IN telling the story of the Red Cross in the East the discomforting thought is ever present in my mind that I may not dwell as long as I should like upon a scene as touching as that which concluded the report from Rumania. No sooner have I visualized the little station at Jassy and rejoiced, however vicariously, with the departing mission in their consciousness of a deed well done than I am called upon by the very nature of this book to depict scenes of suffering in Serbia and Greece, Palestine, and the Near East that would appear to be more poignant than anywhere else in Europe.

Until our own entry into the struggle the Balkans, if the truth must be told, had been merely a name, a far-off place associated with rugged hills and beautiful embroideries; and, in a relief way, our only touch with them had been in the special Typhus Commission that went to Serbia in 1914.

Serbia's rôle in the war may be fixed by events before and after the Great Retreat in the fall of 1915 --- when the Serbian Army, hopelessly outnumbered, commenced its retirement with the snow three feet deep and the cold in the bleak Albanian hills almost unbearable. Soldiers were little better clad than the wretched civilians who dropped in the snow and lay where they fell. The historic retreat of Napoleon's armies across the snowbound Russian plains from Moscow was less fearful. Of the Serb Army of 250,000 that had opposed the enemy at the frontier, less than 100,000 reached the ultimate haven --- Corfu, that lies like a fairy isle in the Ionian Sea. Fifty per cent of the civilians who fled out of Serbia died of starvation, disease, and exposure before help could reach them; while of the remaining half, 20,000 found sanctuary in foreign lands, Corsica, Switzerland, France, and Italy, and along the African coast. During the following year, great effort was made by the British and French governments, and sympathetic individuals everywhere, to mitigate the sufferings of these homeless people who had been driven from their firesides to the ends of the earth.

But I must not forget that it is of the Serbians in Serbia of whom I would write, the singing Serbs of the gentle hearts and genial firesides who, in the midst of a turbulent land, under a wise and generous government, have managed to preserve the autonomy of the Serbian States as well as their customs and traditions.

In June and July, 1916, the beaten army began to struggle out of Corfu, bolstered by Allied support, reequipped and reclothed by Allied funds. Many still suffered the effects of the retreat, and their physical stamina was not of the strongest; but there were 30,000 Serbs at the front with the Allied forces that drove the Austrians from Monastir!

By April, 1917, there were 50,000 civilian refugees in the little recaptured area, crowded chiefly into the shell-raked city and the wretched outlying villages; and there were 200,000 more scattered through the bleak plains of Macedonia all the way to Saloniki. It was here in this region that the Red Cross found them in the summer of 1917, living in cellars, barns, churches, and mosques, subsisting as best they could, menaced by cold, hunger, and disease. The enemy had stripped the countryside of its grain, horses, cattle, food, and metals; there was nothing, they say, not even a match with which to start a fire. Dearth, indeed! To go into such desolation was like going into a wilderness. It was like making the world over again.

The base of the Red Cross activity was, perforce, the Greek port of Saloniki that was having troubles enough of its own ---with half of the city homeless after the great fire ---without 10,000 additional refugees. Here the Red Cross established soup kitchens; the sight of hot, appetizing food apparently conjured out of empty air seemed a mysterious feat to the natives; barracks, sewing rooms, hospitals, and dispensaries were set up in accordance with the regular prescribed formula for the building up of civilian relief. Chaos enough there was in the city of Saloniki, more cosmopolitan than ever now with its narrow hilly streets filled with strange, surging throngs; with strange ships in its harbors and Turkish guns trained at its heart; with strange soldiers in its streets and cafés and bazaars and always the crying, hungry masses that the Red Cross had come to feed and comfort. A dismal, endless, hopeless task it seemed and more wretched, somehow, than a similar task had seemed in other places. There was so little on which to build, either materially or spiritually.

In the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt, lay the collier Cæsar, loaded with food, clothing, and medicine, which had been sent by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian relief. Its destination had been Beirut on the Syrian coast, but operations in the Mediterranean had checked its departure. Of this the Red Cross took immediate advantage, buying the shipload of supplies outright and bringing them at once to the distribution point. This was more than timely; it was like manna from Heaven in this remote region which, inaccessible enough to the western world in normal times, was now struggling with the additional difficulties of Turkish gunboats, Austrian submarines, and British mines.

At this point, I take the liberty of making a slight digression in order to extend the gratitude of the Red Cross to the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief for its splendid coöperation in the Near East. This had been one of the first relief agencies in the field endeavoring to salvage the thousands of starving and homeless people along the coast of Palestine and ancient Judea. After our coming we were glad in many instances to profit by their experiences and to follow their example. What the Red Cross could not do the Armenian and Syrian Committee did; territory untouched by the Red Cross was covered by them, and throughout there was the spirit of friendly understanding and coöperation and a happy dovetailing of enterprise at all points where they met on a common platform. It is therefore timely that due thanks be extended to this capable organization that contributed so largely to the relief so vitally needed in this desolate region.

In Serbia proper the Red Cross centered its refugee work in Vodena, a city half-way between Saloniki and Monastir, in which about 5000 refugees had found shelter. The first act of the Red Cross was the setting up of a fifty-bed hospital in a building supplied by the Greek Government; later, a second one of twice the capacity was established at Banitza, sixty-five miles from Saloniki.

The villages about Monastir were crowded with homeless people who would not be dragged from their shattered firesides. To pamper this home-clinging spirit the Red Cross constructed a number of adobe houses on frameworks of wattles, a type of dwelling peculiar to all the Mediterranean countries and the Near East. In Saloniki, forests of tents were laid in the suburbs to shelter the fire victims, and milk was distributed regularly to the children. Clothing, shoes, and staple foodstuffs which they could not give to the penniless strangers within their gates, were purchased from the local shops; and, in this way, the hungry were fed, the naked clothed, and the Red Cross became the wonder-worker of the East.

For the troops, rolling canteens like those in use on other battlefronts were dispatched to the Serbian front; motor trucks were ordered from Italy; and quantities of canvas for beds and hospital stretchers were purchased and made up. An artificial limb factory was started in Saloniki, while a staff of American dentists with ten fully equipped dental ambulances was sent from New York for service with the Serb armies. A sum of $50,000 was given to the Serbian Red Cross, which had moved its headquarters to Corfu, with a branch in Geneva.

I have not yet mentioned the Serbian prisoners of war in Austria and Bulgaria. These, also, became the wards of the Red Cross, and theirs is yet another chapter in the story of terror and cruelty. There were 154,000 of them in captivity, facing the Austrian winter without proper food or clothing. The Red Cross made an appropriation of $70,000 to take care of their most vital needs, and tons of supplies soon began to move through Berne to Serbs in enemy prison camps. The story of these prisoners is an old one, and it were trite to dwell anew on prison camp life with its attendant horrors of pestilence, death, starvation, cruelty, and cold in a strange and friendless land. Many a Serb in his ransomed home to-day owes his life to the food sent by the Red Cross. In addition, generous appropriation was made for the sustenance and medical care of tubercular Serbs in France, Switzerland, and Italy.

