Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-29
Congress and the Red Cross.

The storm of criticism which burst
about the head of Chairman John Bar
ton Payne following his announcement
that the Red Cross declined to &C
cept the administration of funds pro-
vided for in the Senate's $25, 900
''relief bill" will prove, in the long run,
TO have been an Intellectual political
shower.
Chairman Payne is right. The Cen
trail Committee of the Red Cross is
right. President Hoover is right. The
relief of national distress in the United
States is a national obligation. 1t is,
and must not be permitted to be made,
. governmental obligation.
Two factors in the debate have not
been made adequately clear to the pub
lie. The first is that the Red Cross
Is seeking only to raise funds for relief
In the drought-stricken areas Of our
country as distinct from the unem-
ployment areas. The second is that
what is wise and equitable in the mat
Ter of international relief may be and
Is IN this instance basic folly if applied
within our own borders. Take these
points in sequence:
Drought-aS a food, an earthquake,
q pestilence is an act of God. In
the proportions it assumed in 1880 In
America It was an unforseeable emer-
gency Of the precise type for which the
Red Gross Is chartered and equipped
to care. The Red Cross, with such
funds as It has on hand available for
the purpose, has announced that with
$1o,oo0,000 additional it can care for
this problem. And all the Illuminating
Of INSTRUMENTATION self-appointed,
self-styled philanthropists on Capitol
Hill will not persuade an intelligent
eitizenry that Herbert Hoover and the
Red Cross do not know more about the
business of human relief than any
hostile political alliance In congress
Sional circles.
The President and the Red Cross hold
that unemployment relief is matter Of
State and community responsibility
rather than being the governmental
obligation some now seek to make Of 1t.
OF course IL II. OF course, the $25 ,000,-
600 suggested by the Senate would not
touch the surface Of the relief problem
involved in 5000. 900 unemployed men
and women IN the Nation. OF course, It
would be the precursor to bills aggre-
eating ten times that amount in brief
period. OF course, once the pernicious
and vicious and un-Anlerican system Of
vuhsadizing the unemployed from the
public purse was saddled on the Ameri-
can taxpayer, established and organ
azed voluntary relief in our country
would stagnate and expire and the cross
Of the Government dole system" now
breaking the backs and the hearts Of
other nations, would be with US for all
practicable time.
It was one thing to appropriate from
our National Treasury 500, 100000 to
feed q starving and bankrupt Europe
after the World War. The discontinue
anee was simple once Europe regained
Its feet. It is quite another thing to
appropriate funds from that same
Treasury 10 feed our own citizens, hv-
ing within the neighborhood of those
competent TO extend the traditional
American hand of friendship and COM
passion. Quite another thing Is that
disconttnuance would be impossible un-
der oar political system for a genera
lion or longer.
Neither The Star nor any thoughtful
American minimizes the seriousness of
The unemployment status In certain
areas Of the Nation. But The Star and
. vast majority Of thoughtful citizens
assert that the States and the COM
nnHnities In which these conditions exist
can and will see their own citizens
through the crisis without recourse to
Federal aid, II only the gentlemen on
Capitol ELL will desist, whatever may
be the motives prompting them, from
suggesting to them that they need not
10 90.
The proposal to pauperize the Amer
tcan workingman, temporarily out Of
luck, Is un-American. The proposal to
baznstring American philanthropy by
substituting therefor a fantastic system
pf whimsical Federal subsidization is
dangerous. There Is more important, If
less politically luscious, work to be done
By the Seventy first Congress.