Palisadian., 1917-06-30
Former Palisadian
Does Big Red Cross
Work In California
By Mailey Millard,

Publicity Director of the Red Cross
Drive.
After rubbing shoulders with the
San Francisco men of big financial
and mercantile affairs in the Liberty
Loan and Red Cross drives, am con-
vinced that there is a lot of poetry
in business after all. Here and there
you meet cynical financier who has
his little smile at what he calls senti-
ment, meaning, of course, sentimen-
tality, which is quite another thing;
but most of the Red Cross team men
who, as everybody knows that reads
the list, are the pick of San Fran
cisco-have real emotions and are not
ashamed of them.
Robert Louis Stevenson was con-
stantly having his little dig at the
men OF the mart and of the office,
and all the poets like to sing them
down. Often of late, have thought
Of Kipling's lines,
"And little folk of little soul rose
up to buy and sell again"
And it has come to me more
forcibly than ever that just because
a man is in the buying and selling
game, it rs no sign that his soul is
not as big as any bard's or any
body's. At any rate, he can realize
what war and the wounds and suffer-
ings of war are, and he is in far
better position to help to alleviate
those sufferings than the average
poet.
The big, generous-hearted business
man of San Francisco has not gone
into this Red Cross drive to get his
name in the papers. AS philan-
thropic worker, he is giving full
weeks time, which is lot for him,
and to complete the symmetry of his
act, he will hand in a good-sized
check on his own account.
1t is wonderful the way busy men
have volunteered for this work. One
captain announced at headquarters
the day before the drive that his ten
man team consisted of nineteen men,
and there were several other over
flow teams.
And the way they work! The hotter
the day, the hotter the pursuit of the
prospective contributor. To wilted
collars and aching feet they paid no
heed. For mind you, this is not au-
tomobile work; it is leg work, and to
these sedentary Office men, it is,
Speaking of poetry, | wired to Ed
win Markham, author of 'The Man
With the Hoe" for poem to inspire
San Franciscans in their Red Cross
work, but instead of lyric lines he
sent prose. By way of apology, he
said he had been so tagged by his
lecture work and his gardening that
he did not have the energy to write
verse.
"The Muse" he wrote, Seems far
away The birds do not sing in
storm tossed abates and the Muse
shines in upon me, / will send you
whatever she brings. Meanwhile,
the people of San Francisco have my
cordial good wishes in their effort to
alleviate the sufferings of these tragic
ars. | am dividing my time be-
= eer6 -pun d the( hoe IN these
days and we are all gardening on my
island"
So here is one poet who is doing
his bit, and there are others. Mark
ham, like the rest of the bards, has
had his fling at "cold commercialism, !"
and perhaps there has been certain
justice in it; but l think that after
this war is over he and all the other
poets will bear in mind for a long
time to come how the men of the Of
flee obeyed the call of the colors,
and they will have far less to say in
a recriminatory way of those gold
blinded men" who "moil in the money
mill" or sin the towers of trade"