Thus the Red Cross intrenched itself in the hearts and hearths of Serbia. With the grand rally of the Serbian Army in the autumn of 1918, when all events moved towards the great climax, the Red Cross was still there with its rolling canteens and its comforts, although it was desolate enough at that, and sounds far more encouraging in printed words than it actually was, for the whole situation was hopeless and lacking in all those essentials that are absolute necessities to the efficiency of the spoiled and pampered westerner. It was a last, grand, desperate effort, backed up by Allied aid, against a staggering foe. The last bitter campaign was marked by great suffering among the troops. There were no women nurses, no anæsthetics, no surgical dressings save the pitifully small amount the Red Cross was able to supply, for the transportation problem was always an uncertain factor, one on which wagers could not safely be laid at any time. Tonnage was more precious than the jewels of a Rajah, and when it came to the loading of a relief ship there was always a debate as to which should be given preference --food, clothing, medical supplies, or surgical dressings, each item being needed as badly as the other. If some were clothed, wounds were neglected; if wounds were dressed, backs went bare or stomachs empty. Over $600,000 was spent for relief supplies in Serbia, and even then, the Red Cross task was only half done.

Looking down the long vistas of her history, Serbia will find no page that is illumined with more valorous deeds and superhuman courage in the face of titanic odds than that which fills her rôle in the Great War ---"Serbia that fights only for freedom and surrenders only to God."

Of all the strange, incongruous settings that had to do with the transplanting of the Red Cross and its modern trappings, there have been none to compare with Greece --- that cradle of art and classic antiquity, whose fingerprints are visible through the ages wherever men have tried to live greatly. Strange, indeed, it must have seemed to see the all too familiar bread lines and soup kitchens and dispensaries within the shadow of the towering Acropolis, white against the Athenian sky under the frown of Olympus or in the Daphne haunted glades of Tempe.

The rôle of the Red Cross in ancient Hellas was confined almost entirely to civilian relief work, although this does not mean that its field there was a narrow one or in any way circumscribed. The hordes of destitute Greeks could not have been greater nor more forlorn had there been a wholesale enemy invasion of the Hellenic peninsula. Thousands of Greeks, living outside of Greece in Bulgaria and Turkey, became the objects of cruelest oppression and persecution when, at the beginning of the war, it was decreed that every Christian should be driven from Islam at the point of the sword. The twentieth century reverted overnight to the seventh, the shoddy cloak of tolerance fell from the shoulders of Turkey, and the Holy War was on as if there had been no surcease. Saladin rode again in defense of Acre.

In 1914 Greece had just emerged from the Balkan struggle of 1912-1913 and had acquired by the treaty of Bucharest a portion of Eastern Macedonia, an indifferent land, unproductive, peopled with refugees driven out of Bulgaria, or residents whose homes had been laid waste during the campaigns of the Balkan wars of those years. It was a barren countryside filled with a hungry, clamorous people. So Greece already had her refugee problem when the holocaust of Europe took flame; Belgium, France, and Serbia were old stories to her, and the war but served to enhance her difficulties.

The political position of Greece was a peculiar one.

We are all familiar with the circumstances that led up to the abdication of King Constantine and the final decision of Greece to enter the war as an Allied power in June, 1917. These civil disturbances had not served to heighten the morale of the people, and at the time of the appeal to the American Red Cross, Greece was a sad, tottering, hungry land, with swarms of her own people knocking at her gates for admittance, demanding shelter and food that she could not give.

Countless stories have come from out of the East in regard to Bulgarian and Turkish atrocities, of hordes of women and children driven naked across the land, forced to march without food, clothing, or shelter under the pitiless desert skies --- of young girls carried off into slavery, of massacres in the silent depths of Asia Minor, of Greek children kidnapped by the Bulgars and forcibly denationalized, and of countless other cruelties too numerous and too terrible to relate. Our task there was to salvage the unhappy remainder that knocked at our doors, faint with hunger, burning with fever, or driven insane by their experiences.

When, at the close of the year 1917, the Greek Red Cross appealed for aid, an American Red Cross representative was sent from Saloniki to Athens to consult with the Greek Government and the Red Cross, while only a small commission was sent through the interior to look over the field. Of course the usual quota of relief supplies was in order: food, clothing, surgical dressings, and medical needs, as well as hospital equipment, sewing machines, and uncut materials, hospital bedding, towels, linen, and ambulances.

There were 50,000 Greek refugees in the islands of the Ægean Sea --- those beautiful storied islands, lying like jewels on the bosom of the bright water, past which the Greek fleet had sailed on its way to Ilium, past which the adventurous Argosy had run, whose shores are cloudy with almond blossoms in the spring! These wanderers were utterly destitute, having been driven out of Turkey with only the few poor rags that covered them.

In the homeland, the mobilization of the forces had left the same economic problems behind as it did in other lands. After the Saloniki fire, still more homeless ones thronged the streets, while the civilian hospitals were being emptied to take care of the wounded.

But the Red Cross had done so much it could do more. In the early emergency, fifty tons of general supplies were purchased from the Serbian Commission for use in Macedonia, and at the end of September, 1918, the special Commission for Greece set out with a personnel of seventy. By that time, the whole situation in the Balkans had changed for the better: Bulgaria had capitulated; the flag of the Christian had been raised over Jerusalem; the Red Cross found itself in a more cheerful spiritual atmosphere when the new Commission arrived at Saloniki. This, of course, was very close to the end of the war. With the obligations of the army removed, the way became at once easier and the Red Cross has since been steadily helping Greece back to her hearthfires. A good-sized appropriation was set aside for the rehabilitation of Greek refugees, while arrangements were made for the shipment of 329 tons of foodstuffs monthly for a period of three months, coming from Italian ports to the Piræus and the Island of Mitylene.

In the city of Athens, the children became the special charge of the Red Cross as they have always been wherever the Red Cross has gone. Centers for the care of children of employed mothers were opened, and a daily milk ration provided for; while sewing rooms were opened not only in Athens but on the islands of Chios, Samos, and Mitylene in the Ægean Sea and in Serres, Kavalla, and Drama, the Macedonian centers of Red Cross work. In addition to this, a number of Greek women were given special training in care of children and home hygiene,--- after the manner followed in France,--- and by which the trained women in the rôle of visiting practical nurses could take the child welfare idea into the Greek homes. The Red Cross was also able to go into Bulgarian territory and give some comfort to a number of Greek prisoners in internment camps there.

The Red Cross came late to Greece, perhaps, but more than one report says that its presence had a most enlivening and heartening effect upon the people. Certainly, owing to the circumstances of the country, the Greek agencies were unable to handle the sorry situation that confronted them. It was fortunate indeed that the Red Cross was able to step into the emergency and discharge so well its obligations.

