THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON June 22, 1925. Gentlemen: The reports of the observance of Inter- national Golden Rule Sunday last year in fifty countries, and its far-reaching results in the training of orphans in the Near East have been of great interest to me. This expression of brotherhood inevi- tably has a beneficial influence upon those who give as well as those who receive. As practical help is the best expression of friendship, I feel that the aid which m may give out of our prosperity to those impoverished by v/ar may be of the utmost value in the promotion of international good will. The consistent observance of Golden Rule Sunday cannot but help to bring about the application of the Golden Rule itself to the misunderstandings of nations and of individuals. I earnestly hope that the voluntary observance of this day may become increas- ingly prevalent in the homes of America and throughout the world. Very truly yours. Other Friends The observance of International Golden Rule Sunday should prove as inspiring to those who give in America as bene- ficial to those who receive overseas. JOHN W. DAVIS. You are doing a great work. I am confident that the American people will stand by until the orphan children under your care shall be prepared for self-support. CHARLES G. DAWES. By helping Near East Relief you are laying a great foundation for America's future in foreign lands. SIR ESME HOWARD, British Ambassador to the U. S. The observance of the day can hardly fail to create a more sympathetic understanding between peoples and thus help us to progress a step further toward world peace. CHARLES EVANS HUGHES. I welcome the Golden Rule Day campaign as an agency of education to make our people see their world-wide responsibilities. HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK. Its orphanage work in the cradles of Christianity is one of the finest pieces of constructive work I have ever seen. WM. CARDINAL O'CONNELL. If the American people could see what I have seen, there would be no doubt whatever about the adequate support of this great work. JOHN R. MOTT. Of all the charitable and humanitarian work abroad during and since the war, the Near East Relief is easily the leader in the quality of its personnel. They are worthy of being entrusted with our funds. FELIX WARBURG. Until the last orphan has been placed in a position of self-support, the great organized labor movement of America will continue to give its earnest assist- ance to this practical expression of the Golden Rule. FRANK MORRISON, American Federation of Labor. We have helped to save these children from death. We must give them a training essential to self-support and educate them for citizenship. MRS. JOHN D. SHERMAN, President, General Federation Women's Clubs. NOTE: The cost of this booklet is met from private funds especially contributed by friends International Golden Rule Sund^ ^ Charles V Vicl^^ THE GOLDEN RULE is a universal creed. Everybody accepts it. Most people try to practice it. Golden Rule Sunday is examination day — a day of plain living and high thinking; of self-measurement by the Golden Rule to see how big we really are. Golden Rule Sunday comes midway between the feasts of Thanksgiving and Christmas. On Thanksgiving Day we satisfy ourselves with good things. We survey our broad acres, bulging granaries, and busy factories. We re-appraise our unprecedented and soaring wealth of more than three hundred billion dollars, far transcending anything previously or elsewhere known in all the world. Not least are we thankful for government under which life and property are safe. Truly no people ever had as great reason for gratitude as have we in America on Thanksgiving Day, 1925. At Christmas we again indulge in feasting and mirth, and share some of our luxuries with relatives and friends, some of whom are sore perplexed to know where to store the gifts that we pour into their well provided homes. But on Golden Rule Sunday we express our gratitude and practice "pure religion undefiled before God" in a more vital way by consider- ing "the fatherless and widows in their afflic- tion" who, as worthy as we, by the vicissitudes of war, are bereft of everything. They have no lands, no granaries, no bank accounts, no savings, no employment, no homes, no food, except as the Golden Rule proves a vital reality in our lives. It is proposed that on Golden Rule Sunday, all persons who are disposed to make a prac- tical application of the Golden Rule, provide for their Sunday dinner approximately the same menu that is provided, when funds per- mit, by Near East Relief for the tens of thou- sands of orphaned children in its