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White House Statement on the Formation of a Committee of Leading Citizens To Aid the Red Cross Drought Relief Campaign.

January 18, 1931

AT THE REQUEST of Honorable John Barton Payne, the Chairman of the Red Cross, the President has invited a committee of leading citizens to sponsor and aid the National Red Cross and its local chapters in the drive for funds in aid of the drought sufferers.

The President's request read as follows:

I am appointing a nation-wide committee to sponsor the American Red Cross effort to raise ten millions of dollars for the relief of the sufferers in the drought-stricken areas. Mr. [Calvin] Coolidge has consented to act as Honorary Chairman. Knowing your public spirit I am most desirous that you should be a member of this committee.

We are faced with a national emergency. Those in need in our larger cities are being and will be provided for through the generosity and self-reliance of the citizens of those communities. The people however in the drought-stricken areas in twenty-one states are not in a position adequately to help themselves and must look to their fellow citizens for temporary assistance.

The American way of meeting such a relief problem has been through voluntary effort and for many years this effort has been centered in the American Red Cross, created by the people themselves to act in just such emergencies. It has met its responsibilities magnificently in times of war and of peace.

It is essential that we should maintain the sound American tradition and spirit of voluntary aid in such emergency and should not undermine that spirit which has made our Red Cross the outstanding guardian of our people in time of disaster.

HERBERT HOOVER

Note: On the same day, the White House issued a list of leading citizens who had accepted the President's invitation to join the nationwide committee.

Herbert Hoover, White House Statement on the Formation of a Committee of Leading Citizens To Aid the Red Cross Drought Relief Campaign. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/211533

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