The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1918-12-18
WORK OF The RED
! CROSS MUST GO ON
End Of Actual Warfare Does Net
Mean the orsanlzation's Usefulness
is Past.

On the western front the guns are
silent today. The Uboats are grow
ing barnacles in an English port. King
Albert has come to his own again.
The Boys" will soon start heading
for home. The war is done, although
it will be a long time before all are
back
Does this mean that the Red Cross .
shall take of its uniform now, fold up
its sheets and towels, roll up its
bandages, and fold its hands? Never! I
Tho Red Cross has just begun its
work. Long after peace has been de-
clared, long after the Kaiser lies
Wondering in his grave, the Red
Cross win be marching on! 1t viii
halt only when men and women no
longer know suffering war, accident,
food. fire. tornadoes, ill-health, woe.
For the Red Cross has opened mems
eyes, and they will not allow it to
stop.
II is not too much to say that the Red
Cross Is the greatest single agent in
the world today TO prevent another
such horrible war as we have just
passed through. That's why the Red
Cross is going straight ahead, why it
must not, can not, stop
What can the Red Cross do to pre-
vent other wars, what can it do for
immediate relief now? Look at Eu-
ropel In Poland not child alive I'M
der seven years of agel No crops, no
work, no food What kind Of citizens
will the babies now to be born make
If some one, some organization, does
not step in and give them a decent
chance? Where the babies are I'm
fed, untaught, there grows a race that
knows not law nor order that turns
to fighting and to throat cutting as
the natural thing. And then anoth
en- war The Red Cross will see to it
thet these babies get a fair start tow
ara decent citizenship. 1t is for them
that the Red Cross will not stop.
In Belgium men sit and gaze at
heaps of stones. Here is a man whose
house is gone, his three children dead,
his wife dead somewhere in Germany
after worse than death. The man can
not find even the borders of his own
property He is bitter-he would like
to kill--and he has nothing to eat or
TO wear To him the Red Cross
comes: for him II finds food and cloth
ing and shelter, and work-and he
will so again about his life It is for
such as he that the Red Cross can
not cease its work.
In France, children who were
caught in the horrible days OF 1914
have forgotten whore they lived, who
their fathers and mothers were, who
they are themselves. They still live
in terror OF those days. For them the
Red Cross is going on. In Italy. in
Russia. in Servia. children are naked
and starving. In northern Italy a
woman was found dripping blood
from her own wrist into cup OF wa
ter with which to feed her baby. The
child had had nothing else for six
/ DAYS, The Red Cross found her
ard is going to find others like her,
/ for we are only beginning TO see what
/ poverty, what waste. the war has
made II is to make these unfortu-
nate people safe for the world that
the Red Cross must work with great
e. zeal than ever.
But nearer home In Boston wo-
man was found whose husband had
been lighting for your flag and mine
in France Her landlord had turned
her ont OF his house, she had fed
with her three children to q cellar,
and in that cellar her twin babies
were born One died. And when the
Red Cross found her, able 10 speak
only two OF three words Of English,
overlooked by the government in the
terrible rush Of business, she had
kept her dead baby for a week.
wrapped in an old newspaper
But help in time OF war is not all.
Far from it. It is only a step from
the temporary relief to wounds and
hunger in the war OF guns TO tho
permanent help in the war to live in
peace. The world is eagerly turning
TO the Red Cross to make il healthy
and strong and happy in the broadest
meaning Of those words. And until
disease is forever gone the Red Cross
cannot cease its work.
Remember Halifax-what might
that awful disaster not have become
without the help Of the Red Cross
Remember the 1853 people killed
the POL 1873 people injured, in train ac.
cidents in this country in the year
ending December 81, 1916. But for tn,
. Rcd Cross many of the 1888 nigh
, have died. Accidents are with us yet
] fires will sweep our cities, explosion!
2 will blow up munitions plants, cpl
denies like the influenza will carry
OF their eighty thousand victims, Il
dal waves will sweep in as upon Que
bee the other day-and then in III,
thlckest OF the horror the worl,
will look for and fnd-the love o
. the Great Mother, the unspoakabl
I. comfort Of the Red Cross
Two great thoughts are in the mint
of the Red Cross. II aims at temper
airy relief from pain and sickness an,
hoartache. Il also aims at creating
e that background of love and kind
+ ness and friendship without whic