Beyond Relief: A Sketch of the Near East Relief's Humanitarian Operations, 1918-1929 - draft accepted for publication Mondes 2014

Beyond Relief: A Sketch of the Near East Relief’s

Humanitarian Operations, 1918-1929

Davide RodognoGraduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Genève

Résumé

Des aides et davantage. Une esquisse des opé-

rations humanitaires de la fondation Near East

Relief, 1918-1929

Cet article traite de l’idéologie et des pratiques d’uneorganisation humanitaire américaine, le Near EastRelief–organisme à but non lucratif basé aux États-Unis, œuvrant avec les communautés démunies enAfrique et au Moyen-Orient –, dont l’histoire a éténégligée. Il propose une approche critique des rai-sons pour lesquelles l’organisation conjuguait desopérations de secours et des programmes de réha-bilitation plus ambitieux–et moins performants. Ilanalyse la genèse de la création de la Near EastFoundation, fondation américaine à visée philan-thropique encore en activité aujourd’hui.

Mots-clés : Near Easter Relief/Near EastFoundation–Humanitarisme–Aide et réhabilitation–

Entre-deux-guerres–Fondations philanthropiquesaméricaines.

Abstract

This article examines the ideology and practices of

an American humanitarian organization, the Near

East Relief, whose history has been overlooked. It

critically explores the reasons why the organization

combined relief operations with more ambitious–and

less successful–rehabilitation programs. It analyses

thegenesis of the creationof theNearEast Foundation,

an American philanthropic foundation that still exists

today.

Keywords: Near Easter Relief/Near East

Foundation–Humanitarianism–Relief and

Rehabilitation–Interwar Period–American

Philanthropic Foundations.

rticle on linerticle on line monde(s), n° 1, Non spécifié 2014, p. 1-20

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Davide Rodogno

The official1 records of Near East Relief (NER)claim that from 1918 to 1929, when the

organization was rechristened the Near EastFoundation (NEF), it spent over US$116 mil-lion to save more than a million lives, mainlywomen and children.2 Its rehabilitation pro-grams enabled over 130,000 children to be hou-sed, fed, and clothed, with the majority givena practical education that would allow them toearn a living.So far–althoughwith some notableexceptions3–the history of NER/NEF has beenoverlooked. In termsofmoneyspent, inacompa-rison with European-based organizations suchas the International Committee of the Red Crossor the League of Nations, NER is certainly remar-kable. The claim that so many lives were saveddeserves scrutiny, as do the size, duration, and

1 I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers, Rona JohnstonGordon, Jaclyn Granick, Julia Irwin, Liat Kozma, BrandenLittle, Alessandro Monsutti, and the students of the gra-duate seminar I co-taught with Sandrine Kott for theircomments.

2 Among contemporary and mostly hagiographic writingsare James L. Barton, Story of NER. An Interpretation

(1915-1930) (New York: MacMillan, 1930); Mabel Elliott,Beginning Again at Ararat (New York: Fleming H. Revell,1924). See also the memoires of a NER relief worker, StanleyKerr, The Lions of Marash: Personal Experiences with

American NER, 1919-1922 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1973);Merrill D. Peterson, “Starving Armenians”: America and the

Armenian Genocide, 1915-1930 and After (Charlottesville:University of Virginia Press, 2004), p. 51-88.

3 Such exceptions are Dzovinar Kevonian, Réfugiés et

diplomatie humanitaire : les acteurs européens et la

scène proche-orientale pendant l’entre-deux-guerres,

Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004 ; Robert LeslieDaniel, “From Relief to Technical Assistance in the NearEast, A Case Study: Near East Relief and Near EastFoundation” (PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1953).

scopeof NERoperations,whichmake this organi-zation an American humanitarian actor as rele-vant as the American Red Cross or the AmericanRelief Administration.

NER defined itself as an American humanitarianorganization. In 1924, Charles Vernon Vickrey,the organization’s General Secretary, recorded,

“Near East Relief is a humanitarian organization.It has saved, and we trust, will continue to savemany lives.We are not content, however, with thesaving of lives, if by so doing we merely prolongthe physical existence of a certain number ofhuman beings; we want not only to save life butto make life, bigger life, better life, for a betterday of peace and international good will that isto be. It is believed that most of our workersoverseas are dominated by this ideal of unselfishservice of their fellowmen and the vision of abetter world”.4

Paraphrasing Didier Fassin’s expression “huma-nitarian government”, I argue that NER establi-shed procedures and took action in an attemptto manage, regulate, and support the existenceof human beings.5 I am intrigued by the rea-sons that brought NER workers to play God inthe Near East and believe they could engineerentire societies through the education of a tinygroup of orphans belonging to an uprooted reli-gious Christian minority surviving in foreign

4 Rockefeller Archives Centre (hereafter: RAC), NER, box 129,Annual Report to Congress, 1923 (New York, 1924), p. 35.

5 Didier Fassin, Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the

Present (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 2012), p. 1-2.

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Beyond Relief: A Sketch of the Near East Relief’s Humanitarian Operations, 1918-1929

countries (i.e., Soviet Armenia, Greece, or Syria),for whom there was no chance of returning totheir native country (i.e., Turkey). The discre-pancy between, on the one hand, the reality ofeachorphan’sexperienceand,ontheotherhand,his or her contribution to world peace or theindustrial development of the Near East is sub-stantial. Rather than becoming ambassadors ofgood will, as NER propaganda claimed, the mostfortunate of these orphans became housewives,peasants, shoemakers, or plumbers.

In this article, I first sketch the broader context,international and domestic, in which thisAmerican organization operated. Secondly,I briefly overview NER activities in the early1920s and put forward my analysis of why, inthe mid-1920s, NER moved from temporaryemergency relief to “constructive communityservice”, as the organization’s director, JamesBarton, termed it.6My intention is layered. First,I wish to show that this ambiguous and highlycontradictory–ism, i.e., humanitarianism, thatscholars gladly but lazily tend to homogenize,should be more carefully historicized.7 NER’s

6 American Board Commission of Foreign Mission (ABCFM)Archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University (hereafter A-ABCFM), Barton Papers, (hereafter B.P.), box n◦ 13, JamesBarton, Near East Projects, undated (1929 or early 1930s).“Service” and “Administration” are terms that deserve to beexamined more thoroughly and connected to the historyof Western humanitarianism.

7 Michael Barnett, Empire of Humanity. A History of

Humanitarianism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,2011). For more critical and adequately contextualizedworks, see Antonio Donini, “The Far Side: The MetaFunctions of Humanitarianism in a Globalised World”,

interpretation of humanitarianism was specific,and we must be wary of generalizations or ofhastily assimilating it to other “big” Americanorganizations such as the American Red Cross.Secondly, I explore narratives –self-fulfillingprophecies, perhaps–of rescuer/rescued andsaved/savior and the ways they were imagined,designed and, sometimes, put into practice.

