Emergency Measures Taken to Provide Relief for Needy

With the two leading banks—the First National and the Guardian—closed by order of the Treasury Department at Washington, and with the situation here economically as acute as on the day almost five weeks ago when all local banks closed, drastic steps are being taken by social service agencies to feed the hungry and to carry on the relief work.

The Jewish Welfare Federation is working with the Community Fund to provide day to day service to dependents and to maintain organizations on an emergency basis.

Cash to feed and shelter 400 dependent families, to care for aged men and women, and to provide food for employees is the goal toward which the entire staff of the Jewish Welfare Federation has bent its efforts this past week. The Jewish Old Folks Home, the House of Shelter, and the Unemployment Emergency Council depend for their existence on the amount of currency which can be raised to meet the present financial crisis.

All members of the Federation staff turned collectors last week, in a united effort to bring in every dollar of currency that was available from campaign subscriptions.

Plans for relief agencies are being drawn up by a sub-committee, of which Kurt Peiser, executive director of the Federation, is chairman. Under this arrangement the Jewish Social Service Bureau will function as a unit within the Community Fund and work in closer co-operation with the Department of Public Welfare. It is probable that the Bureau will take over a large group of Jewish families for active case work, and that in return the financing of all dependent families will fall under the jurisdiction of the city department.

A committee, consisting of Fred M. Butzel, Isadore Levin, and John Ballinger, plans to petition the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Washington this week for a grant for approximately $240,000. This amount will be offset against frozen bank assets of the Community Fund and will be used for direct relief purposes.

Another committee, of which Clarence H. Enggass and Mrs. Samuel Glogower are members, is undertaking a cash raising campaign to obtain cash on pledges of over $100 to the Community Fund.

The Fund will attempt to pay small installments on back salaries on a subsistence basis, although it has undertaken no salary obligations after March 1, according to Mr. Peiser.

The members of the Jewish Welfare Federation, who are participants in the Community Fund and affected by this ruling are the Jewish Social Service Bureau, the Jewish Child Care Council, the Jewish Children’s Home, North End Clinic, Hebrew Free Loan Society, and the Fresh Air Society.