I am a profound believer in the great-heartedness of the United States, and there is not an American of German origin who ought not gladly and freely give to the relief of people who, unless the world feeds them, must be the remnant of a nation; and the world in this case is the United States. She can give most.
The price of one good meal a week for a family in an American home will keep a Belgian alive for a fortnight.
Probably the United States has 18,000,000 homes. How many of them will deny themselves a meal for martyred Belgium? The mass of the American people do not need to deny themselves anything to give to Belgium. The whole standard of living on the American Continent, in the United States and Canada, is so much higher than the European standard that if they lowered the scale by one-tenth just for one six months the Belgium problem would be solved.
I say to the American people that they cannot conceive what this strain upon the populations of Europe is at this moment, and, in the cruel grip of Winter, hundreds of thousands will agonize till death or relief comes. In Australia in drought times vast flocks of sheep go traveling with shepherds looking for food and water, and no flock ever comes back as it went forth. Not in flocks guided by shepherds, but lonely, hopeless units, the Belgian people take flight, looking for food and shelter, or remain paralyzed by the tragedy fallen upon them in their own land.
Their sufferings are majestic in simple heroism and uncomplaining endurance. So majestic in proportion ought the relief to be. The Belgian people are wards of the world. In the circumstances the Belgian people are special wards of the one great country that is secure in its peace and that by its natural instincts of human sympathy and love of freedom is best suited to do the work that should be done for Belgium. If every millionaire would give a thousand, if every man with $100 a month would give $10, the American Committee for the Relief of Belgium, with its splendid organization, its unrivaled efficiency, through which flows a tide of human sympathy, would be able to report at the end of the war that a small nation in misfortune had been saved from famine and despair by a great people far away, who had responded to the call, "Come over and help us!"
GILBERT PARKER.
A CORRECTION.
Under the head of "Russia's 'Little Brother,'" on Page 364 of this magazine history, in its issue of Dec. 26, 1914, appeared a statement taken from The New York Sun of Oct. 12, 1914, and attributed to George Bakhmeteff, Russian Ambassador at Washington. Our attention has been called to the following editorial paragraph printed by The Sun on Oct. 14, embodying the Russian Ambassador's denial of its authenticity: