Charles V. Vickrey's foreword to the ACASR minutes: the founding conference and the first $60,000, c. 1919

Context

Charles V. Vickrey, Near East Relief's General Secretary, wrote this foreword for the bound minutes of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, the volume covering October 1915 through October 1919. It recounts the committee's founding: Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's cablegram of September 3, 1915, which reported that "the destruction of the Armenian race in Turkey is rapidly progressing" and asked that Charles Crane, Cleveland Dodge, John R. Mott, Stephen Wise, and others form a committee to raise funds; and the conference Cleveland H. Dodge called at his office at 99 John Street, New York, where subscriptions from those present, supplemented by checks from their friends, amounted to $60,000. A temporary organization formed at once, with James L. Barton as chairman, Charles R. Crane as treasurer, and Samuel T. Dutton as secretary.

The foreword also explains why no minutes survive from the committee's first months: the founders regarded the work as temporary and held no formal meetings. A penciled marginal note, initialed by Vickrey, dates the conference September 16 and records Barton's recollection that it was he who "called group together" — "Barton doubtless right."