Tributes to Warburg by Hoover, Roosevelt, Weizmann, Coolidge, Stimson, Walker, Lehman, Hayes, Wilbur

President Hoover, former President Coolidge, Secretaries Wilbur and Stimson, Governor Roosevelt, Cardinal Hayes and Dr. Chaim Weizmann were among the distinguished personalities who joined in a tribute last night to Felix M. Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee and, also, chairman of the Administrative Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, for his outstanding services in the fields of philanthropy and civic responsibility.

Other distinguished men who participated in the tribute to Mr. Warburg at Town Hall, which opened the New York Campaign, were Lieutenant Governor Lehman, Mayor Walker, Owen D. Young, Paul Cravath, Nathan Straus, Dr. Cyrus Adler and fifteen hundred men and women, representing every phase of Jewish communal and philanthropic activity in this city, including Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Zionists and non-Zionists. The meeting was presided over by James N. Rosenberg, chairman of the New York Allied Jewish Campaign for $2,500,000 toward the $6,000,000 which is being raised nationally for the 1930 budgets of the Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Mr. Warburg is a national honorary chairman of the campaign.

A. R. A. GIVES $50,000

One of the striking features of last night’s tribute to him was the announcement by Edgar Rickard, Director-General of the American Relief Administration, of which Mr. Hoover is chairman, of a contribution of $50,000 from the children’s fund of that great life-saving organization to the Allied Jewish Campaign. “It is in keeping with the policy governing appropriations from this fund,” Mr. Rickard said, “that we should attest our approval of your work by joining in this tribute to our friend and colleague, that with proper safeguards a struggling person can obtain credit. Abroad, capital is scarce and the financial institutions with state affiliation or control discriminate against Jews in industry and commerce.

RELIEF MUST BE CONTINUE

“You will fine people who are tired of giving, who do not believe that America should continue to be the dispenser of philanthropy in European countries, that these countries existed before the War without our help and should do so again. Some of us have felt that way too, but when you see the struggles that they have to make in contrast to the life over here, when you see the handicaps and the conditions put into their way, you feel that our efforts ought to be continued for a few more years. And it is not true that before the War the Jews in these countries stood entirely on their own feet. At that time innumerable small societies existed who spent money collected in their own little groups through people who went over there and dispensed it in a haphazard fashion, wellmeaning though they were. Today we get these contributions for our efforts and we may truthfully say that no softhearted, poorly directed spending of charity funds takes place any more.

“If you have traveled in these different countries, you know you still find the children born in the years of the War and during the aftermath suffering from rickets and tuberculosis. You would want to assist these medical efforts which as you know have to be of longer duration and are expensive. Even countries like Germany, though they have made a brave struggle since the War and have asked for mighty little, are not blessed by nature with altitude and mountain air such as is needed for tubercular care.

“Russia’s troubles are known to some of us in detail. That struggle is so big that no private effort could make any great impression, but the 200,000 and more Jews who live on the farm today are not struggling as they did in the famine. They are bringing up their children under their eyes as strong, healthy citizens and, notwithstanding the many new and unproven theories surrounding them, these children are brought up with reverence for home life and the knowledge of what Jewish home ideals mean. I have been in their villages. I have seen their grateful smiles for the opportunities which we have given them and I shall never forget them.

PALESTINE MODUS VIVENDI POSSIBLE

“The Palestine problems have been much handled by the press. I feel confident that with conservative, constructive ideas on all three sides—among the Government group, the Arab population and the Jewish group—a modus vivendi can be worked out and will be worked out. People who have taken untenable attitudes must not be considered as expressing the feeling of the rank and file. In Palestine, as everywhere else, the people want peace and are willing to work to build up their property and their country.

“The amounts which we ask are not fantastic. For the Joint Distribution Committee we collected during the last few years between six and seven millions dollars and the Zionist Organization collections, we are told, amounted to two and three million dollars. We ask for $6,000,000 this time for both these budgets together and we are paring down right and left because some of these budget applications are not only for the present year, but for obligations which were undertaken quite some time ago.”

$125,000,000 GIVEN IN SIXTEEN YEARS

In his opening remarks Chairman James N. Rosenberg said that over $125,000,000 had been disbursed overseas by the Jews of America during the past sixteen years for relief and reconstructive work, but that the time to stop sending funds abroad had not yet arrived. “Our efforts in Eastern Europe have raised our people there to their feet, but they must be helped awhile further lest they totter. In Palestine too we have a sacred and thrilling task,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “The upbuilding of the Holy Land is a portion of the responsibility we have assumed in this effort.”

The statement in the testimonial volume signed by the contributors is as follows:

TESTIMONIAL STATEMENT

“To Felix M. Warburg,

“Friend and Fellow Worker:

“We believe in the causes for which the Allied Jewish Campaign has been organized, and to which for many years you have given yourself. We recognize that through the labors and through the service, both in men and means, which the Jews of America have given under your leadership during the past sixteen years, an historic task has been performed toward the restoration of the life of Jews overseas who were racked by war, revolution, pogroms, pestilence and famine. We share your conviction that while much of the task has been performed, the work is not yet done. We believe in the efforts which under the leadership of Louis Marshall and yourself have unified the forces of American Israel in the Allied Jewish Campaign for the restoration of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and for the upbuilding of Palestine.

“Believing as we do in the purposes of this campaign, we have sought through our enthusiastic support of these causes to pay you the only tribute which you are willing to accept. In token of our faith in the work and in you, our leader, we sign this book and present it to you with the subscriptions in the amounts set forth. Your lifetime of service to all humanitarian causes, whether here or abroad, regardless of creed or race, has endeared you to all. We pledge you again our friendship, our devotion and our undivided loyalty.”