A Little History - December 23, 1947 - UNICEF's First Natcom

 

Katherine Lenroot

The idea was first hatched by Katherine Lenroot, Chief of the US Children's Bureau and US representative on UNICEF's Executive Board from 1947 to 1951.

Lenroot understood that the newly founded UNICEF faced a serious challenge. It had inherited a small startup fund from UNRRA, but that would be quickly exhausted.  An initial pledge by the US government had encouraged donations by the governments of Canada and Australia.  But in order to stimulate donations by other countries, the US needed to do more. It had to commit to continuing those contributions in future years.

A second problem was that UNICEF needed contributions and political support, not just from governments, but also from private citizens.  In the US, charitable contributions are deductible from taxes, but contributions to an international fund like UNICEF are not.  A US registered NGO was needed in order to allow tax free contributions.     

Lenroot chose an approach followed with other government / citizen initiatives - form a Committee (often called a commission) which would have representation of both government and concerned private citizens. With this in mind, Lenroot pushed through the creation of UNICEF's first national committee on December 23, 1947.

Lenroot had plenty of experience in her role with the US Children's Bureau. The Children's Bureau had been established as a government department in 1912. Its origins actually went back much further to concerns raised over child labour during what was known as 'the Progressive Era' of social reform in the early 1900's and the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. Lenroot joined the bureau in 1914, just two years after its creation and only a year after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in economics and sociology.

She worked her way up in the bureau, quickly learning how the federal government and Congress interacted to establish and fund social programmes. She also took on international roles.  In 1922 Lenroot was appointed to the League of Nations' Advisory Committee of the Traffic in Women and Children. From 1937 through 1939, she represented the U.S. on the Advisory Committee of Social Questions of the League of Nations.

In 1934 President Franklin Roosevelt chose her as the Chief of the Children's Bureau - a position she held until 1951.  She took up her duties in the midst of the Depression; at a time when Roosevelt launched many social reform efforts aimed at economic recovery and reform.  Several of these efforts directly aimed at the needs of children.  Aid to Dependent Children became a major part of the 1935 Social Security Act.  This put the Bureau in charge of federal grants to states for maternal and child health and welfare.  The Bureau also became responsible for enforcing child labour standards.  When WWII broke out the Bureau established a maternity and infant care program to support soldiers' wives and children.  

Along with her duties in the Bureau, Lenroot also became in 1935 the President of the National Council of Social Work.  She was therefore quite sensitive to the needs to involve both professionals and private citizens in the design and monitoring of any social welfare programmes undertaken by government.

In early 1946 the UN Economic and Social Commission appointed Lenroot the Secretary of what was called 'the Temporary Social Commission' and charged the commission with establishing a specialized UN agency for children.     

In establishing an official US Committee for UNICEF at the end of 1947 Lenroot solved one problem, but created another.  On the one hand the 'official' role of the Committee gave it clout within government that the many voluntary agencies lacked in their appeals for government funding.  On the other hand, it gave bureaucrats in the government - particularly those in the State Department - a veto over many initiatives and attempts to secure funding.  

As soon as the war ended, Washington was deluged by representatives of NGOs and church groups that wanted to help in war recovery.  The UN approach was to establish the UN Appeal for Children (UNAC) which in the US was called American Overseas Aid - UN Appeal for Children (AOA-UNAC).  The appeal flopped in the US, but did somewhat better in other countries, particularly Australia.  Altogether, it brought in $8 to 9 million.  In the US, however, advertising for the appeal in 1947 ended up spending more than it took in - putting out $2 million to take in only $500,000.  This clearly was not working.

The US worked out an arrangement with the hundreds of NGOs and church groups to split any contributions 50/50 for contributions they took in under the name of the AOA-UNAC campaign, i.e. half to the NGO and half to UNICEF.  No one was happy with the arrangement.  The NGOs felt their future fundraising was threatened, while UNICEF felt starved.    

Establishing the Committee looked like a solution, and initially it was.  Soon, however, Lenroot and others recognized that the flip side of a government / private committee was the lukewarm attitudes in the State Department and in Congress to repeated requests for allocations.  Each time Pate and others came back for funding, the reaction was, "I thought last time was the last time."   

Part of the problem was the 'emergency' nature of the fund.  The assumption was that UNICEF existed to address a temporary problem in Europe, not a long term issue for the world.  Suspicions were also growing of the UN and internationalism in general.  

Mary Lord

Pate, Panteleoni, Rajchman and Lenroot discussed the issue and decided that they needed a high-profile leader for the Committee, preferably a Republican.  

They soon found one - Mary Lord (Mrs. Oswald B. Lord), grand-daughter of the founder of the Pillsbury Company (until it was bought out by General Mills in 2018, was one of the world's largest grain and milling companies).  Lord had all the needed connections with key figures, particularly Republican figures.  Moreover she had a good background in charitable work and was then serving as the US delegate to the General Assembly. After 1953 Lord would replace Eleanor Roosevelt as the US delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission.  

One problem remained for UNICEF and the Committee - meddling and opposition among bureaucrats in the State Department.  A particular thorn in the side of UNICEF and the Committee was Dallas Dort, the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (the bigger the title, the more likely the problems).  Dort was a firm believer that UNICEF's work should be taken over by WHO and other technical agencies.  He was not alone in this opinion among the State Department officials.  

Maurice Pate was a very calm person, but even he at times boiled over with frustration.  After the State Department altered a key resolution on which he had worked, he said, "See what our country is doing? They just don't get the point at all." 

Congress, on the other hand, was far more open to lobbying on behalf of children.  Moreover, with the Cold War getting started, they had a sense of competition with the Communist world.  When approached on the question of the US contribution, one approach was to mention the fact that the Soviet Union had just invited some 60 governments to attend the first conference 'for the benefit of childhood' - something that sounded like formation of an alternate UNICEF.  The approach usually yielded support in Congress for a sizable US contribution to UNICEF.

Yet the problems facing the Committee persisted.  The government / private composition of the Committee often stymied efforts.  Government members in the Committee were resolute that UNICEF should terminate in 1950, and therefore should not be lobbying for more funds.  As a result, much of the lobbying work  moved outside the Committee to a group called the Citizens Committee for UNICEF.  The Citizens Committee was headed by Margaret Stone and set up its own office in Washington and managed to lobby successfully for a US contribution of $12 million in 1949.

1949 - President Truman receives a report on UNICEF's work
from Mary Lord, Chairperson US Committee for UNICEF
L/R  From left to right: Under Secretary of State James Webb; Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson; the President; Mary (Mrs. Oswald B.) Lord, chairman of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF; Miss Katharine Lenroot, chief of the Children's Bureau and U.S. delegate to UNICEF; and Dallas Dort, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs

When in 1950  - much to the chagrin of the State Department - the UN decided on a continuation of UNICEF to 1953 and beyond, the Citizens Committee faded away, and finally the US Committee was able to pursue its work.  With a deft hand Lord, Pantaleoni and others managed by 1951 to reformulate the Committee as a completely independent body with no direct government participation.

Next week - more about how the committee found its feet under its second and longest-serving Chairperson, Helenka Pantaleoni.

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