Organizing the Relief

Mayor Mason's proclamation of October 13 entrusting the administration of relief to the Relief and Aid Society, followed by the Society's General Plan of Work

I have deemed it best for the interest of the city to turn over to the CHICAGO RELIEF AND AID SOCIETY all contributions for the suffering people of this city. This Society is an incorporated and old established organization, having possessed for many years the entire confidence of our community, and is familiar with the work to be done. The regular force of this Society is inadequate to this immense work, but they will rapidly enlarge and extend the same by adding prominent citizens to the respective committees, and I call upon all citizens to aid this organization in every possible way.

I also confer upon them a continuance of the same power heretofore exercised by the Citizens' Committee, namely, the power to impress teams and labor, and procure quarters, so far as may be necessary, for the transportation and distribution of contributions, and care of the sick and disabled. General Sheridan desires this arrangement, and has promised to cooperate with the Association. It will be seen from the plan of the work that is detailed below, that every precaution has been taken in regard to the disposition of contributions.

R.B. MASON, Mayor

GENERAL PLAN OF WORK
Of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society

COMMITTEE No. 1. On receiving, storing and sorting supplies, and dealing out upon requisitions from other Committees. Murry Nelson, Chairman, aided by Gen. Hardee.

No. 2. Committee on Shelter, to provide tents and barracks. T.M. Avery, Chairman.

No. 3. Committee on Employment, to provide labor for able-bodied applicants. Chairman, N.K. Fairbank.

No. 4. Committee on Transportation, to provide passes for persons, and freight accommodations for supplies. Chairman, Chas. G. Hammond.

No. 5. Committee on Reception and Correspondence, to receive visitors and answer all dispatches and letters. Chairman, Wirt Dexter.

No. 6. Committee on Distribution of Food, Clothing, and Fuel. O. C. Gibbs, Superintendent of Relief and Aid Society, Chairman.

No. 7. Committee on Sick, Sanitary and Hospital Measures. Dr. H. A. Johnson, Chairman.

No. 8. Executive Committee, consisting of R.B. Mason, the Mayor, and the City Comptroller, the President and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society, together with the chairman of each of the foregoing committees, shall constitute an Auditing Committee, and have control of all contributions. No bills to be paid unless upon checks or drafts signed by the President or Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Relief and Aid Society, countersigned by R. B. Mason, Mayor.

The chairman of each committee will fill up from citizens who shall tender their services, his own committee, making it as large as the magnitude of the work may require, and be responsible for its doings.

The clergymen of the city are requested to organize an Associate Board of Directors to that of the Relief and Aid Society, and through an executive committee of their own appointment, communicate with our committees.

We recommend the formation of local societies by citizens, and request them through their officers to communicate with the chairmen of the foregoing committees on all matters falling under the respective work of said committees.

The work of distribution as now proceeding will go until our committees are supplied with force to relieve the present workers; but we request all persons engaged in the work to stop hasty distributions, and give applications as much examination as possible, to the end that we may not waste the generous aid pouring in, as the work of relief is not for a week, or a month, but for the whole of the coming winter, and to a great extent for even a longer period.

The business offices of all the committees except the Executive Committee and Committees of Reception Correspondence and Transportation, will be at 409 West Washington street, just west of Elizabeth. No relief will be administered at these offices, they being solely for the transaction of Committee business.

Applications for passes on Railroads will be acted upon at one or more places to be designated by the Chairman of that Committee.

The office of the Executive Committee and Committee on Reception and Correspondence, and the general business of the Committee on Transportation will be at Standard Hall, corner Thirteenth Street and Michigan Avenue. Home contributions of money will be receipted for at Standard Hall.

HENRY W. KING, President.
WIRT DEXTER, Chairman Executive Committee Chicago Relief and Aid Society

Circular of October 24 regarding the distribution of supplies

No. 409 West Washington Street.
CHICAGO, October 24, 1871.

