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Advance guard sails for Turkey. News Bulletin, Jan 1919.
Location
New York, United States
Year
1919
Item Detail
The Relief Commission sailed on 4 January aboard the Mauretania, by way of England and Paris to confer with Lord Bryce and the French authorities. James L. Barton led it, and the members wore the Committee's forestry-green uniform with its silver star. The first contingent went out at the same time. The Mercurius left Pier 42 and the West Cape carried 7,555 tons of flour. The Mercurius and the Pensacola between them took 100 motor trucks, 100,000 blankets, 50,000 pairs of shoes, fifteen 100-bed hospital units and four and a half million yards of cloth.
Context
The News Bulletin was the monthly publication of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, formed in New York in 1915 and renamed the American Committee for Relief in the Near East during 1918. It was published at One Madison Avenue.
The Bulletin kept contributors and campaign workers informed. Issues carry cablegrams relayed through the Department of State from relief stations across the Ottoman Empire, Syria, Palestine, the Caucasus and Persia, with campaign news, donor rolls, field photographs and accounts by survivors of the Armenian and Greek genocides.
The four 1919 issues cover the thirty-million-dollar campaign, the sailing of the Barton Relief Commission on the Mauretania and of the relief ships Mercurius, West Cape and Pensacola, and the turn from emergency feeding to the industrial orphan homes opened at Marash, Aintab, Adana, Tarsus, Mersina, Hadjin and Aleppo as Christian women and children were released from captivity.
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Holding Institution
Columbia University Library
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External Link
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Attribution
Columbia University Libraries, digitized for HathiTrust
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Rights
No known copyright restrictions. Based on available information, NERHS is not aware of copyright restrictions on this material. Items are presented for non-commercial research and educational use. Users are responsible for determining rights status and compliance with applicable law. If you believe you hold rights in this material or have information about rights holders not currently reflected, please contact [email protected].
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Notes
Masthead: ACASR wording; 'No. 8—Total Number 20' on the cover (first Total Number in this set).
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Document Contents
Cover photograph of Barton, Washburn and Peet aboard the Mauretania. Lead article 'Advance Guard Sets Sail for Turkey' on the Relief Commission's sailing of 4 January by way of England and Paris, to confer with Lord Bryce and the French authorities and to enlist the help of Boghos Nubar Pasha; the commissioners are James L. Barton, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Curtiss James, Harold A. Hatch, John Hanson Thomas Main, Edward C. Moore and W. W. Peet, with George H. Washburn sailing as director of the medical unit and Stanley White and Walter George Smith to follow. They wear the Committee's forestry-green uniform with its silver star. 'A Message from the President' prints Woodrow Wilson's cablegram to Cleveland H. Dodge that the congressional appropriation does not replace the Near East subscription. 'United States Government Aiding Campaign to the Utmost' prints Herbert C. Hoover's cable assigning a flour cargo, Food Administration telegrams, and Grosvenor B. Clarkson's letter carrying the endorsement of the Council of National Defense. 'Campaign in Full Swing' reports state by state; Cleveland was asked for $635,000 and turned in $750,000. A cablegram from General John J. Pershing invites the Committee to his headquarters. 'First Contingent of Relief Expedition Under Way' on the Mercurius sailing from Pier 42 under Captain Caleb L. Morris and the West Cape carrying 7,555 tons of flour for Constantinople and Beirut; the Mercurius and Pensacola together carry 100 motor trucks, 36 motor cars, 20 motorcycles, 15 ambulances, four and a half million yards of cloth, 100,000 blankets, 50,000 pairs of shoes, fifteen 100-bed hospital units and 10,000 cans of condensed milk, loaded under Albert Staub. Henry Morgenthau secured both ships from the Navy Department. 'Surviving Armenians Concentrated in Three Cities' prints Foreign Office correspondence from Arthur J. Balfour and Maurice de Bunsen reporting 85,000 Armenians at Homs, Hama and Aleppo, 40,000 of them destitute, and a letter from Viscount Bryce to Vickrey. 'Armenians of America Wish Commissioners God-Speed' on the Yale Club farewell dinner, where Barton was given a crimson Turkish rug and Dodge a twelfth-century manuscript Bible. William Howard Taft's address at the Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, on 12 January. 'A Great Heart Lost to Humanity,' the Executive Committee's Theodore Roosevelt memorial resolution, with Alexander J. Hemphill's statement that Roosevelt gave part of his Nobel Peace Prize to the work. Poem 'In the Night' by Agnes V. Williams. Two pages of State Department cablegrams from Teheran, Mosul, Tabriz, Jerusalem, Bagdad, Beirut and Constantinople, signed by William Phillips, Cornelius N. Bliss Jr., Trowbridge, Post, Gates, Bliss, Dodge and Nicol, Packard and Maynard-Elmer.