Six months ago I finished writing the chapters of this book. At that time the American Red Cross still had a considerable force in Paris—throughout France for that matter. It was still functioning and, after its fashion, functioning extremely well. In the language of the French it "marched." To-day its marching days in the land of the lilies are nearly over. The personnel have nearly all returned home; the few that remain are clearing and packing the records. In a short time the Croix Rouge Amér

In that supreme hour when the United States consecrated herself to a world ideal and girded herself for the struggle, to the death, if necessary, in defense of that ideal, the American Red Cross was ready. Long before that historic evening of the sixth of April, 1917, when Congress made its grim determination to enter the cause "for the democracy of the world," the Red Cross in the United States had felt the prescience of oncoming war. For nearly three years it had heard of, nay even seen, the u

On the day that General John J. Pershing first came to Paris—it was the thirteenth of June, 1917—the American Red Cross already was there. It greeted the American commanding general on his arrival at the French capital, an occasion long to be remembered even in a city of memorable celebrations. For hours the historic Place de la Concorde was thronged with patient folk. It was known that General Pershing was to be quartered at the Hotel Crillon—since come to a new fame as the headquarters of the

At No. 5 Rue François Premier stood the American Relief Clearing House. It was a veritable lighthouse, a tower of strength, if you please, to an oppressed and suffering people. To its doors came the offerings of a friendly folk overseas who needed not the formal action of their Congress before their sympathies and their purse-strings were to be touched, but who were given heartfelt American response almost before the burning of Louvain had been accomplished. And from those doors poured forth tha

To attempt aid or comfort to a fighting army six hundred miles inland from the coast without adequate transportation was quite out of the question. Transportation, in fact and in truth, was the lifeblood of the American Expeditionary Forces which began to debark at the Atlantic rim of France before the summer of 1917 was well spent. It was the obvious necessity of transportation that made it necessary for the War Department of the United States to plan to operate an American railroad system of s

From the Commissioner in Paris came this cablegram: "Get us six of the biggest circus tents that you can." From the Washington headquarters was flashed this reply: "Tents are on their way." For the Red Cross it was all a part of the day's work. When Colonel Harvey D. Gibson, our Red Cross Commissioner in France in the latter half of 1918, found that the absolute limit for storage supplies in and around Paris had been reached and passed and that it would be several weeks at least before more addi

By July, 1917, the first Divisions of our amazing army began to seep into the battle countries of Europe. It had not been the intention of either our War Department or its general staff to send the army overseas until the first of 1918; the entire plan of organization and preparation here in the United States had been predicated upon such a program. Yet the situation overseas was dire indeed. Three years of warfare—and such warfare—had begun to fag even the indomitable spirits of England and of

The triage had been set up just outside of a small church which placed its buttressed side alongside the market place of the village. It was a busy place. And just because you may not know what triage really is any better than I did when I first heard the term, let me hasten to explain that it is an emergency station set up by the Army Medical Corps just back of the actual firing line—that and something more; for the triage generally means a great center of Red Cross activities as well. And this

After all is said and done, what is the supreme purpose of the Red Cross? I think that any one who has made even a cursory study of the organization—its ideals and history—should have but little hesitancy in finding an answer for that question. Despite its genuine achievement in such grave crises as the San Francisco earthquake and fire, for instance, its real triumphs have almost always been wrought upon the field of war. And there its original mission was definite—the succoring of the wounded.

At no time was it either the object or the ambition of the American Red Cross to build or equip or operate all the hospitals of the United States Army in France. For a more or less privately organized institution to have taken upon its shoulders, no matter how broad they might be, the entire hospitalization of an army of more than 2,000,000 men would have been suicidal. So our Red Cross in its wisdom did not even make the attempt; it was quite content to build and equip hospitals in the early da

"Wounded yesterday; feeling fine to-day." How many times that message—varying sometimes in its exact phrasing, but never in its intent—was flashed from France to the United States during the progress of the war never will be known. It was a lie—of course. Would any sane mother believe it, even for a minute? But it was the lie glorified—the lie idealized, if you will permit me to use such an expression. And it was the only lie that I have ever known to be not only sanctioned, but officially urged

On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and the fighting of the Great War ceased—almost as abruptly as it had begun. And the ebb tide of American troops from Europe back to the United States began; almost at once. For a time it was an almost imperceptible tide; in the following month but 75,000 soldiers all told—officers and enlisted men—were received through the port of New York, at all times the nation's chief war gateway; yet this was but the beginning. Each month of the early half of

On the ship that bore me from New York to Europe in the first week of December, 1918, there were many war workers—and of many sorts and varieties. We had men and women of the Y. M. C. A., of the Y. W. C. A., of the Jewish Welfare Board, of the Knights of Columbus—and twenty-five women of the American Red Cross. And so, in the close-thrown intimacy of shipboard, one had abundant opportunity to study this personnel at rather short range, and the fact that our ship, which had been builded for South