Thirdly, I turn my attention to NER’s interes-ted motives in looking after orphans, setting uporphanages, andprovidingpost-orphanagecare.I use the adjective interested deliberately, forNER’s humanitarian actionswere eminently poli-tical, ideological, and eschatological. The placefor fairy tales of angelical purity, of symmetricaland aseptic neutrality, is with the organization’spropaganda and ex post facto hagiographicalaccounts. NER history is one of paternalism andcolonial stances. It is a history of encounters indistant landscapes, of secularmissionsand faith-based missionaries in holy land(s). The articleseeks to contextualize the ingrained arroganceof a number of individuals and the organizationthey worked for, avoiding an over-simplifieddichotomous analysis of NER as either impe-rialist or humanitarian.8

Disasters, vol. 34, Issue Supplement (2010), p. S220-S237;Axelle Brodiez, Bruno Dumons, « Éditorial : Faire l’histoirede l’humanitaire », Le Mouvement social, n◦ 227, 2009/2,p. 3-8.

8 Barbara Reeves-Ellington, Domestic Frontiers. Gender,

Reform and American Interventions in the Ottoman Balkans

and the Near East (Amherst and Boston: University ofMassachusetts Press, 2013), p. 5.

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I offer a critical history that is one of many plau-sible perspectives on this institution. It wouldbe possible to write a bottom-up history fromthe point of view of the saved and the drow-ned (as in Primo Levi’s novel I Sommersi e ISalvati).9 Access to local sources would cer-tainly allow me to offer a more substantialanalysis of refugees and orphans’ agency(-ies).NER archives contain powerful narratives andgreat silences: the drowned have no place inNER files. Certainly, NER relief workers refer-red to the massacres, killings, and deportationsthey witnessed. Because of (or, even, thanksto) the drowned, NER men and women savedothers. Rather than explore these great silences,I attempt to disentangle the powerful narra-tives of how NER relieved and rehabilitated theindividuals it saved.

American backdrops

NERwas an American organization; it emergedfrom a specific American context. Its humanita-rian practices were the result of multiple hybri-dizations. For instance, NER adopted subscrip-tion methods and advertising techniques, inclu-ding photographs and cinema, used by faith-based associations. At home it relied upon a

9 Rebecca Jinks, “Near East Relief and the Rescueof ‘Absorbed’ Armenian Women, 1915-21”, Research

Reports from the Rockefeller Archive Center (SleepyHollow, NY: Rockefeller Foundation, 2013); KeithWatenpaugh, “‘Are There Any Children for Sale?’:Genocide and the Transfer of Armenian Children (1915-1922)”, Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12 (2013), p. 283-295.

small army of volunteers, a capillary systemthat reached local businesses and intellectualand religious networks, aswas typical of secularAmerican associations. Like many other organi-zations, American andEuropean alike,NER coun-ted on a formidable network of well-connectedpublic figures, pundits, entrepreneurs, religiousleaders, and decision makers. NER’s ideologi-cal and practical roots can be found in variousProgressive era experiences, such as educatio-nal programs implemented in the Southernstates by Tuskegee Institute, in Alabama, or byits mother institution, the Hampton Institute, inVirginia. A further example: NER sources revealthe extensive role played byThomas Jesse Jones,the author of Essentials of Civilization: A Study inSocial Values. Jonesworked for the Phelps-StokeFund andwas involved in educational programsfor Amerindians and African Americans and inBritish West African colonies.10

The Rockefeller and Phelps-Stokes foundationssupported the argument that education shouldhave practical applications in the lives of blackstudents, who should learn to accept a socio-economic structure in which black people occu-pied the lowest places. Similarly, NER wouldembrace the idea of practical education forchildren in the Near East. Amongst the factorsthat enabled NER’s assimilation of Near Easternpopulations to black Americans of the Southwere that Near Eastern economies were mainly

10 Donald Johnson, “W.E.B. DuBois, Thomas Jesse Jonesand the Struggle for Social Education, 1900-1930”, The

Journal of Negro History, vol. 85 (2000/3), p. 71-95.

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rural, that local populationswere poor and livedin unhealthy conditions, and that a long warhad profoundly disrupted existing communi-ties. Like these foundations, NER also sought tocontribute to a peace based on social harmonyand enhanced economic conditions by meansof a reformed (but not revolutionized) socio-economic order. The local context for NER activi-ties was certainly different from the AmericanSouth, but nonetheless,NER saw theNear East asan under-developed region to which American“modernity” could be brought. These parallelsexplainwhy in themid-1920sNER leadersespou-sed the Rockefeller Foundation’s modus ope-randi. And in the late 1920s, when the economiccrisis heavily affected the resources at the dispo-sal of NER, its leaders saw technical assistanceà la Rockefeller as the most suitable way ofguaranteeing the survival of the institution. NERbecame a foundation, the Near East Foundation,which still exists today, but unlike its rolemodel,it lacked the funds of a very wealthy donor.

Like the American Red Cross and the AmericanRelief Administration, NER entertained veryclose relationships with the US government.11

The organization needed the support of the USgovernment and federal agencies at home andof US diplomats on the ground. While NER wasnot an extension of American foreign policy, itdid need US governmental assistance and coope-ration to operate in foreign territories.

11 Julia Irwin, Making the World Safe: The American Red

Cross and a Nation’s Humanitarian Awakening (New York:Oxford University Press, 2013).

Last but not least, NER embodied the coexis-tence of religious and secular interests and theeventual transition from a religious Americanmissionarism–mainlydrivenbyProtestants andtemperance reformers–to a more secular senseof mission. NERwas an extension of the work ofmissionaries and moral reform groups whoseaspiration was to create a more Christian andmoralworld.12 Itwas an expression of AmericanProtestant missionary humanitarianism, whichhad been active in the Near East since the early1820s.13 The outbreak of the First World Warhad disrupted the work of the missionaries,and it is therefore not surprising that in theearly 1920s over 50 percent of NER relief wor-kers were recruited from among missionariesof the American Board Commission for ForeignMissions (ABCFM or American Board), whomusthave seen in NER the opportunity to continuethe provision of elementary health servicesand education. Throughout the 1920s, even asNER became a more secular organization, theinfluence of Protestant moral precepts remai-ned significant. During the 1920s, the organiza-tion’s director, James Barton, a missionary him-

12 Ian Tyrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of American’s

Moral Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,2010).

