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Show THE RED CROSS. Editor Standard While now the vulture of the dark aes looms large and wicked oer half a hemisphere, it gladdens the heart to know that by common approval of all civilized nations one mediation, and only one. is permitted to glean after the pitiless piti-less sickle of disease and death Wherever Wher-ever tho reapers are harvesting the (lowe r ;ind pride of creation, and seek to temper the horrors of barbarous strife on the other side of the Atlantic, Atlan-tic, and that is the society of the Red Cross. The Red Cross was inspired and made practical by that Angel of Mercy, Mer-cy, Florence Nightingale in thft Crimea more than three score years ago, on the field where France and Russia struggled with the "unspeakable "unspeak-able Turk' for possession of the Holy Senulcher. Think of it! Civilized men, red-handed, striving with sword and fire to gain and hold the supposed sup-posed last resting place of the Prince of Peace' All the nations of the world signed the treaty of Geneva, after it had been revised In 1906, that makes pos sible the neutrality of ambulances, physicians, nurses and medical impediments, im-pediments, organised under the patronage pat-ronage of the Red Gross, and per-' per-' mits the widest freedom on the hat-i hat-i tlofleld and the hospital in their labor I of love among the suffering, whether sick or wounded, and on whichever I side of the contending armies they , may be found, and no hand may be i raised against them, and no one to : question their purpose The Russian or German, the French 1 or Austrian, the Briton or Slav fallen on fields belonclng to either com-I com-I batant finds In a Red Cross hospital one common home, and the hand that binds the wounds the tenderest and : most bkillful On that battlefield wherever It may be, the sign of the Red Cross is respected and the hand of hale directing the engines of de-; Structlon is turned away. i Alter the battle- through the long dark nights of drizzling storm, these I angels of the Red Cross, guided by moans and cries of pain, discover j the sufferers and carry them to the ambulance or the field hospital where they will be tenderly cared for, and I everywhere through the murk and shadows of night the twinkling light1 of these lanterns Is a beacon of hope in a hell of horrors, even as Bethlehem's Bethle-hem's star showed the way to where the infant Christ la In a cradle of j straw. How true it Is that "a touch of nature makes the whole world kin.' j for villages and cities contiguous to the battlefield ore quick to catch the. spirit of the Red Cross and strive to outdo one another In compassionate, assiduities. On couches of priceless! eider and in palaces of splendor the , blood-sodden form of the wounded Is t) "ili rly laid, and likewise Is the door 1 oi the humble cabin thrown wide audi there under the aegis of the Red! v russ me prmuBBB ami uie woman ui povertv, forgetting the accident of unequal circumstance, work side by side in self forgetting ministrations of j love. But when this devilish orgle is over land the Moloch ot slaughter is satis-I satis-I fled; when the mothers of Europe! I contemplate their desolate homes andi I "go about the streets mourning for their children and will not be com-j 1 forted because they are not," when' the sun in his daily journey looks j I down on trampled fields and pros-1 , tiate commerce, and no one is ablej ; to answer, ' Why this saturnalia of; ' woe?" then will the work of the Red: I Cross be as urgent as It now is. I It needs no prophetic vision to foretell that the first hot summer that follows on the heels of this approach . I ing winter, even though peace be de-J 1 dared tomorrow, epidemics will like-I like-I ly be loosed to devastate the world because of disease-germ'? from decaying decay-ing animal matter. Think of the hundreds of thousands of dead men ; and animals that strew a whole con tlnent and lie festering In the rains and suns of a humid climate' The vulture, the buzzard, the jackal Will be incompetent sanitary sca angers In the presence of such an enemy! The Red Cross will be a rainbow of promise to the stricken people that are loft over there. This scourge of ; sickness is possible to be brought to j our own shores by foreign emigrants who will seek hero a home and work. We should not shut our eyes to lessons les-sons of the past nor close our ears I to the voice of reason We shall see I what we shall see. (Signed) A. S. CONDON. oo |