With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort

The Project Gutenberg eBook, With the Doughboy in France, by Edward Hungerford
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO

Author of The Modern Railroad, The Personality of American Cities, etc., etc. NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 All rights reserved
Copyright, 1920, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1920.
The girl in the steel-gray uniform with the crimson crosses, who toiled and endured and danced and laughed and lived, that the heart and soul of the boy in khaki might remain untroubled, this book is affectionately inscribed
Six months ago I finished writing the chapters of this book. At that time the American Red Cross still had a considerable force in Paris—throughout France for that matter. It was still functioning and, after its fashion, functioning extremely well. In the language of the French it marched. To-day its marching days in the land of the lilies are nearly over. The personnel have nearly all returned home; the few that remain are clearing and packing the records. In a short time the Croix Rouge Américaine which for months was so evident in the streets of the French capital will be but a memory along the Boulevards. But a memory of accomplishment not soon to be forgotten. If there is one undying virtue of the Frenchman it is that of memory. Seemingly he cannot forget. And for years the remembrance of our Red Cross in his land is going to be a pleasant thought indeed. Of that I am more than sure.
To attempt to write a history, that should be at all adequate as complete history, of a great effort which was still in progress, as the writing went forward, would have been a lamentable task indeed. So this book makes no pose as history; it simply aims to be a picture, or a series of pictures of America in a big job, the pictures made from the standpoint of a witnesser of her largest humanitarian effort—the work of the American Red Cross.