Summary of a Year's Activities
[Data Furnished by Red Cross Headquarters, Washington, D. C.]
President Wilson, as President of the American Red Cross, on May 10, 1917, appointed a War Council of seven members to direct the work of the organization in the extraordinary emergency created by the entrance of the United States into the war. The original appointees were Henry P. Davison, Chairman, of J. P. Morgan & Co., New York; Charles D. Norton, Vice President First National Bank, New York; Major Grayson M. P. Murphy, Vice President Guaranty Company, New York; Cornelius N. Bliss, Jr., of Bliss, Fabyan & Co., New York, and Edward N. Hurley, Chicago.
Mr. Hurley resigned from the War Council when he was appointed Chairman of the Shipping Board, and was succeeded by John D. Ryan, President of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Major Murphy, after organizing the Red Cross work in Europe, resigned to re-enter the United States Army, and was succeeded on the council by Harvey D. Gibson, President of the Liberty National Bank of New York, who has been the General Manager of the Red Cross since it began its war activities. Mr. Norton resigned in the Spring of 1918, and was succeeded by George B. Case of the law firm of White and Case, New York, who previously had been legal adviser to the War Council.
The first war fund campaign took place the week of June 18, 1917, which was designated "Red Cross Week" by a proclamation of President Wilson. The Finance Committee, which had charge of the campaign, was headed by Cleveland H. Dodge of New York; Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo was the fund Treasurer. One hundred million dollars was the mark set, and the week's contributions ran slightly above that figure.
At the establishment of the Red Cross organization on a war basis its membership was approximately 500,000. Six months later there were, in round numbers, 5,000,000 members, and the number of chapters had increased from 562 to 3,287. The "Christmas Membership Drive," during the week ended with Christmas Eve, 1917, swelled the membership rolls to more than 23,000,000.
In the period between the birthday anniversaries of Lincoln and Washington—Feb. 12-22, 1918—the school children of the country were brought into the Junior Red Cross organization.
Immediately following the war organization and the raising of the first war fund commissions were sent to the various countries in Europe where war was in progress. Major Grayson M. P. Murphy was appointed General Commissioner for Europe and assumed direct charge of the commission to France, where the greater burden of American Red Cross work has fallen. The commission to France reached Paris during June. Eighteen men constituted the original working force. From this nucleus there developed before the end of the year an organization that operated all the way from Sicily up the whole western front and into Great Britain.
MILLIONS FOR FRENCH RELIEF
Appropriations from the Red Cross war fund to March 1, 1918, including those to cover budgets to April 30, totaled $77,721,918.22. Of this amount sums aggregating $30,936,103.04 were for relief work in France. A chain of warehouses has been established behind the lines all the way across France, from the coast to Switzerland. The greatest motor transport organization there is in the world, outside of those actually operated by the armies, also has been developed. The workers actually engaged in the organization in France number more than 3,000, a large percentage of them being volunteers who are serving without financial compensation, and most of them paying their own expenses as well.
Relief work in France is divided between a Department of Military Affairs and a Department of Civil Affairs. The former department, in addition to maintaining a hospital supply service that provides for 3,800 hospitals, a surgical dressings service that turns out and distributes hundreds of thousands of dressings every week, and three American Red Cross military hospitals, has concentrated a large amount of attention on canteen work, in the interest of both the American and French Armies.
Twelve canteens at the front have been in operation for the French Army, and recently the same service was installed to supply coffee and refreshments to American soldiers in the trenches. It is likely that the twelve canteens will be increased to forty. The record of the front line canteens for a five month period was 700,000 soldiers served. In line of communication canteens, located at railroad junction points, eighty-eight American women workers have served an average of 20,000 soldiers daily. At the metropolitan canteens, in Paris, more than 3,000,000 soldiers have been served since the American Red Cross entered this field of work.
Preliminary to the arrival of the American expeditionary force in France, the American Red Cross did important work in improving the sanitary conditions in the zone which the United States troops were to occupy. This work is constantly kept up to meet the situation as the army abroad increases in size.
CIVILIAN RELIEF WORK
Civilian relief work in France has embraced a campaign against tuberculosis, care of refugees and repatriés, care of children, reconstruction and repair work in devastated areas and home service among the families of French soldiers. While much of the work in behalf of refugees has been done in the zones of comparative safety to which people have fled from the war areas, the German offensive launched in March found American Red Cross men in large numbers performing actual rescue work in villages that were under fire of the enemy. With the aid of the motor transport service, hundreds of noncombatants were removed to places of safety.
At Evian, on the Swiss border, a corps of workers has been maintained for several months, together with a children's hospital, disinfecting plant, &c., for the care and relief of the children and aged and infirm persons who have been sent back by the Germans from the occupied portions of France and Belgium at the rate of 1,000 or more a day.
