Persian-American Conference Called to Urge Cooperation

Abbas Effendi to be One of the Speakers at Three Days’ Session to Be Held at Public Library in Washington

INVITATIONS BROAD

Boards of Trade and Other Organizations to Participate in Plans for Development of Commerce

WASHINGTON — In accordance with the constitution of the Persian-American Educational Society a meeting of the officers was held in Washington recently at which plans for perfecting the organization and changing its title to Orient-Occident Unity were concluded and the second annual conference called to be held in the assembly hall of the public library, April 18-20.

Speakers of national prominence will deliver addresses at the various meetings. It is expected that Abbas Effendi, who visited London and Paris during the summer and autumn of 1911, and delivered many addresses, notably those in the City Temple, London, and in St. Johns church, Westminster, will be present and speak at the evening sessions.

The object of the original organization has been to bring Persia and America closer together in ties of mutual interests, commercial, educational, moral and intellectual. The Orient-Occident Unity, while continuing as a separate bureau the educational plans in Persia, and administering funds pledged for that purpose as heretofore, will carry the activities into other countries in the Orient which have manifested interest and a desire to cooperate. It will also enter upon commercial development as a special feature.

A general invitation has been extended to the public to attend the sessions of this conference. Delegates from manufacturing and commercial bodies, boards of trade and [text missing] will be welcomed and duly recognized.

It is desired that all who plan to attend the sessions in a representative capacity notify the secretary not later than April 10, in order that arrangements may be made accordingly.

At the conference, the aims and scope of the Orient-Occident Unity will be discussed by various speakers.

Means for the establishment of closer relations between the east and the west will be developed.

The constitution of the Orient-Occident Unity, framed by a special committee appointed for that purpose some time since, will be presented for adoption.

Reports of work done during the past year will be submitted, and a program for activities of the coming year will be outlined.

During the year a commercial bureau has been organized. More than $10,000 worth of goods, comprising in part agricultural machinery, pumps, textiles and wearing apparel, has been sold for American manufacturers to Persian customers. As a result of the work of this society a Persian-American Commercial Company has been formed in Tabriz with a capital of $20,000. More than 150 samples of textiles recently received from a city in southern Persia are now in the hands of the bureau of manufactures and the National Association of Manufacturers, as an indication of the needs of the eastern nation, thus enabling American manufacturers to compete intelligently for the business in this new market. Other companies are in the process of formation in Persia. The commercial side of the society has shown such progress as to indicate vest possibilities of development in the near future.

The society is now maintaining more than 100 scholarships for boys and girls in non-sectarian, schools in Teheran.

[picture caption: (Copyright by Mrs. Thornburugh-Cropper. Photo by Lafayette) Abbas Effendi, Persian peace movement exponent who will be a speaker at Persian-American meetings at Washington]