THE RED CROSS

THE WORLD'S GREATEST FRATERNAL ORGANIZATION 1

WOODROW WILSON

I have not come here to-night to review for you the work of the Red Cross. I have come here simply to say a few words to you as to what it all seems to me to mean. It means a great deal.

There are two duties with which we are face to face. The first duty is to win the war, and the second duty, that goes hand in hand with it, is to win it greatly and worthily, showing the real quality of our power not only, but the real quality of our purpose and of ourselves. Of course, the first duty, the duty that we must keep in the foreground of our thought until it is accomplished, is to win the war.

But behind all this grim purpose lies the opportunity to demonstrate not only force, which will be demonstrated to the utmost, but the opportunity to demonstrate character, and it is that opportunity that we have most conspicuously in the work of the Red Cross. Not that our men in arms do not represent our character, for they do; and it is a character which those who see and realize appreciate and admire, but their duty is the duty of force. The duty of the Red Cross is the duty of mercy and succor and friendship.

Have you formed a picture in your imagination of what this war is doing for us and for the world? In my own mind I am convinced that not a hundred years of

1 From the speech delivered in New York May 18, 1918, at the opening of the Red Cross drive.

peace could have knitted this Nation together as this single year of war has knitted it together, and, better even than that if possible, it is knitting the world together. Look at the picture: In the center of the scene four nations engaged against the world, and at every point of vantage showing that they are seeking selfish aggrandizement; and against them twenty-three governments representing the greater part of the population of the world drawn together into a new sense of community of interest, a new sense of community of purpose, a new sense of unity of life.

The Secretary of War told me an interesting incident the other day. He said when he was in Italy a member of the Italian Government was explaining to him the many reasons why Italy felt near to the United States. He said, "If you want to try an interesting experiment go up to any one of these troop trains and ask in English how many of them have been in America, and see what happens." He tried the experiment. He went up to a troop train and he said, "How many of you boys have been in America," and he said it seemed to him as if half of them sprang up and said: "Me from San Francisco," "Me from New York- all over." There was part of the heart of America in the Italian Army-people that had been knitted to us by association, who knew us, who had lived among us, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with us, and now, friends of America, were fighting for their native Italy.

Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together. And this intimate contact of the great Red Cross with the peoples who are suffering the terrors and deprivations of this war is going to be one of the

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greatest instrumentalities of friendship that the world ever knew, and the center of the heart of it all, if we sustain it properly, will be this land that we so dearly love.

My friends, a great day of duty has come, and duty finds a man's soul as no kind of work can ever find it. You can not give anything to the Government of the United States, it will not accept it. There is a law of Congress against accepting even services without pay. The only thing that the Government will accept is a loan, and duties performed; but it a great deal better to give than to lend or to pay, and your great channel for giving is the American Red Cross. Down in your hearts you can not take very much satisfaction in the last analysis in lending money to the Government of the United States, because the interest which you draw will burn your pockets. It is a commercial transaction. But when you give, something of your heart, something of your soul, something of yourself goes with the gift, particularly when it is given in such form that it never can come back by way of direct benefit to yourself. You know, there is the old cynical definition of gratitude, as "the lively expectation of favors to come." Well, there is no expectation of favors to come in this kind of giving. These things are bestowed in order that the world may be a fitter place to live in, that men may be succored, that homes may be restored, that suffering may be relieved, that the face of the earth may have the blight of destruction taken away from it, and that wherever force goes, there shall go mercy and helpfulness.

Think what we have here! We call it the American Red Cross, but it is merely a branch of a great international organization, which is not only recognized by.

the statutes of each of the civilized governments of the world, but is recognized by international agreement and treaty as the recognized and accepted instrumentality of mercy and succor. We are members, by being members of the American Red Cross, of a great fraternity and comradeship which extends all over the world, and this cross which these ladies bore to-day is an emblem of Christianity itself.

It fills my imagination to think of the women all over this country who are busy to-night and are busy every night and every day doing the work of the Red Cross, busy with a great eagerness to find out the most serviceable thing to do, busy with a forgetfulness of all the old frivolities of their social relationships, ready to curtail the duties of the household in order that they may contribute to this common work that all their hearts are engaged in, and in doing which their hearts become acquainted with each other. When you think of this, you realize how the people of the United States are being drawn together into a great intimate family whose heart is being used for the service of the soldiers not only, but for the service of civilians where they suffer and are lost in a maze of distresses and distractions. And you have, then, this noble picture of justice and mercy as the two servants of liberty. For only where men are free do they think the thoughts of comradeship; only where they are free do they think the thoughts of sympathy; only where they are free are they mutually helpful; only where they are free do they realize their dependence upon one another and their comradeship in a common interest and common necessity.

If you could read some of the touching dispatches

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which come through official channels (for even through those channels there come voices of humanity that are infinitely pathetic); if you could catch some of those voices that speak the utter longing of oppressed and helpless peoples all over the world, to hear something like the Battle Hymn of the Republic, to hear the feet of the great hosts of Liberty coming to set them free, to set their minds free, set their lives free, set their children free-you would know what comes into the heart of those who are trying to contribute all the brains and power they have to this great enterprise of Liberty. I summon you to the comradeship. I summon you to say how much and how sincerely and how unanimously you sustain the heart of the world.

BEHIND THE GUNS

HENRY EDWARD WARNER

There are three who stand behind the guns, there are three who bear the load

There is one who stands behind the three, to feel the stinging goad;

And one of the three is the soldier brave, and one is the girl who slips

So quietly in by the bed, and one is the man who builds

the ships.

And these are the three who bear the load, and the other one is she

Who stays and prays, and who weeps and hopes for the weal of the other three

And she is the Woman who stays and prays when the voice of duty calls

The Boy in Khaki, the Girl in White and the Man in the Overalls!