In April, 1918, the Red Cross War Council received from the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief the following cablegram which gives a fragmentary picture of the conditions which prevailed in Palestine at that time, and supplies the reason for the Red Cross' going into the Holy Land: --

Fifteen hundred Armenians, survivors of many thousands exiled from Adana, Kharne, Marash, Aintab, Ourfa-Kessab, two and a half years ago, to the wilderness east of the Jordan, found trekking to Jericho. For months had been compelled by Turks to break stone on roads. Brought to Jerusalem in British motor trucks. Although weak and hungry, faces lighted up at first glimpse of Mount of Olives.

Six thousand Syrian refugees from Es Salt vicinity expected this week. We will equip expeditions to meet exiles and will provide industrial relief if additional funds can be sent. Five hundred Armenians rescued by Arabs at Tawfile, between Maan and Dead Sea, will be moved to Port Said. For months from twenty to thirty died daily of starvation. Original number ten thousand. Following message has come through from Tawfile: "The price of a life is the price of bread."

Fortunately for us the British Armies had cleared the way. They were at Antioch far to the North, in Jerusalem and in Jericho, and were crossing the river Jordan. The British Relief Fund for Palestine and Syria had already established Medical Units at Gaza, Hebron, Jaffa, and Jerusalem and invited the participation of the Red Cross. Until the coming of the British Committee, relief in Palestine and other near parts of Asia Minor had been in the hands of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, which had sent $10,000,000 worth of supplies, $3,000,000 of which had been contributed by the Red Cross prior to our active participation in this field.

So in March, 1918, the special Red Cross Commission for Palestine sailed from New York with hundreds of tons of supplies and complete traveling and camping equipment. The route was long, for travel in the Mediterranean was still hazardous and they went around the African continent, touching at Ceylon and on through the Red Sea, so that it was June before the Mission arrived at the port of Beirut.

The field before them in the Holy Land embraced half the measure of Asia. There was no turning back, once begun. Although housing and sanitary conditions in that part of the world had never been ideal, according to occidental standards, there was, fortunately, a more substantial background on which to build than there had been at other relief points; for one thing, the British engineers were engaged in intensive sanitation work in Jerusalem itself, and after the fresh waters from the hills had been brought down to the city by means of modern plumbing and pumping, the water-skins, filthy though picturesque, disappeared from the streets for the first time in two thousand or more years. Indeed, permit me to say here, that the work of the Red Cross in Palestine was made largely possible through the generous and benevolent attitude manifested by the British authorities in the occupied enemy territory, and by their marvelous and rapid organization and control of the civic functions. On the part of the officials there was always present the spirit of the most cordial welcome and a generous willingness to meet us halfway in all our undertakings.

The Jerusalem that the Red Cross Commission found was a teaming babel, orderly enough under British Army discipline, of course; but it is doubtful if the ancient city with so many strange peoples mingling amicably in its streets, with heavy British cars and Army camions disturbing the calm of the stolid donkeys, the sleepy camels and the wailing thousands of refugees --- more wretched than those that have wept before its walls for a thousand years, and more forlorn than the lepers that used to ask alms at the gate --- ever knew times as stirring or as full of wonderment as these. On a Palm Sunday long ago, perhaps, the city had been as crowded with surging throngs; as bewildered and as clamorous, perhaps, as now in the midsummer of the year of our Lord, 1918; but that was a very long time ago and Jerusalem has slept and dreamed through nearly two thousand summers since then, while the world has grown old about it and the crescent of the Turk has hung over its gates.

Therefore it was an unique atmosphere in which the Red Cross found itself: the birth-spot of Christ just set free from the Saracen, spread over with villages that had been villages when Joshua conquered Canaan, when Abraham journeyed from the plains of the Jordan down into Hebron; and through which David had passed when he was fleeing into the wilderness from Saul --- villages that looked for all the world like western Indian pueblo villages, clinging old and brown and shapeless to the hills. It would be strange, indeed, if a little time was not given to meditation in a place of such antiquity, surcharged with memories that have so vitally influenced the life of the world. One can stand on one of the rolling Judean hills and watch the shepherds with their flocks in the purple shade of the olive trees; two thousand years ago they might have seen the Star from that very spot, for Bethlehem lay just across the valley.

But the pressing need, according to all accounts, was for action and not meditation. The first relief work undertaken was among the homeless refugees, crowded into the city of Jerusalem, housed in various odd buildings, and tented in the vacant spaces. Strangely enough, among them were a number of Russian women pilgrims, stranded in Jerusalem by the war, although they are not to be classed with the type of refugee that had trudged across the Jordan Valley: these were intelligent, clean, hardworking, devoutly religious women of fine physique and handsome Slav features, who welcomed the advent of the Red Cross sewing rooms that were soon opened.

In the city of Jerusalem fifteen hundred women --- Moslem, Jewish, and Christian --- were employed in the industrial workrooms instituted by the Red Cross, and engaged in spinning, weaving, knitting, dressmaking, basketry, rug making, mattress making, embroidery, and lace work. The Red Cross custom of helping the refugees to help themselves has always made for contentment and satisfaction in the subjects of our aid, giving work to impatient, idle fingers and, thereby, assuring them of the type and character of clothing they preferred --- a factor to be considered if they were to attain any measure of happiness. It was familiar things they wanted, things to which they had been accustomed, things they had known through all their dark narrow lives.

They admire western culture, perhaps, but they do not want it ---not much of it; in fact, they are rather afraid of it.

There were ten refugee centers in the city, two of which were on the Mount of Olives; there was an orphanage for boys, conducted by German agencies before the war and which the British desired the Red Cross to take over. Later it became necessary to establish another orphanage for boys and one for girls. Following the opening of the American Red Cross Hospital in the city, there also was established a series of clinics for children and adults in the city and in four outside centers. Six hundred orphans formerly the charges of the British Relief Committee were taken in hand, and a liaison was effected with the Zionist Unit for the relief of suffering Jews.

At Port Said, at the head of the Suez Canal just across that curve of the land towards the west, where Asia Minor ends and Africa begins, a number of Armenian refugees were concentrated under the charge of the Red Cross, assisted by the Armenian Society and the British Relief Fund for Palestine and Syria.

Refugee work along the foregoing lines was conducted in five centers in the Holy Land: in Mejel, where a hospital was established; in Remleh, with a clinic supplementing the work of the Government hospital; in Jaffa, a few miles west of Jerusalem on the coast; at Ram Allah and at Wadi-Surar, in western Palestine, where two thousand or more refugees were gathered under tents on the plain. Here was also a halfway camp for Armenians being taken to Port Said, and a flourishing school of six or seven hundred native children. Also, a small civilian hospital was established in Nazareth. In the agricultural districts, and Palestine is largely a pastoral land, ox-teams were secured for indigent farmers.

Altogether the field in Palestine was most satisfactory, and with the cessation of hostilities and the subsequent opening of the ocean lanes and ports, many problems that had existed as decidedly material barriers to the progress of relief work have disappeared. All the routes to Asia are open now. Supplies can go through and keep on going through without cessation.

