The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 4, October 1909)

by American National Red Cross

DESTRUCTION OF ARMENIAN QUARTER IN ADANA

WILLIAM H. TAFT.

PREFACE

With the October number of 1909 the Red Cross Bulletin brings its fourth volume to a close. Those who recall the dry little report which constituted the first Bulletin, issued in January, 1906, will find a strong proof of the growth of the American Red Cross by contrasting the former with the Bulletins issued during the last year. The Red Cross is fast becoming a very vital force throughout the world, a force that is bringing the nations closer together in the bonds of human sympathy, brotherhood, and peace.

During 1909 our people, by means of the American Red Cross, have been able to express their sympathy and give their help to thousands of their fellowmen who have suffered from earthquakes in Italy and Portugal, from massacres in Turkey, and, just as this Bulletin goes to press, from floods in Mexico. In San Francisco the Relief Home and the thousands of little cottages built after the fire are monuments beside the Golden Gate to our Red Cross. Again, in sunny Italy the American Red Cross Orphanage and hundreds of little cottages are witnesses of its zeal and its sympathy. A picture in this Bulletin shows some of the cottages it has helped to build in Portugal, and the Red Cross Day Camps that are beginning to dot the country over show its unforgetfulness of those who are victims of the “Great White Plague.” The transport that carried to China the generous cargo of food supplies provided by the Christian Herald floated the Red Cross flag; the relief ship Bayern, sent out by the American Relief Committee in Rome under the American Red Cross flew again that wonderful emblem, and from Beirut comes the news that the steamer on which our Red Cross committee there shipped relief supplies to the sufferers from the Armenian massacres sailed under the Red Cross flag. The ferryboat given by Miss Mary Harriman to the Brooklyn Red Cross for its tuberculosis work is another ship in what has been called “The Red Cross Navy.” So the water as well as the land has seen the beneficence of its labors.

ROBERT W. DE FOREST.
Copyright, Harris-Ewing, ’08.

Our American Red Cross has suffered a serious loss in the death of Mr. John C. Pegram, of Providence, Rhode Island. Due to the interest and energy of Mr. Pegram, Rhode Island founded the first State Branch of the Red Cross after its reorganization in 1905. From this time until his death Mr. Pegram was its President, and he has also been a most faithful and valuable member of the National Central Committee.