BIND THE WOUNDS OF FRANCE 



439 



those who cannot enter the conflict should 

 stand aside and shame their country. I 

 was dumbfounded at the response I re- 

 ceived from all sides, from high and 

 from low. 



"five kids of my own, but ready to 

 help" 



Again and again I appealed in behalf 

 of the children, and some working man 

 in his embarrassment would arise in the 

 throng and finally would bravely say, 

 "Well, I have got five kids of my own, 

 but I can take on another one if you want 

 me to." That was the response from all 

 sides. 



I remember one day in particular. 

 When I went to my work that morning 

 a friend said to me, "You look rather dis- 

 couraged this morning." "Yes," I said, 

 "I see no hope in the situation today." 

 He said, "You will never be discouraged 

 if you will follow the Great Captain the 

 way I do." That was, of course, the re- 

 sponse of the Bishop of Massachusetts, 

 given to me in that way. 



It seemed an almost impossible, hope- 

 less task to raise these hundreds of thou- 

 sands of dollars, but he said : "It seems 

 very easy after you have gotten frankly 

 into the hearts of the people, after you 

 have taken them right into your confi- 

 dence, after you visualize the situation. 



"If you can visualize your work, if you 

 can make them see the things in the 



battlefield, if you can make them feel 

 and give them the vision as you have it, 

 then you will find the response is imme- 

 diate and glad. It is not only those who 

 have been educated in giving to whom 

 you can successfully appeal, for gener- 

 osity lies in the human heart, and it is 

 the most blessed thing man can do, to 

 give rather than to receive." 



GIVING WITH BOTH HANDS 



In New York I went to see a man — 

 one of the most influential, one of the 

 wealthiest men of this country — to thank 

 him for the thousands and thousands of 

 dollars he had sent to Belgium. I gave 

 him the figures and showed him the de- 

 vastated condition of northern France 

 and showed him the shattered fields, 

 without a tree standing, without a fruit 

 tree that will ever bear fruit again. 



His reply was the same reply you are 

 going again and again to receive : "What 

 am I going to do? Belgium is closed. 

 How can I help? I would like to help 

 more than I did." 



I replied to him, "Here is the Red 

 Cross. It knows this work and how it is 

 being conducted and how it should be 

 done." He then said most promptly, "I 

 have given with one hand before ; now I 

 am going to give with two hands !" 



That is the reply which will come from 

 all sides in this work we are now under- 

 taking. 



BIND THE WOUNDS OF FRANCE 



By Herbert C. Hoover 



Chairman of the Committee for Relief in Beegium 



1 ALWAYS feel an infinite embar- 

 rassment at the reception and over- 

 estimation of the part that I may 

 have played in what is really an institu- 

 tional engine, and the credit for which 

 belongs, not to myself, but to some fifty 

 thousand volunteers who have worked 

 for a period now of nearly three years. 

 During the whole of this period we 

 have had as one of our duties the care of 

 the civilian population in northern 

 France. We are, I think, the only Amer- 



icans who have been in intimate contact 

 or even in any contact with that impris- 

 oned population. We are the only group 

 who know of their suffering, of their 

 misery, of their destruction, and who 

 know of what confronts those people 

 even after peace. 



We have always entertained the hope 

 that possibly some other engine, some 

 other organization, might be found that 

 could adequately take in hand their 

 wounds and bind up their difficulties, re- 



