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 A Community Message 
 to the Brotherhood 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF 
 YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 347 Madison Avenue, New York 
 
Europe 
 
 KARL FRIES, Ph. D. 
 
 General Secretary, World’s Committee, Young Men’s Christian Associations, Geneva, Switzerland 
 
 Europe is not America! It must seem funny to Americans who 
 are used to traveling by the fastest trains for six days from one end 
 of their country to the other, when making a voyage in Europe to 
 knock up against custom and passport barriers every few hours. 
 These barriers are not only a great bother to the traveler; they also 
 denote considerable difference in national characteristics, habits, and 
 traditions. Traditions—yes, they play a large part in Europe. 
 When you try to analyze the features that meet you in the appearance 
 of buildings, in methods of everyday life, even in small details, you 
 will find that in most cases they have their roots far back in the Mid¬ 
 dle Ages. Tradition makes its influence felt even in those countries 
 which pride themselves on being most progressive in their politics. 
 Nothing short of the revolutions caused by the World War have been 
 necessary for shaking some of these countries out of their age-long 
 ruts. The retracing of the map of Europe, with the subsequent grouping of elements of population 
 which for centuries have been separated in their political and ecclesiastical connections, has 
 produced a pliability which Europe has probably not witnessed since the days of the Reformation. 
 In these countries affected by these changes conditions have been created which in some measure 
 resemble those obtaining in America. A new national consciousness is developing in a population 
 composed of many heterogeneous elements. Hence an imperative need for shaping new forms 
 of political and community life. The governments are conscious of their limitations in front of 
 these tasks and of the tremendous demand for able and reliable leaders and are willing to accept 
 any useful offer of help toward the solution of their problem. It seems to me providential that 
 the American Y. M. C. A.’s, guided by the generous policy which was inaugurated in 1889, and 
 which in their Foreign Work has brought forth such wonderful fruits in the Far East, has! ^enled 
 at this time, through their magnificent service first among prisoners of war, then among soldiers, 
 and finally among civilian young men, to bring to bear their influence in these countries and to 
 inculcate their experience ripened in the school of life. If I correctly understand the principles 
 underlying the Community Work of the Y. M. C. A., they seem to me to have their best chance 
 in some of these ‘mew” countries of Europe. 
 
 Unfortunately the Y. M. C. A.’s in most of the European countries during the decades 
 preceding the war, had not succeeded in securing that social respect and popularity which they 
 enjoy in America. I have often wondered why, and again coming back to the influence of trad¬ 
 ition, I am inclined to attribute this in some measure at least to the mistakes, not to say anything 
 worse, made by the Church of the Middle Ages. Digressing from its original purpose it became 
 engrossed in political pursuits and showed a remarkable lack of willingness to render unselfish 
 social service. This has created in the minds of the great majority of the people a contempt 
 and dislike for what is officially called Christianity, which raises tremendous obstacles in the way 
 of an organization which calls itself and wants to be Christian. It is only through the irrefutable 
 testimony of labors of love and through a reinterpretation of the meaning of true Christianity 
 by individual lives regenerated by the Spirit of God that these prejudices can be overcome. 
 But prejudices die hard and we must be prepared for up-hill work all the time. The optimistic 
 enthusiasm and contagious courage of our American brethren are greatly needed in this work 
 and I sincerely hope that the magnificently generous contribution which they have made and are 
 making in the shaping of a new Europe will leave traces which, by the very tendency toward 
 tradition which is characteristic of this continent, will extend its beneficent influence over a 
 long future. 
 
Europe and the Community-wide Association Program 
 
 DARIUS A. DAVIS 
 
 Senior Secretary for Europe, Geneva, Switzerland 
 
 Europe, a mighty word! 
 Europe, from which 
 have flowed rivers of 
 life; life which has 
 affected every conti¬ 
 nent, every race. Where 
 is the nation that has 
 not been enriched by its 
 blood, ennobled by its 
 thought, blessed by its 
 saints and m a r t y r s ? 
 Have the rivers 
 dwindled into trickling streams or entirely 
 
 ceased to flow? Has the fountain dried? Or have 
 
 the rivers of life smitten by some terrible enchant¬ 
 er’s rod been changed into rivers of destruction 
 and death? 
 
 However one answers, one must admit that 
 something has happened in Europe. Something 
 elemental, epoch-making. 
 
 What are the signs of this new day in the Old 
 Continent? 
 
 1. The Birth of New Nations. A trite state¬ 
 ment in these extraordinary days. There is in it 
 nothing trite for the newly born nor for the 
 country from whose side the rib was taken. In 
 the simple words of a Latvian student: “After 
 700 years of foreign service, we are free! It is true, 
 physically we still suffer very much. Yet some¬ 
 thing wonderful is happening, even the air is 
 different.” 
 
 They are living their 1779 to 1783. Nation 
 building is a task that challenges not only ability 
 but also character. Principles on which es¬ 
 tablished nations were built are being found 
 unsuitable to present-day nation construction. 
 Therefore nation building today, and especially 
 when many are being built at the same time, 
 requires intellectual, social, economic, and religious 
 renovation and reconstruction, very often new 
 construction. 
 
 In spite of the dreams of centuries having come 
 true there is only a partial realization of the great¬ 
 ness and significance of what has really taken 
 place. Only gradually are these new nations 
 realizing the extent and seriousness of the re¬ 
 sponsibility which comes with freedom if freedom, 
 
 and not license under the guise of freedom, is to 
 be their lot. 
 
 2. Altered Nations. Some idea of the extent to 
 which Europe has been geographically altered may 
 be gained from the fact that only five of the 
 twenty-one independent nations including colonies 
 retain their pre-war boundaries. In many cases 
 the economic, intellectual, and moral changes in 
 the altered nations are scarcely less profound than 
 in the new nations. The result is that when we 
 think of New Europe we must think of the con¬ 
 tinent, not of a few countries whose names appear 
 for the first time in our generation on the map. 
 Europe, molten, plastic! Europe! 
 
 3. Broken Traditions. The dead hand of the 
 past is releasing, in not a few instances has released, 
 its strangle hold on the present and the hope of 
 the future. One has only to be served in restaur¬ 
 ants by countesses and even princesses, to have 
 generals and railroad presidents run one’s errands, 
 see titled people take in boarders; and on the other 
 hand to see clerks, peasants, and humble craftsmen 
 running governments and directing great enter¬ 
 prises, to realize that traditions are broken. The 
 depth of meaning in this statement is further 
 realized when one sees thousands of students who 
 only five years ago considered manual labor not 
 only a disgrace, but an absolute impossibility, now 
 priding themselves on working with their hands 
 to earn their way through universities. Yes, when 
 European universities change their schedules and 
 run classes from 7 to 9 A. M. and from 4 to 10 P. M. 
 in order to enable the students to earn their 
 living, the grip of the past has been mightily 
 loosened. 
 
 i In agricultural life is it less evolutionary to see 
 tractors replace the old wooden plow ? Reapers 
 crowd out the sickle and motor-run threshers cause 
 grass to grow on the old ox-trodden threshing 
 floors. “Our fathers did it thus” is no longer a 
 reason that satisfies. There has been a decided 
 “about face”! People are beginning to look for¬ 
 ward, not back. Not what has been but what can 
 and will be is the note struck today. Certainly 
 the present suffering is great but the consciousness 
 exists that true greatness is born of suffering. 
 There is hope and expectation. This leads to the 
 next evidence of a changed Europe which is: 
 
 3 
 
4. A New Teachableness. Prom the clay when 
 nations were self-satisfied or unwilling to admit 
 that other nations had something really worth 
 while to teach them it is a far cry to the day when 
 one sees them deliberately sitting at the feet of 
 other nations to learn and embody in their new 
 national constitutions all those elements which 
 have tended to make the older nations strong and 
 useful. Not one but many nations of Europe today 
 are asking for the best experience of other nations 
 along intellectual, physical, and moral lines. 
 
 Within the last few weeks Roumania in con¬ 
 nection with the national effort for the physical, 
 intellectual, and moral development of her youth 
 has renewed her request for the Y. M. C. A. to 
 choose three technical advisers for the government 
 for physical education. Leaders along other lines 
 are being brought from other countries. Another 
 nation is now studying a similar all-inclusive plan 
 of education and has unofficially approached the 
 Association to know if she is willing to choose men 
 with the same qualities of character and leadership 
 as she would choose for her own work, who will be 
 paid by the inviting country and put in charge for 
 a period of five years of different departments of 
 physical and moral education. 
 
 Several of the countries of Europe are more 
 ready to consider, adapt, and try out any success¬ 
 fully worked-out principle, or method, if it promises 
 to develop real leaders of men, than even America. 
 
 5. Toleration. With the new teachableness has 
 come a new spirit of toleration. Especially this is 
 true in countries where the Orthodox Church is the 
 established religion. In Russia, Roumania, Greece, 
 Bulgaria, and Serbia non-Orthodox Christian 
 workers before the war met with suspicion, if not 
 opposition. The war work of the Association 
 has resulted not only in a greater toleration but 
 even in a real cooperation, thus opening a door of 
 service and collaboration to the 140,000,000 souls 
 in the Orthodox Church. There is also a new 
 toleration to be found in other countries in Europe. 
 This does not mean that all intolerance has ceased. 
 
 6. New Internationalism. While there exists in 
 many countries unreasoning nationalism there is 
 evidence of a new sense of international depen¬ 
 dence and cooperation. For the present this new 
 internationalism is being voiced particularly 
 through individuals and groups rather than offici¬ 
 ally through governments. 
 
