WELFARE: Red Feather

Amid the din of election, some 1,600 American communities spread across the 48 states did not forget another autumn campaign: the annual Red Feather drive for charity. Two million volunteers, under the national leadership of Community

Chests and Councils of America, Inc., are ringing doorbells, drumming up donations. The Red Feather campaigners expect to raise $250 million for 1952, bettering last year’s mark by $10 million.

The Community Chest collections are a typical voluntary American enterprise. Denver began them in 1887, when ten charitable agencies united for one efficient fund-raising and fund-sharing drive. New Orleans in 1928 added the red feather as the symbol of united giving (“a feather in your cap”). Today, the millions contributed to well-organized community chests are distributed among some 17,000 services. Among them: Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Visiting Nurses, Salvation Army, settlement houses, neighborhood centers, etc. Since the Korean war, one of the Red Feather agencies is the United Defense Fund, which includes such servicemen’s agencies as the U.S.O.

Each in its own way, the 1,600 American communities are carrying on the charitable work:

CHICAGO, led by Pullman Co. President Carroll R. Harding, aimed for $9,870,000. The campaign was run with railroad lingo: “section bosses” for soliciting from large firms, trades & industries, general business; “Red Feather Specials” won “Golden Lantern” awards for best time toward “Quotaville.”

OMAHA, NEB. (goal: $1,194,262) keyed its appeal to last April’s flood. At all downtown street crossings appeared sandbag piles and posters proclaiming that “the dikes against despair” and the dangers of “disease, dependency, delinquency and desertion” need sandbags too.

GREAT FALLS, MONT, (goal: $100,000) mounted a big red plywood rooster on the marquee of a department store. Each $20,000 raised supplied the bird with one feather for its tail.

SPRINGFIELD, MASS, went all out to raise $1,198,750, the largest sum it ever collected in a voluntary drive. Six thousand volunteers went from door to door, decorated store windows, took part in rallies for shops and factories.

GAINESVILLE, GA., which numbers 11,936 people, fixed itself a quota of $34,528. On its streets last week, practically every electric power and telephone pole bore Red Feather placards and the slogan “Give.” Over the two local radio stations, at 30-minute intervals, sounded one loud knock, then seven more knocks, and finally a voice saying, “You’d rather have your door knocked once than seven times, wouldn’t you? Give to the Community Chest!” (The knocks referred to the seven local agencies for which funds were being sought.)

DALLAS, TEXAS (goal: $1,926,666) tied in its highly successful and dignified appeal with the community churches.

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA (goal: $234,684), which has had united charities campaigns since 1914, went about the 1952 drive with seasoned team spirit. Schoolchildren competed in an essay contest. Topic: “My Favorite Red Feather Agency.”