North American Committee Aid Spanish Democracy

NORTH AMERICAN COMMITTEE TO AID SPANISH DEMOCRACY. Of those Americans who actively demonstrated concern about the needs of the Spanish people during their civil war, the great majority expressed their sympathy and admiration for the Republic. They participated in and contributed to a number of Left-influenced humanitarian organizations, the largest of which was the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. It was organized in October 1936, chaired by Bishop Francis J. McConnell. Its secretary was the Reverend Herman F. Reissig, and it quickly became an umbrella organization with which a number of specialized organizations affiliated.

Two of the most important affiliates were the American Friends of Spanish Democracy, headed by Bishop Robert L. Paddock, whose major concern was organizing protests aimed at changing the course of Washington’s policy toward Spain; and the other was the popular Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy, headed by Walter B. Cannon of the Harvard Medical School.

The list of sponsors looks like a Who’s Who of the time—with scores of representatives from the arts, sciences, and the professions. The committee was supported by the Socialist and Communist parties as well as by liberals prominent in all walks of life. Never before had so many Americans been so stirred and made active by an event abroad in which the nation was not directly involved.

There were about 150 chapters nationwide raising funds and organizing support for the beleaguered Spanish Republic. In the twenty-one months after its inception, the North American Committee raised more than $1 million (with 1930s purchasing power) in cash and in kind. Hundreds of tons of food, clothing, and medical supplies had been collected; Americans sent to Spain 175 ambulances and motor vehicles; eight hospitals were maintained with personnel of 125 American doctors and nurses; and ten homes housing more than six hundred children were established.

All this was accomplished (through special committees such as musicians, trade unions, youth, Hollywood, university faculty, and so on) by means of a variety of functions: fairs, picnics, concerts, lectures, mass meetings—two at Madison Square Garden in New York—dances, concerts, film showings, house parties, street collections, gala benefits with scores of stars of stage and screen (many of whom were subsequently harassed by the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities) and tours of Spanish delegations. Pamphlets and brochures in the tens of thousands were printed and distributed. Special drives were initiated for funds to aid wounded Americans returning from the battlefields. Not long after the end of the war, most of these humanitarian organizations dissolved, to be replaced by organizations whose aim was to raise funds for the relief of Spanish exiles.

Carroll, Peter N. The Odyssey of the American Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Spanish Refugee Relief Association records, 1935-1957 MS #1181. Archival Collections. Columbia University Libraries. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4079355/

David McKelvey White Collection. Archives and the Rare Book Division, New York Public Library. https://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/whitedm.pdf