Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-11-12

naZard the guess that the raiders
doom is either imminent CT certain.
Arlington Chest
Residents Of Arlington County who
work in the District of Columbia are
confronted this year with Community
Chest appeals from two sources. AS
employees of Government depart
ments or Of private business estab-
lishments in Washington they are
being solicited to contribute to the
Washington Community Chest, and
as residents of the Virginia county
they are being asked to give also to
their county Chest. That some con-
fusion and some misunderstanding
should have attended these indie
pendent, simultaneous fund drives is
only natural.
Prior to 1887 many of the welfare
agencies in the suburbs staged indie
pendent campaigns for funds, re-
sulting in numerous complaints of
multiple solicitation. In 1887 there
was organized the Conference of
Suburban Social Welfare Organiza-
tons, which received help from the
Washington Community Chest in
distributing in Washington special
suburban pledge cards. The WASH
ington Chest assumed no RESPONSE
bllity for collecting or disbursing the
contributions, however. In 1888 and
1899 tentative arrangement was
effected whereby a certain proper
ton of Washington Chest receipts
was turned over to the Suburban
Conference for ALLEGATION and dis
bursement. During these two years
suburban social agencies were re-
quested to adjust their activities and
organizational setups so as to meet
standard requirements for Washing
ton Chest membership by 1910. One
OF the fundamental requirements of
the local Chest is that member
agencies must be wholly private in
character-minus any financial or
administrative connections with gov
ernmental bodies.
For years Arlington County has
assigned to public officials and boards
the job of administering emergency
relief of various kinds-food, cloth
ing, disqualification, free lunches for
needy school children, summer health
camps, etc. The funds, from public
and private sources, have been ham
died by such agencies as the Board of
Public Welfare, unit of the county
government, and the Social Hygiene
Board, which functions in collabora-
ton with the county government.
When Arlington's welfare and hy-
glene boards applied this year for
membership in the Washington Com
munity Chest, their applications were
rejected on the ground that they did
not meet the membership require
mentS regarding private operation.
Three other Arlington groups were
accepted, however. They are the
Instructive Visiting Nurse Society,
the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts
all OF them private organizations.
Thus it became necessary for Ar
lington to conduct a Chest campaign
of its own if the urgent needs of the
destitute, the inflrm, the underpriv-
LEGGED children and the other victims
OF distress were to be met in 1910.
Next year Arlington will receive from
the Washington Chest only the allot-
ment for the Scouts and the Visiting
Nurses, supplemented by whatever
hospital services are rendered de-
serving Arlington patients by virtue
of Washington Chest funds. There
will be no Washington Chest money
for food, clothing or the other forms
of relief and welfare work in the Vir-
GINA county. Persons employed in
Washington and living in Arlington
should understand clearly this juris-
dictional division of charity and So
cial work. Surely they should give
where they earn their living, and
most certainly they should help those
who are in want in their home
communities. A single contribu-
ton to either jurisdiction will
not fulfill these intersectional obi
cations. The amount which should
be donated to each Chest is a
matter for the individual contributor
to decide after carefully weighing the
services to be rendered by each
agency. The Star earnestly believes
that Arlington residents who are en-
ployed in Washington have a dual
responsibility-that their consciences
will impel them to divide their con-
tributions this year between the
Washington Chest and that of the
community in which they reside.
Those rugged individualists who
leave their party and come down the