 7. Weariness of Formalism. The failure of 
 established systems, whether political, social, 
 economic, educational, or religious, to assure social 
 
 justice and international righteousness and racial 
 harmony has shattered the faith of the masses in 
 the existing order of the things. That a thing has 
 “always been so” is no longer a reason that con¬ 
 vinces that it should continue to be so. Today 
 men throughout Europe are applying to their 
 institutions this test: “Does it meet actual needs?” 
 “Does it respond to reality?” Many are those 
 which are not successfully meeting the test. This 
 weariness of lifeless formalism is felt by institutions 
 as well as by individuals. 
 
 The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches 
 are among the first of the great institutions which 
 are trying to adapt their methods and message to 
 the new day. The latter particularly is seeking the 
 collaboration of those who have had experience in 
 touching successfully the daily lives of individuals. 
 Preaching, Bible Study, Sunday schools, common 
 use of the New Testament, starting of social 
 service centers, distribution of literature, are some 
 of the evidences that the spirit of life and reality 
 is breathing in this wonderful old church. 
 
 8. Reproduction of the Race. Not less sig¬ 
 nificant among the signs of the new day is the 
 interest being manifested in many countries in all 
 questions relating to the birth rate and to the 
 reproduction of the race. North, south, east, and 
 west have been heard to express the conviction 
 that more precious than mines of coal, oil fields, 
 forests, or rich prairies is the manhood of the 
 nation. In countries where before the war all 
 mention of the ravage of venereal diseases was 
 banned from pulpit, press, and home there are now 
 active campaigns carried on through press, film, 
 and public addresses to combat immorality. 
 Even the most conservative and prudish nation no 
 longer looks on with indifference while a large 
 proportion of its boys of seventeen and under are 
 already leading immoral lives. 
 
 One million copies of an illustrated pamphlet 
 combating immorality and venereal diseases have 
 recently been published by the Greek government 
 and are being distributed through all the schools. 
 The Association has been responsible for starting 
 and carrying on in cooperation with Red Crosses, 
 schools, and governments nation-wide campaigns 
 for sane instruction in sex hygiene in France and 
 Czechoslovakia. 
 
 The true importance of interest in this problem 
 lies in the fact that increasingly men are becoming 
 convinced that: 
 
 9. Spiritual Problems Are Supreme. Mr. 
 Frank A. Yanderlip said recently: “I see no purely 
 
 4 
 
economic solution to the problems of Europe. I 
 am becoming increasingly convinced that the only 
 solution is a spiritual one.” At a dinner in Geneva 
 attended by outstanding leaders of the League of 
 Nations and representatives of other international 
 and world organizations the same conviction was 
 strongly expressed by those present. Sir George 
 Paish, one of England’s leading economists, has 
 expressed his opinion that “any solution of the 
 economic and political problems of Europe must be 
 on a spiritual basis.” More and more common are 
 becoming such expressions as “Europe’s sickness 
 is a spiritual sickness,” “moral disarmament,” 
 “moral regeneration,” “change of heart,” etc. 
 These words are being used not only by religious 
 leaders, but what weighs heavier with the public, 
 by economists, publicists, and statesmen. 
 
 The same idea is being expressed in one way or 
 another, but always with the emphasis of convic¬ 
 tion from France to Constantinople and from 
 Finland to Portugal. 
 
 What has all this to do with the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association? Simply this, that the 
 community-wide work and message of the Associa¬ 
 tion strikes Europe now with all the carrying force 
 and power of a new evangel. To Europe un¬ 
 shackled, changing, resetting its moulds, con¬ 
 scious of its weakness and needs, seeking aid above 
 all in the spiritual realms of leadership and 
 character-building, comes the Association not 
 talking theory, not preaching, but exemplifying in 
 the community the life of Him who went about 
 doing good, giving life, reality, service. The 
 example of the message of the Association never 
 fails to command the attention and call forth the 
 support of European nations. Individuals and 
 groups who have failed to support the Association 
 have, nevertheless, paid the highest compliment 
 by trying to imitate it. 
 
 Why Does the Association Appeal To 
 Europe Today? 
 
 1. The Association came at the moment of great¬ 
 est national need. It served where that need was 
 most keenly felt at the time, with the soldiers. 
 
 2. Seeing the effect of the Association service for 
 enlisted men, Europe believes the Association is 
 capable of meeting similar needs in the civil 
 communities. 
 
 3. The Association unites communities composed 
 of different nationalities, races, and creeds in a 
 program of mutual helpfulness. This is a spiritual 
 service of inestimable value to divided, unsocialized 
 communities and is being rendered at a moment 
 when it counts most for individuals and the states. 
 
 4. It raises morale by positive methods of training 
 
 and leadership demonstrated at strategic centers 
 through groups with large powers of radiation. 
 
 5. It appeals to all classes and creeds by exalting 
 the living Christ. Not the stone or wooden Christ 
 of the European country crossroad which typifies 
 the lifeless form that has made Christianity 
 hateful, a veritable sham and hypocrisy in the 
 minds of millions. In Europe Christianity has 
 been too much degraded to a form, a political 
 party, a cause of conflict and hatred. The living 
 Christ through whatever medium presented is ever 
 powerful and meets the same glad response in the 
 hearts of men of all nations. 
 
 6. The Association comes at the psychological 
 moment, not only on account of the politically, 
 socially, and intellectually changing Europe, but 
 also because this is the moment when the Orthodox 
 Church is planning to hold another great ecumen¬ 
 ical council for the express purpose of adapting 
 itself to modern needs and conditions. 
 
 If it is not Providence, what a strange coinci¬ 
 dence has brought together on a basis of sympathy 
 and confidence the Orthodox Church which 
 controls the spiritual destinies of so many millions 
 of souls and the Y. M. C. A. with its energy, 
 resources, and experience in dealing with the very 
 problems which above all others are occupying the 
 attention of church leaders in six countries! 
 
 Wiiat Must Be the Characteristics of an 
 Association which Will Meet the Needs in 
 Europe? 
 
 1. It must be Christ-like in approach and opera¬ 
 tion as well as in the life of its leaders, directors,, 
 and controlling members. 
 
 2. It must be a movement, not a building of 
 mere organization. Its chief interest must be the 
 establishing of the Kingdom of God, not the Y. M. 
 C. A., in communities and nations. Half measures 
 are not wanted by men who are building nations. 
 
 3. It must center its attention on boys and men 
 under twenty years of age. 
 
 4. It must from the beginning aim at becoming as 
 soon as possible an institution of the country where 
 it operates. • 
 
 5. It must continue without interruption its 
 present work and increase it in volume and effici¬ 
 ency, but only as fast as proper leaders and 
 adequate support can be assured. 
 
 Beginning at the psychological moment has 
 placed the Y. M. C. A. in many European coun¬ 
 tries twenty years ahead. 
 
 6. It must have a long-term policy. 
 
 Great epochs in Europe come rarely. The 
 brotherhood is summoned to help channel the 
 rivers of influence in Europe for the new epoch. 
 
 5 
 
Building the “Y” in Saloniki, Greece 
 
 UUUS L. AMOSS 
 
 Senior Secretary, Young Men’s Christian Association, Saloniki, Greece 
 
 Over in Saloniki, the 
 Association has the 
 unique opportunity of 
 serving an ancient city, 
 while at the same time 
 it builds on the founda¬ 
 tions of a new town. 
 
 Even in its inception, 
 Saloniki was founded 
 from more ancient com¬ 
 munities. Over two 
 thousand two hundred 
 years ago King Cassandra gathered up the citi¬ 
 zens of two adjacent cities and of twenty-six 
 villages and established the city which he called 
 Thessalonica, in honor of his wife. 
 
 Since that time, as before, Saloniki has known 
 the frown and smile of fortune. She has endured 
 the invasions of Persian, Roman, Visigoth, Hun, 
 Saracen, Cretan Pirate, Magyar, Slav, Arabian 
 Corsair, Bulgarian, and Turk. 
 
 War has leveled Saloniki times without number. 
 Today, though holding anciently established trade, 
 she is back where she must start afresh. The 
 heart of the town is in ruins as a result of the great 
 fire, one of Saloniki’s gifts from the World War. 
 Her home life is demoralized, her youth in arms, 
 her fortune reduced. 
 
 But with all her sorrows and her misfortune, 
 Saloniki is again Greek, and that indominable 
 spirit inherited from ancient times inspired the 
 Coveted City to build on the scarcely cooled 
 ruins of the old town. The Y begins with her. 
 
 Over here in the shadow of a mosque which has 
 served successively as Greek temple, Roman 
 temple, synagogue, Christian church, and mosque, 
 a mixed motley but happy group of little boys 
 play the new game of baseball. 
 
 Here, in the excavation made for a fine new 
 building, on the site of ancient structures, little 
 Greek boys play soccer with a combination of 
 little Zionist Jews with a Y. M. C. A. ball. 
 
 Over there on the waterfront in sight of a big 
 American freighter coming in the channel, which 
 must have been used by the Persian fleet, is a big 
 V Soldiers’ Club. There the soldier may get 
 anything he likes from a hot dinner to ^entertain¬ 
 ment, or a hot bath. And after taps the building 
 
 must still keep open, for hundreds of boys are 
 being entertained in their big brothers’ club. Or 
 their big brothers, armed with military passes, 
 come with their sisters and their friends’ sisters 
 for a social-literary, French, English, or German 
 discussion meeting. 
 
