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Show TWOS DEFENDED GEORGE W. PERKINS TELLS OF THE ASSOCIATION'S GREAT RECORD IN EUROPE. FAILURES REALLY WERE FEW Troubles Caused by Canteen ChargeB Were Due Mainly to Difficulties of Transportation Organization Did Its Besand Never Shirked. New 'York, May 7. W$a1 the Y. M. 0. A. accomplished in Europe, ihu difficulties it encountered and the reasons rea-sons why it has been subjected to criticism crit-icism are ruade clear In the report of George W. Perkins, chairman of the finance committee Of the organization's organiza-tion's war work council, which was given to the public today. First explaining the difficulty of securing se-curing efficient workers and the care exercised in the selection of the 11,229 persons who were sent abroad, Mr. Perkins says : "Much has been said about the inefficiency in-efficiency of some of these workers, and, without doubt, a number of them were hi efficient. In any form of organization or-ganization in civilian life, whether it be public schools, chain stores or corporations, cor-porations, if 00 per cent of those originally employed make good, the result is regarded as highly satisfactory. satisfac-tory. If 10 per cent of the 11,229 people operating In France for the Sr. m. c. a. were inefficient It would mean that there were 1,122 men and women who were more oi less of a failure. I do not believe that anything any-thing like this number of people were unsuccessful; but if under the close scrutiny which the soldiers give these welfare workers even 5 per cent of l hem were failures, it would have put a large amount of criticism in circulation, circula-tion, and the work of the 9." per cent who were successful would be forgotten forgot-ten in the publicity given to the 5 per cent who were unsuccessful. "Thnt the workers as a whole were brave and unselfish Is shown by the fact that 14 Y. M. C. A. secretaries were killed and 120 others were wounded." Why Canteen Prices Varied. The report relates the troubles and expenses met by the Y. M. C. A. after t undertook the management of the irmy canteens at the request of Gen-sral Gen-sral Pershing and the confused conditions condi-tions that made it Impossible to arrive it: an average cost price of the goods sold to the soldiers. It continues: . "The Y. M. C. A. never solicited money for the purpose of giving away Its canteen supplies. If the Y. M. C. A. had given away canteen supplies In France on the scale of its sales, it would have spent In this activity alone it least as much money as its entire expenditures in France for all its activities! ac-tivities! The constant policy of Y. M. C. A. wns to sell canteen supplies sup-plies at as nearly cost as possihle, and to bend every effort, when fighting was In progress, to furnish the men at the front wiUi supplies free of charge where It was at all possible to get the poods to them. "Rome have criticized the Y. M. C. A. for not giving away more articles, such as cigarettes, chocolate, etc. Its policy has been not to give away generally, gen-erally, but only in special and needy cases. From June, 1918, to April, 1919, the Y. M. C. A. bundled in France afone upward of 2,000,000,000 pack-hges pack-hges of cigarettes. 32,000,000 liars of chocolate, 18,000,000 cans of smoking tobacco-, 50,000,000 cigars, 00,000,000 cans of .jam, 29,000,000 packages of ' chewing gum, and 10,000,000 packages of candy. These are only a few of the Items handled, hut the size of these figures should convince anyone that It would he financially impossible for the Y. M. C. A. to give its supplies away generally. Furthermore, the army does not favor any such policy. It thinks that it is far better for the men to spend their money on such articles ns these than to spend it in other ways. For the most part the men hold the same view." Its Varied Activities. In considerable detail Mr. Perkins relates the varied and extraordinarily extensive activities of the Y. M. C. A. abroad, including the manufacture of much of its supplies, the establishment of many hundreds of huts, with athletics, ath-letics, moving pictures and various other forms of entertainment ; the management of sight-seeing tours for soldiers on leave; the immense work of the educational and religious departments de-partments and the distribution of reading read-ing matter. In conclusion Mr. Perkins says : "The Y. M. C. A. undoubtedly made mistakes, but what it tried to do was to respond to every call that the army made on It. It never hesitated to tackle any job It was asked to undertake; under-take; it did not sidestep any task it was asked to pei'form. It took the position po-sition that it as in .Europe to do all it could, as best it could." |
