Doc. No. 354: Statement by Herbert Hoover, President of the United States

# noc I 354 73 25 RED CROSS ROLL CALL APPEAL By every means that is available as Chief Executive I h- ve for the past three years every private and public agency to cooperate in making certain that no man, woman, or child of all our people should go hungry or cold throug 3h any lack of forehanded pro- vision. The response of these agencies has been whole-hearted and unanimous. Their support has come directly from the people and in this the people have given a magnificent evidence of their warmth of human sympathy and their generosity toward their neighbors in dis- tress. That has been one of the most heartening evidences of the soundness of our demoCracy. "In this situation the Red Cross has occupied a special and unique position. The Red Crosa can not properly be described as a private institution for it is legally a semi-official organization and sentimentally it is the people's very own. A thousand remembered associations of its magnificent human regonse to the ory of dia- tress in emergency clusters around the name Red Cross. By natural growth it ha become our great nation-wide peace-time agency for meeting emergencies and distress. The people support it because their heart and their purses created it. In these past three years the Red Cross has responded to the needs throu chout the nation and it has been nobly supported by the whole American people.