HOME FOLLOWS THE FLAG
_Nearly 28,000,000 Red Cross Relief Workers Distributing Aid in Ten
Countries--Two War Fund Drives in 1918 Raise $291,000,000--Other
Organizations Active--3,000 Buildings Necessary--Caring for the
Boys--Boy Scouts Play Their Part Well._
From the hour of enlistment to the hour of return, the United States
soldiers and sailors have had with them, throughout the war, the
advantage of intelligent, sympathetic help from various civilian
organizations, co-ordinating with the military.
First of all is the Red Cross, but that organization really is a
non-combatant arm of the national service; and its work, generously
financed by public subscription, is the greatest of its kind ever done
in field or hospital, in any war.
Red Cross history would fill a big volume, no matter how meagrely told.
There are 3,854 chapters of the organization. At the annual meeting of
their war council, October 23, 1918, the chairman, Henry P. Davison,
submitted a report that is literally astonishing, because the facts
related had developed without, publicity and were quite unknown to the
people of the country at large. Here are a few of them, taken from Mr.
Davison's official statement:
NEARLY 28,000,000 WORKERS
The Red Cross in America has a membership of 20,648,103, and in
addition, 8,000,000 members in the Junior Red Cross--a total enrollment
of more than one-fourth the population of the United States.
American Red Cross workers produced up to July 1st, 1918, a total
of 221,282,838 articles of an estimated value of $44,000,000. About
8,000,000 women are engaged in canteen work and the production of relief
supplies.
The American Red Cross is distributing aid in ten countries--the United
States, England, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Palestine, Greece,
Russia and Siberia. Besides it has sent representatives to Serbia,
Denmark and Madeira.
Two war fund "drives" in 1918 brought money contributions to the amount
of $291,000,000. Membership dues of $24,500,000 brought the total up
to $315,500,000 for the fiscal year. All this money was expended for
purposes of pure mercy.
It has been because of the spirit which has pervaded all American Red
Cross effort in this war that the aged governor of one of the stricken
and battered provinces of France stated not long since that, though
France had long known of American's greatness, strength and enterprise,
it remained for the American Red Cross in this war to reveal America's
heart.
The home service of the Red Cross, with its now more than 40,
workers, is extending its ministrations of sympathy and counsel each
month to upward of 100,000 families left behind by soldiers at the
front.
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVE
Next to the Red Cross in importance comes the Young Men's Christian
Association, affectionately known to the army as "the Y." Then the Young
Women's Christian Association; the National Catholic War Council; the
Salvation Army; the Knights of Columbus; The Jewish Welfare Board: the
War Camp Community Service; and The American Library Association.
What might be called the field army of these seven great agencies
comprises more than 15,000 uniformed workers on both sides of the
Atlantic and in Siberia; and General Pershing, late in October of 1918,
asked that additional workers be sent over at the rate of at least a
thousand a month.
They represent every type of activity--secretaries, athletic directors,
librarians, preachers, lecturers, entertainers, motion picture
operators, truck drivers, hotel managers and caterers. Many of them
pay their own expenses. Those who cannot do that are paid their actual
living expenses if they are single; and if they have families, are
allowed approximately the pay of a second lieutenant.
3,000 BUILDINGS NECESSARY
More than 3,000 separate buildings have been erected (or rented) to make
possible this huge work. These are of various sorts, from the great
resorts at Aix les Bains, where our soldiers can spend their furloughs,
to the hostess houses at the cantonments on this side. In addition,
there are scores of warehouses and garages, and hundreds of "huts"
which consist of nothing more than ruined cellars and dugouts in
war-demolished towns or old-line trenches.
These figures do not include the buildings occupied by the organizations
in times of peace, though all such buildings and quarters are at the
disposal of soldiers and sailors. All are supported by their regular
funds, supplemented by contributions entirely apart from those funds.
ALL PULL TOGETHER
The spirit of these seven organizations is uplifting in the broadest
sense of the word. They depend upon people of ideals for support. Their
purpose is to surround each boy, so far as possible, with the influences
that were best in his life at home. Differences of creed or dogma are
unknown. The W.M.C.A. and The Jewish Welfare Board work side by side
with no thought of divergence in faith. They are as one, and their
working creed is service, in the spirit of brotherhood to all men.
These are 842 libraries, with 1,547 branches, containing more
than 3,600,000 books and 5,000,000 copies of periodicals. In the
navy-branches are maintained 250 additional libraries aboard our war and
mercantile ships.
Almost every family in the United States having a son in the service
has received letters written on the stationery of one or other of the
organizations, for together they supply abundant writing materials. They
supply 125,000,000 sheets of writing paper a month, and keep on hand all
the time about $500,000 worth of postage stamps.
A soldier boy finds himself located in a little French village that
before the war sheltered 500 people and now must accommodate as many
soldiers besides. His sleeping place is a barn, which he must share with
forty other boys. There is no store in the town, no theatre, no library,
no place to write a letter or be warm and dry--until the hut comes.
ALL MODERN IDEAS
With it come books and writing paper and baseballs and bats and boxing
gloves and chocolate and cigarettes and motion pictures and lectures and
theatrical entertainments. Home comes with the hut, bringing all the
love and care and cheer of the folks who have stayed behind.