 Or yonder in a former hospital where wounded 
 French soldiers were made well, the Russian 
 refugees have a community center. Here and there 
 about town 105 classes in various subjects are 
 held each week under the Saloniki Y auspices. 
 
 Out in poor demolished Serres the older orphans 
 of massacred parents are taught how to earn a 
 living in a Y institutional school. Throughout the 
 Coveted City, organizations are being helped by 
 the Y. It is a poor school, no matter how ancient 
 or how modern its foundation, which does not 
 have Y games. But the present program though 
 lauded almost daily in the press and mentioned in 
 the letters of high officials is but a speck on the 
 horizon compared to its future activities. The 
 board of directors promised that. 
 
 And a word for the board. The Governor 
 became convinced of the value of the Y early in 
 the game. He summoned together a number of 
 the leading men of all walks of life. During 
 meeting after meeting they had the Y and its 
 objectives laid down to them. 
 
 When at last it seemed that the group was 
 sufficiently informed to decide if Saloniki needed 
 the Y, a vote was taken. Without a dissenting 
 vote it was decided to begin at once. From the 
 group of “founders” a board of directors was 
 elected, a board which ably represents the Coveted 
 City. These fifteen able men were charged by 
 the committee of founders to “manage their affairs 
 well and to bring a blessing on the city through 
 their efficient management of the local Y move¬ 
 ment.” 
 
 These fifteen represent the top of their various 
 departments of life. Through them, officially, 
 anything may be accomplished. They represent 
 much of the initiative of the Coveted City. 
 Through them any proposition may receive the 
 impetus needed to put it across. They have the 
 confidence of the town. Through the board the Y 
 has a splendid start in its mission to the people. 
 
 Over here in one corner of the office of the 
 General Secretary sits the Governor. He is 
 
 6 
 
arguing an Association problem with a representa¬ 
 tive of industry. Over there the subject is being 
 discussed between a general and an ex-private. 
 The Chief Justice is discussing the same proposi¬ 
 tion with a young lawyer. 
 
 Up there in the “Holy Metropolis,” the See of the 
 Orthodox Church, the Metropolitan waits for a 
 report of this meeting. He is vitally interested and 
 concerned that these men should see their duty 
 clearly, for he is convinced of the need for the 
 Association and has asked its cooperation with his 
 church. He has sent word to the General Secretary 
 that later he will outline many things in which the 
 Association may contribute vitally to the church. 
 
 Up in one of the crooked ill-paved streets of the 
 high town, where ancient huts huddle up to one 
 another, the arm of the Association is to reach out 
 with its message of sanitation. While a commu¬ 
 nity meeting is in progress in one of the coffee 
 shops borrowed for the purpose, the little lads 
 are going to learn how to play. 
 
 Down there in the low town a campaign against 
 malaria is to be waged and there will be garden 
 contests to beautify and utilize the ugly lots of the 
 burnt district. Around the curve of the Thermaic 
 Gulf, in the New City, the Association will extend 
 the Father and Son idea, and a campaign which 
 will bring a wider use of the schools. 
 
 Several benevolent and “improvement” organ¬ 
 izations are at work in Saloniki. There is admit¬ 
 tedly some lost motion and duplication and they 
 have indicated that Y cooperation will be accept¬ 
 able. 
 
 The municipal orchestra and chorus contribute 
 a night a week to the Y. Now the Association is 
 able to be of service to them. The Child Welfare 
 League and the patriotic organizations working for 
 the families of the soldiers are all to have the 
 support of the local organization. 
 
 The A 7 is already working with the athletic clubs, 
 but there is a large field of service with them as yet 
 untouched. The Boy Scouts ask that the Y 
 supervise their summer camp. The various 
 schools desire that the Y should carry on a cam¬ 
 paign to interest parents in their great mission. 
 Their physical culture teachers have been told by 
 the Metropolitan to come to the athletic depart¬ 
 ment of the Y for games. The six Masonic lodges 
 of the city will support the Association, espe¬ 
 cially in its efforts to cooperate with the estab¬ 
 lished institutions. 
 
 A picture of Saloniki: Situated along the horse¬ 
 shoe of the Thermaic Gulf, its red-tiled homes and 
 huts crawl upward in the shadow of mighty Mt. 
 
 Olympus until the top of a great hill is reached. 
 Outwards, the Coveted City first crawls and then 
 grows over swamp and small hill. Dividing the 
 heart of the city, a huge, ugly scar places its blight 
 upon the ancient town. It is the fruit of the great 
 fire. But going up amid these ruins are stately 
 buildings. 
 
 Playing or working about the spoiled streets are 
 ragged children, whose youth has been arrested or 
 skipped. In the coffee shops more fortunate lads 
 are wasting their time. In the streets walk sober¬ 
 faced men, Greek, Turk, and Jew alike who have 
 never learned to play. 
 
 The mission of the Saloniki Y is in this town. It 
 is designed for these folk. It will succeed because 
 the need is great and because the desire for it is 
 so sincere. 
 
 It is doubtful if there is another place in Europe 
 where a community is so wide open for the Associ¬ 
 ation program, and where the need is so great and 
 so recognized. 
 
 Officials support the movement with their time, 
 thought, and means. Their political opponents 
 subscribe their all to the movement. The church 
 demands the Y. The department of education has 
 requested Y cooperation. The municipal govern¬ 
 ment offers material aid along with the provincial 
 government. The press is enthusiastic. And the 
 people are interested—so much interested that in 
 the educational classes alone last month two 
 thousand pupils took part. 
 
 So with the officials primed, the people ready, 
 and the need here, all that remains is to go ahead. 
 Although the various centers of the Saloniki Y 
 are already overcrowded, and although masses 
 come to the different community points, the Y has 
 its great day ahead of it, for now it is going out 
 to the people. 
 
 Although the interest was already here, the 
 mission composed of Messrs. Davis, Walton, and 
 Ritchie has greatly widened the horizon of the 
 local Association. Today after Ritchie’s speech, 
 the town quotes from him, “Youth is justified in 
 shaking its fist in our faces if we do not give it a 
 fair chance.” 
 
 The board of the Saloniki Y. M. C. A. means to 
 see that its sons get a fair chance. They heard the 
 challenge.and they have accepted it. They began 
 with an idea of the Association as an improved 
 series of soldiers’ clubs, convinced that this would 
 serve a vital need of their youth. Today they are 
 convinced that, added to this, the Association is 
 a movement, mobile and strong, which may be 
 
 7 
 
directed in almost any public service, and to quote 
 from the Governor: 
 
 ... It is for the realization of these funda¬ 
 mentals that the Young Men’s Christian Asso¬ 
 ciation has helped us to establish a local branch, 
 the christianizing work of which will be closely 
 
 followed and assisted by our civil author!ties'^and 
 strengthened by the government. But our com¬ 
 munity also will hasten to invest in this work. . . . 
 I came to Saloniki to help buikl a New City. I 
 remain to help in the great movement which is build¬ 
 ing a new future for its youth.” 
 
 The Young Men’s Christian Association in Estonia 
 
 HERBERT S. GOTT 
 
 Senior Secretary, Young Men’s Christian Association, Reval, Estonia 
 
 The Estonians, one of 
 the people newly liber¬ 
 ated by the war, occupy 
 a few hundred square 
 miles of land at the 
 extreme end of the 
 Baltic Sea, not far from 
 Petrograd. They num¬ 
 ber about a million and 
 a half and come from 
 the same stem as the 
 Finns and the Hungari¬ 
 ans. By inheritance they are Lutherans, but a 
 small percentage are Greek Orthodox. 
 
 The American Young Men’s Christian Associa¬ 
 tion commenced work among them in April, 1920, 
 shortly after they had obtained their liberty, and 
 worked in cooperation with the A. R. C. and 
 A. R. A. to assist them in their exhausted state 
 after having passed through the Great War, the 
 German occupation, the Bolshevik occupation, and 
 the North Western Army defeat followed by a 
 typhus epidemic. 
 
 It has been truly an extensive 
 piece of reconstruction work to 
 a needy people at a critical mo¬ 
 ment of their history. A com¬ 
 plete school system was organ¬ 
 ized for the children of the 
 15,000 Russian refugees located 
 in the north east part of the 
 country. Playgrounds were 
 opened and American games 
 taught to thousands of children. 
 
 A wdiolesome moving - picture 
 service was set up. Underfed 
 and weakly city children were 
 sent to camp for the summer and 
 built up with good food, fresh air, 
 and games. Messages of cheer 
 
 were brought by the American secretaries to confer¬ 
 ences and meetings of Christians, and hundreds 
 of spiritually needy individuals were given strength 
 to go on to better days by the service of love. 
 Those early days of the work were days when a 
 secretary, if he wished to meet the spiritual 
 demands made on him, had to be constantlv in 
 connection with the Giver of all life. 
 
 Because of the lack of knowledge of personnel 
 and the necessity of using only men who would be 
 an honor to the Association it was not possible at 
 first to build the work wholly around committees. 
 The many friends of the Association and a care¬ 
 fully picked local staff, however, made it possible 
 to render a community service. 
 
 Cooperation with the home has to some extent 
 been achieved. The Association was reponsible 
 for over 275 children in camps in 1920. 
 
 A Father and Son banquet was tried out with good 
 success in Reval. Over ninety fathers and sons enjoy¬ 
 ed themselves in this unique way for the first time. 
 
 Small parents’ meetings with special speakers 
 have been arranged from time to time. 
 