13 Joseph Grabill, Protestant Diplomacy and the Near

East. Missionary Influence on American Policy, 1810-

1927 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1971); Ussama Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven: American

Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); Hans-LukasKieser, Nearest East. American Millennialism and Mission

to the Middle East (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,2010).

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self, claimed that even though NERwas not amis-sionary society, it aimed at spreading Christianeducation to Near Eastern populations suppo-sedly living in the dark.14

The intimate ties between Protestant missio-naries and NER help explain the organization’sfocus on Christian minorities and, more specifi-cally, on Ottoman Armenians. Many Americanmissionaries had witnessed the massacres andgenocide of the Armenians during the war andin its aftermath and had informed Americandiplomatic representatives as well as the publicback home; manywere profoundly anti-Turkishand/or animated by anti-Muslim sentiments.15

Moreover, the “Armenian Question” and themassacres of Ottoman Armenians had beena hot topic in the US press since the 1890s.American public opinion had shown a greatinterest in the fate of the Armenians, which, inturn, explains the rapid establishment of rescuecommittees in and after 1915. NER was itselfthe result of the merger of the Persian WarRelief, the Syrian-Palestine Relief Fund, andthe Armenian Atrocities Committee, created in1915 at the instigation of Ambassador HenryMorgenthauwhennewsof thegenocidereachedAmerica.16 In response toMorgenthau’s request,

14 A-ABCFM, B.P., vol. 9, American Educational and

Philanthropic Interests in the Near East, James L. Barton(undated, probably 1930).

15 Benedetta Guerzoni, Cancellare un Popolo. Immagini e

Documenti del Genocidio Armeno, Milano Mimesis, 2013.16 Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris (New York: Harper

Collins, 2003); Jay Winter, ed., America and the Armenian

Genocide of 1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Cleveland H. Dodge (an official of the PhelpsDodge Corporation, a leading copper miningcorporation; Dodge was a Presbyterian and pre-sident of theboardof trustees of ConstantinopleRobertCollege)and JamesBarton(foreignsecre-tary of ABCFM and formerpresident of EuphratesCollege, Harpoot) were joined by public figuressuch as Charles R. Crane (a Chicago banker andtrustee of Constantinople Women’s College),Samuel T. Dutton (professor at Teachers College,Columbia University, New York City, and alsoa trustee of Constantinople Women’s College)and a dozen church leaders with missionaryor educational interests in the Near East. Thethree relief committees joined together in theAmerican Committee for Armenian and SyrianRelief (ACASR) in fall 1915, at the instigation ofthe Rockefeller Foundation.17

ACASR largely comprised Protestants, both ordai-ned and lay, internationalists, and experien-ced public campaigners. The clergymen werechurchexecutives rather thanpastors.Themajo-rity of the committee members were activein peace movements. Some were officers ofone or more institutions like the YMCA, YWCA,American Red Cross, New York Association fortheBlind,Hampton Institute, General EducationBoard, and National Recreation Association.

Press, 2008); Sarah Miglio, “America’s Sacred Duty: NearEast Relief and the Armenian Crisis, 1915-1930”, Research

Reports from the Rockefeller Archive Center (SleepyHollow, NY: Rockefeller Foundation, 2009).

17 A-ABCFM, B.P., vol. 9, James Barton, Twelve Years of

Salvaging Life and Reconstruction (unpublished article,1926).

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Some were academics and others trustees ofcolleges andeducational institutions in theNearEast. Together they formed a close-knit groupof like-minded members of the American cultu-ral, economic, and political elites. Their poli-tical connections reached as far as Dodge’sfriendship with Woodrow Wilson; they alsohad close ties to the press, both secular andChristian, a link that may explain their sensi-tivity to visual strategies, their investment inthe publication of magazines and pamphlets,and their funding of Hollywood movies suchas Auction of Souls, which also became to beknown as Ravished Armenia, the Story of AuroraMardiganian. The Christian Girl Who Survived

the Great Massacre.18

In 1918, ACASR was re-named the AmericanCommittee for Relief in the Near East, and in1919 became the Near East Relief. The foundersof ACASR continued to work for NER. The neworganization enlisted Herbert Hoover, FranklinRoosevelt, and Charles Dawes; William HowardTaft and Charles Evans Hughes joined as trus-tees. American Catholic and Jewish represen-tatives were invited to join, reinforcing ACASR’salready strong ties with wealthy philanthro-pists and cultural, religious, and political elites.On 6 August 1919, Congress incorporated thecommittee known as the Near East Relief, provi-ding official approval of NER’s efforts to organizefood and medical supplies and refugee adminis-

18 Auctions of Souls, directed by Oscar Apfel, 1919. On thefilm see, Anthony Slide, Ravished Armenia and the Story

of Aurora Mardiganian (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 1997).

tration in the Near East.19 President WoodrowWilson gave his complete support to NER, as didPresident Harding. By 1919, NER was a largeorganization in comparison to its Europeanequivalents. It was, however, smaller in size andhad fewer human resources than the AmericanRelief Administration or American Red Cross.

Near East Relief activities from 1919 to 1924

From 1919 to 1924, wars, displacementsof populations, and epidemics shaped NER’sactions. While NER official records tell ofthe perfect plans of a modern, efficientorganization, confidential documents showthat NER repeatedly improvised and postponedor never implemented its original plans. NERoperations were consistently selective: whilesome emergency aid reached Ottoman Muslimpopulations, the majority of that aid was desti-ned for Ottoman Christians, and for Armeniansin particular. Most striking is that NER’s recordsfail to specify aid criteria for refugees settledin camps, prioritization of geographical areas,or a rationale for coordination/cooperationwith other organizations. The records domake evident, however, that whenever andwherever it could, NER terminated adult reliefand enhanced its support for children andorphans, the form of relief that became NER’strademark.

19 RAC, NER, box 132, B. Acheson manuscript, chap. V, p. 11-12.

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In 1918 to 1919, NER prioritized the foodemergency in the Caucasus, as part of a jointoperation with the Allies and the AmericanRelief Administration that targeted survivingArmenians. In this region, as well as elsew-here, the organization seized every opportu-nity to move refugees away from large citiesand concentration camps and onto any avai-lable farmland where the organization saw anopportunity for self-support. As to medical aid,from 1919 to 1923 NER was only responsiblefor the medical work of the orphanages and cli-nics connectedwith refugee camps.20 Followingthe French military withdrawal from Turkeyin the winter of 1921-22, fearing Turkish ven-geance, large numbers of Armenian residents,probablymore than 100,000, fled fromCilicia tonorthern Syria, Smyrna, or other places of sup-posed safety. This military evacuation involvedthe removal of over 10,000 NER orphans fromMarash, Ourfa, Aintab, Diarbekir, and Mardin toSyria.21 The devotion of energy and resourcesto these transfers hampered rehabilitation pro-grams. Relief workers’ accounts of the evacua-tion underlined the improvisation by the orga-nization as it confronted tragic events too greatfor it to deal with satisfactorily.

