The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-12
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 paign" started Monday and with it

I II7GJHE bid Red Cross Knitting Cam
 paign" started Monday and with it = a call for every woman and girl throughout the entire Birmingham dis trict to do her part in the way of shear ing war of it's horrors and playing fair with the men who have come across and sailed the mined seas to do their share in the nations crisis.
 The big "Red Cross Knitting Cam paignr is not one of iron-shod heels, nor of funds to bind up the sinews of war; it is a campaign of Humanitarian ism" it is a campaign of those who go l with and after our soudiers; it Is a campaign of those who help to alleviate the sufferings of the soldier and his de- pendents, and who by their kindness and mercy take away something of the grim ness and discomfort of actual battle; in other words, it is a campaign to provide before the wintry blasts set in warm clothing for our soldiers something to make them more comfortable and to pre- vent their contracting disease when they are far away from home and loved ones.
 To make this big "Red Cross Knitting Campaign a successful one, it is up" 
 vicinity, to do her bit" and when the trampled, broken. wretched pictures of devastation and waste of sickness and of death on the other side of the waters come before her eyes how the foreign sol diers have had to suffer for lack of com fort, surely none will have the heart to refuse to lend their time and energy to this cry of humanity.
 Over there''-just stop for a moment and think. Now no venerable mother sits before the evening fireside; no children play about the floor; no noisy sons troop in from the fields at nightfall; the house and garden are given over to darkness to the plaintive cricket, to the hooting Aowl and the noisome bat, to ruin and de- cay; fathers and sons have gone to war; mothers and daughters are too busy tilling the fields; too busy trying to do mems work to knit for their soldier men; transform the scene to our own beloved land and if such havoc and ruin should come to us, and who knows but it may? and the time has passed for us to do cur bit' to make our boys comfortable and warm-how we would regret that when the hour was near when we might have made simple garment a SWeaLer-d pair Ol SOCfST-u anything that we didn't do it.
 Knitting is no longer fad; it is sacred duty. Women cannot shoulder a gun and go to the front as our@brave boys have done, but they can do their bit at home by knitting warm garments for the men who must brave all sorts or weather when the winter sets in and the frightful obstacles to health and comfort are confronted by them"
 Mrs. T. o. Smith, who is chairman of the big Red Cross knitting campaign, which has been launched by the Birming- ham chapter of the association, sent this message to the women of this district yesterday as she called attention to the large numbers who have already cor dially responded to the call-women who crowded the spacious headquarters of the local Red Cross chapter eager and anxious to give their nimble willing fingers to the work of doing something for our soldier boys, many of whom are somewhere in France today.
 The courage of the stay-at-home when comes to the call that your country needs you is sometimes forgotten in the excite ment of the day, but a glimpse at Red Cross headquarters shows that there are yet many who realize that upon them de- wolves the duty of helping our country and they realize that they are really val uable assets
 The pictures that MT. ". J. Leppert, director of the gulf division of the American Red Cross association drew in his address here last week, brought tears to the eyes of his auditors; the suffering, the pain, the discomfort, the misery of those beautiful, splendid young soldiers ''out there,' brought home to many a mother, wife and sweetheart the fright l fuI ordeals that their own loved ones must suffer within the next few months.