CHAPTER XXXII
HOME FOLLOWS THE FLAG
Nearly 28,000,000 Red Cross Relief Workers Distributing Aid in Ten Countries—Two War Fund Drives in 1918 Raise $291,000,000—Other Organizations Active—3,000 Buildings Necessary—Caring for the Boys—Boy Scouts Play Their Part Well.
From the hour of enlistment to the hour of return, the United States soldiers and sailors have had with them, throughout the war, the advantage of intelligent, sympathetic help from various civilian organizations, co-ordinating with the military.
First of all is the Red Cross, but that organization really is a non-combatant arm of the national service; and its work, generously financed by public subscription, is the greatest of its kind ever done in field or hospital, in any war.
Red Cross history would fill a big volume, no matter how meagrely told. There are 3,854 chapters of the organization. At the annual meeting of their war council, October 23, 1918, the chairman, Henry P. Davison, submitted a report that is literally astonishing, because the facts related had developed without, publicity and were quite unknown to the people of the country at large. Here are a few of them, taken from Mr. Davison's official statement:
NEARLY 28,000,000 WORKERS
The Red Cross in America has a membership of 20,648,103, and in addition, 8,000,000 members in the Junior Red Cross—a total enrollment of more than one-fourth the population of the United States.
American Red Cross workers produced up to July 1st, 1918, a total of 221,282,838 articles of an estimated value of $44,000,000. About 8,000,000 women are engaged in canteen work and the production of relief supplies.
The American Red Cross is distributing aid in ten countries—the United States, England, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Palestine, Greece, Russia and Siberia. Besides it has sent representatives to Serbia, Denmark and Madeira.