In NER’s 1922 Annual Report to Congress,General Secretary Charles Vickrey notedthat war had not ceased, races had “beentransplanted and more or less interchanged”,

20 RAC, NER, box 129, Annual Report to Congress, 1922 (NewYork, 1923), p. 34-36.

21 Ibid., p. 20.

political stability had not been secured, andthe Peace Conferences had failed. Refugeesremained in exile and had been joined byadditional families and communities whoserecovery of economic self-sufficiency had beenbrought to an end by forced evacuations. Inplace of the anticipated reduction of reliefwork, demands for emergency aid had beengreatly increased, even multiplied, by militaryvictories and disasters, devastating fires,and the exchange of populations.22 The onlyexception to this grim picture was the work inTranscaucasia (i.e., Soviet Armenia), where NEReventually began rehabilitation programs onbehalf of approximately 25,000 orphans. Thereport provides an impressive picture of theorphanage at Alexandropol and explains:

“So far asweknow they [the orphans] haveno res-ponsible, living relatives upon whom they haveany moral or legal claim for support. They arewholly dependent upon American philanthropy,and would soon perish or disappear if Americanrelief were withdrawn”.23

Vickrey’s argument can be summarized as fol-lows: since NER had saved the lives of thesechildren (innocent by definition and Christianvictims of the war), the organization had a res-ponsibility to protect them, because nobody elsewould. In an indirectly threatening tone, theGeneral Secretary indicated that Americawouldbear responsibly for thedeaths of these children

22 Ibid., p. 1-6.23 Ibid., p. 7.

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if NER’s support were withdrawn. Vickrey tellin-gly added that 10,000 orphans had already beenrefused admission to NER orphanages becausethe organization lacked resources. Finally, theGeneral Secretary of the organization put for-ward an economic argument: if these childrendied, America would have spent a great dealof money for nothing. Addressing future plans,the Annual Report noted that the organizationintended to introduce American agriculturalmachinery and dispatch expert agriculturalistsfrom American agricultural colleges to super-vise this work and teach “better” methods offarming.24 These policies would enable the chil-dren to be self-supporting in the future and toembrace productive industrial leadership.

Rehabilitative work in Transcaucasia was theexception rather than the rule. After the fall ofSmyrna in September 1922 and the defeat ofGreece in the war against Turkey, NER, like allother European and American humanitarianorganizations, provided succor for populationsthat had been expelled or exchanged. WhenMustapha Kemal seized power, NER found it dif-ficult to operate within Turkish borders, whichin turn explains the geography of NER humanita-rian aid and the nature of its actions. Changingpolitical circumstances over which NER hadno control shaped the organization’s activi-ties, contradicting tales of perfectly executedplans. By 1923, other than in Constantinople,Christian minorities were no longer internally

24 Id.

displaced peoples but rather refugees withoutany concrete prospect of repatriation. Thischange of circumstances left NER facing a quan-dary: should NER continue rehabilitation workinside Turkey (as suggested by some of the mis-sionariesworking for the organization)with thefewChristians remaining andpossibly start edu-cational work on behalf of non-Christian popu-lations or should it gradually terminate thatwork since the new Turkish government hadmade it clear that foreign institutions were per-sona non grata? Should NER focus on Armenianrefugees beyond Turkey? Should it invest in theconstruction of infrastructures such as largeorphanages?25 What about non-Armenian refu-gees and further needy local populations? Theanswers to these questions were in part deter-mined by the decreasing funds at the disposalof NER.

By the end of 1923, NER had moved the heartof its activities to three border regions ofTurkey: Syria (andPalestine), Greece, andSovietArmenia.26 The organization’s main activitieswere on behalf of 57,000 orphans. By 1925, NERhad terminated their adult relief.27 Althoughthere is no trace of this argument in NER sources,

25 RAC, NER, box 129, Annual Report to Congress, 1923 (NewYork, 1924), p. 26. The “island of orphans” (i.e., Syria, inGreece) was a project that encompassed the constructionof buildings, largely by orphans, where they would betaught trades in connection with the twenty-one industriesof the island.

26 RAC, NER, box 132, B. Acheson manuscript, chap. VI, p. 8.27 Ibid., B. Acheson unpublished typescript of 1940,

Plowshares and Pruning Hooks, chapter V.

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refugee-orphans would surely have been vie-wed as ideal recipients of aid: fundraising wasrelatively easy and had proved successfull, andtherefore a focus on children would prolongNER activities for some time. The targets of aidfell into a clearly identifiable category and theirnumber was known and unlike to change, fac-tors that made the provision of aid more mana-geable. Moreover, thanks to its special relation-ship with missionary organizations and theirschools, NER had unique expertise. Last, but notleast, its engagement in a long-term projectgave NER the moral upper hand when it came todonors and local governments, for it legitimizedthe continued presence of NER in several coun-tries and closed the door on potential criticismof the organization’s activities.

In 1925, NER began its “outplacing” program,according to which the largest possible num-ber of orphans was to be relocated to live withrelatives or responsible carers as quickly as pos-sible. Lack of money is the prime explanationfor this approach. NER officials felt they had todefend this policy as outplacing was quite farfrom rehabilitation, the original intention ofNER, with the role of the organization’s agentslimited to supervising the living conditions ofoutplacedchildren.H. C. Jaquith, themost seniorrepresentative of NER in Greece, published anarticle in which he claimed that for the inter-ests of a child, a home, properly selected and

supervised, was preferable to an institution.28

Beyond outplacing, NER could undertake onlysmall-scale programs. In Macedonia it starteda student-farmers’ program. The organizationand local farmers signed an agreement whe-reby the latter supplied a home, clothes, andspending money–a few drachmas monthly–andtaught one orphan boy farming through work.At the end of the year, the boywas to receive theprofits from a small area of cultivation, usuallytobacco. According to Jaquith, writing in 1928,

“Nowmost of the boys have bank accounts, andmany have their own farms. Moreover, thesestudent-farmers have rendered a real commu-nity health service through the distribution ofposters on the danger of the mosquito fly pest,printed in America and interpreted with a Greeklegend, andhave introducedorphanage recreatio-nal programs into the monotonous village life”.29

Jaquith’s words capture much of NER’s ideology,telling of a humanitarianism that never wentbeyond short-term relief but broke the allegeddullness of village life.NERdiscoursepaints apic-ture of a virtuous circle benevolently triggeredby the organization, whereby “practical” edu-cation enhanced further services. It highlightsa vision of humanitarianism where wealth ishealth, and vice versa. Thediscourse also shows,however, the distance between NER’s officialobjectives on educating future leaders and the

28 H. C. Jaquith, “Development of Social Welfare Activitiesin Greece”, Social Service Review, vol. 2 (1928/2), p. 217-233.

