JAPANESE FAMINE FUND

Acting upon receipt of a letter with enclosures from Judge W. W. Morrow, President of the California Red Cross Branch, the Central Committee sent out Saturday, February 10th, to the secretaries of the Red Cross Branches the following appeal:

“Through the California Branch, the American National Red Cross has received from American residents in Japan an appeal for the famine-stricken people in three northern provinces of that country. In one province the rice crop has yielded only 12 per cent. of the average, and the sentence of death hangs over a quarter of a million of people if forgotten and unaided. In the eastern portion of another province the yield is only 15 per cent. and 500,000 people are in great distress and on the verge of absolute starvation, and in the third province it is certain that over 100,000 persons cannot live without speedy and prolonged aid.

“Already thousands in these provinces are reduced to shrub roots and the bark of trees by which mere life may for a time be sustained, but at the least calculation 680,000 people are now facing extreme conditions. What this means for their poor women and children, we who live in the center of this oncoming misery find no words to describe.

“Hundreds of thousands of persons are on the verge of starvation and winter is adding its rigors to the distress. Snow having hidden away the roots and herbs of the forests from the hands of the stricken people, speedy death or physical anguish worse than death confronts them.

“During the late war, the great European Red Cross Societies did much to aid the Japanese Red Cross in its work of caring for the sick and wounded, but our American National Red Cross, just beginning its reorganization, could be of no assistance. Now the opportunity arises for us to send to those brave famine-stricken people some assistance from our abundance. The American National Red Cross will gladly receive and forward to the Japanese Red Cross to be used for the relief of these provinces such contributions as the public at large or any of its own members desire to make.

“All contributions in this city can be sent to...................Treasurer of the..............................Red Cross Branch.”

“All contributions in this city can be sent to...................

Treasurer of the..............................Red Cross Branch.”

About the same time information was received by the State Department at Washington through our consuls in Japan of the very serious conditions in these northern provinces, and with his accustomed promptness President Roosevelt issued a public appeal, as follows:

“The famine situation in northern Japan is proving much more serious than at first supposed, and thousands of persons are on the verge of starvation. It is a calamity such as may occasionally befall any country.

“Nations, like men, should stand ever ready to aid each other in distress, and I appeal to the American people to help from theirabundance their suffering fellowmen of the great and friendly nation of Japan. I recommend that contributions for this purpose be sent to the American National Red Cross, which will forward such funds to the Japanese Red Cross to be used as the Japanese Government may direct.

“Contributions can be made to the local Red Cross treasurers or sent direct to Hon. Charles Hallam Keep, Red Cross Treasurer, United States Treasury Department, Washington, D.C.

“Theodore Roosevelt.”

Mr. Eki Hioki, the Japanese Chargé d’Affaires, was requested to inquire if the Japanese Red Cross would undertake the disposition of the funds forwarded by the American National Red Cross, and after communicating with his Government sent the following reply:

“I have the pleasure to inform you that I have received a cable message, in reply to mine, from the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the effect that the Japanese Red Cross Society will be delighted to take charge of the disposition of the relief fund which the American National Red Cross may send hereafter.

“Very truly yours,

“Eki Hioki,

“Chargé d’Affaires.”

The “Christian Herald” of New York, having already been aware of the distress in Japan, had begun among its Christian readers a subscription for the purposes of relief, and no sooner did the President’s appeal appear than the American National Red Cross Treasurer, Hon. Charles Hallam Keep, received from Dr. Louis Klopsch, Editor of the “Christian Herald,” a most prompt and generous check for $10,000, already contributed by its readers, to be forwarded to the Japanese Red Cross to be used exclusively for the purchase of food supplies. This amount was immediately cabled by the State Department, through our Embassy at Tokyo. A few days later the “Christian Herald” followed its first donation by another check for $10,000, sent directly to the State Department to be forwarded without delay, as the need was so great, to the Japanese Red Cross for the purchase of food. The readers of the “Christian Herald” may justly feel that by their promptness and generosity they have saved many of their fellowmen from suffering and death by starvation, and this will be sincerely appreciated in Japan.

In these northern provinces many of the people are living upon briquettes made of 75 per cent. straw and 25 per cent. foreign rice, or upon roots, bark of trees, acorns, etc. The Japanese Government, in spite of its immense war debt, has been remitting or postponing taxes and at the same time trying to raise money for the purpose of providing work for the able-bodied so as not to pauperize them, and food and clothes for the children, old people and sick; but without outside aid the herculean task will be too heavy a burden.

