EMERGENCY RELIEF IN GREAT DISASTERS 87 



that private citizens shall undertake to do what is essential, 

 whether from choice or not. 



This leads to my final suggestion, which is that in the 

 presence of even a serious disaster leaders of public opinion 

 should attempt to preserve in the public mind a due sense of 

 proportion. Even in the presence of urgent need at a distance, 

 the continuing and probabty equally imperative needs at hand 

 should not be forgotten. 



It is not surprising, in view of the frightful loss of life at 

 Martinique and its proximity to our oa\ti shores, that the New 

 York committee should have received some eighty thousand 

 dollars more than they could disburse, in spite of an announce- 

 ment by the committee that it would not take additional con- 

 tributions. This was in part due to the fact that the eruption 

 occurred in foreign territory, and that public appropriations 

 were made both by the United States and France. 



I would not be understood as discountenancing large and 

 immediate responses to such appeals. By no means all that 

 is given to meet special emergencies is deducted from ordinaiy 

 charitable resources. There should, however, be cultivated a 

 sane and reasonable examination of the probable need; and 

 the citizen who gives, even with great liberahty, should not on 

 that account consider himself free from the obligation to con- 

 sider also the needs of his immediate neighbor. The city, even 

 in prosperous times, through its quick industrial changes and 

 by the very conditions of life which it imposes, places upon 

 some weak shoulders burdens which are not rightfully theirs, 

 and which it is the duty — and it is an agreeable duty — of their 

 neighbors to share. 