For all this work, including food, medical, surgical, and sanitary supplies, salaries and expenses, the War Council of the Red Cross had appropriated by October 1, $558,479. In addition to this, a monthly contribution of $50,000 is made to the Red Cross by the Armenian and Syrian Relief Committee for the work among the civilian population.

The end of the war, however, does not mean the end of want or the end of suffering or disease in the Holy Land. It is a land sunk deep in tradition and superstition and into which the light of modern science or modern thought has not penetrated; it is a land that has long suffered oppression and cruelty and misunderstanding, where the spirit of the peoples has been shrunken and terrified by persecution. But in this land the Red Cross has set a bright lamp, and we hope it will shine forever, bringing light and hope and good will to the old, old lands of the East.

IT is a bolder pen that mine that essays to write of Russia to-day, even from the standpoint of relief work carried on within its borders. Perhaps everything that there is to be said of Russia that will convey an idea of its present condition---if there be a present condition in a land that is constantly changing-has been said. Perhaps everyone who reads this will have his own idea of Russia, as nearly every one of us has---each of those ideas different, each of them short of the truth in varying degrees, for Russia, unconsciously, hides herself from those most anxious to understand her. Those who have been in Russia at any time the last three years think they have seen Russia; almost believe that they understand Russia; but they do not. Russia is as a kaleidoscope. We look upon to-day's picture and say: "This is Russia!" and scarcely have the words left our lips than there is a change and we discover that what we thought was Russia is not Russia at all. It was only a distorted vision. At that, I am most ready to believe and not a few who have been there agree with me that the workers of the American Red Cross and other relief agencies came closer to that vague, intangible thing that we like to speak of poetically as the soul of Russia, than a host of others who were never in close touch with the people the common people, the peasants, and the people of the land, those teeming millions of the steppes struggling in the dark to discover just what the demise of the Romanoffs will mean to them.

Russia is more than a country; it is a world in itself. Russia has every imaginable thing that land or water can hold in store for the benefit of mankind, and has it in a measure that is incalculable: there are fertile wheatlands capable of yielding billions of bushels of grain, and mountains that are rich in ore, silver, gold, and precious stones that have slept there through ages; there are valleys gushing with oil, vineyards heavy with wine, waters teeming with fish, and forests untouched. If ever a land flowed with milk and honey, it is Russia --- Russia the virgin.

It was into this country, this Garden of Alladin, shuddering under the suddenness and swiftness of the revolution that the Red Cross went, drawn by the suffering and by the needs of the Allied and American forces there --(albeit the Red Cross was in Russia before foreign troops were sent in). It was an effort to help the affected population to withstand the stress of the times as best they could; often help of this kind, at such a time, is as efficacious as forests of bayonets, although to say so in the Russian situation were an exaggeration. Yet, although Russia is still in a state of flux, like hot metal that has not found its mold, the work of the Red Cross, infinitesimal as it was in comparison with the crying need of Russia, has not been in vain. The Red Cross could not lead Russia to her destiny, but it could hold out a timely flame of hope to the bewildered, suffering millions that poured through the steppes --- 12,000,000 they say it was --- running away from the Frankenstein of their own hands' creating; it could show them that human understanding and human kindness still existed; it could point the better way, although it could not command.

When the great army of Russia surged behind the standard of the Little Father, up and down Petrograd and the Carpathians to the frontiers of Prussia and back, seesawing across the land --- now driving the foe before them, now giving ground without resistance --- they left the same wake of suffering as did the armies in Belgium, Serbia, and France. But it was greater, it was more remote from relief, and it was voiceless. The Russian is Asiatic in his fatalism. Centuries of oppression have taught him not to complain.

But overnight, Russia roused from her centuries of passivity. The Little Father no longer sat on the great throne in Petrograd. The Czar was a hunted exile in his own land and Russia was free!

It is impossible to tell of the Red Cross in Russia without going into the conditions in that country; for vague and imperfect though it, obviously, must be, the work and policy of the Red Cross were molded and limited by the political situation there. Of all theaters of operation in which the Red Cross was active, that of ancient Moscow may be said to have been the most difficult, even if it was the most interesting and, perhaps, the most romantic. To appreciate the difficulties with which the Red Cross had to contend, the obstacles that had to be overcome, one must know or, at least, have an idea of Russia at the time. There, the Red Cross was confronted by problems heretofore unforeseen, unencountered. That its position was a difficult one will be shown by the brief statement that it was a neutral, non-combatant relief agency operating in a land whose armies were still recognized as part of the Allied forces a land where those who were revolutionists one day were peaceable soil-tilling folk the next, or where the stolid peasant of yesterday became the cutthroat of to-morrow. It was a situation, to say the least, that called for careful diplomacy and great delicacy of action. Contrary to the expectations of the average Russian, to whom "liberty" and "democracy" were but vague terms, the millennium, as we all know, did not come with the dethronement of the Romanoffs. Russia began to wander through an evil dream, while her children cried for food and the enemy menaced her borders; the Army refused to fight; authority was unrecognized; the papers of one faction were worthless in the eyes of the next. Leaders rose and fell, commerce was at a standstill, transportation failed; people cried for that bauble of freedom that they thought was within their grasp and killed each other in the streets, in misled hope of gaining the much-sought prize through bloodshed; children cried for food and ran homeless into the fields. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty went through at last.

Such was Russia ---a cauldron, a bedlam, a world of many minds with but few who thought they saw the way, and a huge remainder doubting, suspecting, fearing, longing only for some sort of peace and stability --- a few months after the outbreak of the revolution, when the American Red Cross came.

Arriving at the port of Vladivostok, late in the month of July, 1917, the Commission was met by representatives of the Russian Red Cross, which had come through the months of turmoil a sorry wreck. Perhaps a few words about the Red Cross of Russia will not be amiss here, since the remnants of that organization were to form an important liaison between the Russian people and the foreigners who had come to help them. Under the old régime, it had enjoyed fair organization and had ramified the empire from Petrograd to the Bering Sea. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, it had thoroughly supplemented the medical corps of the armies and had earned the confidence of the people; but its very foundation was autocracy and, for this very reason, it went down with the fall of the autocrats. In February, 1918, the old Central Committee was dissolved by force of arms, and its guiding members found little mercy at the hands of the revolutionists. However, in the summer of 1917, a sincere body of its representatives met the Americans at Vladivostok and assured them of their ready coöperation and assistance wherever it might be needed. In a land as strange to Americans as Russia, the need of such assistance was obvious and the desire for coöperation unquestioned.

