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Monday
morning, June 13, 1949,
in the first plenary session of the
International Convention held in New York City,
New York, the Keynote Address was given by English
actress Madeleine Carroll.
 In this picture, from
page 25 of the August 1949 issue of The Rotarian, Madeleine
Carroll is shown signing an autograph just prior to her convention talk.
Most
remember that Bob Hope worked with Dorothy Lamour, especially in the
series of “Road To” movies. Lamour was Hope’s favorite brunette actress,
but what of the other hair colors? Lucille Ball was his favorite
redhead, and Madeleine Carroll was Hope’s favorite blonde.
 Madeleine
Carroll was also known for her impassioned pleas to help the
children of the world, and that mission grew more important when the
nations of the world were plunged into World War II. One of the first
women to ever address a Rotary International Convention, her keynote was
given less than four years after the end of the War, and 38 years
before the U. S. Supreme Court decision that allowed women to join
Rotary. A copy of her address, appearing below, was taken from the 1949
Convention Proceedings.
Doug Rudman
The
World Unites For Children
By Miss Madeleine
Carroll
Distinguished Actress of
the Stage and Screen
Ladies and Gentlemen:
First I'd like to say how deeply I appreciate the honor you have done me
in asking me to speak this morning at your first plenary session. I am
told that I am to be the only woman speaker of the week, which makes my
responsibility a very heavy one.
Whatever happens I must
uphold the honor of my sex–and if I should fail in my responsibility
towards the children in whose behalf I am speaking today, I would indeed
be an unhappy woman. However, I am somehow not too afraid, for even
though this is such an enormous place, and you are so many, there is
coming from you to me such a good warm feeling of kindliness, that even
though I did not know I was among Rotarians, I think I could guess it.
And it is because you stand for kindliness and good neighborliness that
I want to speak to you; just as one speaks to good neighbors and
friends, and not as an alleged actress talking to the public.
Just for the next few
minutes I want you to forget you ever saw me in any movie and that I
ever was Bob Hope's favorite blonde–
although there's nothing
wrong with that I may say–but, now will you allow me to be very simply
the woman who, with millions of others, was involved in the rather
disconcerting business of war that went on in Europe between the years
1939 and 1945, and who stayed on to work with the unhappy child victims
of the war.
Believe it or not, I'd sooner not talk about myself, but I feel to make
things clearer I should tell you a little of some of the discoveries I
made during that troubled time, so that you will understand why I am
here today, and why I have constituted myself a "one woman Children's
Crusade."
As some of you may know,
I spent most of the war years in U. S. hospitals in Italy and France as
a Red Cross hospital worker and saw during that time the most tragic
aspect of war. For years, my daily associates were men with broken
bodies and broken minds, faces burned black in a plane that came down in
flames, trunks without legs or arms or either. But it was not until the
end of the war that I saw a sight which will be forever engraved on my
memory, and which proved to be a turning point in my life.
I was in Paris, on leave
for a few days from my hospital train, and I was invited by some French
students to go with them and help entertain soldiers in a hospital for
what the French call the Gueules Cassées–the broken faces, or
more factually those who for the most part have little or no faces left.
Nursing is not my profession, but I had seen enough during the preceding
years to know how to brace myself in such circumstances, and all went
very well as I greeted one by one the tragic patients whom we had come
to entertain. Until I came to the end of the line and met the children
with no faces. And there, only the most superhuman effort on my part
kept me from crying out in horror and shame, that this should
have been done to children. These children were the victims of civilian
bombardments. They are everywhere in Europe, and in Asia–wherever war
has passed. I have told you of them, because the eyes of a child
burning out of a shapeless mass that once was a child's face will
perhaps make you better understand the problem we are discussing
today–more than would all the statistics on malnutrition and the
incidence of tuberculosis, etc.
But how can I make you
feel the shame I felt as an adult before the accusing eyes of these
faceless children –that we in the wisdom of our superior years had not
had either the energy or the enlightenment to avoid the tragedy of war
for them. How can any one of us adults feel that we do not owe these
children and all like them who have suffered from war, a terrible debt?
