Cleveland County herald., 1919-10-30
A|D |S URGED FOR
 RED GROSS ABROAD
President Wilson Prepared Mes
 sage Before Illness.
WORK YET TO BE COMPLETED
To Finance Operations and to Carry Out Constructive Plans in Eastern Europe, Organization Requires
 Increasing Membership.

Washington, D. C.-Before his pres ent illness President Wilson prepared the following message, in which he urges the people of the United States to generously respond to the third roll call of the Red Cross:
 AS president of the United States and as president of the American Red Cross 1 recommend and urge a gen erous response to the Third Red Cross Roll Call, which opens on November the second with the observance of Red Cross Sunday and appropriately closes on November the eleventh, the first anniversary of the signing of the ar- miStice.
 Twenty million adults joined the Red Cross during the war, prompted by patriotic desire to render service to their country and to the cause for which the United States was engaged in war. Our patriotism should stand the test of peace as well as the test of war, and it is an intelligently patriotic program which the Red Cross pro- poses, a continuance of service to our
 
 many things, and a transference to the problems of peace at home of the ex- perience and methods which it ac- quired during the war.
 Stress on Membership.
 It Is on membership more than money contributions that the stress of the present campaign is laid for the oI Ea +1 4Io people in welfare work throughout the land, especially in those communities where neither official nor unofficial provision has been made for adequate public health and social service.
 It is in the spirit of democracy that the people should undertake their own welfare activities, and the National Red Cross wisely intends to exert upon community action a stimulating and co-ordinating influence and to place the energies of the organization be- hind all sound public health and vel fare agencies.
 The American Red Cross does not purpose indefinite prolongation of it's relief work abroad, a policy which would lay an unjust burden upon our own people and tend to undermine the self-reliance of the peoples relieved, but there is necessary work of con- pletion to be performed before the American Red Cross can honorably withdraw from Europe. The congress of the United States has imposed upon the Red Cross a continuing responsi- bility abroad by authorizing the secre- tary of war to transfer to the Ameri- can Red Cross such surplus army med ical supplies and supplementary and dietary foodstuffs now in Europe as shall not be required by the army, to be used by the Red Cross to relieve the distress which continues in certain countries of Europe as a result of the war.
 Program Deserves Support.
 To finance these operations, to con- clude work which was begun during the war, and to carry out some con- paratively inexpensive constructive plans for assisting peoples in eastern Europe to develop their own welfare organizations the American Red Cross requires, in addition to membership fees, a sum of money small in compar- ison with the gifts poured into its treasury by our generous people dur- Ing the war
 Both the greater enduring domestic program and the lesser temporary for eign program of the Red Cross de- serve enthusiastic support, and l ven- ture to hope that its peace-time mem- bership will exceed rather than fall below its impressive war membership.
 WOODROW WILSON.