The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1917-12-15

It's mana Wnen Lnere was anguish TO De
soothed. But in this case there is another object to
be attained-call 1t selfish If you will. In backing
up France, and making her people stronger to en-
dure, the Red Cross is saving the lives of Ameri-
can soldiers. This was admirably expressed in the
great Chicago Red Cross conference by Henry p.
Dawson, chairman of the Red Cross war council.
you may ask how all this work among the
French people Is of any help to our oys-how it
is saving their lives" said Mr.. Dawson. "Tll tell
you: We ask General Pershing what he wants,
and he says, 4 don't want anything, for our boys,
but for Gods sake buck up the French. Give them
courage. Hearten them. They have been fighting
for three years, and If you want to do anything
for me and our boys, make the people understand
that we are here, and are going to take our places
In the line as soon as we can get ready"
Then Mr.. Dawson went on to show the strain
under which the French have lived FOR more than
three years, with the German terror holding much
of their land and hammering night and day at
their lines to break through and take Paris.
"And If that French line should break he said,
"you know what that means. There's nobody but
those boys of Pershing's to stop the Germans,
and, ready or not, they'll have to fill the gap. If
we can help the French line to hold, we save our
own boys until they are all ready to take their
part"
Mr.. Dawson pictured the weary French soldier
coming out of the trenches for a ten-day rest. He
is tired half to death, covered with dirt and vermin,
his clothing worn. Does he go home? He has no
home, perhaps. Ills wife and children were swept
away before the German tide. His home Is gone.
He says, 81 can live in hell in the trenches, but l
don't see why my family should be in hell too"
But now the American Red Cross Is in France.
1t meets the soldier when he comes from the
trenches, takes him to a house prepared with your
money, and he is made comfortable. He is given
a bath, his clothing is cleaned and sterilized, his
hair cut, his whiskers trimmed, and he sleeps for
an hour-maybe ten hours.
Then he is taken to his family, If the Red Cross
has been able to find his family. He finds his
wife and babes, or his old mother, In a house or a
shelter of some kind supplied and furnished by
the Red Cross.
When the days Of his leave are up, that soldier
goes back to the trenches a new man. He knows
now that America, with her millions and millions
of fighting men, and her billions and billions of
money, and the tender care of her Red Cross, are
behind him. And he goes back into the war with a
new determination, and says, $50 long as 1 live, I
will fight"
And so long as he holds that line, he is taking
the place of some American boy who Is not yet
trained to take the trenches. That line must be
made to hold for months yet, for General Pershing
has said that If he can help It, his boys shall not
go into the hard fighting before February.
When they do go in, then will come the real
test of the American Red Cross-then will be the
days of harvest, of which today Is the day of SOW
ing. For when the wounded begin to stream from
the evacuation hospitals back to the bases, the
warehouses of bandages and pads and gauze and
sphnts and hospital garments and surgical sup
plies will melt away like mist before the sun. And
In that day. If the Red Cross have not a member
ship of something near the desired 5000, 600,
trained to make and ship all these supplies In a
great, never-faltering stream, the American soldier
will be ashamed of the land for which he is fight
ing, and many will lose limb or life which could
have been saved.
These are not the opinions of a novice-they
are the convictions of men who are now Mt the
front In France and Belgium, and who see, every
day, the horrors of war which 1t is the work Of
the Red Cross to mitigate. 1t is only a few weeks
since Maj. Grayson M. p. Murphy, an officer of
the regular army of wide experience and great
ability, now Red Cross commissioner for France,
cabled his convictions on this subject. And what
he said was, in substance, that unless the Red
Cross Immediately sent a vast supply of all man
ner Of hospital supplies, the American army would
stand In danger of disaster and disgrace. He
used those words-"dlsaster and disgrace"
Few who have not been through a modern mill
tary hospital can conceive what an enormous
amount of supplies 1t requires. French surgeons
report that 1t often requires an entire box of 1000
gauze dressings for a single patient. There has
been such a scarcity of dressings in France that
they have been driven to use these dressings over
and over, trying to boil and clean and sterilize
them as well as they can, instead Of throwing
them away and putting on fresh ones.
There has, at times, been sdch a dearth that
wounded soldiers have had their bleeding wounds
stanched with old newspapers, with the result that
they have always been infected, and gangrene and
lockJaw have claimed many a poor fellow who
could have been saved.
Terrible as 1t is to think of, they have at times
been driven to operate in France without chloro-
form or ether-none was to be had.
These, no doubt, are the things which Major
Murphy had In mind when he said that disaster
and disgrace awaited America less the supply of
surgical necessities is fastened.
Even If the lads who are about to 60 into the