To all Superintendents, Assistants, and Visitors in the service of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society:

To us is intrusted the responsibility of the distribution of supplies of food, fuel, and clothing to the needy of our city. With generous donations pouring in on every hand, and with multitudes of sufferers of all classes presenting their claims, in the first hurry and excitement, every tendency will be towards a generous and liberal distribution of supplies; but remember that there are from six to eight months before us in which we will have to fight hunger, cold, and nakedness from the dwellings of our poor.

I am fully justified in saying, that taking into account the amount of relief funds and stores received or reported to date, and those likely to be received hereafter, without the most rigid economy in their disbursement, mid-winter is likely to find us with our treasury bare, with out-door labor, to a large extent, necessarily suspended, and with a city full of poor, looking to us for food and fuel.

You will, therefore, see the pressing necessity that not a single dollar be expended for persons able to provide for themselves, no matter how strongly their claims may be urged by themselves or others. Every carpenter or mason can now earn from three to four dollars per day, every laborer two dollars, every half-grown boy one dollar, every woman capable of doing household work from two to three dollars per week and her board, either in the city or country. Clerks, and persons unaccustomed to out-door labor, if they cannot find such employment as they have been accustomed to, must take such as is offered or leave the city. Any man, single woman, or boy, able to work, and unemployed at this time, is so from choice and not from necessity. You will, therefore, at once commence the work of reexamination of the cases of all persons who have been visited and recorded upon your books, and will give no aid to any families who are capable of earning their own support, if fully employed (except it be to supply some needed articles of clothing, bedding, or furniture which their earnings will not enable them to procure, and at the same time meet their ordinary expenses of food and fuel).

No aid should be rendered to persons possessed of property, either personal or real, from which they might, by reasonable exertions, procure the means to supply their wants, nor to those who have friends able to relieve them.

Our aid must be held sacred for the aged, infirm, widows and orphans, and to supply to families those actual necessaries of life, which, with the best exertions on their part, they are unable to procure by their labor. You will intrust this work of reexamination to your most judicious and intelligent visitors, who will act conscientiously and fearlessly in the discharge of their duties.

This circular is issued with the full approval of the Executive Committee, and any failure on the part of any employee of the Society to conform to the instructions above given will be regarded as sufficient cause for his instant dismissal.

O. C. GIBBS,
Gen'l Sup't of Distribution of Supplies

Approved by the Executive Committee

WIRT DEXTER, Chairman

Another circular on the distribution of supplies

No. 409 West Washington Street.
CHICAGO, October 24, 1871

To all Superintendents, Assistants, and Visitors in the Service of Chicago Relief and Aid Society:

In the distribution of supplies, give uncooked instead of cooked food, to all families provided with stoves--flour instead of bread, etc.

The Shelter Committee furnish all families for whom they provide houses and barracks, with stove, bedstead, and mattress, and no issue of those articles to such families will be necessary on your part.

Superintendents of Districts and Sub-districts will so keep an account of their disbursements as to give a correct report to me at the end of each week, the number of families aided during the week, and the amount, in gross, of supplies distributed.

Superintendents will also ascertain and report, as early as possible, the amount of furniture, number of stoves, amount of common crockery, etc., which will be needed in their respective districts.

Superintendents will also organize their working-force as early as possible, retaining upon their force those who have proved themselves the most efficient and capable in the discharge of their duties, reducing the number of paid employees to the smallest number consistent with the efficient performance of the work of their districts.

No person in the employ of the Society will be allowed to receive for his own use any supplies of any kind whatever, except it be through the ordinary channels of relief, and recorded on the books of the office in which he is employed.

In all cases of applicants moving into your district from another, you will before giving any relief, ascertain, by inquiry at the office of the district from which they came, if they had been aided in that district, and to what extent.

In the issue of supplies you will discriminate according to the health and condition of the family, furnishing to the aged, infirm, and delicate supplies not ordinarily furnished to those in robust health.