 Y. M. C. A. School in Physical Education, Estonia 
 
 8 
 
Cooperation with the church. Last year an 
 important activity in the city of Reval was the 
 coming together occasionally for fellowship of the 
 majority of the German and Estonian pastors and 
 a few Russian priests. The program consisted of 
 general conversation, light supper, prayer, song, 
 reading from Fosdick’s “Meaning of Service,” and 
 a discussion on the relations of the church to the 
 community, or modern methods of work with 
 young people. These meetings could not have 
 failed to be of value after so many years of war and 
 revolution. An outcome of these gatherings was 
 a conference called to meet Mr. Frank Ritchie and 
 discuss how the Association could cooperate with 
 the church. The conference re¬ 
 sulted in the pastors approving as 
 an experiment the organization of 
 a Sunday Bible school by the As¬ 
 sociation, to be taken up by the 
 churches if successful. The school 
 is now well under way and Sunday 
 is the busiest day at the Associa¬ 
 tion. The Russian children meet 
 at 12 noon, teachers training class 
 2:00, high-school boys 2:30, younger 
 boys 3:30, older boys 5:30. 
 
 The Association is also assisting 
 in church club work, providing the 
 physical education for the members, 
 and advising on its program. In 
 the summer a number of the club 
 members spent a week at the As¬ 
 sociation camp. At Dorpat the 
 use of the building has been extended frequently 
 to the churches for their activities. 
 
 Cooperation with the school. The Association has 
 been especially fortunate in being able to cooperate 
 with the schools. It is on remarkably good terms 
 with the school teachers, educators, and depart¬ 
 ment of education of the country. At the time of 
 the visit of Mr. Orr, the Association educational 
 specialist, a number of teachers’ conferences were 
 held with such splendid results that the Minister 
 of Education is now negotiating for the return of 
 Mr. Orr in May for a more carefully planned and 
 extensive set of conferences. The teachers hung 
 on his every word as he brought to them the best 
 that Christian America had to give in the principles 
 of democracy and, what was most needed in 
 Estonia, the spirit of Christian love. 
 
 In serving the 1,200 Russian refugee children 
 scattered between Reval and Narva it was not a 
 question of cooperation with the school authorities, 
 for there were none, so the Association organized a 
 
 whole system of schools itself, using the existing 
 high-grade Russian teachers. This work has 
 continued on a diminishing scale since June, 1920, 
 and will be dropped altogether by the Association 
 June, 1922. 
 
 About fifty high-school boys were present at the 
 high-school supper to listen to Frank Ritchie as he 
 presented to them a great opportunity to serve 
 their comrades and lift the whole tone of the 
 schools. Since his departure the boys have been 
 meeting regularly and carrying on the work under 
 the leadership of Mr. Paul Buttrick. One of the 
 things accomplished has been the organizing of the 
 high-school basket and volley ball league. 
 
 The moving-picture service of the Association 
 is enabling the schools in the four main centers of 
 Estonia to supplement their work with wholesome 
 educational, travel, and comedy moving-pictures. 
 
 Cooperation until the community. The leadership 
 training courses last winter were regularly attended 
 by about forty men and women, all interested in 
 community service. The purpose of the course 
 was to train practical Christian workers for the 
 various institutions of the community. Each one 
 attending was required to be engaged in some form 
 of altruistic service for others. Two Russian 
 priests were among the most regular attendants 
 and the members of the course were requested to 
 report on their work and to hand in their written 
 answers to the problems assigned to them. The 
 basis of the course was “The Community and the 
 Y. M. C. A.” At the present moment the majority 
 of the people who took this course are occupying 
 important volunteer and paid positions in Christ¬ 
 ian service in the city. 
 
 Y. M. C. A. —Gymnasium and Skating Rink, Reval, Estonia 
 
 9 
 
Special courses were put on for the raising of the 
 morale of the city police. A morale officer was 
 assigned to the work and a small number of higher 
 officers, including the chiefs of the city and 
 criminal police and the chief judge, took special 
 interest in the course. Selected policemen attend¬ 
 ed regularly the policemen’s class in the gym¬ 
 nasium. Weekly lectures, with movies, on how a 
 policeman can maintain his personal efficiency 
 were given to the police force. 
 
 Playground work has been a prominent feature 
 of the Association’s contribution to the com¬ 
 munity. On our grounds as demonstration centers 
 the American games have been learned and have 
 spread throughout the country. 
 
 The result of cooperation with an overgrown and 
 premature Boy Scout movement is a school for 
 Scout masters, now being held at the Reval 
 Association; and a growing healthy movement at 
 Dorpat. 
 
 Although the Association work in Estonia has 
 been mostly among the refugees and Estonian 
 citizens, the army has not been neglected. Special 
 physical training courses for officers have been 
 arranged and regular work for soldiers carried on 
 at the neighboring barracks in Reval and Dorpat. 
 
 The objective in Estonia has been to create a 
 movement and while creating it to keep well 
 balanced between community service and internal 
 development activities. 
 
 The activities in the Association buildings have 
 been steadily increasing until now a long list of 
 interests are centered therein: Orchestra, mandolin 
 
 club, young men’s clubs, Hi-Y club. Pioneers, Boy 
 Scouts, Russian club, educational classes, com¬ 
 mittee meetings, conferences, English club, lec¬ 
 tures, talks, physical education, socials, Leaders’ 
 club, entertainments, Bible study, character build¬ 
 ing, and Bible school. 
 
 From this intensive work is springing up the 
 movement which is increasingly expressing itself in 
 service to the community, so that it is only a 
 matter of time when the American Association will 
 be able to withdraw all its support. 
 
 Estonia has indeed been rich in opportunity for 
 service and few American Secretaries have ever had 
 a better chance to meet the moral and spiritual 
 needs of a people. That we have had all the 
 equipment and financial support that the situa¬ 
 tion required calls forth our thanks to the gen¬ 
 erous supporters at home. 
 
 Just how the permanent work will develop is 
 hard to say at this early stage but certainly the 
 foundation is being laid along strong community 
 lines. The service basis of membership has been 
 adopted by the advisory committee and the pre¬ 
 liminary constitution is shaped according to the 
 standard community model. What is most im¬ 
 portant, the men who are close to the movement 
 are thinking outward into the community and are 
 beginning to grasp the idea of becoming part of 
 a spiritual movement flowing out into the everyday 
 life of the nation, meeting its needs through 
 volunteer and paid leadership and bringing to 
 people love and cooperation and a new conception 
 of the Master and His Kingdom. 
 
 ( 
 
 Europe and the Young Men’s Christian Association 
 
 FRANK RITCHIE 
 
 Secretary, The International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations, New York 
 
 Ten months in Europe, which made it possible 
 for me to visit twenty countries, have convinced 
 me that the Association is facing an opportunity 
 such as has seldom come to any organization. 
 These are not words carelessly written. Contacts 
 with governmental officials, military authorities, 
 educators, and church leaders bear witness to the 
 fact that the nations of Central Europe, especially 
 the newer nations, are looking in a remarkable way 
 to the Young Men’s Christian Association for 
 spiritual, educational, and recreational leadership 
 for its boys and young men. This is abundantly 
 confirmed by contacts with the people. 
 
 Many Europeans do not understand why 
 America did not enter the League of Nations, but 
 
 in spite of their bewilderment over our seemingly 
 inconsistent attitude, America looms large in their 
 thinking and affections, for, as they express it, 
 “America has fed our children, cared for our 
 suffering ones, helped our students.” The Red 
 Cross, American Relief Administration, Student 
 Relief, and A 7 . W. C. A. and Y. M. C. A. have 
 perhaps been among the biggest ties that have 
 helped to link America to Europe, for through 
 these organizations the spirit of love and fellow¬ 
 ship has been expressed. Differences of opinion 
 have been minimized in the common task of 
 serving humanity. 
 
 It is impossible in a short article adequately to 
 reveal the great currents that ebb and flow through 
 
 10 
 
the economic, social, and religious life of these 
 nations. They are not only confronted internally 
 with great political, religious, and economic 
 problems, but international relationships make 
 present conditions in Europe even more complex 
 and the working out of the problems extremely 
 difficult and delicate. 
 
 Some of the nations are still at war, but at 
 present the greatest and most wide-spread conflict 
 is the conflict of ideas. While this is fraught with 
 grave dangers it is full of hope for the future, for 
 out of this may come a better working relationship 
 between the nations. 
 
 . We will perhaps understand and appreciate 
 more fully the significance of this and the oppor¬ 
 tunities confronting the Association by looking 
 more closely at two or three definite European 
 situations. Take for example the Greek Orthodox 
 Church with one hundred forty million adherents, 
 one hundred million of which are in Russia. I 
 visited Sofia, Bulgaria, a few days after a great 
 conference Jiad adjourned, where the church had 
 courageously faced up to some of its internal 
 problems as well as the great pressing problems of 
 the day in a most courageous manner. The 
 conference hall had been guarded by military 
 police. Bishops and priests sharply differed 
 throughout the sessions. A drama was being en¬ 
 acted within the conference hall, for a great 
 reformation was being initiated, the outcome of 
 which would play no small part in the future of 
 this great church. Interviews and conferences 
 with the leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church 
 and others bore testimony to this fact. Some of 
 these changes are indicated in Bulgaria, where 
 steps are being taken to change the laws of the 
 church and make them more liberal. It has been 
 expressed by leaders in this fashion—that hereto¬ 
 fore religion has been divorced from life; that the 
 church must assume a new attitude toward all the 
 problems of life and the place of attack should be 
 with the young people and students. She should 
 concern herself less with the state and devote 
 herself more to a program of practical Christianity. 
 An indication of how the Greek Orthodox Church 
 is being democratized is in the personnel of the 
 church council, which has been composed entirely 
 of priests and is now being made up of both priests 
 and laymen, in about equal number. Final 
 authority is now vested in the council and not in a 
 small group of priests as heretofore. 
 