29 Ibid., p. 231, also p. 233, on malaria.

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reality of NER programs. As Jaquith admitted,vocational training remained the main activityof the organization. NER surveyed local tradesand identified vocational skills that could bedeveloped. Hence, he wrote: “girls were trainedinhomeeconomics andnursing”, and “bothboysand girls were taught organized recreation andfree play”.

NER Introspection, 1925-1929

In themid-1920s, NER reflected on its continuedexistence, which was being jeopardized by thechanging political situation in the Near East, bymissionaries’ termination of their cooperationwith NER, and by the economic crisis, as a resultof which the organization’s budget dwindledto a fraction of what it had been in the early1920s. NER introspection took the form of sur-veys. The board entrusted external surveyorswithproviding advise aboutwork accomplishedby NER, future goals, the termination of activi-ties, and the eventual shape the organizationshould take. The first three surveyorswere PaulMonroe, director of the International Instituteof Teachers College, Columbia University;30 R. R.

30 On the International Institute, created and funded by theRockefeller Foundation, and the role of Monroe, see LipingBu, “International Activism and Comparative Education:Pioneering Efforts of the International Institute of TeachersCollege, Columbia University”, Comparative Education

Review, vol. 41 (1997/4), p. 413-434; and Sjaak Braster,“The People, the Poor, and the Oppressed: The Concept ofPopular Education through Time”, Paedagogica Historica,vol. 47 (2011/1-2), p. 1-14; David M. Ment, “The AmericanRole in Education in the Middle East: Ideology andExperiment, 1920-1940”, ibid., p. 173-189.

Reeder, overseas commissioner of the SerbianChildWelfareAssociationduring theFirstWorldWar; and James L. Vance, former moderatorof the Presbyterian Church in the South. Twofurther surveys would be conducted between1924 and 1927. The men (not a single womanwas among them) in charge of these surveyswere university professors, prominent expertsin business, agriculture, education, and childwelfare.Theseexperts contributed to theorgani-zation’s transformation intoa foundationwhosepurpose was to offer technical assistance togovernments rather than to operate with indivi-duals. Its evident ambition, however delusional,was that a few American advisers would bringabout profound social, political, and economicchanges in the Near East.

In1923,Monroe, Reeder, andVanceweredispat-ched to the Near East to investigate conditionsand plan for the future. Their survey served asa basis for a second and more thorough survey,which began in 1925 and lasted over eighteenmonths; its resultswerepresented inNovember1927. The objectives of both surveyswere three-fold: (1) to report on the conditions in the NearEastern regions where NER and other agenciesof whatever character had operated; (2) to ela-borate on the present conditions in the NearEast; and (3) to make recommendations for thefuture operations of all the American agenciesoperating in that territory, but with a particularfocus on NER.31

31 A-ABCFM, B.P., box n◦ 13, Near East Relief SurveyCommittee Preliminary Report Part I, Report n◦ 4, Office

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In 1923, Monroe addressed the inherent ten-sionbetweenhumanitarian aid and scientific, orpractical, philanthropy.32 Under the subheading“Refugees Challenge Philanthropy”, he claimedthat the withdrawal of NER from general reliefwork was unquestionably the proper decision,for everywhere but Greece, the conditions thatsuch work sought to relieve would only be per-petuated, either because policies of persecutionwould be encouraged or because the refugeeswould become chronic paupers. Monroe didnot consider what might become of a refugeewho would then cease to receive NER support.He emphasized the placing-out of a child whe-never possible and suggested NER supervisethis process in order to protect the child fromneglect and prevent the investment in the childby American philanthropy and NER care frombeing squandered.

Monroe, Reeder, and Vance stressed the impor-tance of rural improvement programs. Theauthors mentioned their repulsion at the “dark,unsanitary, dreary abodes” of Near Eastern vil-

of Director General Overseas Operations (B. Acheson)to Vickery, on board S.S. Tedla en route to Batoum,September 12, 1925. Educational and Social Survey.

32 A-ABCFM, B.P., box n◦ 12, A Survey of Near East Relief.

Educational, Social, Religious, by Paul Monroe, R. R.Reeder, and James L. Vance, Based upon an intensivestudy of American relief institutions in Greece, Syria,Palestine and Russian Armenian, as special commissio-ners of the Executive Committee of Near East Relief,January to June, 1924. The volume is followed by a sup-plementary report with the combined judgment of theobservers, who had been dispatched to the Near East in1923.

lages.33 They argued that it was imperative thatvillage life asawholebe improved, and that todosowould require a comprehensiveprogramthatincluded better education, instruction in up-to-date methods of agriculture, and better healthpractices, to be achieved by the introduction ofpublic-health nurses into the villages. With thelimitedresources inmind, theexperts suggestedthe desirability of model villages. Vance wanteda model house built of materials that villagerscould afford and suggested that its residents be“workers whose business it shall be to lift thelife of the village to the level of this home”.

Monroe’s report made clear that relations withsovereign governments would take an increa-singly prominent place in the organization’spolicy. He suggested NER appoint a competentAmerican educational supervisor, who shouldbe highly familiar with the work of schoolssuch as the Hampton Institute and should knowsomething of the best work with rural schoolin America, especially in the South; familiaritywithworkwith schools in the Philippineswouldbe an additional asset. NER leaders took up hissuggestion, and in1924aneweducational direc-tor was sent to the Near East, Professor GeorgeM. Wilcox, formerly principal of the Silver BaySchool,NewYork.Wilcoxhadbeenborn inChinaand according to NER “understood the Orientaltype of mind”. He had spent two years in thePhilippines “adapting an American educationprogram to the needs of an alien people”.34

33 Id.34 Id.

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Monroe also sketched a profile of the futureNER worker. He would be an expert on theNear East able to adapt American methods andalso intelligent, flexible, experienced in otherfields of social work, and capable of maintai-ning morale. Monroe noted that while untilrecently the work had been in emergency relief,the shift toward education and reconstructiondemandeddifferent attitudes andqualifications.Monroe recommended that it be borne in mindwhen recruiting that the qualification level ofthese personnel would be different from that ofrelief workers. This passage in Monroe’s reportreveals that the doors of the organization werebeing rapidly closedonmissionariesbut thrownopen to a new category of professional workerswho would not necessarily define themselvesas humanitarians.