Mr. Frederick Palmer, the War Correspondent representing “Collier’s Weekly,” served through the Russo-Japanese war with the soldiersfrom the famine-stricken districts in the northern provinces of Japan. He knows these people, their sterling qualities and the bitterness of their need, and of them he says:

“From the heart of the famine-district came the second division of the Japanese Army, known as ‘The Division which always attacks.’ It exemplified in its character the fine and simple qualities of the people of the Sendai country, their loyalty, pride, courage, industry, and equability of temper. The second of the divisions to leave Japan for the field, it marched through Korea in midwinter to the Battle of the Yalu, and it was the strong, dependable arm of General Kuroki’s army which never gave ground to the close of the campaign.

“Not until December and January of this year, the third winter since their departure, would transportation arrangements permit the division’s departure from Manchuria, which was a bleak and inhospitable land to these simple country boys who were accustomed to their own beautiful landscape, their clean mats and ornamental gardens. No heroes ever received a sadder welcome home, for they returned to find their mothers and sisters and wives wanting food. The absence of the men who had served their country so well meant the absence of so many able-bodied tillers of the soil. This and a cold and unusually rainy summer made the rice crop the scantiest for generations.

“These proud northern people have not the facility of city people in accepting charity. If you went into their houses you would find that they would deny that they were hungry and possibly offer you their last bowl of rice to show that they needed no help. The home department of the Japanese Government is taking measures of practical relief by offering employment on public works which will increase the acreage for rice growing and otherwise improve the agricultural resources of the region. The opportunity is offered for foreigners to supplement the government aid by private aid which will be sympathetically and practically administered by the Japanese Red Cross Society. If it be the duty of the Red Cross to soften the cruel consequences of war, then it has here a duty as imperative as under the more sensational surroundings of the battle field.”

On February 28th The American National Red Cross transmitted to the State Department $5,000, which immediately cabled this amount, through the United States Embassy at Tokyo, to the Japanese Red Cross to be applied to the famine relief work.

In a second appeal issued by the foreign relief committee of northern Japan, this committee says:

“When we issued our first appeal to the foreign communities of Japan in December, the impending calamity was on so vast a scale that we ourselves could hardly believe the official statements of 680,000 people in starving condition. Since then the members of our committee have been through the provinces, and now we must say that the above figures are too weak to represent the existing misery and that the wretchedness and suffering are simply appalling. As to the score of villages, the conditions of all we visited are pitiable in theextreme. There are able-bodied men clothed in thin, ragged garments, who have to face the piercing winds and snow to bring in from the mountains the coal and wood on the price of which labor their thinly-clad families are trying to eke out a living. There are mothers giving their very lives to keep their babies warm, themselves exposed to stinging blasts that must rapidly shorten life. There are even cultured old men and women, who in former days were in comparative comfort, but now are reduced to physical destitution that no words can describe. There are children bare-footed in the snow, whose scanty clothing and pinched faces tell the sad tale of only one meal a day and that of straw and daikon leaves in which is mixed a little cheap rice flour.

“But there is no need of further statements in this line. Rather we rejoice that there is another side. Amid all this widespread wretchedness there is a strong spirit of hope and helpfulness. There is a village called Devil’s Head, snowed under eight feet, leaving 156 people without a particle of food of any kind. Immediately the neighbors, but little better off, raised 60 yen (about $30), by means of which pittance the lives of these 156 persons are insured for three weeks until other aid can come. It is a privilege, indeed, to send a grain of comfort to such people by our timely and sympathetic gifts, especially when such aid is so highly appreciated by all and so gratefully received by those who are losing hope. The one great thing needed to save the lives of children and aged is money. All that we earnestly desire is that every sympathetic heart should know the facts and use any channel that promises to bring speedy relief to even a few hundred among the many hundreds of thousands who are in dire distress.”

On March 6th the American National Red Cross sent, through the State Department, to the Japanese Red Cross, $5,000, and on March 8th the “Christian Herald” forwarded its third $10,000 contribution. On March 12th the Red Cross again sent $5,000 and on March 15 $5,000, so that the amount collected and sent by the Red Cross up to March 15th amounts to $20,000, and this with the $30,000 sent by the “Christian Herald” through the American National Red Cross makes a total up to the last given date of $50,000.

The Japanese Government has expressed its great appreciation of President Roosevelt’s appeal for its famine-stricken provinces, and press despatches show that the Japanese people also are deeply appreciative of the sympathy expressed in their trouble by the contributions from the American people.

This Society hopes, in some later issues of the Bulletin, to be able to give reports of the relief work done by the Japanese Red Cross.

Just as theBulletingoes to press the American National Red Cross has received from the “Christian Herald” a check for $50,000 making in all $80,000 contributed through this paper for the Famine Fund and bringing the total amount sent to the Japanese Red Cross by March 16th up to $100,000.

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