 A plan of decentralization is being worked out 
 by the council. Women are also being recognized 
 on the local committees, which is something un¬ 
 
 known in the history of the church. Steps are 
 being taken to shorten the services and make them 
 more practical. The cause of these changes in the 
 words of one of the church leaders is—the spirit 
 of the age and agitation on the part of progressive 
 laymen and priests. These facts indicate that 
 unprecedented changes are taking place which in 
 a very large way may affect the religious world. 
 
 Among the leaders of the church are those who 
 recognize that the Y. M. C. A. has demonstrated 
 a program of applied Christianity and they look 
 to us for leadership in helping them to apply their 
 religion in a practical way to everyday life. May 
 this not be an indication that the Association has 
 been divinely called at this hour in the history of 
 this great church? 
 
 I would that I could vividly reproduce an epoch- 
 making conference in the home of one of our 
 secretaries in Estonia, which illustrated how the 
 Association is actually serving the church. Around 
 the table sat Greek Orthodox priests, Lutheran 
 pastors, and several Association secretaries. For 
 two nights these men sat in conference until the 
 late hours, discussing how they could introduce 
 Sunday-school methods and week-day activities 
 for their young people, something which the church 
 of that nation had not conducted and had made 
 no provisions for in their church buildings. 
 
 This conference resulted in the working out of a 
 modified Sunday-school plan in which many of the 
 churches united, the Association providing a place 
 of meeting and cooperating in providing leadership, 
 methods, and technique, endeavoring to demon¬ 
 strate the possibilities of a church program which 
 would meet the needs of every phase of life. The 
 success of this effort may mean the incorporating 
 of a similar program in the churches of that entire 
 nation. 
 
 Shortly before we adjourned one of the priests 
 leaned over and whispered to me, “A few years 
 ago we would have been put into prison if we had 
 been discovered holding a meeting like this.” It 
 was not difficult to enter into the spirit of those 
 men who were for the first time feeling the freedom 
 of unrestricted thinking and planning. 
 
 Let us turn from the struggle of a great church 
 to the struggle of a nation. Poland to us in 
 America is often a mere name, a vague region of 
 romance east of Germany and connected in some 
 dim way with Russia—a land of revolution and a 
 land that sends us musicians and Jews. One has 
 only to spend a little time in Poland, however, to 
 begin sympathetically to realize what these 
 (Continued on page 14 ) 
 
 II 
 
T WO miles from the Russian boundary, at 
 Narva, Estonia, in the old Ivangorod Fortress, 
 stands the Association Hut, where for more 
 than a year it had served the thousands of prisoners 
 returning from Russia to the homeland. Now, 
 however, it was to administer to the needs of 
 another group, who would have liked nothing 
 better than to set out in the opposite direction for 
 Russia. The building which had served for the 
 entertainment of prisoners was now to be used for 
 a conference of Russian refugees. 
 
 There were present over a hundred men, in¬ 
 cluding almost every type of former Russian 
 citizen, doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, 
 priests, reporters, and business men. Most of 
 them had been driven from the cities of western 
 Russia, such as Petrograd, Gatchena, and Pshoff. 
 They had not been useless upper class, such as one 
 reads about, but a representative group of Russian 
 citizens, most of them prominent in the life of their 
 cities. They were carefully selected from among 
 the fifteen thousand refugees in Estonia. Just 
 such a group as this, of Americans, might have 
 found themselves exiled in Canada after a revo¬ 
 lution in the United States. For over a year the 
 Association had been working among them, 
 maintaining a large system of schools for their 
 children, so they were familiar with the Association 
 at work. 
 
 They came gladly, expectantly; they came 
 intellectually and spiritually empty, hungering for 
 food other than bread, a people accepting Christ¬ 
 ianity as naturally as Americans accept the 
 principle of private ownership. The cause of 
 their exile was social injustice and disorder. 
 Where could one find a body of people better able 
 to grasp the message prepared for them, a message of 
 personal and social salvation through Jesus Christ? 
 
 The conference opened on Monday morning, 
 September fifth, with sacred music followed by a 
 devotional period. This first session was made re¬ 
 markable by a beautiful prayer from Priest 
 Ostroumoff, who, forgetting his surroundings, 
 pleaded with God for spiritual help and for the 
 success of the conference. Sobs could be heard 
 throughout the audience, as many an over¬ 
 burdened heart came into communion with God. 
 This priest who was praying had lost his wife and 
 children in the typhus epidemic which followed the 
 refugees, and there was hardly a man there who 
 had not lost some part, or all, of his family. 
 
 Between sessions all took setting-up exercises 
 and the younger delegates played volley ball, 
 helping to demonstrate the physical side of the 
 Association program. 
 
 THE NARVA REF! 
 
 In the afternoon Mr. Frank Ritchie took the floor 
 and lectured on the Association as a community 
 force. He was listened to intensely as he ex- 
 pounded the four fundamental rights of a child. 
 Every child has a right to be well born. Every 
 child has a right to an education. Every child has 
 a right to a play life. Every child has a right to a 
 normal expression of its spiritual life. 
 
 Who can imagine the future effects of that 
 lecture as that fine group of Russians sat drinking 
 in those great basic principles, the neglect of which 
 had perhaps brought Russia to her present state. 
 Every mind there must have reverted to the 
 homeland and determined that some day these 
 principles should be realized in the great Russia of 
 the future. 
 
 In the evenings the delegates were entertained 
 with an ever-changing program of social games, 
 music, and fun, and by the aid of the movies, 
 other lands were visited. The whole program 
 served as a demonstration of the work of the 
 Association. 
 
 The two following days were filled with confer- 
 ences and lectures, such as sex education, fourfold 
 program, physical education, and health. Through- 
 
 12 
 
GEE CONFERENCE 
 
 S. ^OTT 
 
 out it all Ritchie was driving home the idea of the 
 Association, its program, spirit, and organization. 
 
 On the third day the delegates were informed 
 that the time for theory was ended and that 
 now the conference would be turned into a 
 laboratory for working out the policies of the 
 Association. A board of directors was selected and 
 the conference was divided up into sub-committees 
 on home, church, school, municipality, industries, 
 and building. All day long the committee worked 
 out policies for work in Narva City. At first it 
 looked as though the church cooperation com¬ 
 mittee, upon which sat two priests, would find it 
 impossible to cooperate with the church, as they 
 could not get their minds off the home and school, 
 and could think of decoration as the only thing 
 the church needed. 
 
 One young lady remarked that the church to the 
 Russian people was holy and they could not con¬ 
 ceive of an interchurch football contest; but the 
 priests could conceive of it and what is more, put 
 it in their policy. They did not even stop at a 
 teachers training class for Bible study. One priest 
 burst out with enthusiasm, “This is great! Let’s 
 work out our own program without referring to the 
 
 American and see what we can do ourselves.” 
 
 And so the discussion progressed. If they were 
 going to train the new generation to be four square 
 they must have room for their activities, so why 
 not build a church clubhouse for Bible classes, 
 games, socials, Boy Scout work, lectures, and of 
 course they must have a playground. Finally, led 
 by the priests, they went the full limit of the 
 American program. 
 
 The committee on cooperation with the school 
 was equally progressive and decided to organize a 
 Hi-Y Club, run Father and Son Banquets, and 
 make a community center of the school, etc. 
 
 The committee on industries certainly saw their 
 chance to save Russia from the present chaos, 
 judging by the program they mapped out. 
 
 At the board of directors’ meeting the following 
 morning the chairmen of the sub-committees made 
 their reports briefly with such dead earnestness 
 that the chairman found it hard to realize that it 
 was a drama instead of real life. 
 
 The chairman on cooperation with the municip¬ 
 ality got himself into hot water by recommending 
 that the city should rebuild the fortress and make 
 it more presentable. The representative of the 
 International Red Cross took good-humored of¬ 
 fence at this, claiming that the fortress had 
 proved its usefulness in taking care of thousands 
 of prisoners, even if it did not measure up to 
 certain standards of beauty. Mr. Wright promptly 
 saved the situation by showing that it was a 
 little too much to expect one lonely Red Cross cow 
 to eat up all the weeds in time for the conference. 
 
 I have never seen a more effective means of 
 educating a body of men. After the lecture there 
 had been many who did not grasp the way the 
 Association reached out into the community 
 through its system of volunteer committees, 
 touching many phases of life and stimulating new 
 life and energy. However, after the men had sat 
 in these committees themselves and mapped out 
 the policies of their own Association, the whole 
 idea became much clearer. The result was an 
 enthusiasm far surpassing anything that could 
 have been created by mere lecturing. After such 
 an experience the social message of Christianity 
 began to have real meaning. 
 
 The open forum at the end of the annual meeting 
 of the board was attended with great interest and 
 questions came rapidly. Could the Russians 
 organize a temporary Association at Narva? 
 When was the Association going into Russia? 
 Would the Association continue to stand by the 
 Russians in the days of their exile? 
 
 (Continued on page 23) 
 
 13 
 
Europe and the Young Men’s Christian Association 
 
 ('Continued from page 11) 
 
 people have passed through and to feel their ideals 
 and aspirations; then instead of a vague and in¬ 
 tangible country there looms up before you a great 
 struggling nation. 
 
