Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-03-23
THIS STORY OF HOMELESS IN FRANCE
SHOULD MAKE YOU HAPPY IN BUYING
YOURSELF MEMBERSHIP IN RED CROSS


come expert in house-hunting Moth
ing in the way of a possibility es-
Capes them, and now and then they
have a tremendous find-like the
big model tenements at 81 rue
Leibnitz and in the Avenue de
Maine that had to be left unfinished
when the war broke out. Com
pleted with Red Cross help, these
two buildings alone are now shell
tering in well-lighted apartments
about three thousand persons, rep
resenting 420 families - homes
where Santa Claus and the fairies
can find their way back again to the
children, in time. The Red Cross
is running a dispensary for refu-
gees in Paris in the rue Boissy
d Anglas-yery many who come
here are from tortured Serbia-and
directing all the various activities
of the American Hostels for Regu-
gees.
Monsieur Better made a city
within a seminary in Paris, and
Monsieur Mirman, project of the
district Of MeuTthe-et- Moselle, made
a city within a great military bar
racks at Nancy. The refugees came
from neighboring towns which had
seen every form of outrage, and
some of them were from Gerbeviller
that town which will be immortal
through its martyrdom. In the
school rooms that Grew up" in the
barracks little ones learned not to
be terrified at any unexpected
sound, and after a while even be-
gan to play, on their own initiative,
skipping and flying about like flesh
and-bloOd boys and girls. Mothers,
within sound of the guns booming
few miles away on the Lorraine
frontier where their husbands were
fighting, found themselves linked to
reality again, in work for their
children; the community, in making
exquisite embroidery (nearly al
ways bearing the towers and thistle
handsome arms of Lorraine) which
Monsieur Mirman marketed for
them, and filling endless sand-bags
for the protection of precious or
vitality necessary buildings in
Nancy. Girls and young women
learned to keep house well and
economically. and to make charm
ing clothes that were also practical,
in preparation for happy life after
the war. A garage was made into
a community theatre, another into
d chapel. 1t is the French geniusi
While these gloriously brave peo-
pie were finding themselves, though
under constant danger of falling
bombs, infinitely more wretched
people further away were clinging
to the ruins of their towns. While
the mothers worked in the fields or
munitiOn factories. the children
many of whom were lost from their
mothers or left when these women
were taken by the invaders-grew
like wild things ught-
unframed, some of them left half
Witted by the terrOrs. They were
used TO crawling into holes when
bombs or shrapnel fell. They would
not wear their gas-masks. They
had almost ceased to be like HUI
man children, and many of them
were diseased-ye loved and shell
tered children of the world seemed
to look suffering through their eyes.
Monsiur Mirman found them
gathered them up into a barracks
at TOuI-called to the Red Cross
and the American fund for French
wounded. And these two OrganiZa-
tions, working together, fitted up
the barracks there is a pretty
room with gay chintz there now)
and established hospital and
dispensary-a travelling dispensary,
which goes from town to town, the
doctor and nurses caring for the
sick, and teaching child welfare as
they gO-welcome as angles by
those who have suffered such agon-
les. Monsieur Mirman, delighted, is
furthering their work in every pos
sibIe way, himself working for the
present and for the future-a kind
of master-builder.
And there is still another kind of
refuge es-whOse journey, it is no
sacrilege to say, has been like the
way of the cross; vet sometimes
ending at last in the human happi-
ness of reunion; more often in sOr-
row again, after that dramatic,
thrilling moment when they reenter
France after long exile in the hands
of the captors. These repatriated
from Germany, Belgium and invad-
ed parts of France are brought back
through Eyian. Here the Red
Cross has established hospitals and
dispensaries TO care for those too
weak to so further, and to segre-
gate and care for those with in
fictitious diseases, thus preventing
the spread OF cOntagion throughout
France
So the Red Cross works. Wher-
ever hard pressed guardians of
French civilians, whether official or
not-are unable to grapple success
fully with the tremendous problem
which these endless streams OF
refugees bring them, then the Red
Cross stands ready TO strengthen
their efforts with American money
and American service. Through dis
pensaries for the children, depots
from which huge quantities of food
and clothing and furniture are dis
tributed, warehouses from which
the ruined little villages can be re-
stocked with the tools and supplies
that make normal life possible once
more. this aid is being given. For
all the violence and Outrages of the
invaders have not been able to
crush out Something of-the-
Spirit" which fingers in battered
heaps of brick and stone, and that
the Red Cross is faithfully helping
the homeless in France to cherish
MINISTER RIAL ALLIANCE MON
DAY.
Tho Rock Island Ministerial al