Relief for the families of French soldiers has had for its object the double purpose of providing for the wants of the sick and destitute, and strengthening the morale of men at the front. In respect to the latter objective a success has been achieved which has called forth many expressions of praise from the highest French military and civil authorities. A gift of a lump sum of $1,000,000 for distribution among 50,000 needy families was one of the initial acts in this particular line of relief.
FOR WOUNDED AND PRISONERS
Minor Red Cross activities in France have included assistance in the care of mutilated soldiers, aid in re-educational work and care of the blind, and maintenance of plants for the manufacture of splints, anaesthetic, &c. An important work in connection with the prosecution of medical research has been the carrying on of experiments to ascertain the cause of trench fever, which in point of wastage is responsible for more than any other sickness.
Since air raids on Paris and other French cities have become a regular feature, the American Red Cross has established a day-and-night service to respond to air raid alarms, perform rescue work, and remove the injured to the hospitals. On many occasions the effectiveness of this work has commanded widespread interest.
Among the newer developments is the establishment of a casualty service, for the gathering of detail information regarding American soldiers who are killed in battle, sick or wounded in the hospitals or taken prisoner by the enemy. The information collected is transmitted to relatives at home.
Prisoner relief is administered through a central office at Berne, Switzerland, where ample supplies of food are stored for shipment to German prison camps as the need requires. Recently plans were started to have emergency rations stored in prison camps, so that American prisoners could have the benefit of them on their arrival there. Through the arrangements made all prisoners in enemy camps will receive rations in plenty at frequent intervals, and special rations will be provided for invalids.
IMPORTANT WORK IN ITALY
Appropriations for relief work in Italy have totaled $3,588,826. Emergency relief work, rendered at a time when no permanent commission had been established in Italy, stands among the most notable of the Red Cross achievements of the first year of the war. When the Teuton hordes swept into the plains of Northern Italy in October, 1917, driving thousands of panic-stricken men, women, and children before them, American Red Cross veterans from France rushed into the breach, helped to stop the rout, relieved the acute distress, and contributed in no small measure to the saving of the country from complete subjugation. What the American Red Cross did for Italy in this crisis was made the subject of official commendation on various occasions, and elicited thanks from the King, Prime Minister, and other dignitaries. A most important result accomplished was the cementing of friendship for America on the part of the Italian people, who previously, largely through German propaganda, had been skeptical of the good faith of the United States in the war.
At the outset the American Consuls throughout Italy were supplied with money to afford emergency relief. Forty-eight carloads of supplies were dispatched to the scene from storehouses in France. Several sections of ambulances also were started from France. Soup kitchens were opened, from which the refugees were given the first food they had received since the flight from their homes. Transportation for the refugees was arranged from the north, warehouses were opened at central points, manufacture of surgical dressings was undertaken on a mammoth scale, hospitals for the concentration of contagious diseases were opened, and then, four days after the United States declared war against Austria, the first Red Cross ambulances left Milan for the Italian front, cheered by thousands of persons there and at all towns through which they passed.
By the time the permanent commission reached Rome, in the early Winter, a complete survey of the whole Italian situation had been made by experts and all the more serious emergencies had been met. The American Red Cross was able to supply great quantities of equipment to replace the stores that were lost when the Teuton drive destroyed upward of a hundred hospitals. The present relief work is being continued along the lines of the work in France.
BELGIAN RELIEF WORK
Belgian relief work has called for appropriations aggregating $2,086,131. There has been a program for improving conditions among the Belgian troops, and to provide recreation and medical service outside the scope of the Belgian war budget. The initial Red Cross gift was half a million francs to the Belgian Red Cross, to be applied for the cost of the military hospital at Wolveringham. Contributions also have been made to the active field service of the army, in the form of surgical and medical equipment.
In civilian relief work in Belgium the American Red Cross placed its resources at the command of organizations already in the field to care for children and feeble persons, and get them away from the places of greatest danger. In order to have supplies ready at hand for emergencies twenty barrack warehouses were contracted for last Fall.
Special aid has been given to the schools and colonies for children. Establishment of health centres and a 250-bed hospital for the Belgian colony at Havre are among the other activities. A gift of 600,000 francs was made for the construction of a temporary village for refugees near Havre.
AIDING BRITISH WOUNDED
American Red Cross appropriations on account of work in Great Britain have amounted to $3,078,875. This includes two gifts of $953,000 and $1,193,125, respectively, to the British Red Cross and a gift of $500,000 to the Canadian Red Cross. The gifts to the British Red Cross will be used for relief and comforts to sick and wounded in hospitals, for the maintenance of auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes in England, and for institutions for orthopedic and facial treatment and for general restorative work for disabled British soldiers. The British orthopedic hospitals serve as training schools for American surgeons. The gift to the Canadian Red Cross was given in recognition of the part Canada has played in the war. The money will be used to alleviate the suffering of wounded and sick Canadian soldiers.
