Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

IN RUSSIA 261 things were merely incidentals to the work and must be passed by here. The clothing was loaded into nine cars, sealed, locked, and convoyed to our headquarters at Alexandrowsk Nov. 29, where the clothing was put into the warehouse with about three cars still remaining from former shipments.— How a sack of stones and a piece of iron rail—which we know you did not send us for clothes—got into an off- cially sealed car with seal undisturbed; and many other things will remain a mystery. But—the American Port Chief at Odessa assured me that stealing was no worse there than at other European ports. I was made to think of the experience the writer of Proverbs must have had, to make him pray: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me; Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is Jehovah? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and use profanely the name of my God.” To be in a position to distribute the clothing as fairly as possible, the A.M.R. had to answer four questions: 1. What shall be the basic Standard? 2. Who are the most needy? 3. What is available for distribution? 4. How shall we allocate and distribute? While the clothing data were being gathered by the committees, the Alexandrowsk office spent many hours in making plans for a fair distribution of what had been sent. The first question was, ‘“What does a man need?” That was to be the Standard. It was arrived at thus: The man who has two suits of underwear, two pairs of sox, two shirts, a suit of clothes, a pair of shoes or boots, a hat or cap, an overcoat, and a pair of mittens or gloves, has enough so that he normally can keep clean and warm. In other words, he does not belong to the ‘‘most needy.” By giving each article needed by a man an 262 FEEDING THE HUNGRY arbitrary value in “Units” instead of dollars or rubles, the articles enumerated above amounted to 80 Units. Eighty Units was thus fixed as the Standard for those over 15 years old. Similarly 60 Units for those from § to 15; and 40 Units for those under 5 years old. The unit values in the ‘Unit List” ran from 1 for three handkerchiefs to 35 for a fur overcoat. The Unit List contained no fewer than 114 items, including soap, scissors, combs, knitting needles, shoe-soles, cotton batting, brushes, buttons, needles, etc. I happen to have a report which states among other things that at O lot was cast for 2 needles and for a few buttons. The lot method was employed in some villages in the distribution of a small shipment of clothes made earlier, but caused much complaint, hence the need of a uniform plan. Of course the Standard and the Unit lists were not made known until after all of the lists from villages were in the A.M.R. office; nor was the plan of distribution divulged, so as not to tempt any one to make false entries. Tue Most NEEDY Did you ever make a complete list of every piece of wearing apparel you ha