CIIAS. GODFREY LELAND, Chairman, REV. WM. 11. FURNESS, [
WILLIAM V. McKEAN, FRANCIS WELLS,
PROF. lIENRY COI’PFE, R. MEADE BACIIE,
GEORGE 11. BOKER,
CRAIG BIDDLE,
THE FAIE MOVEMENT IN THE LOYAL
STATES.
milE history of the great enterprises so
successfully conducted in various parts of
the country, and popularly called “ Sanitary
Fairs,” forms one of the most curious, in
structive, and characteristic chapters of
American life. Schemes for raising money
by the voluntary contributions of the people,
for the relief of those who have suffered on
the battle-field, have not been uncommon in
other countries and in former wars. The
great unfailing, popular instincts of patriot
ism and humanity have often been success
fully appealed to. Thus, in modern times,
in the early days of the French Revolution,
during the excitement of a foreign invasion,
offerings of money, the gold and silver plate
of the churches and wealthy corporations,
and the superfluous finery of the rich were
freely laid upon what was called “the altar
of the country.” In Prussia, when the great
national uprising against the French took
place, in the year 1813, personal ornaments
and jewelry in great number were gladly
offered to the Government, who gave in return
to the donors small crosses of iron of the
famous Berlin manufacture, upon which was
inscribed, “/ have iron for gold;” while in
nearly all the revolutionary movements which
convulsed the different nations of the continent
in the year 1848, almost the first thing done,
after the creation of a National Guard and a
GEORGE W. CHILDS, Chairman, THOMAS MACKELLAR, W
EDITOBIAL COMMITTEE:
GENTLEMEN.
ASA I. FISII,
CEPHAS O. CHILDS.
PHILADELPHIA, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8
Free Press, was to establish in the cathedrals
a depot, where the patriotic gifts of the people
for the relief of the defenders of the country
and their families were received with all the
pomp and ceremony of imposing religious
forms.
These displays of popular enthusiasm, how
ever, were wholly unlike the grand move
ments we have been called upon to witness
here. They were short-lived and spasmodic,
due only to the excitement of the hour, and
wholly destitute of the calm, constant, per
sistent character which has been so striking a
peculiarity of our American benevolence di
rected towards the same great object, while
they sink into utter insignificance when con
trasted with the magnificent results we have
reached here. Fairs, Bazaars, or Exhibitions
manifesting the popular sympathy for the sol
dier, have been attempted elsewhere with limi
ted success. They seem to have exhausted the
current of kind feeling directed to his relief,
and often they have been the first and only
effort made to render of practical utility the
free and voluntary offerings of those left at
home. But here the tide of benevolence rose
in the same hour in which we learned of the
attack on Fort Sumter, and has gone on, in the
progress of the war, gaining volume and force,
until it has reached such proportions as to
command attention as one of the most novel
and extraordinary features of the great strug
gle. It will, no doubt, ever flow freely until
the last battle is fought and the last soldier
PUBLISHING COMMITTEE
ladies.
MRS. ROBERT M. HOOPER, MISS SARAH F. CUYLER,
MRS. E. S. RANDOLPH, MISS ANNA M. LEA,
MRS. WILLIAM M. PHILLIPS, MISS GRACE KIERNAN. -
MRS. THOMAS P. JAMES, MISS LAURA HOOPER,
MRS. PIIEBE M. CLAPP, MISS DELIMA BLAIS.
returned to his home. Our Fairs, then, are
not due to any fresh or exciting cause, which
has temporarily aroused popular sympathy.
They must be considered only as a new mode
of developing that sympathy, a inode substitu
ted for the regular, normal, steady outflow of
feeling which has already contributed more
than fifteen millions of dollars for this special
object, through the various regularly organ
ized channels for the relief of the army.
It is worth while to trace for a moment the
progress of this wonderful scheme of benev
olence, as it has hitherto flowed in its course
towards the army. The great practical dif
ficulty which presented itself in the outset to
thoughtful men, was not to excite popular be
nevolence, but so to organize it that it should
not fail of its great object. It was in vain to
tell the people, in the first gusli of kind feel
ing towards those who had nobly given up all
to fight and suffer for their country, that the
Government, through the Medical Department,
was making extraordinary preparations for the
care and comfort of the soldier, and that they
who felt a real interest in him should seek not to
supplant his long-pursed and powerful friend,
but rather to supplement and eke out deficien
cies which have in practice always existed in
the care of every Government towards its sol
diers in active service. We have learned
many things in this war, and no lesson has
been taught more thoroughly than that if we
wish to give relief to the soldier properly and
judiciously, it must be done not by attempting