General Charles Bird, Wilmington, Del.
Col. William Cary Sanger, Sangerfield, N. Y.
Judge Lambert Tree, 70 La Salle St., Chicago, Ill.
James Tanner, Commander-in-Chief, Grand Army of the Republic, Washington, D. C.
Surgeon-General Walter Wyman, U. S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.
PREFACE
A little more than a year ago the American National Red Cross, just reorganized, consisted only of its sixty-five incorporators. Since then it has not only organized Branches in twenty-six States and Territories, but it has justified the claim that there is need for such an organization in times of peace as well as war “to continue and carry on a system of national and international relief in time of peace and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods and other great national calamities,” as stated in its charter, by the assistance it has rendered after the typhoon of September 26, 1905, in the Philippines, in the relief of the famine sufferers in Japan, to a limited extent by the contributions sent for the victims of the Vesuvius eruption, and lastly by its relief work after the great calamity that has befallen San Francisco and its vicinity. Reports in regard to some of this relief work are contained in this third Bulletin.
The Central Committee proposes later to issue to the officers of Branches a circular letter recommending the appointment in all cities and towns of Emergency Relief Committees consisting of representative citizens, and of which the Mayor should be ex-officio chairman, which will be called into active service only at times of great national calamities.
A translation is given in this Bulletin of the invitation extended through the International Committee of Geneva by the British Red Cross to all other Red Cross Societies to attend a Red Cross Congress to be held in London, June, 1907.