Mr. Julius Rosenwald Gives Quarter Million Dollars for Combating Unemployment in Chicago.

Mr. Julius Rosenwald, the great Jewish philanthropist, who entered his 70th. year in August, has given a quarter of a million dollars to-day for the unemployed in Chicago, the city where he lives and where his firm, Sears, Roebuck and Company, the largest mail order business in the world, has its headquarters.

Mr. Rosenwald, who is a great benefactor of both Jewish and general philanthropic and humanitarian institutions, has contributed large sums for the work of the Joint Distribution Committee among the Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia. He gave the Joint Distribution Committee a million dollars in 1925, and in 1928 he gave it five million dollars for its Jewish colonisation work in Russia, which is being conducted under the direction of Dr. Joseph Rosen. When Mr. Louis Marshall died he gave half a million dollars to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for a Louis Marshall Memorial Endowment.

Mr. Rosenwald has established a Julius Rosenwald Fund for the purpose of promoting human welfare, stipulating that the whole amount, principal and interest, must be spent within 25 years of his death. He is a particularly generous friend and benefactor of the negro, especially in the encouragement of education among them. There are over 4,000 Rosenwald schools in the fourteen Southern States, representing an investment of over 20 million dollars, and it is said that about 350,000 negro children in America are obtaining their education through the Rosenwald Fund.

Last August Mr. Rosenwald gave a million dollars to the Berlin City Council for the establishment of a dental clinic for children in Berlin. His services to humanity have been recognised by the bestowal on him of various distinctions, among them the Harmon Medal for International Work, and the Gotthein Medal for the most meritorious service to American Jewry.

Mr. Rosenwald’s son, Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald, has given 100,000 dollars to the unemployment relief campaign, stipulating that four other men of means should make similar contributions.

There are a number of prominent Jews in America who have been engaging in the campaign which is being carried on there now against unemployment, which has hit hard also the 4½ million Jews of the United States, in the same way as the rest of the population of the country. Among them are Mr. Solomon Guggenheim, Mr. Paul M. Warburg and the late Colonel Michael Friedsam, who were among the organisers of the Emergency Employment Committee formed last autumn, which raised 7 million dollars in the six months of its work. Mr. Felix M. Warburg has also been one of the leaders of the Emergency Conference on unemployment, and Rabbi Dr. Stephen S. Wise is prominent in the New York unemployment relief campaign. In Philadelphia Dr. Jacob Billikopf, who is the chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Unemployment, has been at the head of the unemployment campaign of the city and prevailed upon the City Council to grant a sum of 200,000 dollars for the unemployed. He also launched the campaign for 5 million dollars for unemployed relief conducted in Philadelphia.

Only last week Mr. Roosevelt, the Governor of New York State, appointed Mr. Jesse Straus to direct the 20 million dollar relief fund for unemployment in the State.