 It was back in 1795 that Poland lost her identity 
 as a country and was divided between Germany, 
 Austria, and Russia. Just before the Great War 
 this division still existed. The Poles were not 
 allowed to speak their own language and yet 
 through these many years they have retained their 
 native tongue, because it has been persistently 
 taught by the mothers to the children. 
 
 Besides this geographic division, “Poland has 
 within itself five distinct classes: the peasant class, 
 who are individualists and loyal Catholics; the 
 laboring class, who are socialists and have a strong 
 tendency toward Communism; however, Polish 
 Socialism is generally national, not international. 
 The business men, who are again divided, as 
 merchants and manufacturers. The merchants are 
 almost always Jews, the manufacturers generally 
 Germans. The nobility, who are the landowners 
 and come from the old Polish stock, conservative, 
 and generally Catholic. The intellectuals, chiefly 
 occupied with literature, art, and politics.” 
 
 When the war broke out, divided Poland was 
 lined up against itself. It was not uncommon for 
 one member of the family who had been living in 
 Russian Poland to fight another member living in 
 German Poland. Since the war their country has 
 been reestablished. The Poles are idealists and 
 their sufferings and suppression of past years have 
 set them on fire with a new zeal for making of 
 themselves a great nation. 
 
 In this country with all of its background of 
 history and with its future in the making, I spent 
 a month. One of the most heart-breaking trips 
 during that time was out to the Russian border to 
 visit the refugees’ camp in Baranowicze. Formerly 
 this was a prisoner-of-war camp, but it has now 
 been practically disbanded for this purpose and 
 today there are crowding in over the border 
 thousands of Poles who are returning from Russia. 
 When I visited this particular center there were 
 about 20,000 refugees in the camp. They were 
 being cared for in wooden barracks, in old military 
 horse stables, in huts of pine boughs, and some 
 lived without any shelter at all. You could see 
 them in small groups clustered about little fires 
 
 which they had built from stolen wood. This great 
 mass of humanity was crowded into an area less 
 than a mile square. 
 
 Refugees were coming from Russia at the rate 
 of about two thousand a day. There were about 
 six thousand mothers in the camp, about seven 
 thousand boys and girls under seventeen years of 
 age, and three thousand unmarried men. About 
 seven or eight deaths were occurring daily and 
 about four or five births. These people were 
 living in Poland when the Great War broke out 
 and now they are returning. A magnificent piece 
 of cooperative work was being carried on for these 
 people by the Red Cross, the American Relief 
 Administration, and the Y. M. C. A. The first 
 two organizations were providing clothing and 
 food and medical help, the Association the 
 recreational, moral, and health-building program. 
 
 The Association program that has been con¬ 
 ducted for the enlisted men has so captured the 
 imagination of the Polish people that they are 
 asking for this work in their great cities. My 
 special mission to Poland was to help establish 
 the civilian work. This made it necessary for 
 me to visit Warsaw, which is now the capi¬ 
 tal; Lodz, the great industrial city, which is the 
 headquarters of the textile industry of Poland; 
 Krakow, the great educational center; and 
 Przemysl, which became so well know n during the 
 war because of the w T ay the Austrians held out 
 against the long attack of the Russians. 
 
 In all of these centers conferences were held 
 with newly appointed boards of directors and 
 representative groups of citizens, in addition to 
 special public gatherings for the presentation and 
 discussion of Association work. These groups 
 were eager for Association ideals and methods. 
 
 One gets some idea of how the leaders of Poland 
 are rallying to the Association program when at 
 Krakow such men as the following attended a 
 conference to think through the application of our 
 American methods to Poland: 
 
 General Stanislaw Szeptucki, count and dis¬ 
 tinguished soldier. 
 
 General Alexander Osinski, commander of the 
 district. 
 
 General Zdsislaw Kostecki, commander of the 
 garrison. 
 
 14 
 

 Dr. Rolle, first alderman of Krakow, member of 
 National Council of Y. M. C. A’s. 
 
 Dr. Nomidlowski, chief of the health department 
 of the district. 
 
 Professor Nowak, Ph. D., president of the Univ¬ 
 ersity, who acted as master of ceremonies. 
 
 Professor Estreicher, former president of the 
 University; member of National Council of Y. M. 
 C. A.’s. 
 
 Professor Heinrich, professor of psychology in 
 the University. 
 
 Professor Chrzanowski, professor of literature in 
 the University. 
 
 Professor Piltz, head of largest nerve clinic and 
 hospital in the city. 
 
 Professor Rubczynski, professor of ethics in the 
 University. 
 
 Dr. Wessely, member of City Council, expert in 
 social charities. 
 
 Dr. Aminowicz, City Councillor, associate of Dr. 
 Wessely. 
 
 Professor Hoborski, principal of Academy of 
 Mines, professor of mathamatics at the University. 
 
 Major Broniewski, active officer in the Army. 
 
 Professor St. Kot, professor of education in the 
 University. 
 
 Dr. Krokiewicz, professor in one of city high 
 schools. 
 
 Professor Gorka, head of department in city 
 technical school. 
 
 Stanislaw Ostrowski, City Councillor, govern¬ 
 ment expert on all matters of vocational guidance. 
 
 Count Puslawski, captain in cavalry, interpreter 
 for Dr. Mott and other Y. M. C. A. speakers and 
 who acted as my interpreter. 
 
 Profesor Jakubiec, professor of high school, 
 chairman of commission for new studies curric¬ 
 ulum. 
 
 Lt. Lubaczewski, head of educational work in 
 the garrison. 
 
 These names illustrate the type of men the 
 Association is enlisting and the influence it has with 
 the governmental officials and other leaders. 
 
 The attitude of the leaders of Poland and the 
 opportunities of the Association are summed up by 
 one of the leading Polish educators: “We are re¬ 
 building our nation. Our homes, our educational 
 system, our economic and social life, are in the 
 making. You come not to Americanize Poland 
 but to bring to us the great Christian principles of 
 the American Young Men’s Christian Association. 
 
 You give us of its leadership, methods, technique, 
 so that we may for ourselves incorporate these 
 into the life of our nation and work out a Polish 
 Y. M. C. A., which will do for our young men what 
 the American Association has done for the young 
 men of America. We welcome you. Our doors are 
 wide open.” Such an opportunity places upon our 
 American movement the very greatest responsi¬ 
 bility. 
 
 A similiar opportunity is confronting the Associ¬ 
 ation in Czechoslovakia, that new little republic 
 situated in the very heart of Europe. Eighteen of 
 its cities are establishing the Association for work 
 among the civilians. The Association is destined 
 to play a large part in the life of this new nation. 
 It is a country that plays with your imagination, 
 develops your strategy, and lures you on with its 
 possibilities. 
 
 Another similiar illustration was in Bulgaria 
 when the Association secretaries of that country 
 met' in Sofia to discuss modern Association 
 methods. The keenness on the part of the young 
 men of this countrv for American methods and 
 
 nJ 
 
 ideals was constantly manifested by persistent 
 appeals for a physical program and leadership in 
 their athletics. It took concrete form when a 
 passionate appeal was made for leadership, at one 
 of the sessions, and later when three hundred men, 
 representing the three thousand members of the 
 athletic club of Sofia, assembled with a band at 
 the railroad station, to thank the representative of 
 the Association movement for the contribution 
 that was made at the conference and to formally 
 request that leadership be made possible to direct 
 their athletics and to safeguard the standards and 
 ideals in athletics that they were ambitious to 
 retain. A similiar demonstration was repeated 
 later in the day when the Senior Secretary of 
 Europe and his associates left the city. These are 
 simply illustrative of the way these countries are 
 reaching out and seeking cooperation of the 
 American Y. M. C. A. at a time when they are 
 readjusting themselves to new conditions and 
 reestablishing national foundations. Similiar 
 graphic pictures could be painted of many of the 
 other nations. 
 
 The World War has created a condition in 
 Europe which has brought to the Association one 
 of its greatest opportunities. May we keep con¬ 
 stantly before us the world vision and increasingly 
 become world citizens in order that those things 
 that we have begun in stricken Europe may be 
 greatly strengthened and expanded in the days 
 that are ahead. 
 
 15 
 

 The Greater Community Idea of the Cleveland Association 
 
 ROBERT E. LEWIS 
 
 General Secretary, Young Men’s Christian Association, Cleveland, Ohio 
 
 In order to emphasize 
 the community nature 
 of the Cleveland Young 
 Men’s Christian Asso¬ 
 ciation we will elimin¬ 
 ate in this statement 
 those activities, ser¬ 
 vices, and lines of pat¬ 
 ronage which are usually 
 relied upon in making 
 up statistical tables or 
 telling what the Y. M. 
 C. A. is. In other words, we will not discuss the 
 great family of 25,420 members of the Association, 
 nor the hundreds of clubs, societies, teams, and 
 classes to which they belong, within the four 
 walls of the Association buildings. We will make 
 no reference to the 1,060 weekly meetings and 
 class sessions which take place within these build¬ 
 ings. 
 
