The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1918-05-24

pOsc, a HeW SENSE Vi unity Oh lie.
The secretary of war told me an In
teresting incident the other day. He
said when he was in Italy a member
OF the Italian government was ex.
planning to him the many reasons why
Italy felt near to the United States
IF you want to try an interesting
experiment go up to any one OF these
troop trains and ask in English how
many of them have been in America
and see what happens"
He tried the experiment. He went
up to troop train and he said, How
many OF you boys have been In Am
erica" and he said it seemed to him
as if half Of them sprang up: me
from San Francisco; me from New
York; all over" There was part of
heart of America in the Italian army.
People that had been knitted were
fighting for their native Italy.
Friendship is the only cement that
will ever hold the world together. And
this intimate contact of he Red Cross
with the peoples who are suffering the
terrors and deprivations of this war is
going TO be one of the greatest in
strumentalities of friendship that the
world ever know, and the center of
the heart of it all, If we sustain it
properly, will be this land that we so
dearly love.
May say this? The duty that faces
us all now is to serve one another,
and no man can afford to make a
fortune out of this war. There are
men amongst us who have forgotten
that, if they ever saw il. Some of US
in the country are not old enough
l am old enough-to remember men
war, and you know how they were re-
garded by their fellow citizens. That
was a war to save one country-this
is war to save the world.
Government Accepts Nothing.
And your relation to the Red Cross
Is one of the relations which will re-
lieve you of the stigma. You can't
give anything to the government of
the United States it won't accept it.
There is a law of congress against
accepting even services without price.
The only thing hat the government
will accept it loan, and duties per-
formed; but II is great deal better
to give than to lend or to pay and your
great channel for giving is the Ameri-
can Red Cross.
Down in your hearts you can't take
very much satisfaction, in the last
apolvcie nm lending oonav IN tho COW
eminent of the United States, because
the interest which you draw will burn
our pockets; it is a commercial trans
action, and some men have even dared
to cavil at the rate of interest, not
knowing the incidental commentary
that concentrates upon their altitude.
But when you give-something of
your hear, something of your soul
something of yourself goes with the
gift, particularly when it is given in
such form that ii never can. come back
by way of direct benefit to yourself.
You know there is the old cynical
definition of gratitude, as "the lively
expectation of favors to come"
Well there is no expectation Of IA
vors to come in this kind of giving.
These things are bestowed in order
that the world may be a filter place
TO live in, that men may be succored,
chat homes may be restored; that
suffering may be relieved; that the
face of the earth may have the blight
of destruction taken away from it and
that wherever force goes, there shall
go mercy and helpfulness.
And when you give, give absolutely
all that you can spare, and don't con-
slider yourself liberal in the giving.
If you give with self adultation, you
are not giving at all, you are giving to
your own vanity; but if you give until
it hurts, then your heart blood goes
into 1t.
And think what we have here. We
call ii the American Red Cross, but ii
is merely a branch of a great interna.
tional organization which is not only
recognized by the statutes of each
the civilized governments of the world,
but it is recognized by international
agreement and treaty as the recog.
nized and accepted fundamentally of
mercy and succor. And one of the
deepest stains that rests upon the rep
utation Of the German army is that
they have not respected the Red Cross.
That goes to the root of the matter.
They have not respected the instru-
ment they themselves participated in
setting up as the thing which no man
was to touch, because it was the ex'
petition of common humanity. We are
members, by being members of the
American Red Cross, of a great fra.
ternity and comradship which extends
all over the world, and this cross which
these ladies bore today is an emblem
of Christianity itself.
1t fills my imagination, ladies and
gentlemen, to think Of the women all
over his country who are busy every
night and doing the work of the Red
Cross; busy with a great eagerness
to find out the most serviceable thing