THE BUILDER DECEMBER 1917
RED CROSS WORK AT THE FRONT 
by Bro. William Howard Taft


Very many of our Masonic bodies and the Brethren have shown a
lively and helpful interest in the activities of the Red Cross,
contributing freely to its resources. This account of the work was
specially prepared for the National Masonic Research Society
through the courtesy of Brother William Howard Taft, formerly
President of the United States.

THE Red Cross idea was fundamentally the relief of soldiers wounded
in battle. The dreadful carnage and unmitigated suffering of the
wounded on the battlefield of Solferino, in 1859, was witnessed by
the great Swiss humanitarian, M. Henri Dunant. Dunant personally
ministered to the wounded, organizing volunteers in the vicinity to
help him in the work. That was the start of the Red Cross movement
of today which has resulted in highly developed relief
organizations in practically every civilized country for the care
of the wounded in battle.

As the only agency authorized by the United States government to
co-operate with the War and Navy Departments in the care of sick
and wounded soldiers and sailors, the American Red Cross has
accepted this as its first duty. The efficient conduct of this war
work has required the establishment of a very complex and highly
systematized organization which must be prepared to handle any
emergency which may arise. The further development of the idea has
resulted in various phases of Red Cross work which, while having an
indirect bearing on the care of the soldier and sailor, have been
shown to play an important part in relieving the misery created,
directly and indirectly, by war.

The big men composing the Red Cross War Council have taken the
broadest possible view of the duty confronting the American Red
Cross in the present conflict. They hold it their duty not only to
care for the soldiers of this country, giving relief to its
civilian population, but as far as possible to care for the
soldiers of the allies and the peoples of the allied nations. In
fact, the first army organization ordered abroad by the War
Department were six Red Cross base hospitals sent at the request of
the British Commission in advance of any American troops. They were
needed to care for the English and French wounded.

These base hospitals constitute the principal service rendered by
the American Red Cross in time of war. They are the highest
possible development of the volunteer service first organized by
Dunant at Solferino. The hospital staff includes a minimum of 26
physicians, two dentists, 65 Red Cross nurses, and 150 enlisted men
of the Medical Corps. The nurses are all highly trained and
registered nurses, and the physicians and dentists have to measure
up to the strict requirements of the medical corps of the army and
navy.

Base hospitals are located at a safe distance from the front, the
wounded and sick being carried to the hospitals in ambulances, of
which there are 64,000 on the French front. The American Red Cross
now has more than twelve base hospitals in France and nearly thirty
others are awaiting the call of the War Department to be mustered
into service of the Army Medical Corps. There are today more than
fifteen hundred Red Cross nurses doing war work in France.

The Red Cross also organizes ambulance companies which are composed
of a captain, four first lieutenants, two first-class sergeants,
eleven sergeants, six corporals, one mechanic, three cooks and 96
privates-- a total of 124 men.

Forty-five of these companies have already been organized by the
Red Cross, many of which are now seeing foreign service, while the
others are on duty in this country.

These ambulance companies approach the nearest of any Red Cross
organization to the actual fighting front and theirs is a work
fraught with much danger. Red Cross nurses are kept at the base
hospitals in comparative safety, the battlefield service of the Red
Cross nurse having been discontinued years ago.

Everything that highly developed professional skill can do to
relieve the suffering of the wounded soldier has been enlisted by
the American Red Cross for his care. The wounded man is first taken
to a "first aid" station where his wounds are bandaged. These
stations are just back of the fighting line and are in charge of
physicians who are regular members of the Army Medical Corps, a
service organized wholly independent of the Red Cross. From here
the wounded man is either returned to the trenches or, if his
condition is serious and further treatment is required, he is taken
to the base hospitals where the professional services are on a par
with that of the leading hospitals in this country. From the
hospital the soldier may be returned to the front, discharged or
sent home on furlough.

The work of the American Red Cross for the soldier today, however,
begins far in advance of his reaching the trenches.

Many of the troops had their first experience with the Red Cross in
connection with the recent canteen service rendered by thousands of
Red Cross workers to the troops enroute from their homes to the
various cantonments. This same canteen service has been arranged to
follow the men on their trip to the front after crossing to France.

Following some preliminary training after their arrival at French
seaports, the American expeditionary forces again entrain for a
trip across the country to stations in the proximity of the firing
lines, where many are now in training. The congested condition of
French railroads makes quick travel impossible and three days are
required for the journey. One hundred American women have gone to
France to take charge of the American Red Cross canteens and rest
stations which are scattered along the routes traveled by the men
in going to and from the French front. These stations are equipped
with lunch rooms, baths, laundries, reading and writing rooms, and
a store of such delicacies and small articles as the men may wish.
Commendatory as was this work, it does not compare in importance
with the great work being done by the millions of patriotic lay
women of America who are today working day and night in Red Cross
Chapters without recognition or spotlight, in the making of
thousands of surgical dressings, hospital garments, comfort kits
and knitted articles for the soldier.

Millions of bandages and compresses and hospital garments were
needed in the equipment of the many base hospitals; these were made
by the 25,000 women who had taken the special courses in the making
of surgical dressings conducted by various Red Cross chapters.
Thousands of comfort kits have already been made and supplied
United States troops, and a million more are now in the making. An
equal number of Christmas packages are being prepared by Red Cross
workers to carry Christmas cheer to the American soldiers in this
country and France. A request for a million and a half each of
sweaters, mufflers, wristlets and socks has come from Major Grayson
M. P. Murphy, Red Cross Commissioner to Europe, upon which Red
Cross workers all over the country are engaged, knitting under the
direction of Miss Florence Marshall, director of the Woman's Bureau
at national headquarters.