The following has been adopted by the Society as the standard daily ration for a family of five persons; you will vary from the amount according to the income of the family from labor or other sources:

Bacon or Pork . . . . . 2 pounds.
or Beef . . . . . . . . 3 pounds.

Beans . . . . . . . . 1 pint.
Potatoes . . . . . . 2 quarts.
Bread . . . . . . 3 pounds.

Or Flour . . . . . . 2 pounds.
Tea . . . . . . 1 ounce.

Or Coffee . . . . . 2 1/2 ounces.
Sugar . . . . . . . 4 ounces.
Rice . . . . . . . 4 ounces.
Soap . . . . . . . 4 ounces.
Soft Coal . . . . . . . 3/4 ton per month.

The Department of Sick and Hospitals have adopted the system of Districts and Sub-districts, established by this department, and appointed a medical officer for each district. Visitors will report all cases coming to their knowledge, requiring medical attendance, and the person in charge of each office will have such reports at all times in readiness for the medical officer of the district when he calls. All possible aid must be given the medical officer of the district, and he is to be allowed free access to the office and books of the Society at all times.

The bread now being furnished is contracted for by the pound. You will be furnished with platform scales, and required to weigh and receipt for all bread delivered to you.

Superintendents and Visitors in those districts in which the Shelter Committee have furnished houses to men who were burned out, will inquire carefully into the condition and circumstances of all persons who have been furnished houses by the Shelter Committee, and report to Mr. Avery, Chairman, all cases in which parties have obtained lumber or building material by fraudulent representations.

O. C. GIBBS,
General Superintendent

Notice from the Committee on Special Relief clarifying its policies

CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, Corner of Wabash Avenue and Hubbard Court

TO PASTORS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATIONS:

To correct any misapprehensions that may exist respecting the Department of Special Relief, the Committee having such relief in charge desire to call attention to the following facts:

1. It is not designed that this department shall supersede, supplement, or in anywise interfere with the relief work of the general Society. It is meant exclusively to provide for those peculiar and delicate cases which it is not possible to meet satisfactorily in the ordinary way.

2. All pastors of churches of whatever name, and all accredited representatives of relief organizations of every form, are persons duly authorized to indorse applications, and their indorsement will in all cases be satisfactory guaranty of the worthiness of the applicant. But the Committee particular request, as a means of greatly facilitating their arduous work, that all applications, so far as possible, be made through these channels. And they further urge that pastors of churches appoint visitors, whose duty it shall be to investigate the cases of those who apply, and to search out such needy and deserving persons as from motives of delicacy will not be likely to make their wants known.

3. All applications should be made in writing, and should state specifically the place of residence before and since the fire, the nature and extent of the losses suffered, and the particular articles or form of aid desired. Ministers and others can have blanks to keep on hand for this purpose by applying to the Committee.

4. The headquarters of the Committee, and their Depot of Supplies, are at the Church of the Messiah, corner Wabash Avenue and Hubbard Court, where all applications, when duly indorsed, should be presented. So far as may be possible, these will be responded to at once, so that parties may take their supplies with them. In all other cases the articles will be delivered at the place named by the applicant.

To avoid misapprehension as to the powers of the Committee, it is desirable to state that no application for money to build up any form of business destroyed by the fire can be entertained, and that, as a general rule, relief by payment of money is only extended in a few exceptional cases.

E. C. LARNED, Chairman
LAIRD COLLIER, Secretary

Notice from the General Superintendent to his staff on examining the worthiness of applicants for food

Headquarters Chicago Relief and Aid Society
409 West Washington Street

Friday, October 27, 1871

To the Superintendents and Visitors of the Chicago Relief and Aid Society:

There are several thousand men and boys working this week whose families we are feeding, who will be paid for their work on Saturday night, sufficient to meet all the wants of the family for food next week. Be sure that every such family is known in your District, and reported at the office, so that no more supplies be given to it. Our supplies are going at a fearful rate. If any men, boys or women are not working, apply St. Paul's Rule: If any man among you will not work, neither let him eat.

O.C. Gibbs
General Superintendent