it were
the fact, it ought, from this moment,
to cease to be the fact.
"This God-given year of wasted op-
characterization of treaty Of peace
which provided a method for America
to take it's place at the council table
Of the nations and to take an equal
and proper part in the great work Of
world restoration.
"I deny that this specious plea Of
determination is absolution for
neglect of our national or personal
duty. We are failing to fulfill an
American obligation when we cumber
the treaty with reservations or seek
to express its meaning in terms Of
reputation,
"America is acting falsely to that
simple and rugged honesty which is
part of the American character when
it hesitates and draws back from per-
formance of it's duty for the grasping
and embracing of an opportunity.
zone of the gravest shortc omings of
the world to-day is the complete lack
Of medical supplies in great sections of
! Europe, in regions as extensive as the
/ State of New Jersey and as densely
populated as the State of Iowa. There
are many instances where there is but
single physician in such a region.
you know all this. See that the
great workaday world Of preoccupied d
men and women, of well-meaning and
we'll disposed but humanity selfish men
and women, is reused from It's distrac-
ton and preoccupation. See to it that
you grip that finest terminating and
central thing in every man and woman
human sympathy. See that it is CEN
tered effectively upon these conditions.
That is all you need do"
Other speakers were Felix M. War
burg. Louis Marshall and Judge Otto
Rosalskv