Federation Drive is Completed

Judge Proskauer pointed out, must be tempered by the knowledge that only a critical emergency has been met, and that the problem of assuring a sound continuing financial foundation for 1935 and future years still remains. Unless a remedy is found, he declared, Federation in a very few months will face an emergency even greater than last year’s.

GOAL ATTAINED

“On behalf of Federation it is my privilege to announce the successful conclusion of its emergency campaign,” Judge Proskauer stated. “Three months ago Federation’s ninety-one affiliated charitable agencies faced a financial crisis which threatened their very existence. We were confronted by a deficit of $2,071,000 and our campaign was put to the imperative necessity of raising a sum, sixty per cent greater than in any previous deficit campaign in the eighteen years of Federation’s history. It seemed an almost impossible undertaking, but the goal has been attained.

“Federation’s 1934 budget of $3,655,000 stands balanced. The figures are significant, but even more significant is the generous response of so large a portion of the community. The number of contributors to the 1934 deficit campaign reached the total of 41,000, as compared with 18,000 a year ago.

“This success has been made possible only by the devoted efforts of more than 3,000 volunteer workers, under the inspiring leadership of our campaign chairmen: Messrs. Arthur Lehman, Lawrence Marx, Paul M. Rosenthal, and Percy S. Straus, as well as Mrs. Joseph Brettauer, chairman, and Mrs. Julius Ochs Adler, associate chairman, who headed the campaign activities of our Women’s Division. The generosity and self-sacrifice of these men and women has set an example which will be long remembered.

“The response of the community to the emergency in which Federation and its affiliated agencies found themselves, must hearten all who have faith in the historic tradition which places large responsibilities on the private citizen for the support of social welfare agencies. The organization by the industries, professions and trades themselves of more than 135 committees for Federation is reassuring testimony that American professional and business leadership accepts the maintenance of private philanthropies as an inescapable obligation.

DEMANDS UNABATED

“All who know the work of Federation’s affiliated hospitals, child-care institutions, home for the aged, family service association and other agencies of helpfulness, will rejoice that these agencies have been saved, unimpaired to continue their ministrations to the unfortunates of our city. The demands upon all of them are greater than ever before in our history. These demands promise to continue unabated for some time to come. The damage inflicted by the depression will not disappear in a day. With the grave threat of crippled services, or perhaps even total collapse now momentarily removed, Federation’s institutions can face their great responsibility of relieving human misery and suffering with undivided vigor.

“While momentarily the threat has been removed, it is our duty, even in this time of rejoicing, to sound a note of warning. Only an emergency has been met. The problem still remains.

“At most Federation has won a breathing spell. Our social welfare agencies still stand on an unsound financial foundation. The community must still solve the problem of providing dependable continuous support. Federation’s recurring annual subscriptions, that is, the revenue on which it could count without emergency deficit campaigns for gifts, fell last year to the alarming level of $1,600,000, as compared with $4,062,196 in 1929. For 1935 the estimate shows a further drop to $1,500,000. Unless a way is found to remedy this condition, Federation in a very few months will face an emergency even greater than last year’s, and much more menacing, since we cannot count on repeating the heroic efforts of this year’s deficit campaign.

“The community’s response this year prompts us to believe that it will find ways to insure the financial security of Federation’s institutions. Public beneficence must take the form of annual subscriptions, must mitigate the necessity for emergency deficit campaigns, and give the continuing support of the thousands who so far have either not contributed or contributed only irregularly.

“1934 will go down in Federation history as the year in which a great financial emergency was met. 1935, we trust, will prove memorable as the year in which the community placed Federation’s institutions beyond the threat of further emergency.”

The annual meeting of Federation will be held at the Community House of the Congregation Emanu-El, Sixty-fifth street and Fifth avenue, next Sunday at 4:00 p. m. Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia and Judge Proskauer will speak. The treasurer’s report for the year 1934 will be submitted by Walter E. Beer, treasurer, and Louis J. Grumbach, associate treasurer.