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Show the ked (?ross 'I )ieed Your felp & f rjk ft , o t:i:r - America is going to save thousands of French y 4 , rf? Belgian women and children from death ' by starvation or freezing this winter, but every ' x American must lend a hand to the work Ci - ' ROM "Everywhere In France" there k T 1 " re being brought to the United States ' with the arrival of nearly every pas- , songer ship tales of devastation and misery which are even more tragic than the cabled dispatches which we 1 Pffi&ffa lire accustomed to read under the &Wf2$2 vague dute line, "Somewhere In J" France." t Many of these narratives have been brought by men and women who, under the auspices aus-pices of the American Ited Cross, have been investigating inves-tigating conditions created by the invasion of the Hun. The range of vision of these investigators extends from the battle front to the cottage hundreds hun-dreds of miles away where war's misery more insidious in-sidious tlinn bombs on the fighting front has penetrated. pene-trated. Woven together these accounts make a composite story of devastation and suffering on the part of noneombatants comparable with the torture en- A TUGmCILOSS VXTJrf y ff r" vJi saving of an American boy ' p'M s". w when the big drive begins a 3-"vywsft few nl01llIls bence." fZ3 , ' ' k L- D. Wishard of California, J' , sAi&a. a scnoollI,ate oE President Jt '"V. t feSP Wilson, well known for his y J& kj tpSp' Interest in Y. M. C. A. work I ' " S -.s XjdJSX I as wel1 ns tnnt of tlle Amort- l t, ",f'S&-A Vf5 VV " I I can lied Cross, is another re- , :-i''4$i A A " s I cently returned observer from 5- ff P As8 2t I France. He brought a doubly S?'y4 X &ifv X J4 ' I interesting story. First, the I X $$$&& iS awf ulness of many conditions " f UtijW4 1 I" 'fy existing; and, secondly, the ' 1 fy'ilx&'tt F 1 4" 1 X Ereat work the Recl Cross ls ft ix. . I uVi.'!! doing and the much greater Kjji I t'f.ih ' t J work it ls preparing to do to . Lli frj&iT'f jgjgjg2" meet all the conditions scien- AfG-S ?fC-VYG-XD A tlfically and energetically. Mr. Wishard exoressed the is it planned to deal with all the acute suffering, such as is summarized nbove, and to reconstruct many villages in the devastated war zone so as to give the refugees a fresh start in life and prepare pre-pare the way for again cultivating the soil, but It ls the purpose to apply the American system of "Home Service" on a scale so grand thni it is bound to have a heartening effect on the whole French military organization, for the French soldiers sol-diers fight better when they know their loved ones are being cared for. In furtherance of this great scheme, designed to bring comfort and cheer in the family of every French soldier that is needy, General Pershing, General Petaln, commander in chief of the French forces, and Maj. Geu. M. P. Murphy, American Red Cross commissioner, have formed themselves Into a committee of co-operation. Company officers will go through their ranks and ascertain from eacb soldier whether he has any worry on his mind concerning sickness or want at home. Reports will be made to headquarters weekly and not n single case will be overlooked in the relief work that is to be guided by the addresses of families listed. Special attention will be given to the treatment treat-ment and prevention of tuberculosis, which has assumed as-sumed proportions almost as deadly as the infernal machinery of war itself. Food and clothing will be supplied when necessary and the spirit and courage of the previously depressed soldier in the trenches will be enlivened by the news that his family is having its wants attended to. "The great struggle of the winter will be the economic struggle," said Mr. White. "The Red Cross practically will fight the American fight until un-til our boys take their places on the firing line next spring. It should be kept in mind that every French soldier who is saved this winter means the same view as William Allen White regarding the Importance of giving primary attention to the economic side of the equation during the winter months. He quoted General Pershing as saying that the greatest thing that the Red Cross can do at present to Insure victory is to stand by the families fam-ilies of French soldiers. Gas Bombs Poison Soil. An interesting fact dwelt upon by Mr. Wishard during a visit to Washington was that of the poisoning pois-oning of the soil In agricultural regions by the gases spread over the country by the Germans. It -is stated that this gas has worked its insidious way deep into the ground, so that unless heroic means are discovered and applied it will be years and years before the land is fit for cultivation of any sort. The devastation, he says, is beyond anything in the history of the world, with shell craters so thick that plowing of once fertile fields is absolutely abso-lutely Impossible. Yet in this hopelessly devastated devasta-ted region the Red Cross has set to work to repair some villages and to restore certain agricultural communities, not alone for the humanity directly involved with respect to the people who will thus have shelter and means to go to work, but as an example to the thousands of others and an inspiration inspi-ration to them to start in and begin life anew. The hopelessness of it all might seem complete from a single instance cited by Mr. Wishard that of a man who had owned a mill in a village near Verdun, Ver-dun, who told him that when he went to look for