The American Red Cross came to Russia with ambulances and $200,000 worth of medical supplies, intending later to order vast shipments of medical and surgical needs that were to find their way into Russian hospitals. One of the most urgent needs was for milk in the cities. The infant mortality in those congested spots was increasing each day. There were 150,000 homeless, destitute children in Petrograd that winter. The food situation was acute, although it was largely a matter of transportation rather than actual scarcity. However, it became necessary to send food to the Russians in the Murmansk district for the reason that hungry Petrograd would permit no food to go into that barren, frozen land. To the south of the Russian capital there were acres and acres of ungarnered grain, while the cities cried and fought for bread A Red Cross appropriation of $20,000 for the relief of officers' and soldiers' families in Petrograd was made before the political situation became so acute that it was thought best to remove the Mission from the capital, which lay under the menace of possible German occupation, in March, 1918, the Mission left the city, and with the American Ambassador proceeded to Moscow, leaving one man behind to carry on the milk distribution. It became clear that under the existing circumstances, with the old capital and the surrounding country under the menace of invasion, that the work of the Commission was over. The field of action became daily more and more circumscribed, yet they stayed on --- in Moscow, Murmansk, and in Archangel, doing what they could. Although the land was in ferment and confusion, somewhere beneath the chaos lay Russia reborn.

There were two utterly unrelated factors that helped Russia through the strain of the last two years, factors that made many things possible that otherwise would have been impossible, one of which gave cause for continued Red Cross activity, and the other which made that activity possible --- two factors on which the face of Russia may be said to have depended during that period: the Czecho-Slovaks and Trans-Siberian Railway.

I will speak briefly of the latter first. All through the turmoil of the revolution, the great iron way that traverses Russia from Vladivostok to Petrograd --- 6000 miles---was kept going, somehow, and in that fact lies something of the quality of the spirit of the real Russia: the employees of the railroad yielded to the lure of the freebooters and the revolutionists that infested the land less than any other class of workers, and it was their loyalty and steadfastness that kept the interior of Russia open, for they worked in the face of unimaginable difficulties, and enabled supplies to be carried from Vladivostok inland. The life of these men was one of exceptional hazard. Their families were in want and misery; for months they were unpaid; yet something made them see that the trains had to move if ever hope was to come out of the situation at all. The psychology of this vision, this urge on the part of these loyal Russian laboring men, will forever remain a mystery. It was something of the real Russia, the Russia that is worth while, the Russia that will finally triumph. At that, I do not mean to convey the impression that the Trans-Siberian was a perfectly running, perfectly managed road. Far from it. To begin with, the rolling stock was old and dilapidated, the engines badly in need of repair and fuel was scarce; nor did they run on schedule time, breakdowns being the rule rather than the exception; but they ran, somehow, the trains from Vladivostok inland, and it was through this medium that Red Cross supplies were taken into Russia.

And the Czecho-Slovaks: Czech soldiers had been in Siberia since June, having joined the French and British forces in the field. The care of the wounded became an obligation of the Red Cross, while the American consul at Harbin, in Manchuria, was asking for coöperation with the Russian Red Cross there to take care of the refugees coming in along the routes of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The misery of the tumult was breaking out in a new place. Around the Czecho-Slovaks there was rallying a formidable force of Russians, and the port of Vladivostok, with its vast quantities of supplies which Sukhomlinoff had kept from the Russian armies, was now in Allied control. A crisis was imminent. Russia wanted peace and safety wherever she might find it: she would take it from Germany if the Allies could not produce it the more quickly. In the meantime, suffering increased and the cities, though in the midst of plenty, were still in the grip of famine --the peasants refusing to give up their grain at Government prices, when they could sell it in the open market for its weight in gold. Food commissions, created by the soviet government, were sent into the farming regions, there to wrest the food from the peasants by force, if they could obtain it no other way. Children from the breadless cities were sent into the country, thrown upon the charity of the peasants for their food. Some months later 1200 of these "lost children of the Urals" were corralled by the Red Cross in Tumen and Irbit and brought back from savagery to normal life. The number of children who died in the wilderness will never be known.

And so, as in Italy the previous autumn, the Red Cross went "to war"--- it having been decided not to send, at least for the present, an American Army to Russia ---to hold the Russians to the cause of right and save her from that greater chaos that wholesale enemy occupation would precipitate; kindness and the relief of pressing needs in the way of food, clothing, and shelter was the means by which she was to be won to the Allies' cause

Meanwhile, across the German frontiers, Russian prisoners released from bondage in enemy prison camps --- in some instances of four years' duration--- were pouring by the thousands back into a Russia they did not know, a Russia that had come into being while they were rotting in captivity, a Russia that would flay them and try their hearts anew before granting them the peace for which they had fought. A large proportion of these men were ill and wasted physically. Many of them were tuberculotic.

The needs of the newly released Russian prisoners offered an opportunity to bring home by clear, practical demonstration, the fact that the Red Cross had come there to help them. Fortunately, our men were able to get a Government chartered ship, in which a load of food supplies, medicines, and drugs was soon on its way.

Encouragement, also, came at that time from the fact that the call of the United States Consul at Harbin could be answered and was now going forward for the relief of the refugees there. There were swarms of them ---a heterogeneous mass of bewildered folk, ranging from the unkempt mendicant classes to unfortunate families who had known comfort and prosperity---Russians, Tartars, dark, round-eyed children from the Balkans and Armenia, and wailing Serbs, utterly destitute and forlorn.

From the beginning, the purpose of the Red Cross was to help the people of Russia without regard to political situations, and with utter indifference to the policies of the political party that happened to be in power. Its aim was to keep clearly before the Russians the fact that the United States, through the Red Cross, wanted to help them. Yet the picture of Russia is a difficult one to paint, so many vital things were happening simultaneously. It was while the relief ship was preparing for northern Russia that a new and keenly urgent situation arose in the Far East: the Czecho-Slovaks had developed a new theater of war and stubborn fighting was going on along the railway lines in Siberia and along the Volga. Light was beginning to filter through upon a state of things which three months before had been hopelessly black. By July 15, 1918, one year after the Red Cross had come to Russia, United States Marines and regulars were landing at the Russian ports; the Marines at Kola on the Murmansk front; and Infantry from the Philippines at Vladivostok. Allied forces were in that city guarding the stores, and the Czecho-Slovak wounded were moving back over the railway in increasing numbers into hospitals already filled to overflowing. The United States cruiser Brooklyn, lying in Vladivostok harbor, was temporarily converted into a floating hospital, aboard which the Czechs were taken. Civilian conditions among the refugees driven back from the fighting zone were growing steadily worse.

However, in the present emergency, as always, the letters from the Navy and State Departments and the cables received by the Red Cross were turned over to the Fourteenth Division, and the ball was rolling before the ink on the letters was fairly dry. The Secretary of the Navy cabled to the Commander of the Brooklyn that relief was on the way. It was a day and a week of the swiftest direct action and one in which the Fourteenth Division played one of its most conspicuous parts.

The physician in charge of St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo was summoned by cable to take charge of the situation in Vladivostok at the head of a relief expedition, while the representative of the Russian Department of Commerce at Vladivostok was requested to oversee all preparations until the expedition should arrive. It was perhaps the most urgent and most vital emergency work that the year had exacted of the Red Cross, in a year filled with vital emergencies. There was fast work, too, in Tokyo and in Vladivostok. The Peking Chapter was accumulating supplies, while money poured in from Americans in Shanghai, Tientsin, and Harbin. In Tokyo, the assembling of the hospital unit was hastened, and in eight days the staff with their supplies landed in Vladivostok ready for work.

