The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-12-22

Red Cross would be bound to do all it could for
them. But they own. We do not fully
realize ii yet, but will later From every
city. every village every farming community, from
almost every family in the whole land, more
boys will help fill the lines in France-and If is
for them, for your friends and mine for your rela
tives and mine, that the Red Cross is working.
1t is going to take men and women by the mill
lion, working all their spare time and a good deal
of time which they do not think they can
spare. And it is going to take hundreds OF mil
lions OF dollars all we can spare, and maybe all
we have, whether or not we think we can spare
it. Belgium is crushed Serbia is Obliterated, ROu-
mania is little more than memory, Russia is i'm
potent, Italy is bearing a heavy cross France is
immortal in spirit but growing thin There are
left chiefly the British lion and the American
eagle, and the English-speaking boys who bear
them aioft If they fail, civilization is dead.
There is no longer any question that civilization
is fighting for its very life. Germany has set out
to force the whole world to live under the German
imperialistic plan. President Wilson, in his
famous Buffalo speech said
ut is amazing to me that any group of people
should suppose that any reforms planned in the in
terest of the people can live in the presence of
Germany strong enough to undermine
throw them by intrigue of force Any
who suppOses that the free industry and enterprise
of the world can continue if the Pan-German plan
is achieved and German power fastened upon the
world, is fatuOus the dreamers of Russia"
There never has been any question that the
American soldier will fight to DEATH if need be.
L
the American Red Cross to so supply and fortify
those boys that just as few of them as possible
may be sacrificed.
That is what the Red Cross has in mind when
it comes to your house, your office, your
kitchen door, or wherever you may be found, and
asks you to be of the 100000 Red Cross
members to stand back of those boys in khaki.
This is not to be money campaign. Money is the
least important matter of this moment What is
wanted is members. The Red Cross wants these
100000 men, women and children banded to-
gether in chapters organized into committees and
trained the minute to do whatever is needed for
the boys in France and for their families at home,
and for those suffering ones who have lost every
thing but bare life.
If the call is for warm clothing it wants these
100000 trained to make and turn out the kind
of garments needed SO that they may go by train
load and shipload at once. If it is for knitted.
gOOds-there has already been cali for 100000
knitted articles and it is almost quite filed by
nOw-these 100000 must be organized to get
yarn and knit, or get others to knit, and deliver
the goods at once. And if it is for bandages and
gauze dressings and other things for the wounded,
as assuredly it will be many a time, there must
be trained Red Cross membership to get them
made and in the hospitals in time to save life
God help the American army in that day If the
people have not been quick to unite with the Red
Cross and supply the things the wounded boys
must have. And God pity you and me in the days
when the boys come back from over there-such
of them come homeland listen to the excuses
will try to make if we fail to keep them sup
Piled with everything they need in their fight
for
There viii be another call for money before
long. When the country gave s1OOOO0OOO to the
Red Cross council last summer the great men
at the head of it estimated that, by careful spend
ing, they could make it last six months. The
next call probably will be for larger sum- may
be as much quarter of a million dollars If
so, the American people must give it Every cent
goes for relief work. In what he termed his pub
lie accounting" Henry P. Dawson, chairman of the
Rn6 [Nr0cC
that of every dollar given the Red Cross for relief
work, about S1.O2 is spent for relief. What he
meant is that not cent goes for overhead
expense, which is cared for in another way but
that the whole fund, together with about per
cent interest which it accumulated while in bank
goes for relief.
All that will come later, when the Red Cross
needs more money to carry its work of mercy.
What it needs is members-10OOOOOO add
ed to the 100000 it now has. Every member
should be at least of the class called Magazine
Members" 1t costs 81 year. and entities the
members to the really wonderful Red Cross Maya
zine every month filed with news and coIored
pictures of what the great order is doing all over
the earth.
II you are a member renew; if not become one
when the Red Cross committee comes. 1t is mere
~ trying to get you to help win your war and
care for the unlucky-who may be some Of your
family