In1925, theBoardofTrusteesentrustedBarclayAcheson, a trained Presbyterian minister whowould become theOverseasDirector of NER, andlater of NEF, with the preparation of a reportthat would provide background for the mem-bers of the second Survey Committee.35 To helpout the experts in charge of the survey, Achesongenerously offered his views on “Oriental races”and their individualism and insisted on theimportance of setting up practical educationprograms and recreational activities that would

35 A-ABCFM, B.P., box n◦ 13, Near East Relief SurveyCommittee Preliminary Report Part I, Report n.4, Officeof Director General Overseas Operations (B. Acheson)to Vickery, on board S.S. Tedla en route to Batoum,12 September 1925.

teachOrientals teamworkand introduce“highermoral standards”.36 Not surprisingly, one of thefinal recommendationsof theSurveyCommitteewould be the elimination of classical studiesfrom the orphans’ curriculum.37 In 1940, loo-king back to themid-1920s, Acheson noted thatin its final years NER had learned the importanceof adapting policies and programs to the localcontext, implicitly admitting that for years it hadoverlooked the local situation. He mentionedthat involvement with “negro education” in theUnited States and colonial experiences in thePhilippines had been of paramount importancein shaping NER policies. He failed to give detailsof this “adaptation”, citing neither its contentnor its intent.

Among the most prominent experts of thesecond survey we find Thomas Jesse Jones.38

Jones’s idea of philanthropywas based on a spe-cific vision of civilization, according to which,permanent and effective civilizations had tobe rooted in justice, in contentment, and inopportunities for all the people all the time.Therewere fourmain ingredients of civilization:(1) physical welfare or health; (2) technologi-

36 Ibid., Educational and Social Survey.37 Shoko Yamada, “Educational Borrowing as Negotiation:

Re-examining the Influence of the American BlackIndustrial Education Model on British Colonial Educationin Africa”, Comparative Education, vol. 44, (2008/1), p. 21-37, at p. 26.

38 A-ABCFM, B.P., box n◦ 14, James Barton, “PreliminaryReport of the Near East Survey”. Among the documentswas “Summary of Needs and Recommendations for theNear East Countries” prepared by Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones(Confidential, Preliminary Write-Up), April 1927.

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cal mastery of the environment; (3) the home;and (4) recreation, physical and spiritual. Jonesrejected the idea of merely feeding the hungry(i.e., short-term relief), which he deemed a was-teful form of charity other than as a temporarymeasure in special cases: “Sound charity shouldaim to guide the needy to self-support, and stillmore to remove the conditions that caused themisfortune.”39 In his Twenty Year Report of thePhelps-Stokes Fund (1911-1931), Jones wouldpoint to reasons for the success of educatio-nal programs in the American South: scientific,comprehensive, and genuine understanding ofeconomic and sociological conditions was sup-plemented with “learning by doing”. In his view,these ingredients were essential to NER’s recipefor success.40

Jones believed that the methods used by thePhelps-Stokes or Rockefeller Foundations andthe extent and quality of their results in theAmerican South were of extraordinary signifi-cance for those who sought a way out of condi-tions inwhich interracial differences, ignorance,and poverty (i.e., the situation in the Near East)were threatening the peace of the world. In hisreport for the Survey Committee and in his sub-

39 Robert Leslie Daniel, “From Relief to Technical Assistance”,op. cit., p. 129 (cf. note 3), quotes Thomas Jesse Jones,Essentials of Civilization (New York: 1929), p. 216.

40 Thomas Jesse Jones, “Trends in Negro Education (1915-1930)”, Twenty Year Report of the Phelps-Stokes Fund,

1911-1931 (New York City: The Phelps Stoke Fund, 1932),p. 32-51 (Jones’s report is followed by that of anotherexpert who would also work for NER: Dr. James HardyDillard, “Progress of Education and Race Relations in theSouth”, p. 52-56).

sequent contributions for NER and the Near EastFoundation, Jones emphasized the importanceof rural extension and vocational education,which he deemed would be instrumental inenhancing reforms in the Near East.Other mem-bers of the Jeanes and Slater funds and of theRockefeller Foundation who were hired by NERsupported the idea that NER should promotefarm demonstrations, home demonstrations,and vocational education.

The second Survey Committee employed threeprofessional researchers–Frank A. Ross, LutherFry, and Elbridge Sibley–to undertake a formalstudy of the economic and sociological settingin the Near East and to examine the educatio-nal activitiesmaintained bynative governmentsand sponsoring agencies. They focused on theprinciples of technical assistance NEF wouldshortly endorse and drew a line under the neworganization’s policy. First, for Americans toassume the responsibility and expense of a com-prehensive educational system, the surveyorswrote, would be the height of folly and wouldcontradict the very end sought, namely, thatthe natives should be able to help themselves.Secondly, demonstration was appropriate, asthose who were to benefit would feel they weretaking an active part. Therefore, every effortshould be made to work not only in coopera-tionwith but also through government agenciesand local native organizations or individuals.Moreover, the large body of alumni of Americanschools could form a nucleus from which localcooperation could be sought. Finally, rural edu-

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cational projects should be carefully locatedwith reference to engaging local support andwith a particular concern for ensuring classesof natives could be convinced that the projectswere valuable in terms of peace, prosperity, andgeneral happiness.41 In the résumé and conclu-sions of the survey, Ross pointed out that theultimate purpose of NER, the goal for all efforts,was character building:

“Fundamental to high moral tone is the self-respect that comes from economic stability andgood health. Probably no greater unfulfilled needexists, probably no greater service could be ren-dered in these lands, than that of forwardingeconomic rehabilitation. In centuries past theiragriculture and their industries were so produc-tive as to enable the building up of huge civili-zations. With the passage of the years they havedropped to a sorry state and in the face ofmodernmachine civilization are steadily losing ground”.42

The survey encouraged the organization notto accept the whole burden in the Near Eastbut rather to privilege a selected responsi-bility. The financial issue was not addressedfully. Reference to settling refugees “somewhe-re” suggests evasion on the part of the organi-zation.43 The new credo of technical assistance

41 A-ABCFM, 16.9.1, Turkey Mission New Series 1920-1929,vol. 12, Minutes Eighth Meeting NER Survey Committee,Yale Club, New York City, December 15, 1927. AppendixIII. Elbridge Sibley, Report on Syria, Palestine and Iraq.

