American Red Cross appropriations on account of work in Great Britain
have amounted to $3,078,875. This includes two gifts of $953,000 and
$1,193,125, respectively, to the British Red Cross and a gift of
$500,000 to the Canadian Red Cross. The gifts to the British Red Cross
will be used for relief and comforts to sick and wounded in hospitals,
for the maintenance of auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes in
England, and for institutions for orthopedic and facial treatment and
for general restorative work for disabled British soldiers. The British
orthopedic hospitals serve as training schools for American surgeons.
The gift to the Canadian Red Cross was given in recognition of the part
Canada has played in the war. The money will be used to alleviate the
suffering of wounded and sick Canadian soldiers.
The regular work of the American Red Cross in England includes the
maintenance of a hospital at an English port for sick American soldiers
and sailors, and support of a hospital at South Devon and of another for
officers at Lancaster Gate, London.
Commissions have been maintained in Serbia, Rumania, and Russia, where
relief has been administered according to the needs of the situation in
each instance. In Rumania the active relief work was abandoned only when
the Red Cross representatives were forced to leave the country following
the Ukraine peace. At the present writing [April, 1918] a special
commission, accompanied by several medical units, is on its way to take
up relief work in Palestine.
The appropriations for Serbian relief have totaled $875,180.76; for
Rumania, $2,676,368.76, and for Russia $1,243,845.07. All other foreign
relief work, miscellaneous in character, has involved appropriations
amounting to $3,576,300.