Board of Trustees from 1909 to 1926. In 1915, the American ambassador in Turkey, Henry Morgenthau Sr., called for urgent humanitarian aid for the Armenian people who were being threatened with annihilation. Cleveland Dodge was asked to help and he met with a group of affluent people who pledged funding. Out of that came the formation of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (ACASR) where Cleveland would serve as Treasurer, absorb the administrative expenses as well as offer his boardroom for Executive Committee gatherings. The Woodrow Wilson Connection Government facilities were placed at their disposal and the following year a national fund raising campaign was organised by President Wilson. Cleveland was a loyal friend to Woodrow Wilson throughout his life. With other influential friends Cleveland managed to get Wilson elected as the President of Princeton in 1902. Cleveland became a trustee of the University in 1904 and supported Wilson’s radical reforms. However, by 1907 Wilson was meeting serious resistance to his changes. Within a few years he accepted the Democratic nomination for the governorship of New Jersey. Wilson next ran for president of the United States in 1912 and was elected. Cleveland was one of the largest financial backers for Wilson's presidential campaign and enlisted contributions from many of his former classmates and sympathetic Princeton trustees. He continued to provide financial support for Wilson throughout his years in office and appears to have asked for only one favor. That was in 1917, when war with Germany seemed inevitable, he asked Wilson to do all in his power to keep the United States from declaring war on Turkey and Bulgaria. Philanthropy In addition to his steadfast work with the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (which became the Near East Relief Committee (1919)), Cleveland’s philanthropic interests included the YMCA, Princeton, American Red Cross, New York Museum of Natural History, the New York Public Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Zoo, Botanical Garden and several colleges in the Near East. During the Spanish–American War he was in charge of the American Red Cross distribution center in New York. He established the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation in 1917 with an initial funding of five million dollars, wanting to give money away that came to him during the war years. As well as those large sums, he gave many smaller gifts to individuals with immediate needs. Railroad Ties and Transfer Towards