This I know was in
1945–four years ago. But how are things today? Allow me to read to you
the words of a New York Times woman correspondent lately returned from
Europe:
"This is a picture of
the children of Europe four years after a war that showed them no mercy
and brought them no peace. For the past three months I have toured
countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and I have seen children
suffering, as children were never meant to suffer. On city streets, in
war orphanages, in crowded homes for mutilated children, in backward
mountain villages, in caves and pillboxes 'converted' to living
quarters, in tuberculosis sanitaria and congested general hospitals,
this is apparent: The aftermath of Hitler's genocidal war against the
youngest generation is still huge and terrifying.
"Three years after the
war, millions of children are still on hunger rations. Many hardly
remember what a hot; nourishing meal tastes like, save as a brief luxury
of UNRRA-liberation days. Many have never known what milk looks like.
Their thin, undersized bodies and pale, patient faces reflect the cruel
logic of the occupation and war years.
"For these are the
youngsters who suffered first from systematic malnutrition for at least
six years before peace came; then, after the war, took the same potluck
as their families, living where and how they could. Thus, thousands of
children, ragged and barefoot, still live in wartime bunkers, bombed-out
houses and dank cellars below the bombed buildings. Hundreds of
thousands are orphans who live in makeshift institutions, little old
wise people following a weary routine. Uncounted thousands wait in
special centers for artificial limbs, which have never come to replace
arms, hands and legs.
"Others are perhaps
worse off–the homeless and abandoned who traveled a dozen kilometers a
day to wherever they hear of food and a bed. Nor is the limping army
without its own social outcasts–the professional beggars and
child prostitutes who,
having lived by their wits during the war for self-survival, still ply
their old trades on the streets and black markets. And over them all,
threatening further their precarious existence, hangs the 'white
plague', which thrives on malnutrition and neglect–tuberculosis.
"This is the physical
picture of the children. Psychologically, the wounds go deeper for, as
Dickens has observed 'In the little world in which children have their
existence, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as
injustice.
"If the General Assembly
of the United Nations, which is to consider the problem next month, does
not realize what is happening to the children, the children themselves
do. They don't say it with words, of course. Unlike youngsters
accustomed to love and care, they have forgotten, or perhaps they never
knew, the age-old privilege of children–to ask. But their thin and
broken bodies and the rags they wear speak eloquently for them.
"The obvious needs are
food, milk, cod-liver oil, clothes, shoes–the basic necessities–but who
will supply them adequately?"
Let us reawaken and
reexamine our consciences sincerely and honestly. And I don't mean
automatically and wearily put our hands into our pockets, yet again, for
the dollar, which temporarily appeases the conscience. I am not here
today to appeal for money–but more seriously to ask you–every one of you
–what are we going to do about it?
Firstly, I'll tell you
what I did–since I did what any one of you would have done when faced
with the distress and the problems of so many unhappy children. I
decided after the war to stay on in Europe and do the little that one
individual could do–to alleviate the immediate misery around me. It was
a pretty hopeless business from the first and soon it was only too
obvious that I had to find another way to help.
I came back home to
America and was fortunate to be asked to work with the
United Nations International Children's Emergency
Fund better known as UNICEF. You know their story and how
they have helped to rescue so many of the world's children in the race
against death. The initial report was by UNRRA, which ended its
activities in June 1947. When it ceased operations, 11 million dollars
of its assets were transferred to the UNICEF.
Because of limited
resources, the present program is reduced mainly to providing special
protective foodstuffs to meet the serious cases of malnutrition in the
war-ravaged countries. A single supplementary ration is being
distributed daily to four million children in 12 countries of Europe and
to 700,000 in China. It consists of 240 calories of fats and 60 calories
of meat. This, of course, is not a sustaining diet. But it is saving
millions of lives. Limited medical aid has been made available through
the fund. With the cooperation of the World Health Organization, mass
vaccination programs are assisting governments to check the spread of
tuberculosis among the child population.
