PREFACE
The second Quarterly Bulletin of the American National Red Cross contains an account of the work of raising funds for the benefit of the Japanese famine sufferers. The Central Committee desires to call attention to the great advantages such an organization as the Red Cross provides at such times. Where the Society had already organized State Branches these Branches were ready, through their officers, to notify the public that the Red Cross would receive contributions for this purpose and that local Red Cross treasurers would receive the same. Moreover, all expenses for the collection of these contributions, save those that were borne by the “Christian Herald” in the collection of its most generous contributions, of which further mention will be made, have been met by the funds of the Society, so that every penny contributed has been sent directly by the State Department, through the United States Embassy at Tokyo, to the Japanese Red Cross for use in its famine relief work.
As the Japanese Red Cross has consented to undertake the disposition of all famine relief funds sent through the American National Red Cross, a brief report of some of the work lately accomplished by this remarkable organization will be of interest and short accounts published by this Society have been reprinted in this Bulletin.
The April Quarterly Bulletin having to go to press early in March, it is impossible to publish the list of contributors to the Famine Fund, but it is hoped this may be done in the following number.
The American National Red Cross should have a large sustaining membership to enable it to create a thoroughly efficient organization and at the same time to accumulate an Emergency Fund to meet immediately the first relief work after any sudden disaster in any of the States or Territories.
On March 7, the Red Cross received a communication from the State Department to the effect that the Governor of the Islands of French Oceanica, which on February 8th met with a most serious disaster from a cyclone, had solicited subscriptions for the aid of the people there. As the Red Cross was collecting contributions for the Japanese Famine Fund, it most reluctantly had to decline to act in this second matter of relief work. If the Society had a membership, as it should have in this country, of a hundred thousand, it would receive into its Emergency Fund fifty thousand dollars annually which would enable it to render aid at such times of distant disaster without issuing special appeals and this without costing its members anything in addition to their annual membership dues of one dollar. This large membership must be obtained by the efforts of the present members, and if each member would do whatever he or she may be able to do towards increasing the membership, the American National Red Cross would soon have an organization worthy of the United States and always have in its treasury a fund that would enable it to reply promptly to any such appeal as that forwarded to it by the Department of State.