42 Ibid., Frank Ross “Resume and Conclusion”.43 A-ABCFM, 16.9.1. Turkey Mission New Series 1920-1929,

vol. 12. Minutes Eighth Meeting NER Survey Committee,Yale Club, New York City, December 15, 1927. Thomas

was accompanied by a freezing wind of indiffe-rence about the fate of previous recipients of aid.The Board of Trustees approved the survey andits recommendations and immediately set up aConservation Committee, of which Cleveland E.Dodge was chairman and Acheson, secretary.44

The Conservation Committee discovered, withcomplaisant satisfaction, that the countries intheNear EastwithwhichNERhad relationswerein sympathy not only with what had been doneduring the previous years, but also with theorganization’s methods and ideals. All of thegovernments urged the organization to conti-nue itsoperations,not throughemergencyrelief,but as a constructive board cooperating withgovernments in their desire for modern social,economic, educational, and moral advance.45

This discourse was one means of legitimizingNER’s presence vis-à-vis its donors and the USpublic and government. A second claim revol-ved around the theme of experts and expertise.The Conservation Committee pointed out that

Jesse Jones, “Proposed Plans of American Agenciesin the Near East Countries”. See also, A-ABCFM, B.P.,vol. 14, Thomas Jesse Jones, Summary of Needs andRecommendations for the Near East Countries, ThomasJesse Jones, April 1927.

44 A-ABCFM, B.P., box n◦ 13, Agenda. Near East

Relief Conservation Committee, Downtown Association.

November 13, 1929. Further minutes of the ConservationCommittee are at RAC, NER, box n◦ 134; they cover theperiod 1928-1930. The minutes reveal how heavily Monroeand Jones influenced the decisions that eventually led tothe creation of NEF.

45 A-ABCFM, B.P., vol. 9, Barton, “The Great Work of the NearEast Relief: What is to Follow it?” Annual Meeting of theTrustees of the NER, New York City, February 6, 1930.

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NER had trained a body of experts on the NearEast. By reason of their years of service andtheir close contact with the people, their needs,and the resources of the various countries, NERexperts understood the economic, social, moral,and educational conditions and opportunitiesfor continuation of the work. These expertsheld positions of “commanding leadership”, asBarton put it, and had a following on the ground.In the committee’s view, these experts wouldbe available to apply in the countries as a who-lethe methods that had proved “so valuable”heretofore in limited areas.46

Barton added a third dimension to NER legiti-mizing discourse, which I term “missing oppor-tunity” rhetoric. He noted that Near Easterncountries were entering upon new periods ofintellectual, social, and economic change. Theywere breaking with the conservative “hampe-ring traditions of the past” and were seekingnew methods of education and social, health,and economic improvement.Many “enlightenedleaders” welcomed NER experts and were readyto cooperate with them in promoting the higherinterests of their people. The ConservationCommittee thought this was an opportunity tobe seized. The new organization would be ableto capitalize on the 20,000 boys and girls whohad completed education inNER institutions andwere

“(N)ot hampered by the paralyzing traditions oftheir fathers. They do not know the age long

46 Id.

conservatisms that have prevented social, moraland religious progress in the Near East. Manyof them are well educated in modern methodsof agriculture and industry and in the use ofmodern tools. In their thinking and outlook theyareWestern and progressive. These children, stillofficially connectedwith the NER, are in a positionto become a mighty leaven for permeating thesociety of that country with new, inspiring andconstructive ideas”.47

NER paternalism, its “mission” (a term still usedtoday and deserving of further historical andinterdisciplinary attention) and responsibilityto protect those who had received aid beyondthe moment of relief, and its ambition to enablechildrentogrowuptospearheadsocial,political,and economic change are clear. Toward theend of the 1920s, NER was ready to lead “anattack on the environment of the children to:A. Prevent their sinking to the low levels ofhealth and economic conditions prevailing inthe communities into which they have gone.B. Do what can be done to aid the communitythrough the children”.48

In the 1930s, NEF also spoke of addressing theroot causes of suffering. The new foundationdid not distance itself from NER. With a signi-ficant continuity in personnel and leadership,NEF overlooked NER’s failure to solve problemsassociated with poverty, poor health, and igno-rance in the Near East and blamed the environ-

47 Id.48 Id.

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ment (households, for instance) where disease,poverty, ignorance, and superstition prevailed.NEF technical assistance programs were as dis-proportionately grand as those of NER. Withonly a fraction of NER’s human and financialresources, NEF hoped to leave a mark in theNear East that was even greater than that antici-pated by its predecessor. How relativelymodestfinancial resources could function as the cata-lyst for the modernization of entire societies isnot explained in NEF documents. NEF believed insocioeconomic progress by means of both tech-nocratic interventions and social engineering,which together would allow people in the non-Western world to enjoy the good fortune thatthose in Western nations had profited from ear-lier in history. This delusional belief still awaitsadequate investigation.49

Relief and Rehabilitation as standard

practice of humanitarian organizations

The endof the FirstWorldWar set up conditionsin which organizations such as NER could thrive.State-led humanitarian interventions of thekind European Great Powers had undertakenbefore 1914 (especially in the Ottoman Empire)were nowbanned, but the newly created Leagueof Nations, in Geneva, looked to the same civi-lizational hierarchies that had underpinned

49 Corinna Unger, “The United States, Decolonization and theEducation of Third World”, in Jost Dülffer and Marc Frey,eds., Elites and Decolonization in the Twentieth Century

(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 241-262, atp. 244.

so much pre-1914 liberal thought.50 Although“half-civilized” states such as Abyssinia, Siam,Iran, and Turkeywould becomemembers of theneworganization, itwas theresponsibilityof the“civilized nations” to guide “the less, or uncivili-zed, into the way of national self-realization.”51

NERwas far fromalone in its civilizational stance.

Many territories in which non-governmentalorganizations operated faced serious govern-mental challenges. Weak executive authoritywas a common problem for newly independentcountries such as Poland, and for other nationsdevastated by war, regime change, economiccrises, or the arrival of refugees, such as Greece.TheLeagueofNations, International Committeeof the Red Cross, Quakers, Save the ChildrenFund, American Women’s Hospital, AmericanRed Cross, American Relief Administration,and NER took on the responsibility to aid civi-lian victims of war and/or natural disaster.It was in the interstices of state administra-tions, where government and/or local authori-ties were unable (or unwilling) to operate, thathumanitarian organizations set to work andblossomed. Devastated areas were the idealsetting for a growing number of private associa-

50 Mark Mazower, “An International Civilization? Empire,Internationalism and the Crisis of the Mid-TwentiethCentury”, International Affairs, vol. 82 (2006), p. 553-566,at p. 558. See also Eric D. Weitz, “From the Vienna to theParis System: International Politics and the EntangledHistories of Human Rights, Forced Deportations, andCivilizing Missions”, American Historical Review, vol. 113(2008), p. 1313-1343.