But as was the case of
UNRRA, so it is with UNICEF–it is only a drop of water in the bucket. It
has done a fine job with what limited funds it had at its disposal, but
at best it could only look after a small fraction of the world's unhappy
children and now there is reason to believe that even this help must
shortly be discontinued.
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The problem, fellow
human beings, is plumped right back into our laps. But if you will stop
to consider, just for a few minutes, some of its aspects, and the
terribly important political and social implication inherent in it, I
think you will realize that it is very much our problem, and that we
better start right in thinking about it, as such.
I want you first of all
to think of your own children. That shouldn't be too difficult! It
always delighted me, in the hospital trains, to have the same
experiences every time I'd meet another new G.I. Immediately after the
first brash introductory remarks of a rather wolfish nature, the proud
parent would emerge from the "wolf's clothing" and present me with the
rather battered snapshot of "junior."
You do a great deal for
your children. In every way that you know, you try to insure that their
bodies shall be healthy and strong, that their education be the best you
can give them, but how much do you think of the world in which they are
going to live and work? How often do you Rotarians think of the Fourth
Object of Rotary: "The advancement of international understanding, good
will and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional
men united in the ideal of service?"
This world fellowship,
for your children, is composed potentially of all the children growing
up in all the countries of the world–children growing up happily and
healthily as are your own, or else growing up as many of the German
children grew up after the last war with a sense of bitterness,
frustration and injustice which was such good ground for the growth of
fascism and communism.
Our first job is surely
to look after the physical and material needs of the child victims of
the war, irrespective of race, color or creed and in so doing, prove to
them the reality and greatness of our democratic principles.
We must win these
children to our side. They must be our children's friends. They must at
least have a chance to see the way Democracy works, because I can assure
you from bitter personal experience that the voice of the totalitarians
is not silent. Those children, if we let them grow up with a sense of
injustice, will be your children's enemies and they will form yet
another military machine to menace peace in your children's lifetime.
It is vital that we help
them therefore–we the people–and that we take the leadership in a new
and dynamic crusade. Where governments have failed, we, being more
personally involved, can win.
The press, time and time
again, has urged the public to take action. A recent editorial in the
New York Times says:
"Americans, with just a
little imagination, can surely see the challenge. But that is hardly
enough. What is needed is the impatience born of decision–articulate
demand that this challenge be met with real action. It is true that the
U.N.'s International Children's Emergency Fund is giving a measure of
help to some 4,500,000 children in Europe and in China, chiefly with
dried skim milk and some canned meat and fish. But seven times that
number in Europe alone are in immediate critical need of supplemental
feeding, and the question is, must they suffer and sicken because
governments have fallen down on their contributions to the Children's
Fund? It is not enough to point out that the American government has
given more than other governments, as indeed it has. For the
contribution is still woefully small compared with the need. Nor is it
enough to sit idly by and condemn leading South American countries for
ignoring their obligations and contributing not a penny while supporting
the Children's Fund in principle, as, indeed, they must be condemned.
Rather, it is for Americans who do care about children to show their
concern by getting actively into this fight against disease and
malnutrition, which finally are a threat to their own children.
"On December 11, 1946,
the General Assembly of the United Nations, in creating the Children's
Fund, expressed 'the earnest hope that governments, voluntary agencies
and private individuals will give the Fund their generous support.'
"Because of the failure
of the national campaign to support the United Nations Appeal for
Children, which was an appeal to individuals, private Americans have not
had a true opportunity to express themselves. But surely it is not too
late for the American people to demand that they be allowed to serve the
cause with honor."
If, as it seems, UNICEF
is to fold up, something must take its place and immediately–unless, of
course, you and I can sleep happily in our beds at night when millions
of children are allowed to suffer and die.
The conscience of the
world is not sleeping, fortunately! In England there has been organized
the World Community Chest for Children, which works through existing
organizations in all countries, forming a committee with representatives
of these organizations and interested individuals within each country.