care, most of whom are under twelve years of age. Having partaken of the orphanage meal and entered into fellowship with the children overseas, we are asked to make such provision for them for the 355 days of the year as we should like to have made for ourselves, or for our children, if conditions were reversed. SWT. ■ 'i " -m, ■ . m E m. , I iTtedj ye \mt mettreJ>, freely ^iwe. , rent' 'V 7^HEY WERE STARVING, desti- tute, forsaken. Not through any fault of their own, but because the world went to war. They were a part of the war's awful legacy — father- less, motherless, without responsible relatives without country. Their fami- lies had been wiped out in the succes- sion of crushing war calamities, from which America was largely spared. But Near East Relief found them. The great Heart of America fed them, and sheltered them. Their future will be determined by the response you make to the principle of the Golden Rule. Shall they revert to conditions such as these pictures illustrate? •SIDOH rr-iHEY ARE SAVED. They are J working, learning, growing into self-support. The children whose pictures you see here are only a few of hundreds of thousands who have been saved from death by you through the Near East Relief. First you saved their lives, their souls were awakened. Then Now you are teaching them how to live. Practical training in agriculture, the trades, nursing, sanitation, domes- tic science, is showing these boys and girls the way to social and economic independence — and moral leadership in a new Near East and better world. THE 35,000 children now under the care of the Near East Relief form a bowl into which -27,825,000 meals must be poured within the year. An even larger number of additional orphans, half-orphans and desti- tute children in broken families and refugee camps should be fed. Large numbers of these will die this coming winter when the temperature descends below the zero mark if additional relief is not forthcoming. You have saved them thus far. Shall they have food in their bowl tomorrow? Measure your gift to them by the Golden Rule. npHE children who form the words of the Golden Rule in this photograph are some of the 5,000 children in the Polygon Orphanage at Alexandropol. The Director of this orphanage wrote on Golden Rule Sunday of last year: "It is warmer to night, — ■ only twenty-five degrees below zero. There is ten feet of snow on the ground, and the wolves can be heard at night. The children have no means to dry their wet feet. Under these conditions, can you imagine what it means for them to give up voluntarily, as they have Just done, nearly fifty per cent of their bread ration for use among needy children in the refugee camps?" Who are these Golden Rule Children? They are descendants of the ancient races of the Near East to whom we owe much if not most of our religion, literature and civi- lization. Many of them are orphans of martyrs of recent years. Why observe International Golden Rule Sunday? For the sake of our own souls. We cannot profess to believe in the Golden Rule and stand idly by while innocent children die. Luxurious living and self-indulgence may be as injurious to the prosperous as undernourishment and starvation are to the less 'fortunate. For the sake of our own children. It will be a most whole- some thing to have the average American child (or adult) seated for one meal during the year at a table where the accustomed luxuries or comforts are lacking, helping us to realize that most people in this world never know what it is to partake of the luxuries which we expect every day as a matter of course. For the sake of our own country. Never in the history of the world has any people been entrusted with such colossal wealth of material resources and moral power as the present generation in America. Freely we have received, freely we must share, or lose the best of that which we have received. For the sake of the orphans in the Near East. While en- deavoring to save ourselves, our children and our nation spiritually, we must also save the children in the Near East physically, else all of our religious creeds and golden rules are hollow mockery. With- out our aid they die. National Golden Rule Committee of the Near East Relief The National Golden Rule Committee has been formed to assist Near East Relief in providing funds for the orphans of the Near East until they can be brought to self-support. More than a million lives have been saved, a disproportionately large number of whom are children who are not only without fathers and mothers, but who, having been driven from their homes in Asia Minor, are now refugees without a country or government upon which they have any legal