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

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" T WILL take not fewer than 15,000,-
900 members Of the American Red
Cross to take care Of the sick and
AhM% wounded soldiers, look after their
IA W M. families, and relieve the sufferings
Mk@ W. of the women and children and old
MN8fAA men Of war-trodden lands. Fifteen
MSENY million membersl That means TO-
TN 100000 new members, and the Red
W6 Cross has set out to get them before
- the sun sets on Christmas day.
Ihey are to be known as Christmas members,
hese 100000 new ones, and it is. in the Christ
mas spirit that they are to be recruited-the spirit
of unselfshness, of caring for the afflicted, of
alternating 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 Pershing, 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 a civilized nation.
They will have a CHEEKY Christmas this year.
Every man in France will have a little packet
from home" with the love and good wishes Of the
American people-and that means a lot to the
young fellow who perhaps never before spent
Christmas away from his home folks. It will put
~ $50 S0'"'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
as merry a Christmas as the Red Cross can pro-
vide. Christmas trees, with gifts of some kind,
bearing a 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 q merry one for the
whole of the army and navy. The boys have
not been long away from home, they have had
almost none Of the hardships Of war, and they
come to the feast with light hearts.
War has taken almost no foil from them fins
far. Belgium and France. Serbia and Roumania,
Great Britain and her colonies. Russia and Italy,
have borne the brunt of frightfulness and our
boys have been spared. So it will be a merry
Christmas for them.
Next year 1t will be different. The pinch Of
privation will be felt In the and-voluntary, to a
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 It can to give to those who
are fighting, and to those defenseless ones on the
other side who have nothing.
And there will be gaps in the ranks, and there
viii be full hospitals. There is where the Red
Cross comes in-wherever there is disaster. The
hospital buildings, the equipment, the surgical sup
plies, the surgeons and nurses and orderlies, the
ambulances and the drivers and the stretcher
shoulders of the Red Cross. IT will carry It, be-
cause 1t has the backing of the American people;
and in the meantime 1t must carry the load of
the nations which have already suffered more
than three years of frightfulness.
Here are some of the things the American Red
Cross is right now doing in France; where 1t has
spent $4,000 900. These extracts were taken from
a report by the Paris headquarters to Henry P.
Dawson, chairman Of the Red Cross war council,
which raised a fund OF $100,000,000 for It's work:
I'VE have Just given 81, 100000 for needy sick
and wounded French soldiers and their families.
our hospital distributing service sends supplies
to S,423 French military hospitals, and is laying
in a large stock for future needs.
Our surgical DRESSINGS Sarvica c1npItac o 0O0
French hospitals, and is preparing immense sup
plies for our own armies.
I'VE onerating at the front line, in co-opera-
ton with the French Red Cross, ten canteens,
and are preparing for 20 more; and at six can
teens for French soldiers at railway stations we
gro serving about 10000 men a day.
1--WE have opened a chiIdren's refuge and hos
pital at a point where several hundred children
lave been gathered to keep them from danger of
Cas and shell fire. At another point we have
established a medical center and a travelling dis
pensary to accommodate 1000 children.
I'VE are making arrangements on a large scale
to help refugee families through the winter with
clothing, beds, shelter, and for this work the en-
tire devastated portion of France has been divided
to-" sV districts with n resident Red Cross dele
gate in each. Warehouses have been established
at four points to which are shipped food, clothing,
bedding, beds, household utensils and agricultural
implements.
1--WE have a large central warehouse in Paris,
and distribution warehouses at important points
from the Swiss border to the sea. 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 are driving back into France, through
Switzerland, the ragged, sick, hungry and home
less women and children of the conquered districts
of France at the rate of 10000 a month. Held In
captivity for more than three years, they are
now driven forth even from the ruins In which