It works in close contact with UNICEF, UNESCO, the Red Cross and other
international associations. This committee is composed of volunteers,
they have a head office in London with six paid secretaries and that is
the extent of their overhead. You see, it does not need a large
bureaucracy and heavy overhead to make a thing like this work. It needs
enthusiasm and a burning belief in a cause, all of which I know exists
here, if only we have the energy to harness it and put it to work.
I know, from my own very
small experience, that since I proposed a resolution to the U. S.
Committee of the UNICEF that there be constituted an International
Children's Day, there has come to me from people in many countries, the
most heartening encouragement! People all over the world, like you and
me, want to do something for the children and it seems to me that if we
could reach out to each other, and join hands, we would constitute such
a force that the problem before us today would very soon cease being a
problem.
I am only one woman, and
will be remembered probably only because I loved children and tried to
find a way to help them. I would not presume to tell as important and
powerful an organization as you are what you should do.
I can only make a few
humble suggestions. You are powerful and you are many, you can really
help the children of the world.
I know that your
organization has a very special interest in youth.
I know, for instance
that just before the outbreak of war, you were considering chartering a
ship, which would affect regular exchanges of young people between
Europe and The States.
Even then, certain among
you had realized that, with our boundaries and frontiers shrinking every
day, if we are to survive this era we must learn to think of ourselves
as part of a world family.
Rotarians, use all the
good influence you have in your community to persuade the educational
authorities, the Parent-Teacher Associations and all such organizations
to redouble their efforts in the teaching of better international
understanding and good will. There is, I have discovered quite recently,
a tendency in the high schools, for instance, to cut down on the
teaching of foreign languages. An official of the New York Board of
Regents recently announced: "We should give more job training and less
importance to liberal arts in the secondary schools."
My younger sister
learned how to be a very excellent typist but was killed at her
typewriter by a direct hit from a German bomb in London's 1941 Blitz.
It seems to me that had the generation previous to hers been more
interested in encouraging good neighborliness between countries, there
is a chance my sister might be alive today.
I am emphasizing all
this because I have a very strong feeling about this new generation of
children growing up today. I see in them not at all the generation of
bobby-soxers, which preceded them. On the contrary, I am amazed at their
seriousness and their readiness to learn more and more about the world
they are to live in. It is our duty to do all in our power to see that
this knowledge is made available to them so that they may still further
be conditioned to the responsibilities that lie ahead.
Let us give them yet
more responsibility and a greater participation, especially in any plans
for a new Children's Crusade. I believe that they can succeed where we
adults have so miserably failed.
 As
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (far left) said, when speaking to the
International Student Assembly in 1942: "Before the first World War,
very few people in any country believed that youth had the right to
speak for itself, as a group or to participate in councils of state.
"We have learned much
since then. We know that wisdom does not come necessarily with years;
that old men may be foolish, and young men may be wise. But in every war
it is the younger generation which bears the burden of combat and
inherits all the ills that war leaves in its wake."
It was because I believe
so strongly in the youth of today that I would like to suggest and even
urge the inauguration of an International Children's Day as a sort of
spearhead to a new and challenging campaign: one which should have
color, drama and new meaning.
On such a day, children
all over the world would unite in a common aim: to help the less
fortunate ones among themselves. You, ladies and gentlemen of Rotary,
can bring this small idea of mine back to your communities and nurse it
into growth, you can start an international understanding of children by
encouraging your own children to understand and help children of their
own age in their own towns, less fortunate, of different classes, of
different racial strain or religious beliefs. And I believe the example
of their sincerity and earnestness would prove salutary to those of us
whose consciences have become dulled.
Someone must help
the children. Are we going to leave this job to the Fascists so that
they may organize yet another black, green or brown shirted horde; or to
the Communists; or shall we, before it is too late, grasp at those
extended hands all over the world, and give them the opportunity of
seeing how "Democracy goes to work to save the children?"
photo/speech research
Wolfgang Ziegler
Doug Rudman
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