Figure 1.--Here we see a scene in a French primary school during the weinter of 1947-48. The caption read, "Three French children, two of them attired in costumes, are pictured holding American flags, and watching while one writes with chalk on the 'Friendship Train' at Avignon, France, his feeling toward the United States of America in French, the little chap writes 'Thanks to Americans'." The photograph is dated January12, 1948.

Another American humanitarian effort was the Friendship Train. The 1947 American Friendship Train effort collected foodstuffs amd other aid supplies from American donors and transported the food to Europe, mostly to the people of France and Italy. The whole idea was conceived by famed Washington journalist Drew Pearson in his daily column "The Merry-Go-Round". His colum was carried by newspapers all around America. The effort was taken up primarily by newspapers. Pearson originally hoped to collect 80 train car loads of food. Ultimately filled over 700 cars ($40 million) of food, clothing, and fuel was collected all over America. The value of the goods was some $40 million and remember this was 1947 dollars. Many contributions were monetary donations to purcgase food and supplies, but much of it was individual doinations of food and supplies. There were a range of collectioins. Junior high school students collecred v=canned milk. Roscoe Drummond of the Christian Science Monitor called it "One of the greatest projects ever born of American journalism". The Train originated in Los Angeles (November 7, 1947). There were stops at train stations across the United Ststes, finally ending in New York City, where the organizers and food received with a ticker tape parade as itv headad to the New York docks for shipment to Europe. It moved through through Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton, Oakland, Sacramento (California), Reno (Nevada), Ogden (Utah), Green River, Rawlins, Laramie, Cheyenne (Wyoming), Sidney, North Platte, Kearney, Grand Island, Fremont, Omaha (Nebraska), Council Bluffs, Boone, Ames, Cedar Rapids, Clinton (Iowa), Sterling, and Chicago (Illinois). From Chicago the main route passed through Fort Wayne (Indiana), Mansfield (Ohio), Pittsburgh, Altoona, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and Trenton (New Jersey). All along the line, donated food was added along with more carriages to hold it. A northern branch train branch was begun at South Bend and Elkhart (Indiana), Toledo, Cleveland, and Ashtabula (Ohio), Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany (New York) before joining the main train at New York City. It all took place in 11 days. The United States Lines' American Leader was rechristened the Friend Ship and carried the first shipload of the Train's cargo to Le Havre, France. We are not sure how the food was distribyted, but it looks like the schools were used. This all occured while the United States was preparing the Marshall Plan to reinvigorate the Eurioean econony. Thee Friendship Train provided desperately needed food aid in the aftermath of World War II. Skeptics today set on denegrating Americ's post-War role call it a 'token gesture of goodwill', but food was delivered to needy families. In the final anaysis, the only way of solving the food problem was to getting a capitalist economy working again which would fire up farm production.

Created: 5:09 PM 9/12/2020
Last updated: 5:09 PM 9/12/2020