The Elk Mountain pilot., 1917-12-13


@6 Cross has set out to get them before
the sun sets Christmas day.
Ihey are to be known as Christmas members
these 100000 new ones and 1t is in the Christ
mas spirit that they to be recruited-the spirit
of unsefshness of caring for the afflicted, of
nlleviatng suffering.
While 1t is getting these new members the
100000 who now wear the Red Cross emblem
are giving all the Christmas cheer they can to the
boys in khaki. They need 1t. Tens of thousands
of them, and 1t may be hundreds of thousands. are
now in France with Pershng, facing the terrible
Germans across the desolate waste Of No Mans
Land. Millions more are to go after them and
other and still other millions until the foe which
claims the world for Germany Is willing to go
home and behave as civilized nation.
They will have CHEEKY Christmas this year.
VERY in France will have little packet
rom "home" with the love and good wishes of the
American people-and that means lot to the
oung fellow who perhaps never before spent
Christmas away from his home folks. 1t will put
"r'-'t into him for the task ahead.
The men on this side, waiting in the training
camps for their turn to go across, will also have
merry n Christmas the Red Cross can pro-
vide. Christmas trees, with gifts of some kind,
bearing world of cheer and hope from the great
heart of the American people, will greet every
man In uniform. wherever he may be.
This Christmas will be n merry one for the
whole of the army and navy. The boys have
not been long away from home they have had
almost of the hnrdshTps Of war. and they
come to the feast with light hearts.
War has taken almost no toll from them thus
far. Belgium and France, Serbin and Roumana,
Great Britain and her colonies. Russia and Italy.
have borne the brunt Of frightfulness and our
'oys have been spared. So 1t will be a merry
Christmas for them.
Next year 1t will be different The pinch of
privation will be felt in the land-voluntary. to n
great extent, but 1t will be felt. There will be less
to eat and less to wear, and millions to be fed
and clothed who no longer produce. and all the
nation will save all 1t can to give to those who
fighting. and to those defenseless ones on the
other side who have nothing
And there will be gaps In the ranks, and there
will he full hospitals. There Is where the Red
Cross comes in-wherever there is disasten The
hospital buildings, the equipment the surgical sup
plies, the surgeons and nurses and orderlles the
ambuances and the drivers and the stretcher
shoulders of the Red Cross. It will carry 1t. be-
cause It has the backing of the American people {;
md in the meantime it must carry the load Of
the nations which have already suffered more
than three years of frghtfuness.
Here some of the things the American Red
Cross is right doing in France; where 1t has
spent S1OOOO.OOO. These extracts taken from
report by the Paris headquarters to Henry r
Dawson, chairman of the Red Cross war council
which raised a fund of $1OO,OOOOOO for its work:
"We have Just given S1OOO.OOO for needy sick
and wounded French soldiers and their families
"Our hospital distributing service sends supplies
to 3423 French military hospitals and is laying
in n large stock for future needs.
"Our surgical dressings service supplies 1000
French hospitals and is preparing immense sup
plies for armies.
"Wn "neratn" ut the front line, in co-Opera-
ton with the French Red Cross, ten canteens
aud preparing for 20 more; and at six cnn-
lens for French soldiers at railway stations we
serving about 600 men day
ave have opened chdren's refuge and hos
pital at point where several hundred children
been gathered to keep them from danger OF
and shell fire. At another point we have
established medical center and n travelling dis
oensary to accommodate 1000 children.
1--WE are making arrangements on large scale
help refugee families through the winter with
'othing. beds. shelter and for this work the en-
"r-- '"-"-cts with resident Red Cross dele
gate in each Warehouses have been established
ut four points to which shipped food. clothing.
bedding beds household utensils and agricultural
implements.
1--WE have large central warehouse in Paris.
and distribution warehouses Mt important points
from the Swiss border to the Two hundred
tons of supplies are arriving in Paris daily. and
125 tons are shipped to branch warehouses"
From other authorities word has come that the
Germans driving back into France, through
Switzerland, the ragged. sick. hungry and home
and children of the conquered districts
# France at the rate of 100 u month. Held in
aptivity for inore than three years, they are
NV driven forth even from the ruins in which