ammunition sent forward to us. The second and third days of the fight my men were using the German light machine guns instead of our automatic rifles, in order to save ammunition for our rifles. We could get German ammunition in almost every shell hole ahead of us. Food came up on the morning of the third day, our first food outside of that which we carried on our backs-the two days' emergency ration.

The fourth day marked the drawing of the line to a fixed position as far as the 91st and 35th divisions were concerned. On our left was the 35th division, and on the left of the 35th was the Argonne forest, with the 28th and 77th divisions therein. The Argonne forest was a dense wood with its natural defenses made still more impregnable by interlacing of wire; and every alley was protected by machine guns. The 28th and 77th divisions were held back; they could not make the progress that we did. We had shoved a large salient into the German line. To shove it further would have meant the weakening of our own line, and there was nothing to do but to hold and to wait. At the time I left, orders had come to hold and to hold for the coming up of the divisions on our left and on our right, until the line could be somewhat straightened.

Against Strong Positions

The territory over which we fought was much the same as you would find in the foothills of California; if you could lower the hills and make them a little more rolling, deepen the ravines in some cases, and make the brush and the timber a little more dense. It was hard going for us. It was easy territory for the Germans to defend. Our troops, regardless of divisions and where they came from did their best. The American troops on that front were facing the pick of the German army, because no one knew better than Germany what we were striking at. We were striking at the heart of their defense system, and they were putting the pick of the army they could gather against us. They had ideal country for defense and we had difficult country in which to make the attack; but never once did the men we led falter. (Applause.) That applies to the national guard men, the regulars and to the drafted men alike. As a matter of fact, the whole army was a drafted army, because the national guard regiments and the regular organizations had been filled with drafted men. They were American boys, drafted or not drafted; and personally I believe all honor is due to the drafted. men. They were courageous boys and they kept on going. There was no leading to slaughter. We had our artillery, but it could not get up to us, and it was not wisdom to wait for it. (Applause.)

Treatment of the Wounded

Now just a word about the wounded in battle. I have been asked that question. There was one thing that we trained every man to forget, and that was his "buddy" and his brothers, if they were wounded. The only thing we could do for wounded men was to apply the first aid dressing, put them into shell holes, where they would be reasonably safe from machine gun and artillery fire, and stick a riflle bayonet down into the ground as notice to the litter bearers, when they come up, that a wounded man was there, or when prisoners were being taken back, to the prison guard; so that the prisoners could be made to carry our wounded back to the first aid station. At the first aid station their wounds were dressed by the battalion surgeons and they were held there until they could be placed in ambulances and taken to hospitals at the rear. You will hear criticisms of our medical department falling down. For the same reason that the artillery could not get up, ambulances could not get up, and men had to lie out in the cold and rain twenty-four and forty-eight hours before they could be taken to the rear, but I have heard of very few cases resulting fatally due to that exposure. The percentage of deaths of the wounded is comparatively small.

The Grouch of the Enlisted Man

Now your boys are coming home. What will you find? You will find changed boys. They will not be the same. A few will be worse, but the majority of them will be better men than when they went away. (Applause.) Thousands of those boys have been taught to find themselves, to lead, where they were accustomed to follow, and if they come home and tell you they can fill a better job than they did before, believe them, because they can. The boy who can be corporal of a squad in the American army of today and lead it into battle has as big a job as any captain that ever led his company in the wars we have had before; he had more to contend with, he was placed more on the initiative, and he had more to do. This was an enlisted man's war, not an officer's war, because when they were first turned loose in battle, it was the soldier who would know his duty and perform it or the non-commissioned officer who was in charge, and the captain was sometimes wondering where one flank of his company was and sometimes where the other flank of his company was. (Applause.) A company covered too wide a front to be led as were the old military organizations.

The men are coming home with grouches, perhaps, but do as Major Galloway has suggested, sift the grouches down. It is a soldier's prerogative to kick; they have learned to kick in barracks and billets,

and they will kick for a while until they forget the army. But the main question is, what did they accomplish, and what did the army accomplish? If you find any big mistake made by any one in the army over there, think of what you did at home to train an army to go over there; think how long you had been educating officers to lead a big army; think what the people at home had done towards the preparation for a big conflict; and then, after you have thought about that, you may forget some of the mistakes that were made. (Applause.)

