The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1918-04-21
], s. RED CROSS HELPS TO SOLVE
PROBLEM OF HOMELESS IN FRANCE
Lends Aid to Officials Finding Shelter for Refugees From
Shell Torn Cities and Villages
~ MARIAN eoNsALL DAVIS.

6trOyeQ homes IN the Fulneu 'iiiaseS
OF France, you always find something
left among the wreckage that speaks
intimately to your own heart l. may
be a broken flower-pot with drled
roots still clinging; an image OF the
Virgin still standing in her oval meme
in a fragment of wall; papy
broken cradle; twisted garden tool.
All the bayonets and incendiary torches
and guns of the invaders have not been
able to crush out something -of-the-
spirit which fingers there.
And they have not been able to crush
It out Of the tragic professions or the
homeless, as they are driven miner
and thither-sometimes as slaves by
their conquerors; sometimes to nee
where they will, from violence and de-
etruction Some day, as you walk
hrlskly on an errand through the
streets OF Paris, you see group OF
them coming in, slow moving, Devil
dered, There is terrible intimacy
about this sight and most of all ABOUT
the little ones who have seen hideous
things and are too young to know that
thew are not q common part OF life.
Who Will Care for Them?
Who is going to take care OF them,
and their mothers and these old, bent
people, who are such a detached, trl-
hing part OF. Frances million and
half refugees?
For three and half years France
has been doing the best she could as
thew poured in endless streams from
belgium and from all the invaded dis
her strength against that pushing Ger
man line which would have surgeo mo
Paris through any break. But every
day they came in greater numbers, iost
and helpless, from beautiful villages
and towns and cities that now are
heaps Of ruins. But that somethine-oi-
the spirit was still not crushed QUIT
responded to the sunlight Geninses
like Monsieur Peltier and monsieur
Niirrnan and the men who meets every
train that comes into Evian with the
repatriated, knew this.
American Red Cross.
The French commission of the Amer
lean Red Cross, with the 100000, 900
war fund behind it, on it's arrival in
Paris consulted with the French gov
eminent how it could best help. And
the glory of the American Red Cross is
the principle of cooperation it estab-
lished there, and by which 1t works.
The first thing 1t did for refugees in
France was to make itself the cooper
ator--and never by any chance the
rival-of all of the existing agencies
official mad non official for their well
fare It puts IA grant of 100000
francs (about $l,000,000) in the hands
Of the French government for it's ref
ugees. And it began to find or pre-
pare decent lodging For the Thousands
upon thousands Of them squeezed into
Paris attics. Also it began to learn ev-
erything that could be learned about
the whole problem of the million and
half Of them.
Problem Of the 1900.
There had been wonderful, initiative
Enthusiastically French, in many case s
in meeting these inpourinrs of the
homeless. The case of Monsieur Pei
tier and a ground of gendarmes twhc
correspond to our~policemen) is one OF
the great stories of the war. Here i,
is:
the gendarmes of two ACCOMPLISHMENTS
or wards. in Paris received an officia
telegram that about $500 refugees
would arrive the next morning for then
TO take care of.
So! No provision, no money, No
roof, no place to put them no any
thing. but 1900 of them, nevertheless
due to arrive the next morning--ant
their responsibility!
Monsieur Peltier, the chief of these
wards, called a conference. First
money! These gendarmes, or police
men. each put a hand in his own peck
ct, and produced two francs; and aftel
the conference they told the small
shopkeepers along the streets of theil
wards and they added to this pooled
sum for the start-oft. For everyone's
two frances on the table. there rose thu
question of lodgings. That was thu
rub. Finally someone timidly suggest
ed that the huge building that hat
been in former times a seminary 70
priests, in the famous old square o
st. Sulpice. A part of it was being uset
for museum. That question settled.
-. Becomes Home Like.
HiusSultt pietSS WSlt CIV" bCb ~
gether in small space and locked, AM
the big old keys began opening doe
after door and door after door, and
hundreds of windows went up and sew
eral hundreds of rooms that used L
domicile young priests, took their frs
long breath In years. preparatory /
taking in this pitiful host even the
on its suffering way to Paris.
Mattresses and stoves Were ruShe'
in, faster than SO many mattresses an
stoves and dishes are likely to haV
been rushed before And when thes
weak frightened dazed people wer
brought To the seminairc the men
morning by the gendarmcs, there wa
water TO wash IN and food to eat. an
mattresses to sleep on. SO began tn
famous Seeours de GuerrC, inspire
and directed by keen, kindly Monsieur
Peltier.
Is City in itself.
Every day since it has sheltered an
fed between 1900 and 5000 refugee
Its godfathers, the gendarmes, al
proud of it. The huge seminary is
city In itself now--dormitories, divide
into suites, that the remnants of fan
lilies may keep their family life: scho