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Show AMERICAN RELIEF WORKERS I ARE FORMALLY WITHDRAWN I "ROM FIELD IN BELGIUM I Greatest Work of Charity in AO History to Be II Placed in Hands of Joint Neutral Commis- I cJon Under Supervision of Dufoli Military Officials. I I WASHINGTON, March 24 Amen , can relief workers in Belgium and; American Minister Brand Whitlock j have been formally withdrawn from Belgium. Official announcement to' this effect was made at the state department de-partment this morninc The American relief commissioners : will be replaced as far as possible by, members of a joint neutral commission I largely under the supervision of Dutch! , military officials. Brand Whitlock will 1 'go to Havre, France, resuming his du-1 ties as minister at the temporary Bel-' I glan capital. Secretary Lansing, at the direction of President Wilson, sent a note to I the Netherlands accepting its offer to take over the work of the commission. commis-sion. Dutch to Take Over Work. The action of the president in ordering order-ing the Americans out was based on the belief that nothing was to be sained by keeping Americans longer in territory' occupied by German troops in Belgium and northern France. It is desired for humanitarian reasons that tho work of the commission be continued and the government of the Netherlands has been asked to eora-; eora-; munieate with the commission's Rot-! Rot-! terdam office to take over the work land determine how many Dutch citizens citi-zens will be needed for it. Ten Millions Kept From Starving. Arrangements for the return to (he United States of many of the Americans Ameri-cans now are being made by the state department. Although removed from the active field, Americans In Rotterdam, Rotter-dam, headed by Herbert C. Hoover, j will continue to direct what has been the greatest work of relief and charity i in history Founded, inspired and made efficient by Americans, the Belgian relief re-lief commission has kept from starvation starva-tion nine million people in Belgium and another million in northern France. The United States will henceforth be able to continue participation in the work only by financial contributions. contribu-tions. Chairman Herbert C. Hoover, on leaving New York for Europe recently, re-cently, said that America's work of supplying the moans of relief had only just begun. The withdrawal has been inevitable since the severance of diplomatic relations re-lations with Germany. Soon after that the German military authorities ordered or-dered all Americans to withdraw, with the exception of Brand Whitlock and three others who were restricted to : Brussels. The commission realized i immediately that the British would I not allow supplier to pass the blockade ! into Belgium without adequate guarantees guaran-tees and they felt that the Germans i were simply making an effort to throw the onus of discontinuing the work 1 upon the British. Drastic Action Taken. The commission immediately replied by ordering all of its men to leave Bel-gium. Bel-gium. Evidently Germany had not expected ex-pected such drastic action and the commission was asked to retract its order, with the explanation that the original German order had been given out by a subordinate without author- The men were ordered to remain, but none had the slightest hope that it would be more than temporary. About forty-five Americans in Belgium and northern France are affected b the new order. The following announcement was given out by the state department. "By direction of the president, the minister at Brussels has been instructed instruct-ed to withdraw from Belgium with foreign for-eign diplomatic and consular officers and take up his official residence at Havre. lH "After consultation with the commission com-mission for relief in Belgium. Mr I Whitlock has also been instructed to ' arrange for the departure of tre Am-: Am-: erlcan members of the commission. ; This step, the seriousness of which is fully appreciated by the government, was taken only after careful consld-eration consld-eration and full consultation with all tho interests involved. 'When diplomatic relations with Germany were broken off. the normal IH procedure would have been to with- IH draw the minister at Brussels and the lJ Americans of the relief commission. This government and the commission, jf however, felt a ln-.r y moral re.-poni- I bUity for the millions of innocent ci-vilians ci-vilians behind the German lines and it was decided that the work of the commission must be kept going, de-spite de-spite all difficulties until continued American participation became inipos "For over two years It has been the single-minded purpose of this govern-ment govern-ment and the commission to see that these ten millions of civilians were fed, and, with this end in view, the Americans concerned have submitted to restrictions placed on them by the German authorities, which, under or- dinary conditions, would never have : been tolerated. Drastic Restrictions Made. "Immediately after the break in relations re-lations the German authorities in Brus-sels Brus-sels withdrew from Mr. Whitlock the diplomatic privileges and immunities which he had up to that time enjoyed. lH "This government has approved the proposals of the Netherlands government govern-ment to send into Belgium a certain j number of Netherlands subjects to carry on work thus far performed by the American staff." jH |
