Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1920-05-17
URGENT APPEAL IS
!. MADE BY DAWSON
Will Ask Immediate Aid To Curb
Terrible Tragedy Now Being
Enacted.

Dawson, of ]. P Morgan and COM
pany, chairman of the board of gov
ernors of the league Of Red Cross
societies, told the general conference
of the Methodist Episcopal church
here today that zone of the most ter
rible tragedies in the history of the
human race is being enacted within
the board belt of territory lying be-
tween the Baltic and Black and the
Adriatic seas. In this area are the
new Baltic states, Poland, Czecho-
Sloakia, Ukraine, Austria, Hungary,
Rumania, Montenegro, Albania and
Serbia
Mr.. Dawson asked that congress
Immediately appropriate not exceed
ing s500,000,000 for the use of the
countries of central and eastern
Europe. He requested that congress
call upon the president to appoint a
non-political commission of three
Americans, distinguished for their
character and executive ability, which
should proceed at once to survey the
conditions in these countries and to
allocate materials to them without in
terference and by exercise of it's own
prerogative. He suggested for men,
bers Of the commission men of the
type of General Pershing, Herbert
Hoover and former Secretary Frank
lin K. Lane. d.. He said that he had no
doubt that the obligation would be re-
paid and suggested it should run for
Is years.
He urged also that the United
States invite other governments in a
position to assist and participate in
the undertaking and declared:
81 am confident that our action
would be followed by the governments
of Great Britain, Holland, the Scan
dinavian countries, Spain and Japan
and that France and Belgium and
Italy, notwithstanding their losses,
would help to the best of their
ability ~.-.
The sum suggested by Mr.. Davi-
son for appropriation by congress
exceeds the total of all the Red Cross
has expended in the war and since,
which is placed by him at approxi
mately $4O0,O00,000.
Compared with the $500,000,000 ask
ed for by Mr.. Dawson, the Belgian
relieve fund would be but a drop in
a bucket. q ~ sl 90 l,.stsv,
MI. Dawson said he was custodian
of authoritative reports recording APP
palling conditions among millions OF
people living in eastern Europe" "l
believe, he said, f'that the apathy
and indifference which prevail today
are due alone to the fact that Ameri-
can pepole have not grasped tho
dreadful facts.
"The reports which come tc us
make it clear that in these war-rav-
ished lands civilization has broken
down, men, women, and children are
dying by thousands and over vast
once civilized areas there are to be
found neither medical appliances nor
medical skill sufficient to cope with
the .devasting plaques"
Summarizing these reports, Mr..
Dawson said that one of the worst
typhus epidemics in the worlds his
tory now existed among the Poles
who were threatened with wholesale
starvation this summer; that typhus,
influenza, smallpox or tuberculosis
existed in Czecho-Slovakia, Serbia,
Rumania and the Ukraine, and that
there was lack of medicine, soap and
physicians to combat these diseases
He pointed to the menace of Typhus
tsat our threshold" and asked how
long before it "might creep to our
own shores"
= He contrasted this with the condi-
tion in the United States where he
said plenty abounded, and asked if
the conditions were reversed whether
Americans would not exclaim against
the heartlessness of Europe. eve can
afford to die" he said, "but to be de-
spised forever as greedy and
pharisaical nation is fate we must
not incur"