400 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AeRICULTURE 



In every country there are organized Red Cross chapters; in many 

 counties tliey have several chapters and a large number of auxiliaries. 

 I think nearly every one of these chapters will touch some of you folks. 

 Nearly every county has its organization under way by this time. That 

 organization usually consists of a general chairman. In a city like Des 

 Moines, they have a general chairman and field marshal, and we have 

 three men each of whom heads a division, and each division has eight 

 captains, and each captain has eight men under him, making approxi- 

 mately two hundred and forty men who go out to work. "We want 

 something of that sort in the county organizations — at least a general 

 chairman, and as many captains as he deems best to have: and these 

 captains will try to enlist all of you folks in working for the Red Cross 

 in your individual communities. We want to secure as many members 

 as possible, but it is not money we are after — it is your interest. 



There are two classes of memberships which we emphasize in this 

 campaign, the Christmas, or $1.00 membership, which simply means that 

 you believe in the Red Cross, and want to be identified with it; and the 

 $2.00 membership, which is simply the Christmas membership and 

 enough additional to send you the magazine. The Red Cross magazine 

 you w-ill find worth several dollars in itself, because it tells the story of 

 the Red Cross in a way that no other magazine tells it. So the amount 

 of money is not large, and yet . if we do as we want to in Iowa, and 

 secure 600,000 members, it will mean that fifty per cent of the money 

 will stay right at home, because 50 cents of each Red Cross membership 

 stays with the local chapter, and that money is used for purchasing ma- 

 terial for surgical dressings, for wool for sweaters and yarn for socks, 

 and for needed supplies. The other 50 cents goes to Washington, to pay 

 the expenses of keeping up the organization, and I may say in that 

 connection that the Red Cross is the least expensively run organization 

 of any in the entire country. The head of the Red Cross, Mr. Davison, a 

 New York banker, v.-ho received, I believe, $100,000 a year, has left his 

 business and gives his whole time to the work. Mr. Gibson, the manager, 

 does the same. There is only one salary out of seven hundred people 

 interested in the Red Cross that amounts to over $G,000, and that salary 

 is $7,500, and was paid before this war began. There are only five sala- 

 ries that run up to $6,000. The most of the m.oney paid out for Red 

 Cross help is for stenographers, bookkeepers, etc.; and because so much 

 of the help is voluntarily, the expense of the Red Cross is practically 

 nothing — so the 50 per cent easily keeps up the expense at Washington. 



If you are already a member of the Red Cross, in this campaign you 

 will be asked to renew your membership, no matter when you became a 

 member, unless since the first of October. If we waited to get the renewal 

 of your membership next June, it would take a lot of time that we 

 ought to be giving to the war itself, because by the first of next April 

 you may expect to read bulletins on the streets of the cities, and casualty 

 lists in the newspapers, and there will be some of your boys among 

 them; and if we wait until then to get back of the Red Cross, we are 

 going to be too late to save a lot of our boys. So when you are asked 

 to renew your membership, do it cheerfully. If you became a member 



