Okay, today we’re going to talk about money and I’m going to try out my analogy. I’m still working on the analogy, so if you can think of something more appropriate, please let me know because I’m probably going to need to deploy it quite a few times.
Today’s document is a letter from Henry Montor to Moses Leavitt, both of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the largest Jewish aid organization in the US. The Joint participated in the UJA, the United Jewish Appeal, a massive fundraising campaign. In 1944, their fundraising goal was $32,000,000, as you can see by Montor’s stationery. (People really had the best stationery back then.)
Montor’s letter to Leavitt expresses his concern about the financing of the War Refugee Board. The Joint learned that the Board was not going to be receiving a large amount of government money. Instead, they had $1,000,000 from the President’s Emergency Fund, but were going to rely on private money for most of their projects.
Here’s the idea: The WRB has all the administrative and government power to petition other governments, work out deals, streamline the administrative stuff. Private relief agencies—like the Joint, AFSC, USC, World Jewish Congress—have representatives and projects and money. The WRB was supposed to help ensure their projects would be successful.
If the Board wanted a massive amount of government money to pay for projects—say they wanted $50,000,000–they would have to go to Congress for an appropriation. This could take a while–UNRRA had been waiting for months for their appropriation at this point. Since the WRB was an emergency agency, they needed to work quickly, so they decided to start using private money with the idea. If their efforts were successful, they could get a quick appropriation from Congress later on.
Many historians have criticized the WRB for being underfunded. But they’re not really underfunded. For administrative costs, $1,000,000 is more than enough—they actually return some if it. Pehle claims that no project is unsuccessful due to lack of funding (and he’s right, I haven’t found one yet). It puts off the Joint a bit—when they realize that they are going to need to use their own money—but the WRB was simply not designed to have a massive budget or work as an agency that funds projects.
So here’s the analogy. Being upset that the WRB didn’t have a larger budget is like being upset that your car is not also a boat. It might be convenient if your car was also a boat, but it was not designed for such things. You can’t criticize your car, because it drives perfectly well, just because it’s not also a boat.
It’s not a good analogy. But do you see what I’m saying?
