"Give Us the Tools--"

The pace is hot and the need is urgent.

The words were Sir George Henry Wilkinson's, Lord Mayor of London. He spoke them, not to his own fellow citizens, but to 6,700 New Yorkers. His voice came over a two-way hookup to Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall one night last week. The broadcast was the most elaborate benefit performance New Yorkers had ever seen--the U. S. Theatre's Carnival For Britain, staged by the American Theatre Wing of the British War Relief Society.

The benefit ($2 standing room to $10 a seat) grossed some $40,000 for British War Relief. The warmly emotional audience, though it hardly cared, got its money's worth--till 4 a.m. At the microphone was England's own Gertrude Lawrence. Helen Hayes played Queen Victoria. The Information Please team guessed (right, as usual) that "a bald-headed man in charge of cross-country runners" was Mussolini.

Last week British War Relief 62) was one of 41 U. S. volunteer societies working to aid Britain. By Jan. 1, 1941, these societies had collected $6,977,000 in cash, $1,637,000 worth of clothes, supplies, etc. Britain has also had its share of $21,111,000 in cash and material gifts from 80 other U. S. agencies.*

Not until England's heroic defeat at Dunkirk had there been much popular sentiment behind such volunteer efforts. But by last week voluntary U. S. contributions for England were pouring into agency offices at the rate of about two million dollars monthly. Some volunteer aid facts:

> British War Relief (730 Fifth Avenue, New York City), merged last December with Chase Bank Chairman Winthrop Williams Aldrich's Allied Relief Committee, is biggest of the aid-to-Britain agencies. By Feb. 21 its collections totaled $6,300,000 cash and kind.

Of this, $5,300,000 in cash and kind has gone to the British. Some items: 100 ambulances; 10,000 cases of clothes and knitted goods; 21 X-ray units; 57,500 pairs of boots and shoes; 5,100 cots (with bedding) for air-raid shelters.

> Nearest competitor of British War Relief is Bundles for Britain (745 Fifth Avenue, New York City), smartly named brainchild of vigorous, hazel-eyed Natalie Wales Latham, 30-year-old socialite. Irked by the slowness of U. S. aid to Britain, she got in touch with Mrs. Winston Churchill, heard that England needed knitted garments. Passersby astonished her by storming her modest initial shop. Said she: "Boy, if ever there was spontaneity, this was it."

More amateurish than British War Relief, Bundles for Britain is also more Social. It has taken in $1,654,000 in cash and material gifts (plus two live zebra finches, a carload of diapers, other miscellany). The output of its 700 chapters, 650,000 workers has been 900,000 knitted articles, 20,000 hospital garments. Besides clothing, it has gathered 350,000 surgical instruments, 58 mobile canteens, 22 ambulances, many other necessities. Last week Bundles adopted 19 London hospitals, promised them funds to repair fire-and-bomb damage.

> A one-woman aid committee is blue-eyed, bouncing Gracie Fields, England's favorite comedienne. Once a $1,000,000-a-year woman, she now pleads patriotic poverty. From 62 performances in the U. S. and Canada, she has turned over $130,000 to her country. Chorus from her hit song: We're going to 'ang old 'Itler from the very 'ighest bough of the biggest aspidistra in the world.

* Lion's share from the Red Cross. From September 1939 to Feb. 1, 1941, the Red Cross has sent England $10,277,089.

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