Indian Givers?

The Red Cross national chairman, E. Roland Harriman of Groton, Yale ('17) and Brown Brothers, is a selfless charitarian of long standing, but he is not noted for diplomacy. He was in a particularly undiplomatic mood last week when he arose at Los Angeles to address the 1954 convention of the Red Cross. "Developments in recent disaster operations," he said severely, would force Red Cross to return to its prewar policy of making special fund drives to help stricken cities rather than continuing to furnish aid out of its general fund. As a case in point, Harriman pointed to Flint, Mich. When a disastrous tornado hit Flint last June, he said, the Red Cross spent $600,000 to help victims. Meanwhile, a special committee in Flint was raising more than $900,000 in relief funds. Did the Red Cross get any of its money back? Said Harriman: "Not one cent of this was turned over to Red Cross . . . Communities that don't help themselves . . . can scarcely expect in the future to be recipients of nationwide generosity." Harriman added the same thing had happened "elsewhere." A Red Cross pressagent told a newsman that Harriman meant Waco, Texas and Worcester, Mass., both scenes of destructive tornadoes last year. Teletype machines clacked out the story across the country--and the scrap was on.

Mike Gorman, editor of the Flint Journal, snapped that Harriman had smeared Flint and the civic leaders who directed the local fund drive. Gorman attributed to Harriman a motive that might broaden the controversy. Said he: "Despicably, Mr. Harriman has used this disaster . . .

in a desperate effort to retard the national development of federated giving (e.g., Community Chests). Undoubtedly, it is more than a coincidence that Flint and Michigan have been notable in the successful application of this principle." One Flint resident said that he would never give "another nickel" to Red Cross. Mas sachusetts' Governor Christian Herter de manded an apology to Worcester. Fund officials in all three cities acknowledged that they had turned only token sums over to the Red Cross. But they pointed out that the special funds went toward replacing losses suffered in the storm, edu cation of orphans, patching roofs, etc.

Spokesmen for all three cities also pointed out that their citizens had given generously to the Red Cross year after year.

Carter Higgins, chairman of the Worces ter Red Cross chapter, said dourly: "We can't condone the National's ineptness in public relations. This has given us a public-relations problem for a long time." A Waco alderman, ex-Mayor Ralph Wolf, put it more bluntly: "The trouble with the Red Cross," he said, "is that they have too many workers . . . who special ize in making people madder than hell."

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