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Show I FAMED AS A SOCIAL WORKER f . . - - - " VV 4, v .--HA, When Katherine Bement Davis Is at home at Bedford, N. Y., she superintends super-intends the State Reformatory for Women, where bad girls are made over into good ones. The making over is a long, hard and difficult process and some two years ago Miss Davis felt that she must have a rest. So she applied for a leave of absence and sailed for Italy, sure that long days of idleness in that sunny clime would bring her the relaxation she so sorely sore-ly needed. While she was in Syracuse, there came the horror of the Messina earthquake. A few hours later, refugees refu-gees from Messina began to arrive in Syracuse. Wounded; frightened almost al-most to a state of insanity; covered at best with one or two scant garments; gar-ments; homeless; destitute and hungry, hun-gry, men, women and children poured into the city. Many travelers quietly packed their grips and departed. Within a few days four thousand refugees had arrived, one thousand of whom were wounded. Every hospital In the town was full to overflowing; the barracks, halls and every available building received their share of the injured. It was not Miss Davis' affair; she is an American. Besides, she was traveling for rest and pleasure. But she did not pack her grip. Instead she sorted out its contents and, appropriating appro-priating everything that might answer as bandages, set out for the hospitals. For a few days she worked there, cleansing and dressing wounds, trying to see that patients received food and doing anything that seemed likely to reduce re-duce the prevailing confusion and misery. Then help arrived. The German Red Cross of Berlin and the Italian of Breccia- came to Syracuse and took over the hospitals. Within a day they had worked such a transformation that Miss Davis felt that she might effect more good elsewhere. She went out into the streets, where she continued her relief work. America and Italy have both shown approval of Miss Davis' method Of 'butting in." |