THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS MEMBERSHIP DRIVE
December 12, 1917
Next week, the week before Christmas, the Red Cross wishes to add ten million new members to the five million members it already possesses. Last June the Red Cross War Council asked the people of the United States to raise one hundred millions of dollars for Red Cross work, and the people responded by raising one hundred and nineteen millions. The purpose now is to increase threefold its membership.
This is the people’s war. All people should, so far as possible, share the burden and the glory. The whole fighting manhood of the Nation, without any exception save in the interest of the Nation, should be trained to arms and made ready for the front. The Liberty Loans should be taken by every one so that the bondholders of the Nation may be the people of the Nation, and now this Red Cross membership campaign is one more Nation-wide effort to bring home to all our people their obligations to this country and to suffering humanity.
We must realize that every single individual in this country is derelict to his duty unless according to his capacity he does his part in helping organize for the war. Individual effort alone will not avail and Germany’s strength has come from her keen realization of this fact. We must have an organized Nation, both at the front and at home. There can be no organization without discipline, and the Red Cross is one of the great agencies through which we can make progress toward such self-discipline.
The Red Cross does not ask for the new members primarily because of the money they bring. The money will do great good, for the need is pressing; but even more important than the money will be the effect if on Christmas morning the Red Cross can flash around the world the news that ten million more Americans have joined its ranks and thereby put themselves unqualifiedly behind our army and navy.
The Red Cross has done an extraordinary work abroad and is doing an extraordinary work at home. Abroad it is in every way supplementing the army and navy medical corps in Europe and is accumulating enormous hospital supplies for the use of our soldiers and sailors. It has sent over a million dollars in money and stores to Italy. It is giving both military and civilian relief in France. It is supplying over thirty-five hundred French military hospitals and two thousand French civil hospitals with surgical dressings, drugs, and supplies. It is helping to care for half a million tuberculosis victims and restore a million and a half French refugees to normal life. At home it is helping to care for the dependent families of our soldiers and sailors. It has organized fifty-seven army and navy base hospitals, over a dozen of which have already been sent to France. Its useful activities in different lines are well-nigh innumerable.
This is the work the Red Cross has done and is doing for America and the world. Now let all Americans in their turn stand by the Red Cross and help in its Christmas membership drive.