Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-08-06
Civilian Relief Committee
 Keeps the Home Fires Burning
Thousands Engaged in Branch Organization of the Red Cross Which Will Help Maintain the Morale
 of the People.

upon the experience of other coun-
 tries that nearly every wounded man
 may be fitted to take auseful place
 in the industrial or business world
 in spite of the loss of limb or even
 of his eye sight. They fear more than
 anything hat returned disabled sol
 diers will be weakened in their reso-
 lution to retain their self respect and
 find real work by the mistaken kind
 ness of hero worshippers who will
 eventually make such men little bet
 ter off than beggars. They will sus-
 tain them on charity until the men
 have passed the period in which the.
 might be learning useful occupation
 and then will forget them when the
 first flash of war enthusiasm is over
 Re-Education of the Disabled.
 The Smith-Sears law which appro- priated fund to re-educate every dis abled soldier who would take the op- portunity was explained to the con- ference by MT. James P. Monroe of the Federal Bureau of Vocational which will administer the law. Un- der the law there will be no com pulsion in the matter of education but every means will be taken to en- courage the soldier to learn trade or an occupation which will enable him to take his place and make his way as we'll as if he had never been wounded. It is here that the influence of the family will be one of the most potent factors and the Division Di- rectors discussed the ways in which the Home Service sections which had been in touch almost from the begin ming with the soldiers families in meeting the situation and make of them a bulwark for the man against
 d9scourhgemenl and lweakness. It. Colonel Bordley of the Surgeon Gen. erals office and the Red Cross ln- stitute for the Blind, spoke Of the de- termining influence that the family will have in many cases of rehabilita- tion.
 A Problem of Extension.
 Problems of organization in the work of Civilian Relief have proved largely problems of extension. "The work of the Home Service Section," said MT. Eliot Wadsworth, member of the War Council and Vice Chairman of the Central Committee, in address ing the conference, is the most far reaching activity of the Red Cross; it touches the most people," Because it does reach into every small community in the country so far as its intentions are concerned it will continue to grow until every body who needs friend because some man in the family has gone to war wills know that Home Service can supply that friend. The directors dis cusAed to new plans whereby every large contingent of troops, whether in this country of abroad, will have with in easy reach all the time a trained and carefully selected man to whom they can go with worries about their families. These men, working in har- mony with the morale officers of the army, with the various agencies that are looking after the soldiers well fare, will put at his disposal the whole of the Red Cross organiza- tion to asure him if necessary that money he is sending got through all right, that the new baby is standing the summer heat, that his aged moth er is not suffering from lonliness in- solar as kind friends can save her.
 Effective fin Every Village.
 It is to make this organization com plete in every village and cross roads as we'll as in New York or Boston that the directors are devoting themselves tion to accomplish. For example, sev- eral sessions were devoted to discus sion of the way in which the "in- "a i0vNY 1>N ed. The information service is a bur eau which receives every day from all over the country hundreds of letters sent in by Home Service Sec tions asking help in straightening out financial troubles into which SOL diers' families have fallen through the failure of their allotments or allowances to reach them. The mis- takes which the families themselves make in filling out blanks, the mis- takes which soldiers make and the misunderstanding that arise by ac- cident, these things added to the great complexity of the task which the War Risk Insurance Bureau is getting accomplished. make great many difficulties. Home Service workers believe that they have many more far reaching and subtle things to do for the soldiers family than merely to see that they have money until the allowance comes and that . follow up letter does help to out the temporary block ade. But they see that these mater ial things are taken care of first. As one director said, We are not set ting up merely an information ser vice; that is usually no more than our first point of contact, and we are most emphatically not running char ity bureaus. But along with the oth- ar kind things that NC want every