Out of all this energy grew the American Red Cross relief base at Vladivostok. On Russian Island --- a dot of land two and a half miles out in the harbor, commanding a beautiful view of the busy ship-dotted bay and the broad, blue sweep of the Sea of Japan --- the military hospital was located in buildings already there. There grew up, too, in an incredibly short time, refugee barracks at First and Second Rivers, near the city, capable of housing 2000 people, with soup kitchens, sewing rooms, laundries, and clinics. The sewing rooms gave employment to hundreds of refugee women who were able and eager to make garments if the material was provided. Sanitary trains were equipped to accompany the Czech army into the interior and a rolling canteen and a station canteen were set up between Harbin and the forward lines, in which many American women cheerfully volunteered their services.

The Far East, alarmed at having the war suddenly brought so near, was thrilled at the spirit of coöperation that quickly put things into action. The Americans were at last in the great game, and the war and the Red Cross had come three-quarters of the way around the world to them. The great drama was being played on their very doorsteps.

It was August and the beginning of the Siberian winter was but ten weeks away. Refugees were still coming in, especially from the district east of Lake Baikal, pouring across the Siberian steppes to the Pacific coast where the winter was a bit milder. A few well-to-do Russians in Harbin and Vladivostok volunteered financial help and the Russian Red Cross still stood by ready to render what assistance it could. The food and clothing survey held small hope of the possibility of being able to cope with the needs of the coming season, and heavy winter underclothing, overcoats, shoes, and uniforms were needed for 75,000 Czech troops.

There was no agency to meet this demand except the Red Cross, and again the Chapter machinery was set in motion. Within a few days, quantities of knitted garments made by the women of the Mountain and Pacific Divisions were moving out of San Francisco harbor. This shipment included 250,000 pairs of socks and 250,000 sweaters. From New York came a shipment of a quantity of underclothing and mittens and 150,000 pairs of shoes, donated by the Russian Embassy at Washington for distribution by the Red Cross in Russia. An appropriation of $3,500,000 was made by the Red Cross War Council to carry on this momentous work of relief.

Some idea of the speed with which this work went forward may be had when one realizes that, despite the distance from the base of supplies and the broad and diversified program of the Red Cross in Siberia, the refugee work in Vladivostok was well in hand by the middle of August. Red Cross had in its charge 4000 children and 60,000 adults scattered through that corner of Manchuria around the city of Harbin, where the Manchu territory seems to jut up into Siberia. There were fourteen American and seven Japanese doctors in the hospitals, assisted by American, Japanese, and Chinese nurses. Fifty additional nurses and as many physicians were summoned. Altogether, quite a plant was growing up in Vladivostok. It was assuming the aspects of an industry. The whole nature of the old Siberian port had undergone a change ---a relief center with its streets now filled with refugees from all points of Russia, soldiers in strange uniforms, and its hospitals filled with the wounded of foreign armies.

Incidentally no one failed to speak of the Japanese in terms of the highest praise. Their coöperation in the relief situation is said to have been magnificent. There was nothing they could do to help that was not eagerly and promptly done.

In time, the tide of war changed. Success followed the sword of the valiant Czechs, and early in September the Red Cross was called upon to furnish incidental equipment for 360,000 Russian and Czech soldiers, while the Czech commander asked the Red Cross to take entire charge of the army medical service, with the request for 100 specialists, nurses, and dentists. From Russian sources came new stories of need beyond Baikal for clothing, farm tools, kerosene, window glass, and general household items, all through the devastated regions, left bare by the retreating revolutionists. It seemed that the Russian situation was no sooner in hand than new situations sprang up. For such circumstances, the Red Cross must always be ready. The success of the Czech forces had great moral effect on the vacillating Russians. Thousands of them raffled around the victorious Czech banner, and in the heart of Russia the world's fortune once more swung in fine balance. Supplies for the use of the American troops were coming in from the United States, and there went into the interior a quantity of Red Cross supplies based on the requirements of 10,000 men and a 500-bed hospital.

In the meantime, chaos was having its fling in Moscow and the city found itself cut off from northern Russia, facing the winter without food, fuel, oil, or wool, and very little clothing. Moscow the luxurious was perishing; people fell in the streets from hunger. Soldiers were breaking into the homes and stripping them of all valuables and metals; telephone service was cut off; street transportation ceased; only blood and tumult from day's end to day's end remained, while in the slow Russian mind the fear that they had been tricked began to dawn.

Hanging on in the midst of all this misgovernment were the Red Cross men of the original commission who had remained despite the fact that spectators in Moscow could see no hope for Russia's regeneration, and irrespective of the orders from the United States Department of State for all Americans, official or otherwise, to leave Soviet Russia.

Part of the Mission had drifted through Finland, and thence back to the Archangel district where American troops were in action; others started down the Volga Valley to see what the Czechs were doing; everywhere they found not only a visible lack of necessities at all bases of supply but infinite difficulty to be overcome before supplies could be transported to the needy quarters. While the Red Cross workers in European Russia were doing what little circumstances would permit, and while the high-speed relief work was going on in Vladivostok, a Red Cross ship laden with supplies was making its way to Archangel with food, medicines, and all manner of needs for the soldiers and civilians of north Russia and a new Red Cross Commission was ordered there to operate with the Allied and American troops that were fighting their way south, to effect a junction with the Czechs with the help of the reconstituted Russian forces. So much, at any rate, of the military situation must needs be told, in order to make the picture of Red Cross work in Russia clear. Half the time, it was like working in a bad dream. Unforeseen emergencies constantly arose, apparently insurmountable barriers continually presented themselves. Difficult enough is the work of relief in time of calamity and of war when the affected population is ready and able to coöperate, but in Russia, menaced by the constant threat of invasion from the west and the revolutionists that placed every possible obstacle in the path of law and order, it became a question of helping Russia in spite of herself; and never had the Red Cross endeavored to carry out its purpose in the midst of such adverse circumstances.

By October, the new Commission for north Russia was taking hold of the situation, and the Red Cross supply ship had reached port just in time to relieve the food conditions in Petrograd, where with the Siberian, Volga, and Ukrainian food supplies cut oft, starvation again threatened --- if it had ever been wholly overcome. Fifty-seven per cent of the school children were sick --- in some districts as high as eighty-seven per cent; infant mortality had risen to fifty per cent and degeneration, riot, and death were widespread. The city's social welfare society had 70,000 cases on its inadequate hands, many of them homeless school children. Typhus appeared in the city.

With each day bringing winter nearer, the Red Cross, in addition to its regular relief work about the base at Archangel, launched expeditions into hitherto unreached parts of the district. A Russian trawler loaded with food and medical supplies went along the White Sea coast of the Kola peninsula where the inhabitants, in virtual isolation, were facing starvation and suffering with scurvy and other diseases caused by undernourishment. Later, "antityphus" trains financed by the Allied powers, and equipped and managed by the Red Cross, made regular runs through the typhus infested regions.

