Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/397

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oils, etc. Stanley's achievement possibly caused a greater sensa- tion in England than in America. The London papers promptly acknowledged the achievement of The New York Herald. The London Post went so far as to say that the expedition surpassed everything which had hitherto been achieved by journalistic enterprises.

EXTRAMURAL ACTIVITIES

The example set by The Herald later led other American news- papers to undertake humanitarian enterprises which had not been formerly associated with the editing and making of a news- paper. Such enterprises became more distinctly local, but the sum total of good accomplished was greater than the more sen- sational finding of a man lost in the wilds of Africa. Among these humanitarian enterprises was the establishment of a Free-Ice Fund by The New York Herald. On May 29, 1892, the paper that had sent Stanley to find Livingstone laid before its readers a proposal to furnish free ice for the relief of mothers and babies in the tenement-house districts of New York. The fund, started with a donation of five hundred dollars by The Herald, met with the enthusiastic encouragement of charity organizations, wel- fare workers, physicians, and others, who longed to do something to relieve the distress which the extreme heat produced in tene- ment districts. On July 2 of that year The Herald distributed six- teen thousand pounds of ice from seven different stations with the result that over one hundred families were benefited. When the season closed on September 15, over forty thousand pounds of ice were being distributed daily from fifteen stations in the poorer sections of the city for the benefit of about twelve thou- sand, five hundred men, women, and children. During the ex- treme hot summer of 1914 a daily average of seven hundred thousand pounds were distributed among twenty-two thousand families. The ice was distributed upon presentation of tickets secured on the recommendation of social workers, physicians, ministers, and others who were familiar with the needs of the people living in the district of the station.

Somewhat similar to the Free-Ice Fund was the Fresh-Air Fund priginally associated with The New York Eve