the spot on which it stood he had to take a surveyor survey-or along to locate It. It is into the hopelessness of hundreds of situations situa-tions akin to this that the American Red Cross is advancing with its banner of mercy and its bugle blast of Inspiration. So help the Red Cross I dured by the soldiers In the trenches; of refugees staring blankly at cratered areas where villages once flourished ; . of thousands of children, too young to understand, crying for mothers who cannot can-not hear their cries; of children poisoned by gas bombs thrown from German mortars; of emaciated - i -iiiVui-en sent by hundreds from behind the German line ; of crippled soldiers to re-educnte and of civilian men and women to comfort and provide with the necessaries of life a story of battling against disease and of the heroism of mercy. Sometimes the cable supplements tales told by . returned travelers. A day or two ago, the war council of the American Red Cross received a cablegram cable-gram from the Paris headquarters of that organization organiza-tion containing a simple statement of every-day occurrence on the French frontier, yet graphic in its portrayal of one phase of war's frightfuluess. It read : The Red Cross at Evian. " "There arrived last week at Evian, where the repatiies from France and Belgium are received back into France, a train loaded with Belgian children. chil-dren. There were GS0 of them, thin, sickly, alone, all between ages of four and twelve, children of men who refused to work for the Germans and of mothers who let their children go rather than let them starve. They poured off the train, little ones clinging to the oldest ones, girls all crying, boys trying to cheer. They had come all the long way alone. On the platform were the Red Cross workers work-ers to meet them, doctors and nurses with ambu-lonces ambu-lonces for the little sick ones were waiting outside out-side the station. The children poured out of the station, marched along the street shouting. "Meat, meat ; we are going to have meat," to the Casino, where they were given a square meal, the first in many months. Again and again, while they ate, they broke spontaneously into songs in French against the German songs which they had evidently - learned In secret. The Red Cross doctor examined them. Their little clawlike hands were significant of their undernourished bodies, but the doctor said : "We have them In time. A few week's of proper feeding and they will pull up." Evian Is a French resort on Lake Geneva, and every day one thousand homeless people arrive there, 00 per cent of whom are children. Thirty per cent of the older people die the first month from exhaustion. They were once the occupants o? happy homes in northern France. The Huns 'invaded 'their country, swept on past their homes and left them behind the enemy's line. The invaders, now their masters, impressed them into labor and - transported thousands of them to work in German fields and factories. Those who are returned by the thousand dally by train through Switzerland are all that ore left of these men and women and children manhood and womanhood sapped until the vital spark is almost out and, no longer of use nS German captives, sent back to die or to be 'cared for in their helpless condition by their own people from whom they had been ruthlessly taken awav iu their health and strength, r: ' Hope for Kaiser's Victims. 1 Thanks to the American Red oross, coming to the assistance of the overburdened French agencies agen-cies for mercy, there is hope for these unfortunates unfortun-ates Besides a hospital and convalescent home -for children at Evian, the Red Cross is operating an ambulance service for the returning repatr.es. Ten automobiles are in commission for Handling lck and infirm persons, and a tuberculosis hospital hos-pital near by is planned. When the returning re-Patries re-Patries reach the railroad station and have been cheerlngly greeted by crowds of compatriots, they are taken in charge by Red Cross workers hour-ishment hour-ishment is provided and medical attention be-stowed be-stowed Baths are made available and fresh clothing cloth-ing is supplied. According to American eye witnesses wit-nesses of scenes at the railway station at Evian there are men in the ranks who have suffered broken arms, the bones of which have been set by ?he Germans so that the hand is turned the wrong wnv They present a horrible deformity, denoting a form o cruelty which excuses Itself on the ground that the man, should he ever regain his forme strength, will be unfit for military duty. In many of these cases American Red Cross doc-tor" doc-tor" have been put to the doubly palnfu task o again breaking the arm and resetting it so as to remove the terrible deformity purposely in- fllcted. Tii' William Allen White of Kansas and Henry J. M-den, M-den, who is prominent in the public life of the same state, are among the Red Cross workers who recently have returned from tours of Inspection Inspec-tion in France. According to their statements it Is scarcely possible to exaggerate the suffering brought upon the civilian population of the country; coun-try; a suffering, however, that is being alleviated to the greatest possible extent by the American Red Cross, which is sending Its experts, Its army of volunteers and its treasure without stint. According Ac-cording to Mr. White, the real work of the war, so fur as America is concerned, will be carried on by the Red Cross in Frtince this winter. Not only |