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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



society for those emergencies due to 

 natural causes that the people were per- 

 suaded to contribute in any large sum to 

 Red Cross. 



But we reckoned without the Hohen- 

 zollerns. These disturbers of the world's 

 peace have brought many changes to the 

 American mind, among them a total 

 change in the conception of Red Cross, 

 its needs, and its opportunities. The im- 

 mediate business of American Red Cross 

 is to mobilize the relief agencies of 

 America for the most destructive and the 

 most merciless of all wars. 



TWO MAIN CONCEPTIONS OP THE) 

 AMERICAN RED CROSS 



In doing this it works under two main 

 conceptions: to relieve (and, as far as 

 possible, to prevent) the misery incident 

 to war and to assist in maintaining the 

 morale of the fighting forces. 



To lessen the fighting man's misery 

 and to keep him fighting — these seem, 

 superficially, contradictory motives; but 

 all who believe in that just peace which 

 can be the only lasting peace know that 

 it is superlatively important to keep our 

 own soldiers and our allies on fighting 

 edge until the German beast is beaten. 

 The world will never be habitable until 

 that is accomplished. 



Red Cross is rooted in a humane idea ; 

 but the world cannot be made humane 

 until German inhumanity has been 

 brought to a stop; and so long as those 

 who now control Germany remain in con- 

 trol, this can be done only by speaking to 

 them in louder tones than their own, the 

 only language which they comprehend — 

 the language of force. 



After the humane nineteenth century, 

 we had reason to prognosticate a yet more 

 humane twentieth century. But Germany 

 has confused the horoscope; she has 

 made the most astounding assault on hu- 

 manity in the history of the world, weld- 

 ing to the brutishness of the Hun the 

 ingenuities, resources, and cruel refine- 

 ments of perfected science. 



THE TUSKS OF THE PRUSSIAN BOAR MUST 

 BE DRAWN 



The first business of the civilized world 

 is to draw the tusks of the Prussian boar, 

 and Red Cross is exerting its utmost en- 



deavor to serve the army and the navy in 

 their accomplishment of that end. While 

 Red Cross does all it can to comfort the 

 wounded soldier, it adopts every device 

 it can conceive to make the well soldier 

 a better fighting man. 



Hence its canteens, and rest stations, 

 and all its cooperation with the govern- 

 ment, with Y. M. C. A., and with all 

 other war agencies, to render the soldier 

 life as tolerable, as comforting, and as 

 heartening as possible. 



But it goes back of the soldier to the 

 soldier's family. If there is any outstand- 

 ing lesson which Red Cross has derived 

 from its experiences in this war as over- 

 topping all other lessons which it has 

 learned, it is this : that the morale of the 

 soldier depends almost as much on hav- 

 ing his family cared for as on having 

 himself cared for. 



Though he be warm within and with- 

 out and given every known modern de- 

 vice for soldier comfort, he will be at 

 something less than his best if he is har- 

 assed with anxiety about the wife and 

 children, the olcl father and mother, be- 

 hind the fighting line, within the zone of 

 war or beyond it, or even across the far- 

 stretching Atlantic Ocean. In this con- 

 ception of the complete duty which the 

 people owe their soldiers, the Red Cross 

 Department of Civilian Relief has become 

 almost as much a war department as the 

 Department of Military Relief. 



CIVILIAN RELIEF WORK 



That the soldiers' families may be 

 served intelligently as well as generously, 

 the Civilian Relief Department has or- 

 ganized its Home Service institutes, 

 where workers are trained by the most 

 modern and scientific methods to render 

 every conceivable kind of help that is 

 needed, including that most helpful and 

 most delicate and most difficult of all 

 help, the help which helps people to help 

 themselves. 



This, of course, is nothing more than 

 the modern science of social service ren- 

 dered to people as a war measure — that 

 science which combines in a delicate and 

 intricate way the quality of mercy with 

 a clear understanding that mere promis- 

 cuous "charity" may be of all things the 

 least kindly in the end. 