The regular work of the American Red Cross in England includes the maintenance of a hospital at an English port for sick American soldiers and sailors, and support of a hospital at South Devon and of another for officers at Lancaster Gate, London.
Commissions have been maintained in Serbia, Rumania, and Russia, where relief has been administered according to the needs of the situation in each instance. In Rumania the active relief work was abandoned only when the Red Cross representatives were forced to leave the country following the Ukraine peace. At the present writing [April, 1918] a special commission, accompanied by several medical units, is on its way to take up relief work in Palestine.
The appropriations for Serbian relief have totaled $875,180.76; for Rumania, $2,676,368.76, and for Russia $1,243,845.07. All other foreign relief work, miscellaneous in character, has involved appropriations amounting to $3,576,300.
IN THE UNITED STATES
For camp service in the United States there was appropriated, up to March 1, a total of $6,451,150.86. The sweaters, helmets, socks, and other supplies and comforts for distribution to the army and navy had a value of $5,653,435.86.
There had been appropriated for Red Cross convalescent houses at camps and cantonments throughout the United States $512,000, and plans for additional houses and nurses' homes at the various camps will call for aggregate expenditures of about $1,750,000.
More than 19,000 graduate nurses have been supplied to the United States Army for service in this country and abroad by the Red Cross Nursing Service. A total of 25,000 must be supplied before the end of the present year to meet the needs of the growing army and the greater activities of the forces in France.
Fifty base hospital units have been organized, each unit consisting of twenty-two surgeons and dentists, sixty-five nurses, and 152 men of the enlisted reserve corps. Nineteen of these units are now in service in France. The Red Cross has supplied the personnel for ten other units.
Red Cross chapters have organized and are maintaining more than a thousand canteens at railroad stations to serve troops passing to and from camps and to ports of embarkation. In nearly every city, also, women's motor corps service has been established by volunteer workers. Throughout the country plans have been made on an extensive scale to carry on home service in the interest of the families of soldiers who may need assistance, material or otherwise.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Although war activities required its greatest energies, the American Red Cross rendered prompt relief in cases of overwhelming disaster outside the war zones during the year. There were three major disasters, widely separated, in 1917. They were, respectively, the Tientsin flood, which made 1,000,000 people homeless and caused a crop and property loss amounting to $100,000,000; the Halifax explosion, which wrecked a large part of the city and resulted in the killing and maiming of thousands of persons, and the Guatemala earthquake, which caused destitution and disease, in addition to the property damage and the toll of death and injury.
In the case of the flood in China, the Red Cross cabled to the American Minister to draw for sums sufficient to meet emergency needs, and later assisted the Chinese Government in providing labor for 10,000 refugees for a period of several months. The appropriations for relief in connection with this disaster totaled $125,000.
Within a few hours after the extent of the Halifax disaster was known, special Red Cross trains left New York, Providence, and Boston for the scene, carrying tons of bedding, clothing, food, and medical supplies, as well as doctors, nurses, and experts in relief administration. Every anticipated need was provided for, and unlimited resources were pledged to the stricken city.
Urgent relief needs following the earthquake in Guatemala were met through the Guatemala Red Cross chapter, which purchased $100,000 worth of supplies from the Government stores in the Canal Zone. A shipload of medical, food, and other supplies was sent from New Orleans at the earliest possible moment, and a Medical Director was appointed to take charge of work on the ground. Expert workers and sanitary engineers also were dispatched from the United States to look after special phases of the situation.
An Example of U-Boat Brutality
One day in the first week of March, 1918, a small Belgian fishing smack was sighted by a German U-boat and was fired upon without the slightest warning. Her masts and sails were shot away, and the skipper was severely wounded. The smack carried a crew of only four men, three of whom entered their small boat and endeavored to persuade the skipper to come with them; but he was so badly injured that he refused to leave. He, however, urged his men to save their own lives. Meanwhile the submarine had come closer to its prey, and a German officer called to the men in the small boat to convey a couple of German sailors on board the smack, in order that they might sink her with bombs. The Germans proceeded to board the smack, and then, finding the wounded skipper, one of them drew his revolver and shot the helpless man dead through the head. The dastardly act was committed in full view of the Belgian fishermen, one of whom was the unfortunate skipper's son. Having placed their bombs in position, the Germans returned to the submarine and cast the remaining three Belgians adrift in their cockleshell of a boat without food or water, and with no means of reaching land, from the nearest point of which they were twenty miles distant. The unfortunate men suffered severely from cold and hunger before they were picked up by a British patrol boat.