The boy is called into the front line trenches. He is there through the
long cold night, his feet wet, his whole body chilled to the bone. As
the first rays of the sun announce the new day, a shout of welcome runs
through the trench. He looks to see a secretary--Y, or K. of C., or
Jewish Welfare Board or Salvation Army--it matters not. Down the trench
comes this secretary with chocolates and cigarettes, doughnuts and hot
coffee or cocoa--a reminder that even here, in front, the love and care
of the folks back home still follow him.
CARING FOR THE BOYS
Is he wounded? Aiding the stretcher bearers, the secretaries work side
by side, taking the wounded back to the dressing stations.
Is he taken prisoner? Even in the prison camp the long arm of these
friendly organizations reaches out to aid him. In Switzerland both the Y
and the K. of C. have established headquarters, and through such neutral
agencies as the Danish Red Cross they carry on their program of help
even in the enemy prison camps.
Does he wish to send money back to the folks at home? The Y.M.C.A. and
the K. of C., the Jewish Welfare Board and the Salvation Army transmit
hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from the front to mothers and
sisters and wives over here.
If the Boy is allowed to visit the armies of our Allies he will find
that they too have asked for the hut, and received it. More than a
thousand Y huts under the name of "Foyers du Soldat" are helping to
maintain morale in the French army--erected at the special request of
the French Ministry of War. The King of Italy made a personal request
for the extension of the "Y" work to his armies. The men who were
charged with the task of winning this war believed that America could do
nothing better to hasten victory than to extend the influence of these
great creators and conservers of morale to the brave soldiers of our
Allies.
The cheer, the comfort, the recuperative influence of these united
services to our soldiers cannot be overestimated. They are incalculably
valuable--and they are purely and originally American.
WOUNDED YANKS ARE CHEERFUL
A Paris correspondent just from the front says--The spirit of American
soldiers passing through casualty stations is admirable. One "doughboy"
from Kansas, hobbling up to an American Red Cross canteen on one leg and
crutches, shouted, "Here I come. I'm only hitting on three cylinders,
but still able to get about."
Another boasted of his luck because he had only three shrapnel wounds,
one in his hand, one in his shoulder and one in the back.
An American Red Cross canteen at a receiving station often offers men
their first chance to talk over their experiences. They stand round with
a cup of chocolate in one hand, a doughnut in the other, and fight their
fights over again until officers drive them to the dressing rooms.
BOY SCOUTS PLAY THEIR PART WELL
"Boys will be men" is a new version of an old saying. It is justified
by the record of the Boy Scouts of America, for a better formation of
upright, manly character never was achieved by any other means. That
Scout training makes good men and fine soldiers has been amply proven on
a broad scale.
November 1, 1918, The Boy Scouts of America had a registered membership
of over 350,000, and applications for membership were coming in at the
rate of a thousand a day. April 9, 1917, three days after this country
entered the war, the National Council of the organization formally
resolved "To co-operate with the Red Cross through its local chapters
in meeting their responsibilities occasioned by the state of war." The
members have nobly followed out that resolution.
BOYS HELP MOST WONDERFUL
They have sold liberty bonds in the amount of $206,179,150, to 1,349,
individual subscribers. As "dispatch bearers of the government" they
have distributed over 15,000,000 war pamphlets. They have been sedulous
and invaluable in checking enemy propaganda. They have served on
innumerable public occasions as police aids and as ushers at great
meetings. They performed one feat that might to many have appeared
impossible, in searching out for the war department enough black walnut
trees to furnish 14,038,560 feet of board lumber that was urgently
needed for gunstocks and plane propellors. They have been tireless in
supplementing the service of other organizations. And they never make
any display of their work--they just do it, and keep on doing it,
without any talk. They are useful; and every man who was a boy scout is
a better man for having been one.
THIRTY-THREE Y.M.C.A. WORKERS GIVE LIVES IN WAR
From the time the United States entered the war up to the signing of
the armistice, thirty-three Y.M.C.A. workers, twenty-nine men and four
women, have given up their lives in the service abroad.
British air forces kept pace with the German armies across the Rhine.
In the last five months, in which occurred some of the heaviest air
fighting in the war, Germany lost in aerial combats with the British
alone 1,837 machines. It is estimated that something like 2,700 machines
were accounted for by the British since June 1, and to this total may be
added the heavy destruction wrought by French and American aviators.
GREATEST MAIL SERVICE IN THE WORLD
The mail service of the American armies in France and Belgium was one of
the most remarkably original features of the war. Mail was handled by
postal experts from home in such manner as sent millions of letters by
the straightest course to every point in the United States, from the
great cities down to the smallest hamlet.
"SAG" RELIEVED POISON GAS VICTIMS
American soldiers in the fighting lines were furnished with tubes of
medicinal paste to cure mustard gas burns. It was simply smeared over
the burned patches, or rubbed on the skin to prevent burning. It was
called "sag," which is the reverse spelling of "gas."
GERMANS ABANDONED MUCH EQUIPMENT
While they were chasing the Germans after they had broken the Hindenburg
line, American soldiers salvaged enormous quantities of equipment
thrown away or abandoned by the boches in their haste to get out of the
Americans' way.