Another notable achievement on the part of the women workers of the
American Red Cross recently was the supplying of thousands of
bandages and compresses on very short notice to each of 188 United
States battleships and cruisers. This work was done at the request
of William C. Braisted, Surgeon General of the United States Navy,
the Navy Department supplying the gauze and raw material used in
their manufacture.

Probably the most important phase of Red Cross work at this time,
next to the preparations for the immediate care of the sick and
wounded soldiers and sailors, is the Red Cross "Home Service" among
the families of soldiers and sailors in this country. Nearly a
million and a half men are now enlisted in the various branches of
the military and naval service of the United States. Despite the
care which is being exercised to select men without dependents, and
despite the contemplated provision by the government, for the
granting of separation allowances and for securing the assignment
of pay, there will be many homes--there are, indeed, now many
homes--in which, except for prompt, sympathetic and capable help,
there would be suffering during the absence of men at the front or
on the high seas.

Families which would ordinarily be hard put to it by an attack of
sickness, the sudden need for an operation, the loss of a job, the
advent of either death or birth, now, without the judgment and
counsel of the men of the household, are unable to cope with the
difficulties besetting them. During the stress of war, with its
rising cost of food, its industrial changes, its uncertainties in
living conditions, the home is handicapped by the withdrawal of the
very person upon whom at such a time it would depend most for aid
in solving its problems.

Usually the man of the household has been accustomed to transact
all of the more important business of the home. He it is who knows
what to do when the mortgage matures, when the insurance policy
expires, when it becomes necessary to move into another
neighborhood, or when the oldest boy is graduated from school and
needs to be started in the right sort of job. Without his advice,
the bewildered family makes mistakes and the home is faced with
danger and disaster.

This need was clearly foreseen by the Red Cross War Council. To
relieve the situation as far as is humanly possible, the War
Council organized the Red Cross "Home Service" employing hundreds
of trained social workers under the direction of W. Frank Persons,
Director General of Civilian Relief. While the Red Cross cannot
assume the financial care of dependent families, a responsibility
too large for any organization except the United States government
itself, grants and loans of money will be made to tide over
financial depressions which are bound to occur in many households.

With the return of the head of the home, discharged because of
wounds or sickness, the problem is likely to become more difficult
of solution. The reeducation of the breadwinner in some new line of
work will be necessary in many cases in order that he and his
family may not remain a permanent charge on the community. The Red
Cross is already conducting investigations abroad looking to the
establishment of an institute in New York for the re-education of
soldiers discharged because of the loss of limb, sight, or other
cause which incapacitates them for further military service and
also makes impossible the resumption of their previous occupations.

Another work which is being performed by the Red Cross in this
country for the soldier is that of the Sanitary Service in
connection with the various cantonments and Army posts. This
Sanitary Service, under the direction of Dr. W. H. Frost, surgeon
of the Public Health Service, was established to co-operate with
local and state health boards in taking care of the peculiar
sanitary conditions which naturally arise from the congregation of
large bodies of men in one locality. In many cases it presents a
problem which the local health authorities do not consider
themselves equipped to handle. To the same end, the Red Cross is
providing five laboratory cars which, stationed at convenient
centers, can be hurried to any of these cantonments to assist in
quelling outbreaks of epidemics.

This work for the American soldier in this country has already
resulted in the appropriation of more than $1,500,000, while a part
of the $12,000,000 appropriated for Red Cross work in Europe has
been for the care of our own troops. All this has been made
possible by the generosity of the American people in the raising of
the hundred million dollar Red Cross War Fund, the largest sum ever
secured by voluntary subscription for humanitarian work. This fund
is being added to constantly by contributions from all over the
country.




THE CHOICE

If You Could
But know the world, and rule its mart,
And knowing, ruling have no heart;
But sail the sea, and dread no storm,
And sailing miss the dawn of morn;
But climb the mount, and thread the maze,
And climbing find no note of praise;
But rise above the moving throng,
And rising losse the sweetest song. 
or 
You Could
Both know the world and feel its heart,
And knowing, feeling bear the smart;
Both dream your dream, and find your work
An endless task you would not shirk;
Find Joy, and Duty ever blending,
The broken fragments ever mending,
Within, without, below, above
One call and answer,--love then
If your soul could hear the voice
Pray which of all would be your choice?
James T. Duncan.


Justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is
innocent in his own eyes.--Defoe.

A fool is never master of himself, much less of his people and
wealth.--Buddha


A SMILE:

Nothing on earth can smile but man! Gems may flash reflected light,
but what is a diamond-flash compared to an eyeflash and a
mirth-flash ? Flowers cannot smile; this is a charm that even they
cannot claim. It is the prerogative of man; it is the color which
love wears, and cheerfulness and joy--these three. It is a light in
the windows of the face, by which the heart signifies it is at home
and waiting. A face that cannot smile is like a bud that cannot
blossom, and dries up on the stalk. Laughter is day, and sobriety
is night, and a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between
both--more bewitching than either.--Henry Ward Beecher.

WHICH?

"Someone has said that when the Creator had made all the good
things there still remained some work to do; so He made beasts and
reptiles and poisonous insects, and when He had finished there were
some scraps left; so He put all these together, covered it with
suspicion, wrapped it with jealousy, marked it with a yellow streak
and called it a Knocker.

"This product was so fearful to contemplate that He had to make
something to counteract it; so He took a sunbeam, put in it the
heart of a child, the brain of a man, wrapped these in civic pride,
covered it with brotherly love, gave it a mask of velvet and a
grasp of steel, and called it a Booster; made him a lover of fields
and flowers and manly sports, a believer in equality and justice;
and ever since these two were, mortal man has had the privilege of
choosing his own associates."