 But the Cleveland Association has a relationship 
 to the Greater Community which may be measured 
 in an entirely different way. The double-page map 
 of Cleveland which appears on the following pages 
 makes record only of the activities exterior to the 
 building. Each radial point is a branch head¬ 
 quarters. There are fourteen branches in all, but 
 the cartographer reached the limit of his science 
 when he attempted to put on the map symbols to 
 indicate the organized relations radiating from 
 headquarters. There were twenty-eight symbols 
 to be added which could not be placed at all upon 
 the map. Furthermore, around the General 
 Headquarters there should also be placed symbols 
 to indicate the Central Branch, the Downtown 
 Boys’ Branch, and the Educational Branch, but 
 these are entirely eliminated from the map and 
 their activities are joined in the corona which 
 radiates from the General Headquarters. 
 
 The Cleveland Association maintains organized 
 relations to forty-six public institutes, nineteen 
 playgrounds, seventy-five industrial establish¬ 
 ments, seventy-six neighborhood groups, 163 
 school groups, 175 church groups, and groups in 
 forty-seven miscellaneous organizations. The 
 grand total of groups and societies to which in its 
 Greater Community work the Cleveland Associa¬ 
 tion maintains organized relations is 601. 
 
 A study of the small diagram upon the map will 
 give a pictorial view of this summary. Wherever 
 you note a “C” on the map it stands for church, 
 “S” for school, “N” for neighborhood groups, “P” 
 for public institutions, “I” for industries, “PG” 
 for playgrounds, “00” for other organizations, a 
 triangle a branch with building, a circle a branch 
 without a building. 
 
 The Association’s Internal Organization May Be 
 
 Briefly Described as Follows : 
 
 There is a General Headquarters and fourteen 
 branches; of these six are of the distinctively 
 community type and are primarily for boys. Of 
 these six community boys’ branches one operates a 
 Y. M. C. A. building and five operate from an 
 office headquarters only. The non-equipment 
 branches are all new; not one of them is more than 
 two years old, but the map will show what an 
 extended service relationship is maintained by 
 these new branches in the districts known as 
 Lakewood, Brooklyn, Northeast, East Cleveland, 
 and Downtown Boys’. 
 
 In addition to playgrounds in the city, the 
 Association conducts a Camp in the country and 
 three all-day Camps, known as Ys-in-the-Woods, 
 immediately to the west, the south, and the east 
 of Cleveland. 
 
 Membership privileges are not required for the 
 use of the Ys-in-the-Woods. These recreation 
 spots are always under supervision during the long, 
 hot-weather season. Any boy is welcome. All of 
 them have swimming and recreational facilities. 
 
 The community branches of the Cleveland 
 Association have two forms of membership; 
 Service members who take a Declaration of 
 Purpose and Activities members. But membership 
 for the most part is through clubs and groups 
 rather than as individuals. Membership dues of 
 clubs and groups are graded from ten cents to 
 fifty cents per month. 
 
 Every symbol upon the map represents an or¬ 
 ganized group. No group appears upon the map 
 unless the Association has had at least three con¬ 
 tinuous contacts with the group and in many cases 
 the contacts continue over the whole season. For 
 example, the Association has organized the winter 
 sport of basketball for seventy-five or more 
 churches; one of the playing requirements being 
 
17 
 
 gWflo*ivr< BR/mci 
 
that every player must produce a church certificate 
 showing that he is in attendance upon the Bible 
 school, otherwise he becomes ineligible. This has 
 meant an immense stimulus of church attendance 
 of youngsters between sixteen and nineteen years 
 of age. These are the years when boys usually 
 try to escape from the Bible school. 
 
 The Association’s community work has over¬ 
 flowed into thirteen public school buildings which 
 have been loaned by the authorities to the Associa¬ 
 tion for evening classes. 
 
 The Greater Community industrial contacts are 
 vital. A new type of industrial relationship has 
 been worked out in Cleveland during the past 
 three or four years. This Association does not 
 specialize upon gymnastics and mass singing for 
 industrial workers, but has been concentrating its 
 attention upon industrial problems, the organiza¬ 
 tion of industrial relationships; in fact all the 
 questions involved in the zone of disagreement. 
 Its representatives have been in contact, in many 
 cases vital and continuous contact, with labor 
 unions, employers’ groups, factory bosses, indiv¬ 
 idual plants, unions; at least seventy-five such 
 industrial groups have been in contact with the 
 Association on the principle of attempting to find 
 out what is right; what the Golden Rule practi¬ 
 cally applied would mean to the solving of indus¬ 
 trial problems. 
 
 One of the prolific efforts for good on the part of 
 the Cleveland Association lies in the fact that it is 
 a training center for young secretaries. Eighty- 
 seven men are now 7 in the Association secretaryship 
 who have been training in Cleveland; seventeen 
 are in China, eleven are in the Russian service; in 
 fact they have been appointed to positions of 
 greatest responsibility in the world field. 
 
 Another unusual community service not indi¬ 
 cated at all upon the map is the Association’s 
 relation to the Cleveland Community Fund. Men 
 trained in its service are prominent in this organi¬ 
 zation, which is supported by over 200,000 sub¬ 
 
 scribers in Cleveland, and which raises from three 
 to four millions of dollars each year for the main¬ 
 tenance of the private charitable institutions; to 
 provide Cleveland’s portion of national support of 
 accredited societies, and also to meet Cleveland’s 
 quota of European and foreign relief. The 
 president of the Community Chest, the chairman 
 of the Campaign Committee, the secretary of the 
 Publicity Division of the Sixty Best Sellers 
 section, the chairman of the Assignment Com¬ 
 mittee, many of the active captains and team 
 members, call upon the Association to provide one 
 hundred and more of its active w T orkers for leader¬ 
 ship in connection with the Community Chest. 
 This leadership is not for a few days, but in many 
 cases extends over weeks and months of time. 
 
 No more resourceful work is represented on the 
 Greater Community map than that of the Hi-Y 
 Clubs. These are organized in eighteen high 
 schools. The organization meets weekly. It is 
 made up of the ablest boys in each school who are 
 willing to stand for clean sport, clean speech, and 
 clean habits and the Christian life. The Hi-Y 
 Clubs bring together in each school the leading 
 scholars, athletes, and out-standing boys, and are 
 by all means the most influential club in each 
 school. As the Hi-Y clubs are composed only of 
 junior and senior boys, sophomore clubs are organ¬ 
 ized in the high schools and in the eighth grade of 
 the grammar schools as “Red Triangle” clubs. 
 
 Amongst the city-wide community campaigns 
 must be named the swimming campaign for 
 grammar-school boys, who are sent in relays to the 
 Association branches to be taught swimming. 
 
 Even more significant is the “Find Yourself” 
 campaign, in which three hundred laymen in one 
 week’s time will interview several thousand high- 
 school boys in regard to their vocational choices. 
 The influence of such a concerted effort is very 
 great. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking and certainly the most 
 recent development in the Greater Community 
 
 Oscar J. Fox Capt. C. E. Frye W. J. Buttriss John W. Rupp L. T. Goodman E. V. Rasmussen 
 
 Lakewood Br. Cedar Ave. Br. Brooklyn Br. Northeast Br. , Downtown Br. East Cleveland Br. 
 
 l8 
 
work of the Cleveland Association is in the opening 
 of the Cedar Avenue Boys’ Branch building, which 
 is operating on the community basis for both 
 colored and white boys. It is located on the edge 
 of the best colored district and on the edge of the 
 best old residence district of Cleveland. Over 
 1,100 boys, a little over half of them colored, 
 with many Jewish and Catholic boys, throng this 
 community center. One floor of the building is for 
 youth and men over eighteen years of age and is 
 equally popular. This appears to be the first 
 serious effort to do work for both the colored and 
 the white race of adolescent ages in the same 
 branch. It is extremely popular with the colored 
 people, who find in it no race line, no symbol of 
 “Jim Crowism.” The staff is both white and 
 colored, the managing committee and the member¬ 
 ship are of both races. It is a boys’ work and 
 nothing but the most fortunate experiences have 
 so far attended its inauguration. Membership is 
 by groups and clubs, rather than as individuals. 
 The activities have already overflowed in the 
 public school buildings. 
 
 The Greater Community work of the Young 
 Men’s Christian Association will sometime become 
 its primary w T ork. 
 
 Where Associations do not have buildings the 
 community service may be carried on with equal 
 
 facility. In fact, many secretaries feel it is a 
 handicap to be responsible for the operation of a 
 Y. M. C. A. building. These convictions are so 
 strong upon us that the Downtown Boys’ Branch 
 has voluntarily surrendered its club rooms in the 
 Central Men’s building. It retains only an office 
 from which it operates throughout the community, 
 using assigned hours in the men’s gymnasium and 
 swimming pool and auditorium, just as it does 
 assigned periods in school buildings. 
 
 We do not advocate the elimination of buildings, 
 but we do advocate the elimination of the present 
 emphasis, which is an emphasis upon institutional 
 service and the selling of privileges. Christ’s 
 principle that an individual who saves his life 
 shall lose it, is applicable to institutions. If the 
 Young Men’s Christian Association really en¬ 
 deavors to lose itself in the community it will find 
 itself. The term “extension work” does not in any 
 way describe what we mean. It is an entire 
 misnomer for the Greater Community service. In 
 the training of secretaries, in the conduct of 
 summer schools, in the administration of Associa¬ 
 tion Colleges, in planting Associations in cities, the 
 Association should be made to cooperate with the 
 fundamental agencies rather than to set itself up 
 as a new fundamental agency of its own. Buildings 
 should be used as service centers. 
 