So the Red Cross knocked at the heart of Russia, working steadfastly through the terrible cold, giving impartially and with largesse. I cannot but feel that the problem faced and solved so well under the most trying circumstances was an unique one, and that in Russia, above all other places, the Red Cross proved its worth in time of need as easily as it demonstrated its ability to organize and act at a moment's notice. Through it all it has kept faith with itself and with those whom it has served, and at all times it has been deeply appreciative of the ready and effective coöperation of other agents in the field --- the Red Cross societies of Great Britain and Japan, the Russian and Czech Army Medical Corps, the Allied Prisoners Commission of a somewhat late date; and finally, but not the least, the warm responsive welcome of the Russian Red Cross and the Russian people.

LOOKING back, as I begin my last chapter, I realize that what I have written about the various spheres of Red Cross activities in Europe must seem unsatisfactory if not obscure and meager. Especially is this the case in the chapters which relate to Russia and the Near East where, perhaps, the lack of concrete details is more marked than anywhere else. In fairness to myself it should be said, however, that I have endeavored to refer to every important incident which came to the knowledge of the War Council from those distant countries; and, therefore, the blame, if blame there be, should rest rather on the very nature of the undertaking, which made it inevitable that not a few of the splendid efforts of our relief agencies should fail to attain their rightful place in our annals in Washington.

Thus far, patently, my task has been to deal solely with the activities of the Red Cross in the stress of war; but the time has now come when I have to concern myself with the peace efforts of the Red Cross which, despite any opinion to the contrary, must be regarded as scarcely second in importance if not more difficult than those of war. As a matter of fact, it is becoming every day more and more apparent that our foreign problem, and our home problem as well, not only did not end but rather began when the bugles sang truce across the battlefields.

In that infinitesimal second before the guns were suddenly quiet the whole war effort of America was at its height. Of the intense drama of that moment only the soldiers at the scene can tell; and they are strangely silent. To them, however, it brought a laying down of arms and a marching down to rest billets; to the women of the world it brought a prayer; while to the Red Cross it marked an end and a beginning --- a visible end, at least, to everything connected with actual warfare, and a beginning of the fulfillment of its obligations to aid the feet of humanity in struggling along the pathway of enduring peace.

There can be no gainsaying the fact, either, that on the day of the armistice the Red Cross was doing its part and extending its efforts to the utmost. The home office at Washington, visioning months of activity ahead of it, was one of the busiest places in the National Capital; food supplies were going forward to all parts of the world, and production was approaching its crest; the men of our foreign commissions were in action or going into action in all the war-scarred lands; and, specifically and most important of all perhaps, the Red Cross Commission in Paris, having just completed a thorough reorganization of its nine thousand loyal members, was equipped to render maximum service to our own army under whatever conditions the future exigencies of the war might develop.

In view of this great concentration of relief work at the time of the cessation of hostilities, it would be folly to suppose that the Red Cross, like the soldiers, could lay down its arms at once. Far from it. Even if we had desired to follow such a course, attainment was impossible because of the tremendous impetus behind us.

Nevertheless, little by little the thoughts of all mankind began to turn to peace and the reconstruction of the world, and it behooved the Red Cross to adjust itself to the new conditions. As a consequence, therefore, and after consultation with the heads of its European commissions, the War Council proceeded to take up the exceedingly complex question as to how the Red Cross might complete the performance of its war obligations and yet, at the earliest moment, transfer its effort to the peace organization --- by no means a small undertaking, when one takes into consideration the fact that the armistice left the great organization intact, with all its energies a-tingle, and all its unspent resources free.

But, be that as it may, consistent with the results aimed at, there followed a cutting-down of production and a gradual diminishing of Red Cross work in the actual war areas; while an appreciable reduction took place in the personnel everywhere, particularly in the ranks of the volunteer war-workers who, naturally, were compelled to return to their vocations a soon as possible. Furthermore, it was decided at a conference between the President and the War Council that they should retire, and March 1 was set as the date on which the Executive Committee would become, as before the war, the permanent directing body of the American Red Cross. In this connection it gives me great pleasure to state that it was most fortunate for all concerned that Dr. Livingston Farrand was, finally, prevailed upon to accept the chairmanship of this committee.

But all the while that this transfer from a war-time to a peace-time basis was taking place, not a few of those who had followed Red Cross effort during the war were deeply impressed with the idea that it was their duty not to suffer the slightest diminution of the humanitarian spirit which the war had aroused in the American people for their fellow-beings throughout the world; that it was nothing more nor less than an obligation on the part of the American Red Cross to make certain that the results of its experience during the war should be placed at the disposal of the other Red Cross societies of the world, and vice versa.

Hence, when I presented the idea of adopting a peacetime program of Red Cross activity to President Wilson, president of the Red Cross, he grasped at once its vast importance and asked me to concentrate my efforts towards formulating some plan which would accomplish the purpose so much to be desired. Accordingly, soon after this interview I went to Europe where I called into conference the Red Cross societies of the more important countries with a view of developing a plan of coördination and coöperation. It did not take them long to recognize how vitally important it was for the future of the world that the Red Cross should have a peace-time function; yet nowhere, I am glad to say, was this more quickly and clearly realized than in the council chamber where President Wilson, M. Clemenceau, and Premiers Lloyd George and Orlando met daily to draw up the final treaty. They saw, as did every student of the situation, that there could be no peace until the peoples were able to enjoy peace of mind s well as peace of body; that no set of men could establish with pencil and paper a peace which could endure unless the distress throughout the world could be relieved. And so it came about that in the revised Covenant of the League of Nations there was inserted the following paragraph as Article XXV: --

"The members of the League agree to encourage and promote the establishment and coöperation of duly authorized, voluntary, national Red Cross organizations having as their purpose the improvement of health, prevention of disease, and mitigation of suffering throughout the world."

And, indeed, as a whole it was a wretched world, a ragged, frightened, helpless world with so little to rebuild with and so little to cling to. Perhaps it thought that the transition to peace would be easy; perhaps it did not fully grasp the extent of the wastage of the last five years; perhaps it did not realize the hunger and pestilence and dearth that war had engendered. On the other hand, nothing but the armed conflict of half the world could have aroused the people to the possibilities of the Red Cross; nothing but the agony caused by the destruction of all the factors of existence --- houses and bridges, roads and fields, and, in a sense, even life itself---could have shown the need of a universal organization for the promotion of good will wherever human life exists. In a word, these thoughts, far easier to feel than to express, united to form the idea of the League of Red Cross Societies which, with Article XXV of the League of Nations as a sort of international charter, came formally into being in Paris, May 5, 1919 There were present delegates from the Red Cross organizations of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, whose representatives constitute the board of governors, of which board I was chosen chairman, and by which Sir David Henderson was appointed director-general. At a later date Professor William Rappard, of the University of Geneva, became secretary-general.

