Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-02-21

l Venice among the clues OF our IVui.
1t offered the American Red Cross the
ganized evacuation-the very reverse
Of what had happened in the pS.f-
nell retreat from the Italian war
zone. And the reverse of the French
and Belgian. experience also, for 1T
offered opportunity to get in at the
start. and to help move h people by
natural, work-a-day groups, kept in
tact from the threatened city to their
place of refuge.
:" An Energetic Consul.
This opportunity had been seized
for the American Red Cross by the
american consul. B. Harvey Carroll, a
Texas newspaper editor of magma
ton and redoubtable energy.
Early in November the Red Cross
headquarters in Rome had dispatch
ed him $4,000 lire, and he had drawn
on 1t to help refugees reaching Venice
from. the invaded districts to the
north; to keep going. under the Am
erican flag. a posto ,di conforto at
Mestre, a junction point on the main
land, which had reached the last day
of its resources and through which
refugees and exhausted and wounded
soldiers were passing in a stream: to
open an American Red. Cross COM
fort station at Chioggia, where the
VCICtA0l lClu6CSS were UOdIO1tlS lIlC
trains; and, more, especially, through
three gifts of ten thousand lire each
to assist in transplanting the organ-
lied work of institutions which in the
many months Of war had provided
employment for the unemployed and
had turned what would have been a
dead weight of charity into a self-sus-
tanning, producing force.'' The first
of these colonies consisted Of the
uy0r<inr ~fp1~ ne <h@ ~h~u1k>.So
i Disoccupati. and vas headed by Sig
nora Marie Pezze Pascolato. The 9TH
ne had. been units of the Commitato
Cfttadino di. Assistance 9 di Difesa
Civile. I'm short" as MIR. Carroll x
pressed it in his graphic way, they
were brigades of workers of both
sexes, modified and transported to
form a new nucleus of Venice. Those
sent away under this plan go out not
bees swarming from a hive to make a
new hive" ,.7
The night of u arrival, in the
empty billiard room OF Hotel Danielli,
we talked till midnight with the con-
sui. He told us Of the retreat and the
situation at the front: he had the
week before visited General Pepino
Garibaldi, who, with the old Alpine
brigade of his grandfather. had
" oS6AA SAiSAA 6ulS uONn lIOIl LILO
heights of the Dolomites to the elbow
of the Piave (Mr. Carroll is himself
an honorary member of the brigade).
And he told Of the work for refugees;
ne was back only that afternoon from
Chioggia, inspecting the Red Cross
canteen. There an old palace had
been turned over by the authorities,
who had furnished two military
cooks. a ton of coal, a telephone and
other 0nrVor{AN1a VYs<L D-L ~--~.
FUND he had gotten together supplies
and manned the canteen with his two
consulate assistants. At first they
had had to buy piecemeal, ten loaves
OF bread here. ten there, and canned
things. But the market was, easier
IN Venice. because so many people
had gone; he had secured authorize
ton to, buy wholesale and now wanted
to organize buying for storage for any
evacuation. The canteen had been
able to provide meals at a cost of
one life per person-less than fifteen
cents. 1t provided hot coffee to the
grown people and hot milk for the hs:-
bies; hot soup, bread and. .nent ~.
bread and cheese. with a few speciai
delicacies for invalids.
II you will turn to the map Of nor
thern Italy, you will see that Chiog-
gia is situated at he point OF the
mainland at the southern end o. the
thin islands taht shut in the lagoons.
A lrarch railroad connects it with the
trunk ines running south through
r"rrara to the seacoast region from
%I:avenna to Ancona, with t.imini III
the center: This region, because of its
unoccupied summer cottages. hotels
and villas, had been designated as the
destination S%of the %dislodged Vene-
tians.. with the main railroad out of
Venice to- Padua engrossed by mill
engrossed by military use, they were
taken. a thousand at a time, by7ferry
to Chioggia, where trains were read
for them. At first each carried his
own luggage, but this led to confu-
sion and was very burdensome, as the
landing was about a mile from the
'.e
Travel Under Difficulties.
Each family was given a bag to
put goods in. and these were carried
they were turned over to the owners,
looked after them on the SSlong
trip. for so congested was the travel
that sometimes wv or four daysnWere
spent in getting down the coast In
this way, 5000 people had abeen
in the last ten days and
the American Red Cross canteen had
fed as many as two thousand in TWEEN
hours and provided food for
held up temporarily because of
lack Of food supplies and shelter al
the other end: and in the interval
there was opportunity for a concerted
program Of orderly migration to be
worked out by all, the ogencies con-
admiralty, the provincial
ana municipal authorities. the Comit-
alto Civile and the Red Cross.
The next day we visited these vari-
Gus agencies. and the upshot was that
we left with Consul Carroll the sum
100000 lire for supplies and as
sistance to the migrating Venetian
groups. and to meet again the fol-
week in Rimini, where a CO.
operative arrangement was entered
by which the Red Gross insti-
tuted a hospital and health center to
serve the twenty thousand refugees
along the coast.
The impressions Of that day in Ven
Ice stand out as a series Of pictures.
First was the view from our window
the morning, with a bright sun TAX
the edge off the damp and cold
OF the hotel room. I had been disap-
pointed the afternoon before in nv
glimpse Of st. Marks Place. with
the domes Of the church blackened,
oi..oH.G enedLneO WITH Sandba1S,
red bricks of the new Champanilc
standing out as uncompromisingly as
those of a factory chimney, and tho
ripped Of the color and
of eager crowds. the piazza
and shrunk to the dimensions and
quality Of an American seaside resort
!n winter time. 1t had seemed soma
how. secondhand and pinched-up
But here in the domes ana chapels Of
island church of San Giorgio Mag
x,ore. d,rectly before me across the