 THE COMMUNITY POINT OF VIEW 
 
 There has been an insistent demand for a special institute this summer for secretaries 
 who are related to Associations operating on the Community basis. Because of this demand 
 steps are being taken to hold such an institute at Lake Geneva probably the last ten days 
 of July. The following committee has been appointed: 
 
 Dr. J. B. Modesitt, Milwaukee, Chairman ; R. V. Boggess, Milwaukee; K. A. Shumaker, 
 Chicago; A. F. Holmer, Minneapolis; O. J. Fox, Cleveland; E. F. Denison, International 
 Committee, Chicago; Dr. A. W. Slaten, Chicago Association College; E. W. Brandenburg, 
 Chicago; J. A. Wilson, Massillon, Ohio; J. A. Urice, International Committee, New York; 
 Wm. P. Harms, Detroit; L. E. Buell, Detroit. 
 
 The rapid development of the Community idea in America, as well as its recent intro¬ 
 duction in other nations of the world, makes it imperative that we avail ourselves of every 
 opportunity to exchange methods and program and do constructive thinking as to phil¬ 
 osophy and technique, under the very best leadership. 
 
 The Committee is planning an institute that should meet a long-felt need. The exact 
 date of the institute, names of faculty members, and the nature of the courses will be an¬ 
 nounced shortly. All communications should be addressed to Dr. J. B. Modesitt of 
 Milwaukee. 
 
 19 
 
A Suggestive Method of Developing an Intelligent, 
 
 Working Membership 
 
 ( 
 
 The question of lifting membership out of the realm of the purchase of privileges has 
 for some time been under serious discussion. Various methods have been tried out which 
 would magnify service in connection with membership, thus making membership a group 
 of men and boys standing for the ideals of the Association and united in a common task 
 of service in the community. 
 
 The following steps to membership are the result of group thinking on the part of a 
 number of Association men, both in America and Europe, and they are presented here 
 as a possible basis for membership to further stimulate thinking along the lines of member¬ 
 ship divorced from the selling of privileges. 
 
 1. Membership application to be filled out by 
 applicant. 
 
 2. Personal interview with prospective mem¬ 
 bers, by a member of the Membership 
 Committee or Secretary. 
 
 Points to be covered in interview with 'prospective 
 member: 
 
 a. Check over with him the application 
 blank in order that he may fully understand 
 the opportunities for self-development and 
 service that he receives on becoming a 
 member of the Association. 
 
 b. Give applicant some idea of the world¬ 
 wide organization as well as the national, 
 state, and local aspects of it. 
 
 c. Share fully with him the ideals and 
 program of the local Association for the 
 betterment of the boys and young men of the 
 community. 
 
 d. The “Declaration of Purpose” (see page 
 21), which applicant will sign when formally 
 received into membership, should be ex¬ 
 plained. 
 
 e. Make clear what is involved in such a 
 program in the way of voluntary service and 
 financial responsibility on his part in order 
 to make effective the local, state, national, 
 and world-wide work. 
 
 f. Give him a financial pledge card on which 
 to indicate a voluntary gift. This card 
 should not be filled out at the time, but 
 should be taken home and thought over, 
 filled in, and brought to the Association 
 later. If a schoolboy, he should be expected 
 to earn his gift rather than to secure it from 
 his parents or others. Membership should 
 not be dependent upon the gift. 
 
 3. After the interview, applicant’s name should 
 be submitted to the Membership Committee 
 for investigation. The Membership Com¬ 
 mittee should then present the name to be 
 voted upon at the next regular meeting 6f 
 the members. 
 
 4. All members to be received should be noti¬ 
 fied to be present at a stated time at one of 
 the regular meetings of the members of the 
 Association. A short talk might be given 
 on such topics as: 
 
 a. Personal responsibilities of members. 
 
 b. Privilege of responsibilities. 
 
 Membership cards might be presented by the 
 president. The new member should then 
 sign, in the presence of the group, the 
 Declaration of Purpose on the back of the 
 Membership Card. 
 
 5. Every member, with his Membership Card 
 should receive a small pamphlet containing 
 the following information: 
 
 a. Declaration of Purpose and Comments. 
 
 b. Facts re the local Association work, 
 its objectives, etc. 
 
 c. Facts re the state and national work. 
 
 d. Facts re the world program. 
 
 e. Financial statement re the local, state, 
 national, and world program. 
 
 f. The constitution and by-laws of the 
 local Association. 
 
 g. Information about privileges and cost 
 of same. 
 
 20 
 
Suggestive Comments on Declaration of Purpose, 
 for Members’ Pamphlet, explaining 5-a. 
 
 1. “In My Inward Life” —You have declared 
 your leadership springs from a genuine inner char¬ 
 acter; certainly this movement needs that kind of 
 leadership. No other is trustworthy or enduring. 
 
 2. “In My Outward Life” —You hereby declare 
 that your leadership will be a part of and supported 
 by a consistent outward life that will make you 
 trusted by men and boys. This, too, will enable 
 the Association leaders to feel safe in putting into 
 your hands increasingly greater responsibilities 
 in your community. 
 
 3. “In Cooperative Efforts” —You have here 
 declared that your leadership will be so broad, 
 generous, and considerate as to enable you to 
 work together for the common good with other 
 people whose hopes and aims are like yours and 
 yet whose expressions and methods may be 
 different. 
 
 4. “To Make Effective” —You have declared 
 that your leadership will be based upon practical 
 
 circumstances and not upon some fine-spun theory, 
 thus your work will become a reality in the 
 Association program. 
 
 5. “In the Life of the Community” — You 
 declared that your leadership, like that of our 
 great Leader and Master, takes into account 
 every element in the field of our effort. It is 
 therefore for the whole community. Your leader¬ 
 ship then because of its genuineness, its generosity 
 and sanity, will be taken into the very life of the 
 men and boys of your towns. 
 
 C. “Standard of Character” —You have de¬ 
 clared that your leadership ever recognizes one 
 standard of character and that by this standard 
 you will form and reform your policy and model 
 your leadership. 
 
 7. “In the Life and Teachings of Christ”— 
 You have declared that your leadership shall find 
 strength and growth not only by exercise and ser¬ 
 vice, but also in company with and under the 
 guidance of the Life and Teachings of our Leader, 
 Jesus, as they appear in the great record we call 
 the New Testament. 
 
 MEMBERSHIP CARD 
 
 YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 
 
 President Secretary 
 
 No. 
 
 (THIS TICKET IS NOT TRANSFERABLE TO ANOTHER PERSON.) 
 
 DECLARATION OF PURPOSE: 
 
 I hereby declare that as a Member of the 
 Young Men’s Christian Association I will 
 seek in my inward life and outward conduct, and 
 through cooperative efforts with others, to make 
 effective in the life of the community the stand¬ 
 ards of character set forth in the life and teach¬ 
 ings of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Signature 
 
 (MEMBERS OVER 18 YEARS ENTITLED TO VOTE AND HOLD OFFICE.) 
 
 A suggestion for front and back of Membership Card 
 
 21 
 
This picture shows some of the equipment used and some of the participants 
 Upper Left —i of the 14 Boys’ Football teams. Upper Right — 1 of the 36 Men’s Athletic Teams. Upper Center — 5 
 schools in which activities were conducted by various community organizations. Lower Upper —7 Cooperating 
 Churches. Above Center — 5 Factories in which a full Industrial Program has been successfully promoted. Right 
 of Center — C. C. T. P. Council. Left of Center —Employed Boys’ Cabinet. Directly Below Center —7 pictures—- 
 Home groups and Stunt days. Left —Community Gym. Right —Swimming pool located in a church. Right 
 of Swimming Pool —Public Library whose assembly rooms are used for meetings. Lower Left —Junior Hi-Y 
 Cabinet. Lower Right —Senior Hi-Y Cabinet. 
 
 22 
 
The Narva Refugee Conference 
 
 (Continued from page 13) 
 
 After the forum, in conversing with many 
 Russians, I came to see clearly that the Association 
 secretaries were actually being accepted by the 
 Russians as their leaders, because of the true 
 value they had to give them and not because 
 of the position the Russians found them¬ 
 selves in. 
 
 My friend, the priest, took me aside and began 
 to speak about the Holy Spirit. “We Russians are 
 dry. There was a time when we burned also, but 
 now the fire of the Holy Spirit is not in us. It is in 
 you Americans, you speak fire, your eyes burn 
 when you speak. We are grateful to you brothers 
 from across the ocean: we will not fail you, the 
 fire is beginning to burn also in us.” 
 
 That night at the banquet, Father Ostroumoff 
 delivered a fine speech ending in an appeal to his 
 fellow Russians to put into practice the lessons of 
 the past few days, that the drama they had just 
 enacted might not become, because of their in¬ 
 activity, a tragedy in real life. The priest forgot 
 
 himself completely in his earnest appeal for a 
 higher life. 
 
 Then Ritchie took the floor and in dead silence 
 began his speech on Leadership for a changing 
 world. The acoustics of the room were perfect 
 and the interpreter, Miss Shidlovsky, a daughter 
 of the former Vice President of the Russian 
 Duma, worked as in a trance. No better setting 
 could have been desired and Ritchie used every 
 bit of his opportunity as he drove home point 
 after point, until the climax, when he showed 
 them the morning sun of a new day coming up 
 over the mountain peak of their present mis¬ 
 fortune. 
 
 Almost everyone of over a hundred delegates 
 went away a new man, went back to live among his 
 fellow refugees determined to lift them to higher 
 levels: By the next day the news had reached 
 Dorpat and in the homes of the refugees all over 
 Estonia the conference became the main topic of 
 conversation. It was a superb conference with a 
 superb climax. 
 
 The Russian Fort Where the Narva Conference Was Held 
 
 23