It is no longer the lifting of all to a common fellowship. It no longer means "I who stand here am prepared to die for you": pledge of a union stronger even than death. It is suddenly made the symbol of a greater gospel: "I drink to your death. I drink alone."
ADDENDUM
In the month of November, 1915, the "American Hostels for Refugees" were founded by Mrs. Wharton and a group of American friends in Paris to provide lodgings and a restaurant for the Belgians and French streaming in from burning villages and bombarded towns. These people were destitute, starving, helpless and in need of immediate aid. The work developed into an organization which cares permanently for over 4,000 refugees, chiefly French from the invaded regions. A system of household visiting has been organized, and not even temporary assistance is now given to any refugee whose case has not been previously investigated. The refugees on arrival are carefully registered and visited. Assistance is either in the form of money toward paying rent, of clothing, medical care, tickets for groceries and coal, tickets for one of the restaurants of the Hostels, or lodgings in one of the Model Lodging Houses. Over 6,000 refugees have been provided with employment.
There are six centers for the work. One house has a restaurant where 500 meals a day are served at a charge of 10 centimes a meal, and an "Ouvroir" where about 50 women are employed under a dressmaker, with a day-nursery, an infant-school, a library and recreation room. Another center is a Rest-house for women and children requiring rest and careful feeding. Young mothers are received here after the birth of their children, and children whose mothers are in hospital. Sixty meals a day are served here with a special diet for invalids. Another center contains a clothing depot, which has distributed nearly 100,000 garments, including suits of strong working clothes for the men placed in factories; layettes, and boots. In the same building are Dispensary and Consultation rooms. Twenty to thirty patients are cared for daily at the Dispensary. Another house contains the Grocery Depot, and another the office for coal-tickets. An apartment house, and two other houses have been made into lodging houses. The apartment lets out rooms at rents varying from 8 to 15 francs a month. One of the houses contains free furnished lodgings for very poor women with large families of young children. These three houses have met the need of cheap sanitary lodgings in place of damp, dirty rooms at high rents, where sick and well were herded together, often in one filthy bed.
Such is the work of the "American Hostels for Refugees." The present cost of maintaining all the branches of this well-organized charity is about five thousand dollars a month.
Mrs. Wharton has also established "American Convalescent Homes for Refugees." Many refugees come broken in health, with chronic bronchitis and incipient tuberculosis and even severer maladies. Seventy-one beds are provided. There is also a house where 30 children, suffering from tuberculosis of the bone and of the glands are being cared for. Four thousand dollars a month should be provided at once for this work.
At the request of the Belgian Government Mrs. Wharton has founded the "Children of Flanders Rescue Committee." The bombardment of Furnes, Ypres, Poperinghe and the villages along the Yser drove the inhabitants south. The Belgian Government asked Mrs. Wharton if she could receive 60 children at 48 hours' notice. The answer was "yes," and a home established. Soon after, the Belgian Government asked Mrs. Wharton to receive five or six hundred children. Houses were at once established, and these houses are under the management of the Flemish Sisters who brought the children from the cellars of village-homes, from lonely farmhouses, in two cases from the arms of the father, killed by a fragment of shell. Lace-schools, sewing and dress-making classes, agriculture and gardening are carried on. Seven hundred and thirty-five children are cared for. The monthly expense is 8,000 francs.
One of the most important charities in which Mrs. Wharton, Mrs. Edward Tuck, and Judge Walter Berry are interested, is that for "French Tuberculous War Victims," in direct connection with the Health Department of the French Ministry of War. Nearly 100,000 tuberculous soldiers have already been sent back from the French front. They must be shown how to get well and receive the chance to get well. One hospital is already in operation, and three large sanatoria are nearing completion, with 100 beds each. The object is not only to cure the sufferers, but to teach them a trade enabling them to earn their living in the country. Tuberculous soldiers are coming daily to the offices of this charity in ever-increasing numbers asking to be taken in. The answer will depend on American generosity.