PHILANTHROPY: People to People

In almost three years of war, the 20 million people of South Korea have counted 1,000,000 civilian casualties, 9,000,000 displaced persons, 300,000 widows, 100,000 orphans, 500,000 homes destroyed. In Manhattan last week, a humanitarian effort got under way to enlist more private American help for Korea’s destitute civilians. Its sponsor: the newly organized American-Korean Foundation, chaired by Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, the President’s brother and head of Pennsylvania State College (see THE HEMISPHERE). Its objective: “the warm, personal assistance of people to people.” Its first fund-raising target: $5,000,000.

The foundation’s program will be a supplement to the vast, basic job of relief and reconstruction to be carried on in Korea by U.N. and the U.S. Government. For example, it will promote shelters and orphanages for homeless children (15,000 are wandering, begging and pilfering in the streets of Seoul, Pusan and other cities), more hospital beds for advanced T.B. sufferers (an estimated 2.5% of the population), institutions for widows and the aged, services for the physically handicapped (there are some 15,000 amputees), repair of schools, and other “creative, productive projects,” that will lessen Korean dependency on outside relief. The foundation plans to work through voluntary agencies already in the field, which have distributed $15.5 million worth of clothing, medical and other supplies. When present relief and reconstruction problems have been met, the foundation hopes to set up a long-range economic and cultural program in the interests of American-Korean friendship and understanding.