The Benson signal., 1919-04-26

customary governmental red tape delay must be
endured And in the meantime the soldier had
to sleep bed of straw in the severest part OF
winter, with only his overcoat for covering. He
had money to buy food.
One of the American committee women took
care of the discharged fighter. He was given the
barest necessities and just enough food to keep
going, and he was saved from lot of hardship and
suffering
The soldiers experience was typical of the COM
mittee's work. It is for cases like this one that
American aid from the Red Cross warehouses Will
be gOdSend.
Red Cross Work
Six big warehouses are being established In
France by the Red Cross, and two in Belgium
For French relief work these storehouses To-
Gated at Lille, Amiens, LaOn, Chaons Verdun
Mezieres. And the Belgian stations are at Adm
kerke and Courtrai Here the supplies brought to
France originally for Of the American army
are to be gathered and distributed in cooperation
with the French government There is a vast sup
ply Of stuff available. There many motor
trucks and hospital supplies no longer needed by
the American Expedtionary forces. And they will
assist the French people in their tremendous job
of reconstruction.
Aiding in reconstruction here in France, as
viewed by majority Of the Americans who ARE
trying to help, is proposition Of giving first aid
supplying a small iron stove and some bedding
and little food-and not taking on the actual re-
pair of destroyed houses, except to furnish when
ever possible such items few yards of oiled
paper to patch up few windows In ORDER to give
the French family that be warmed
during the cold weather.
Stoves, for instance, very difficult to obtain
small sheet-ron heater that would cost about
S5 in America, possibly less, costs SIS to $40 at
the usual French supply house. 1t is an made
quate stove at best 1t gives out very little heat
1t barely takes the chill off ordinary sized
Vot iS an boP4uSp
English factories not producing at full ca
pCcity yet, and because when the stove has been
manufactured it is difficult to transport it.
Seventeen per cent of the personnel of the
French railroad system mobilized and has not
vet been put back to work. Consequently there is
the spectacle of hundreds of trainlOads of vital
necessities sidetracked and delayed indefinitely.
The relief committees use their powerful inf1u-
ence to get hold of the stoves that be found
bv hook or crook in France. They endeavor to get
the stoves donated pay for them at cost prices,
and are then able to either sell give the stove
to the peasant at a fairly low figure Ten dollars
is considered a fair price when a sale is made.
Throughout the work of Miss Anne MOrgans
committee effort is made to refrain from pau
perizng the peasant which is difficult, because the
peasant Is inherently thrifty and general rule
is very anxious to be pauperized. PauperiZation,
when viewed from the standpoint of a peasant
who is sufferer and whose money is always
earned at great expenditure of labor, is not an
ugly word undesirable condition.
In fact, M. and Nine. Peasant by the hundreds
will bring terrible tales of privaton to the COM
mittee workers in the hope that intensive pauperi
zation will set in at once. And the committee has
to go to some trouble to ascertain whether not
the tale Of horrible misfortune is true. Usually
the mayor Of the village Of the thoroughly
reliable inhabitants know perfectly well what
should be done in the matter. And the committee
women rely on the judgment Of the French officials
to a large extent. They also have pretty fair
knowledge of the status Of hundreds of families
in their section of France, which, roughly speak
ing is group Of 35 villages between Vic-surs
Asne and scissors, because they have been work.
ing In this section couple Of years.