Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1917-12-14

.MHHM wounded soldiers look after their
IK M N families, and relieve the sufferings
WAWM NJ of the and children and old
- ~ men of war-trodden lands Fifteen
WRGSX0 million members That means TO-
XIV 100000 new members, and the Red
I'D Cross has set out to get them before
the sun sets on Christmas day.
They to be known Christmas members,
these 100000 Ones and it is in the Christ
spirit that they are to be recruited-the spirit
of unselfshness, of caring for the afflicted of
alternating suffering.
While it is getting these members, the
100000 who the Red Cross emblem
giving all the Christmas cheer they can to the
boys in khaki They need it. Tens of thousands
of them, and it may be hundreds of thousands, are
now in France with Pershng, facing the terrible
Germans across the desolate waste of No Mans
Land. Millions 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 civilized nation
They will have CHEEKY Christmas this year.
Every man in France will have little packet
from shome," 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
" - shirt into him for the task ahead.
The resn on this side, waiting in the training
camps fyr their turn to go across, will also have
merry Christmas the Red Cross can pro-
vide. Ss.nstmas trees with gifts of some Gind,
bearing world of cheer and hope from the great
neart of the American people, will greet every
in uniform wherever he may be.
This Christmas will be 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
to the feast with light hearts.
War has taken almost no toll from them thus
far. Belgium and France, Serbia and Roumania,
Great Britain and her colonies, Russia and Italy,
have of
boys have been spared. SO it will be merry
Christmas for them.
Next year it will be different The pinch of
privation will be felt in the land-voluntary, to
great extent but it will be felt. There will be less
to eat and less to wear, and millions to be fed
and clothed who 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
will 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 1t, be-
cause it has the backing of the American people;
and in the meantime it 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 it has
spent 100000. These extracts taken from
a report by the Paris headquarters to Henry r.
Dawson, chairman of the Red Cross war council,
which raised a fund Of $100,0O0000 for it's work:
"We have just given 81 100000 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 a large stock for future needs.
sour surgical dressings service supplies 1000
French hospitals, and is preparing immense sup
plies for our own armies.
.Ve ere operating at the front line, in co-opera-
ton with the French Red Cross, ten canteens,
and are preparing for 20 morei and at six cam
teens for French soldiers at railway stations we
arc serving about 10000 men a day.
"We have opened a childrens refuge and hos
pital at point where several hundred children
nave been gathered to keep them from danger OF
gas and shell fire. At another point we have
established medical center and travelling dis
pensary to accommodate 1900 children.
eve are making arrangements 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
info six districts with a 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.
ssWe have a large central warehouse in Paris,
and distribution warehouses at important points
from the Swiss border to the sea. Two hundred
IONS of supplies are arriving in Paris daily, and
1875 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 3OO00a month. Held in
captivity for more than three years. they are
uow driven forth even from the ruins in which