claim. They are victims of the late World War, dependent upon the Golden Rule ministry of those who were not called upon to pay so great a price in the late world conflict. Near East Relief was incorporated by Act of Congress on August 6, 1919. A full annual report is submitted to the President and Congress of the United States, copies of which will be sent to any who are interested. Its control is invested in a Board of Trustees with whom are co-operating the following: NATIONAL GOLDEN RULE COMMITTEE CLEVELAND H. DODGE, Honorary Chairman JAMES L. BARTON, Chairman Trustees Near Easi Relief JOHN H. FINLEY, Chairman Advisory Committee CHARLES V. VICKREY, Executive Chairman HONORARY VICE CHAIRMEN Dr. S. Parkes Cadman Gen. Jas. G. Harbord Gov. Frank O. Lowden Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker Mr. Felix Warburg Mrs. Leroy Springs The full membership of the Committee, including the names of representatives in every state and of numerous cooperating organizations, will be sent upon application. Will you invite one of thege children Golden Rule Sunday is primarily a day for observance in the home. It is as valuable for self- discipline and character-building in the American home as it is for child-rescue and life-saving in the Near East. The hour spent over the simple menu of the Golden Rule communal meal can A GRACE BEFORE MEALS: Thousands of orphans three times ^^^^ memorable and inspir- a day before eating chant the following grace; Thou art great and thou art good and we thank thee for this food. By thy hand must all be fed. Give us Lord our daily bread.— AMEN Actual Meals of/Ae Near East Orphan Breakfast Dinner^ Supper^ Cocoa and Bread Beans,(iiS'jfe),Bread ing, enriching the lives of adults as well as children. Realizing that American par- ents may not feel satisfied to give their children the exact and limited amount of food pro- vided for the orphans in the Near East, we are suggesting menus simple in arrangement, but suitable to the needs of Amer- ican children. Giits, Apricots, Bread. These more varied and more generous menus make even more marked the difference between the dinner as served in the orphanages and in American homes. In the latter the food is ample, the service attractive, the surroundings comfortable, whereas in the orphanages the portions are necessarily limited, the rooms bare and often cold, the tables without linen or silver. Frequently there are not even tables. To the average American the novelty of a Golden Rule dinner comes but once in the year and he has 1,094 other meals with a more abundant bill of fare. The orphan must content himself with a $2 ^5 $60 — will buy 40 meals for an orphan — will support an orphan for one month — will support an orphan for one year into your family circle? comparatively monotonous menu for 365 days in the year, never once knowing the taste of the cakes and sweets of everyday American hfe. Suggested Menus: I: Meat Stew (use the cheaper cuts) — Stewed apricots — Cocoa. II: Cocoa — Bread and Milk — Stewed prunes. Ill: Boiled rice served with Karo syrup — Cocoa — Stewed prunes. IV: Scalloped macaroni made with evaporated milk — Stewed prunes — Cocoa. The Essential is a simple, inexpensive but adequate meal affording opportunity for meditation upon the needs of others and principle of world brotherhood. The average orphanage meal costs less than five cents. At the close of the meal let the family thoughtfully decide to what extent they can participate not only on Golden Rule Sunday but throughout the year in the saving of life and training of leaders for a New Near East — fully realizing that upon their decision depends the future of some lovable but helpless child. $100 $500 cy^y Golden Rule Response I will be glad to contribute for the sup- port of the orphans of the Near East the amount per month indicated by my check mark on the margin. [J $ .. per Month G $23.00 per Month □ $15.00 per Month G $10.00 per Month □ $5.00 per Month IZl $2.00 per Month D $1.00 per Month M Mr. Miss Mrs. Street OR - I enclose as a cash gift herewith City- state- Send through local committee or mail direct to NEAR EAST RELIEF Incorporated by Act of Congress 151 Fifth Avenue, New York City ^1000 — will support, educate and give industrial training to a child for one year — trains a ten -year -old child until graduated at 16 into self support — cares for and educates a "birdie" in the Bird's Nest Orphanage until self support 1 COMPLIMENTS OF CHARLES V. VICKREY NEW YORK GENERAL SECRETARY NEAR EAST RELIEF THE UNSEEN GUEST ■j "He who gives a child a treat. Makes joy-hells ring in Heaven's Street. And he ivho gives a jchild a home Builds palaces in Kingdom Come." JOHN MASEFIELD