51 Mark Mazower, “An International Civilization?”, op. cit.,p. 559 (cf. note 50).

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tions, philanthropic foundations, and intergo-vernmental organizations to realize their pur-pose and prove their usefulness to the world.From the Baltic States to Palestine, non-stateactors played a new kind of diplomacy, definedby Dzovinar Kévonian as “humanitarian diplo-macy”, in which they deployed their political,moral, and religious ideologies and practices.52

For Western humanitarians of all ilks, eastern,central, and southeastern Europe and territo-ries in the Middle East formed the fault lines ofWestern civilization. For many relief workersand leaders of the “missions” to Greece, Syria,Lebanon, and Palestine or Armenia, the reci-pients of aid and the beneficiaries of construc-tion or rehabilitation programs were less civi-lized than Western Europeans, and they fanta-sized about how to resurrect the past gloryof lands that had once been the cradle ofWestern/Christian civilization. For NER, thesite of relief was the Near East a (delibera-tely) ill-defined geo-physical and geo-politicalconglomerateof territories, colonies, andnationstates that stretched from Pindus and theHeptanese to Persian Plateaus; from the BlackSea, through the Dardanelles, to the Tigris;from the Peloponnese to Northern Anatolia.NER maps were creative interpretations of poli-tical spaces revolving around the organization’sareas of operations. Thesemaps highlighted redzones of suffering, suggesting that elsewhere

52 Dzovinar Kévonian, Réfugiés et diplomatie humanitaire,op. cit. (cf. note 3).

there was no suffering or that existing sufferingwas of no concern to NER.

The pace of relief was frantic, two-phased, andasymmetrical. Phase one, which focused onshort-term relief, was designed to provide selec-ted needy populations with food, clothing, andmedical supplies. This kind of relief was theconditio sine qua non of the organization’s acti-vities, for it sought to prevent the death of sur-vivors. An abrupt transition marked the begin-ningofphase two, characterizedbymedium- (orlong-) term relief, which would lead survivorsto thrive economically, politically, and morally.Like other contemporary humanitarian orga-nizations, NER orchestrated how and why thetransition between the two phases would takeplace. NER itself defined the problem and thenoffered its solution to the problem it had pre-viously defined.

Rehabilitation–a medical and/or moral philoso-phical term–was the way these organizationsinterpreted their mission to help others helpthemselves. These others, whoever they mightbe, fell into further categories of drowned andsaved and might be included and excluded (oroccluded) according to categories that rescuersinvented.My research has established that reha-bilitation remained an often undefined term: ithad moral, economic, political, and social com-ponents, including health and education. NER–

and many other organizations–did not explainwhether rehabilitation applied to individualsor entire populations. For instance, emergency

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andprophylactic action (vaccination campaigns,quinine therapy) undertaken by NER in Syriaand Lebanon, where eight hospitals and twelvedispensaries were created during the period1919-1923, provides an example of the confla-tionof relief and rehabilitation, or of theattemptto go beyond saving la nuda vita, as Italian phi-losopher Giorgio Agamben would put it. Theyare also an example of what Marcos Cueto andother historians of international public healthrefer to as “vertical programs”, in which techno-logy was used to “fight against” diseases basedupon an assumed correlation between diseaseand poverty and a conviction that the defeat ofdisease would lead to the end of poverty.53

NER/NEFwas certainly not unique or even moreoriginal than many other interwar internatio-nal organizations. It envisioned its humanita-rianism as a permanent, transnational, institu-tional, and secular regime for understandingand addressing the roots of human suffering.It paralleled the evolution of philanthropy butwas distinct in its reliance on a social scienti-fic knowledge-based approach to the “adminis-tration” of humanitarian problems–expandinglate nineteenth-century notions of scientific phi-lanthropy on a massive scale. Continuity withnineteenth-century humanitarianism can befound in the part played byWestern civil societyand publics–and modern forms of advertising–

in underwriting andagitatingonbehalf of huma-

53 Marcos Cueto, Cold War, Deadly Fevers: Malaria

Eradication in Mexico, 1955-1975 (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 2007).

nitarian projects.54 NER shared fundamentalassumptions with a number of European andAmerican organizations, at least to somedegree.

The men and women who worked as volun-teers or professionals for these organizationsbelieved their efforts would aid the eventualtriumph of peace; they were generally aller-gic to revolutions and Bolshevism; they belie-ved in trade (as an expression of capitalism)as enhancing prosperity and leading to politi-cal stability, and hence reinforcing their ulti-mate objective: peace. The activities of theseorganizations–with the obvious exception ofthe Joint Distribution Committee–were foun-ded upon Christian precepts and moral values,no matter how universalist they proclaimedtheir motives to be. In practice, their programswere selective, biased, and discriminated ethni-cally and religiously among needy populations.These institutions claimed to be culturally andtechnologically advanced and to possess thetechnique and know-how to relieve populationsin distress; they seldom doubted the positiveconsequences of their benevolent actions andascribed failure to the inability (or unwillin-gness) of recipients to implement what donorshad been teaching (or preaching).

These organizations truly believed in progressand proclaimed their “modernity”. They truly–

54 Keith Watenpaugh, “The League of Nations’ Rescueof Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Makingof Modern Humanitarianism (1920-1927)”, American

Historical Review, n◦ 115 (2010/5), p. 1315-1339, atp. 1319ff.

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rather than cynically–believed the efficient,scientifically grounded administration of reliefwould “enlighten” or, eventually, “civilize” therecipients of humanitarian aid, triggering vir-tuous processes that would have benefiteddonors by spreading peace and prosperity allover the world. Civilization, peace, and prospe-rity were the interwoven threads of a genuinelydelusional tale, the powerful humanitarian andmodernization narrative I referred to in theintroduction of this article. They constitutedthe seemingly perfect illusion of control. Ashistorian Johannes Paulmann has pointed out,emergency aid and development aid appear tohave coexisted in the past.55 This coexistencewas certainly present in the interwar period,as NER/NEF exemplifies, when it also prefigurednarratives and practices of the United NationsRelief and Rehabilitation Agency and other UNagencies in the 1940s and beyond.

55 Johannes Paulmann, “Conjunctures in the History ofInternational Humanitarian Aid during the TwentiethCentury”, Humanity: An International Journal of Human

Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, vol. 4(2013/2), p. 215-238.

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/ call for articlesappel à contributions / call for articles

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Beyond Relief: A Sketch of the Near East Relief's Humanitarian Operations, 1918-1929 - draft accepted for publication Mondes 2014

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