RELIEF, WAR. When the war broke out in Europe in 1914 very little time was allowed to pass before organizations were brought into being for the purpose of assisting the people in Europe who were the chief sufferers in the zones affected. Sympathy was particularly aroused on behalf of the Belgians who were recognized as having no part in the opening of hostilities, and who bore the chief brunt of the first German attacks. The other peoples whose lands formed the terrain over which the first battles were waged, northern France, Poland, Serbia, and other countries, like wise were included in the appeal for aid addressed to the citizens of the United States. Moreover, the desolated lands of Hungary and east Germany were the objects of much sympathy, particularly among people having kin in the countries of the Powers, before the United States entered the war, but relief in that direction was largely blocked, for the British navy held the seas and made communication with the Central Powers difficult. But measures for war relief were developed on a very large scale. A Commission for Relief in Belgium was one of the first organizations formed, but the Red Cross, the Rockefeller Foun dation, the Allied War Charities, and similar organizations were soon active both in campaigns for subscriptions and in the distribution of war relief over wide areas. The enormous variety of suffering that followed in the train of the war called for heroic measures and as the months passed and it was borne in on the world that the war was to be a long one, the organizations devoted to the work of war relief extended their activities in every direction. Not only had the families left behind by the bread winners to be assisted, but disabled sol diers had to be talmr care of, and when the United States entered the war, much of the kind of relief that went to Europe had to be dispensed also in this country.
The Commission for Relief in Belgium was organized in October, 1914, and carried out its distribution of supplies through the Comite Nationale de Secours et d'Alimentation. The personnel was American until the declaration of war by the United Stares, but thereafter the work in Belgium was intrusted to Span sh and Dutch citizens appointed by their governments. Through the work of this commission something like 7,000,000 peo ple were regularly provided with food. Warehouses were established in Holland and Belgium, and these received Ameri mn and Argentine supplies from the port of entry at Rotterdam. Up to June
1, 1917, a total of nearly $300,000,000 was spent by the commission.
As the war went on the number of relief organizations greatly increased, and some of them came to wear a doubt ful character. There were, however, 80 such organizations working in New York City that were vouched for by the Charity Organization Society, and the chief among them made it their object to distribute necessities, such as food and clothing. Every known device was employed in the campaigns to raise foods, bazaars, concerts, street collecting, and the like. These became so numerous that division of responsibility and proper accounting became manifestly impossible, but the public continued to give, and though millions of dollars went into the wrong hands, the stream of supplies ;oing to Europe continued to grow.
Among the other organizations that devoted their energies to the work of re lief were the Allied War Charities, which through nearly 80 subsidiary organiza tions, covered the whole nation; the American Fund for French Wounded, the Secours National Fund for the relief of French women and children, the Serbian Relief Committee, the American ambulance, which organized ambulance sections for work behind the battle line; Jewish Relief, the British War Relief Association, the American Committee for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France, the Vacation War Relief Committee, the Polish Victims' Relief Fund, the Lafayette Fund, the American Girls' Aid for the Collection of Clothing for the Victims of the World War in France, the Duryea War Relief, the French Comfort Packets' Committee for the United States and Allies, the Stage Women's War Relief, the Committee of Mercy, Le Bien Etre du Blesse, the New York Committee for the Fatherless Children of France, the Dollar Christmas Fund for Destitute Belgian Children, the French Tubercu losis War Victims' Fund, the American Committee of the Scottish Women's Hos pital for Home and Foreign Service, the National Allied Relief Committee, the Balkan Refugees and Sufferers, Polish Refugees, War Babies' Cradle, the Polisk Children's Relief Fund, the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Re lief, the New York Surgical Dressings Committee, and many others. New or ganizations continued to be formed while the war lasted, and none of them ap peared to find difficulty in raising funds. See RED CROSS, KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, JEWISH WELFARE BOARD, ETC.