Wounded Men in a Hospital Weaving Rugs

Among the populations of the countries that were fighting the common foe the work of the American Red Cross was of incalculable value in the saving of life, the prevention of suffering and the conserving of morale. Its civilian service was wide spread and included the people of Palestine, Roumania, Greece, Serbia, Poland, Russia and Siberia, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and France. The service it gave varied with the local needs. In Switzerland it dealt mainly with the interned, the refugees and the prisoners that were being returned to their own countries, providing food, clothing, comforts and whatever assistance was needed. In Italy, where at the end of the war the Red Cross had expended almost $17,000,000, its appearance in the summer of 1917, the advance courier of American’s assistance, was of great value in counteracting German propaganda against the United States and proving to the people that they could depend upon American aid. It fed thousands of the refugees from the invaded region: its canteens, rest-houses and distributed comforts cheered the Italian armies at the front and their supporting lines; it furnished hospital supplies and scores of ambulances manned by Red Cross drivers; it sought out the families of soldiers that needed aid and gave help to more than 400,000; it established work rooms for women, nurseries and schools for children, homes and colonies in the mountains and at the seaside for children who were ill; and at the end of the war it had under way a campaign against tuberculosis.

In Belgium it carried on a children’s service by aiding existing hospitals, building new ones, establishing colonies and nurseries for children and organizing the aid of nurses and physicians for baby-saving effort, gave to all in need dispensary and home service and food, and supplied its usual army service for the Belgian soldiers whether at the front, in hospitals or interned in Holland, and gave, in addition, educational help. Among the half million and more Belgian refugees it set up administrative relief units of its own which coöperated with those of Belgium and aided with money, machinery, food, clothing, materials and friendly help of every sort.

In England the Red Cross service was devoted to caring for the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and sailors passing through on their way to and from the front, or in camps, nursing the wounded sent back from France, and providing for those shipwrecked near British shores.

In France, in addition to its very great and important work among the soldiers of our own and the Allied armies, with its many hospitals and convalescent homes, its diet kitchens and hospital huts, its medical supplies, its baths and sterilizing plants, its canteens and kitchen service, and its expert service in searching for missing men, it carried on extensive civilian relief in coöperation with the French Government and with French societies. It cared for refugees, for needy families whose men were at the front, provided clothing, food, medical attention and better housing, helped to rehabilitate battle devastated regions and enable their population to return, inaugurated an anti-tuberculosis campaign and carried on a children’s service for the saving of babies’ lives and the conserving of the health and welfare of children. The American Red Cross had 9,000 persons in all the activities of its service in France during our war period.

Long before the end of the war the Red Cross began to turn its attention to the great problem of the reëducation of blind and maimed soldiers. It gave them training in the use of artificial limbs so that they could use these substitutes deftly and offered vocational training that would fit them to support themselves and their families in new occupations in which their mutilations would not be a handicap. In France it worked in coöperation with the French Government, carrying on by means of moving pictures and lectures an extensive educational propaganda among the wounded in the hospitals to enlist their interest, stimulate their courage and persuade them to undertake the training, giving assistance to existing schools, establishing an electrical training work shop and a large and well equipped farm for agricultural training in modern scientific methods. In the United States it turned the activities of the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men to war service and carried on schools for the training of those who wished to aid in the treatment by vocational therapy of wounded convalescents.

CHAPTER XXVII
FEEDING THE NATIONS

In April, 1917, the long and bitter struggle had so drained the food supply of the Western Allies that they were dependent upon North America for the food that would enable their armies to continue the battle for civilization, prevent the starvation of their civilians and the wholesale death of their children. To this country the neutrals of Europe had also to look for sufficient food to save their people from suffering. There was much grain in Argentina and Australia, but ships could not be spared for the long and dangerous journeys to and from those countries. Submarine warfare had destroyed so much of the shipping, not only of the Allies but of the European neutrals as well, that every available ship was needed for use on the Northern Atlantic. Therefore, North America was the last reservoir of food, the last producer of food, to which the hungry populations of Western Europe could turn for the sustenance of their armies and civilians or the neutral nations and such of the subjugated peoples under the German yoke as could be reached look with hope for any help. All Europe was on the verge of starvation and only North America, which meant chiefly the United States, could give assistance. For this country to produce and conserve vast quantities of food and send them to Europe had become one of the fundamental necessities for the winning of the war.

The United States Food Administration was created, under the Food Control Act passed by Congress in August, 1917, for the purpose of handling this situation in such a way as would give the nations with which we were associated the food they needed and would at the same time protect our own people against food scarcity and excessive prices. A Food Administrator, acting under the informal request of the President, had already been at work for three months, securing data and working out tentative plans, and had opened the way and accomplished much by appealing to the people for voluntary coöperation. The work of the Food Administration throughout the war was another example of the splendid team-work of the whole nation and of the highly efficient coöperation of all the agencies of the Government. In coöperation with it the Department of Agriculture bent its energies to the stimulation of food production, the War Trade Board controlled food movements between this and other countries, the War Industries Board saw to it that such manufacturers as produced goods needed in the production, storage, conservation and movement of food supplies received the necessary raw material. Leaders in the grain trade, familiar with all its phases, gave up their connection with enterprises of profit and at great personal sacrifice volunteered their services to act as managers of the corporation through which the Food Administration purchased its immense grain supplies and controlled the grain situation. Dealers in food stuffs of every sort, both wholesale and retail, willingly deprived themselves of large possible profits and obeyed the requests of the Food Administration. And the people all over the country voluntarily pledged themselves to the necessary program of food conservation. The task of feeding the nations of Europe and the armies of America, England, France and Italy became the task of the whole nation, and the whole nation, guided by and functioning through the Food Administration, took up the task with eager hands.

We entered the war with our national stocks of cereals at a lower level than they had been for many years, due to the heavy demand made upon them by the Allied nations during the previous year. There had been also, for the same reason, a considerable lessening in the number of food animals.