EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART II 111 



of Iowa. Imagine a tract of ground as large as this state wittiout a tree 

 or fence or a house on it, and with great shell holes as big as this 

 capital building, and you have a picture of a large part of the battlefield 

 in France. 



The Red Cross is taking care of homeless children in Belgium. They 

 have restored children to their parents, and parents to their families. 



In addition to that, the Red Cross is at work right here at home. Take 

 the Halifax disaster. Within a few hours the Red Cross was there with 

 great quantities of supplies and nurses and doctors to take care of the 

 injured and homeless. There are 25,000 homeless people in Halifax, and 

 the Red Cross organized that relief work and was on hand when their 

 help was most needed. The Red Cross is the great humanitarian arm 

 of our government. Take the Eastland disaster in Chicago, when hun- 

 dreds of excursionists were drowned. The Red Cross was there promptly 

 and at work. In the cyclones in Illinois and Indiana they were likewise 

 efncient. 



But of course the war task overshadows all at this time, and that is 

 the why of this Christmas campaign. There are four million members 

 of the Red Cross in the United States at this time. We want to make 

 the number fifteen million, and we ought to do it. I believe the popu- 

 lation of Iowa is 2,-3.58,611, or thereabout, in round numbers. There are 

 approximately 250,000 Red Cross memberships in Iowa, and we are going 

 after a record in this state. Our minimum quota in Iowa is one for every 

 four people, which would mean between six and seven hundred thousand. 

 I have been talking over the telephone today with our friends from out 

 in the state, and they say, "We are not going to be satisfied with that; we 

 want one out of every two people in Iowa," and I hope that there are many 

 counties in Iowa that will do that very thing. 



We. ask that every one who is a member of the Red Cross shall pay his 

 annual dues. We want him to pay the dues in December of each year, 

 unless you have joined within the past few weeks or month. Suppose we 

 renew 250,000 memberships in Iowa this campaign, and are able to in- 

 crease the number by five or six hundred thousand. That is what we 

 v/ant. It is not the money that we want in this campaign so much as 

 it is the interest of every man and woman and child in Iowa in this great 

 work, but the money is a consideration, for fifty cents out of each dollar 

 that comes in stays right at home in your local chapter. Say we get 

 600,000 members, that would mean $300,000, that can be devoted to the 

 purchase of materials for surgical dressings, wool for socks, sweaters, 

 hospital garments, etc. That is a considerable item in the aggregate. 

 It means a lot to us, and that is the why of this Christmas campaign at 

 this time. Some of us might say, "Why don't you put this off until next 

 summer?" That was my first thought, and then I thought of the tre- 

 mendous need and I made up my. mind that it would be almost criminal 

 to put it off till next summer. Because we need the interest of the 

 people in the Red Cross, and we need the money, and we are going to 

 get both. It is simply a matter of passing the message along, and 

 that is why I am here today. 



We are planning on a thorough organization in every county and in 

 every township and in every city and in every town in the state of 



