A PROCLAMATION
To the School Children of the United States:
The President of the United States is also President of the American Red Cross. It is from these offices joined in one that I write you a word of greeting at this time when so many of you are beginning the school year.
The American Red Cross has just prepared a Junior Membership with School Activities in which every pupil in the United States can find a chance to serve our country. The School is the natural center of your life. Through it you can best work in the great cause of freedom to which we have all pledged ourselves.
Our Junior Red Cross will bring to you opportunities of service to your community and to other communities all over the world and guide your service with high and religious ideals. It will teach you how to save in order that suffering children elsewhere may have a chance to live. It will teach you how to prepare some of the supplies which wounded soldiers and homeless families lack. It will send to you through the Red Cross Bulletins the thrilling stories of relief and rescue. And best of all, more perfectly than through any of your other school lessons, you will learn by doing those kind things under your teacher’s direction to be future good citizens of this great country which we all love.
And I commend to all school teachers in the country the simple plan which the American Red Cross has worked out to provide for your coöperation, knowing as I do that school children will give their best service under the direct guidance and instruction of their teachers. Is not this perhaps the chance for which you have been looking to give your time and efforts in some measure to meet our national needs?
(Signed) Woodrow Wilson,
President.
September 15, 1917.
How do you suppose the school children of the United States felt when they read this letter from the President?
It is a wonderful letter. It does not read like a letter from a great man to little children.
It is different from most of the letters which grown people write to children, for the President writes to the children asking for their help, just as if they were grown up.
Indeed, when the grown people read the letter they wished that they could be school children again, because there was no Junior Red Cross when they were young, and they had to wait to grew up before they could help the Red Cross do golden deeds.
You see, when they were young, everybody thought, “When the children are grown up they will help us.” Then they waited for them to grow.
Are you not glad that you are able, while a child, to do helpful work for your country?
Now let us think about some of the golden deeds which the Red Cross does.
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS IN
TIMES OF PEACE
Of course, in times of war the Red Cross is very busy helping the soldiers, but do you think that it is idle in times of peace?
No, indeed. The Red Cross is always listening for a call of distress, and is ready to aid any people who are suffering.
One day in 1912 the Red Cross heard the people who lived along the banks of the Mississippi River calling for help, for the river had been so swollen by rains that it had risen high and overflowed its banks in a dangerous flood.
Picture from a photograph
Do you know what happens during a flood?
Name all the different things you see on the little island in this picture.
Why do you suppose the people are all staying there instead of rowing off in the boats?
Because they are expecting the relief launch of the Red Cross to come and take them to a safe place. The water is flowing too swiftly for the little boats to cross in safety. They would probably be carried against a tree and upset.
Many houses have been carried down the river during this flood, so you can understand how glad the people will be to see help coming. In this next picture you will see how the Red Cross answered the people’s cry for help.
Picture from a photograph
This picture shows a Carnegie Library which was used by the Red Cross as a relief station during the Mississippi flood.
The Red Cross spent thousands of dollars during this flood, saving many lives and helping hundreds of flood victims.
Can you name some of the things the people needed?
What do you suppose they think of the Red Cross?
Imagine that a great wind storm or cyclone should come very suddenly whirling through your city, tearing down houses, uprooting trees, and leaving thousands of people homeless—who would be the first to help the people who were hurt?
This is just an example of the way the Red Cross is standing ready to help in time of need.
If you read the Red Cross Magazine you will learn about hundreds of golden deeds which the Red Cross is doing, for the work of the Red Cross in times of peace and at all times is to help people in distress and need.
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS IN
TIMES OF WAR
The work of the Red Cross during war is
First. To care for and nurse the wounded among our own soldiers and sailors, and even the wounded of the enemy who fall into the hands of the Red Cross.
Of course, in order to do this, millions of people who are not doing the nursing can make the articles needed for that purpose. What can the Junior Red Cross do to help?
Second. To care for the families of the soldiers and sailors who have given their services to their country.
How can the Junior Red Cross help?