Invitations to join the league have been issued to the Red Cross societies of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chili, China, Cuba, Denmark, Greece, Holland, India, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Eventually, of course, it is confidently expected that every nation in the world will have a representative in the League of Red Cross Societies which, already, has begun to function at its established headquarters in Geneva. At this point, therefore, if only to avoid any misunderstanding, I think it advisable to state authoritatively that while the relations between the League of Red Cross Societies and the League of Nations will be of an intimate character there will be no statutory connection, since the League of Red Cross Societies is essentially a voluntary organization, non-political, non-governmental, and non-sectarian.

But even while the League of Red Cross Societies was in process of formation, there was practically no limit to the reports, which came from every quarter of Europe and Asia, that the distress was beyond computation; that the vitality of whole nations had been lowered almost to the death point; that entire populations were without clothing; and that it was certain that there would be a shortage of fuel and food at the approach of winter. At best, it was a situation so appalling that the governments alone could handle it satisfactorily, even if the governments did only the major part of the work, leaving the minor part to the voluntary organizations. And in view of all this it may be pertinent to give here the objects of the League of Red Cross Societies as set forth in the articles of association: --

1. To encourage and promote in every country in the world the establishment and development of duly authorized voluntary national Red Cross organizations, having as their purpose the improvement of health, prevention of disease, and mitigation of suffering throughout the world, and to secure the coöperation of such organizations for these purposes.

2. To promote the welfare of mankind by furnishing the medium for bringing within the reach of all peoples the benefits to be derived from present known facts and new contributions to science and medical knowledge and their application.

3. To furnish the medium for coördinating relief work in case of great national or international calamities.

As will readily be seen the plan as adopted here, taken as a whole, is a conception which involves not merely efforts to relieve human suffering but purposes to prevent it; to relieve not the suffering of one people alone but an attempt to arouse all peoples to a sense of their responsibility for the welfare of their fellow-beings throughout the world. But vast as is the scope of the program of the League of Red Cross Societies, its application, nevertheless, is simple, practical, and scientific. It could hardly be otherwise since it received the unanimous indorsement of an unique gathering of medical experts who at the invitation of the Red Cross met at Cannes, France, in April, 1919. This conference, by the way, was presided over by Professor Roux, the successor in Paris of Pasteur, and Dr. William H. Welch, of Johns Hopkins University, and also included many of the foremost men of America, France, England, Italy, and Japan. All in all it was regarded as one of the most remarkable gatherings of health experts ever held.

These experts adopted at the conference a minute declaring that a great part of the world-wide prevalence of disease and suffering is due to widespread ignorance and lack of application of well-established facts and methods capable either of largely restricting disease or preventing it. "Altogether we have carefully considered," the minute asserts, "the general purpose of the Committee of the Red Cross Societies to spread light of science and warmth of human sympathy into every corner of the world; and we are confident that this movement, assured as it is at the outset of the moral support of civilization, has in it great possibilities of adding immeasurably to the happiness and welfare of mankind." That statement represents the judgment of men who are qualified to speak with the highest authority on the subject of the great scourges of humanity, such as tuberculosis, malaria, venereal diseases, and epidemics; men who are authorities on preventive medicine and who represent the knowledge of the world in the great field of child welfare. It is their belief, based on certain scientific knowledge, acquired by practical experience, that these scourges can be controlled, or even eliminated, by organized coördinated effort and coöperation. Moreover, regarding the proposed plans, the consensus of these experts was that they should be put into effect and placed at the disposal of the world at the earliest possible moment. They, also, claimed that in no way can the work be done so effectively as through the agency of the Red Cross.

Through its headquarters at Geneva, the League of Red Cross Societies plans to stimulate peace-time activities of all National Red Cross Societies, and to help them to grow and to carry out the program of the Cannes conference for a world-wide public health campaign. It is not the thought that the National Red Cross Societies themselves should have the responsibilities of the actual work of safeguarding and improving public health, but that each society should stimulate and encourage the natural agencies for such work within their respective countries, including the departments of health of their governments; and in cases where such departments do not exist, the societies should endeavor to create public sentiment for the establishment of such departments.

Another point to be noted is that the League of Red Cross Societies will supplement the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross of Geneva, acting in harmony with it; in no way will it supersede, absorb, or conflict with the activities of national societies, but on the contrary it will put at their disposal the latest knowledge and approved practices of experts in public health and preventive medicines throughout the world. In all probability its immediate functions will be to coördinate relief work in combating pestilence such as typhus.

In conclusion, I wish to say that actual experience has demonstrated beyond all doubt that the people of all nations are quick and eager to seize and act upon knowledge that leads to increased happiness. It would seem, therefore, that the far-reaching effects of the program of the League of Red Cross Societies may be measured by the suffering which exists and which it purposes to relieve. Hand in hand with the world campaign for the betterment of public health will go the improvement of social and economic conditions of humanity, and a protective union, as it were, with all working together in a spirit of kindly consideration and coöperation for the common good. Surely this spirit of service among the peoples cannot fail to develop a new fraternity and sympathy to a degree not dreamed of hitherto; surely the League of Red Cross Societies has a glorious future in the field of human kindness ahead of it.

The Red Cross War Council was appointed May 10, 1917. It went out of existence on February 28th, 1919.

The First War Fund Drive for $100,000,000 was held in the week June 18 to June 25, 1917, and resulted in reported subscriptions of approximately $114,000,000. The Second War Fund Drive was held in the week May 18 to May 25, 1918, and resulted in reported subscriptions of approximately $170,000,000. Under the financial plan, Chapters were permitted to withdraw 25 per cent of their collections against War Funds, the remaining 75 per cent being at the disposal of the Red Cross War Council.

Up to the conclusion of the administration of the War Council there had been collected against the two War Funds a total of approximately $283,599,000, of which $229,799,000 had been credited to National Headquarters and $53,800,000 withdrawn by Chapters.

As the figures show, the total revenues of National Headquarters and Chapters for the twenty months ending February 28, 1919, were $400,178,000, and during that period the total expenditures amounted to $272,078,000. Thus when the War Council turned over the affairs of the Red Cross to its Executive Committee, the permanent administrative body, the total resources of the National Headquarters amounted to $110,758,000. This money was represented by supplies held in the United States and overseas valued at $48,878,000; cash advances amounting to $12,834,000, and current assets amounting to $52,606,000. Against the foregoing assets there were appropriations, which had not been expended and yet which constituted an obligation, amounting to $16,714,000. Thus the total net resources of National Headquarters were $94,042,000.

On the same date the balance in the hands of Chapters amounted to $33,460,000.

The accounts of the Red Cross are audited by the War Department and the full report is annually submitted to Congress. Details of receipts and expenditures of course are covered by these audited reports, which, however, only cover the period of successive fiscal years. The figures given below cover the finances of the Red Cross for the period during which the War Council was in control of its affairs.

Twenty Months Ending February 28, 1919

Twenty Months Ending February 28, 1919

The following statistics may also be of interest. They represent the great volume of production and work which the American Red Cross undertook both at home and abroad: --