Shelling of Hospitals

Major Galloway has referred to some atrocities. I will tell what I saw. I saw several instances, not in the nature of individual atrocities, but collective atrocities, that may interest you. The night before I was wounded I lay in a little ravine. That ravine stretched for a long way in a straight line, and I saw our troops establish a dressing station in a house located there. They put out the batallion medical detachment flag with the red cross on it, which I could see distinctly at that distance of half a mile, without any strain on my eyes. Within a short time a large number of wounded were brought in. The battalion surgeons and medical detachment were there. A German plane came over that station, signalled in smoke, and in ten minutes afterwards there was not a vestige of that building left. German artillery fire had destroyed it, with the surgeons and the wounded. I also saw the bombing of the hospitals at Souy. I lay in an evacuation hospital one night, the night I was wounded, and had the experience of having that hospital bombed. Fortunately it killed no men. It struck a vacant wing.

In closing I want to thank you for the reception that has been given me in coming home, and for the pleasure I have had in seeing your faces again and shaking you by the hand. (Standing and long applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: We have persuaded one of our members, who did good work with us before he left San Francisco, to tell us something of the work of the Red Cross in France. I take pleasure in presenting Mr. J. J. Webb. (Standing applause.)

Address by J. J. Webb

MR. WEBB: You all perhaps are familiar, generally speaking, with the Red Cross work in France, which had to do with our boys. There was, however, an important work carried on by another department of the Red Cross, called the Department of General Relief. That work had to do with the civilians, as the name indicates, and its important part commenced with the declaration of war and kept on up to the time that our army had been tried, and victory was no longer an uncertainty, but an accomplished fact. That work was to assist in sustaining the morale of the French nation, a very important work, until our army became the decisive factor which it did.

The department was divided into sub-departments, called bureaus. There was one bureau over which Dr. Lucas of this city presided. There was a tuberculosis bureau, a refugee bureau, a bureau of reconstruction, a bureau of education, also a war orphans' bureau. The personnel of the department perhaps numbered a thousand, of which there were doctors, dentists, nurses and aides, social workers, canteen workers, auto drivers, and those in the headquarters at Paris.

The procedure was about as follows: France is divided into political divisions called departments, corresponding to our states, numbering eighty-six, of which perhaps fifteen were in what is known as war zones, the balance being called interior departments. To these departments people were sent as delegates, and their duty was to first meet the French officials, then to come in contact with the leading French people, familiarize themselves with the various charitable organizations operating in that territory, and then, after ascertaining what help was needed, come to Paris or communicate with headquarters and advise us what was necessary. Eventually from Paris would come the assistance that they requested if it was found proper under the circumstances.

The people we assisted were, first, the families of the French soldiers; then, the refugees, the people pouring back from Northern France and those coming back through Switzerland. There were a thousand a day of these emaciated and physical wrecks. In Paris alone there were perhaps 500,000 refugees who had come with perhaps only a little bag or bundle containing all their worldly possessions. Outside of Paris there were probably a million and a half more. When these people came into Paris they would be met at the station by the Red Cross workers and taken into a canteen there. The adults would be given food, and the children would be taken by the nurses and bathed and given new clothes-the old folks as well. From that station they would be taken to the outgoing station and eventually received by the agents and given assistance if necessary.

The tuberculosis bureau, in conjunction with the Rockefeller Commission, were combating the white plague through educational propaganda, through posters, through circulars, through traveling exhibitions. given throughout the leading cities of France, informing them of the necessity of cleanliness, of fresh air—and in France they are a little bit afraid of fresh air. So you can imagine the work that had to be done in combating the white plague. When children were found to be suffering from tuberculosis, they were isolated and sent to our hospitals. After the Germans were forced back, reconstruction work was taken up and buildings were repaired so that the people could remain.

We were operating some twelve hospitals and fifty dispensaries. If an epidemic broke out we would rush doctors and nurses to that particular place, and did all we could to help stop that epidemic. You know, most of the French doctors were in the army. There were towns of 25,000 inhabitants with not a single doctor, so that the Red Cross doctors had to take care of the civilian population.

During the month of March we dealt with 256,345 persons. We distributed to those people 120,000 articles of clothing, 12,000 pairs of shoes, 80,000 articles of furniture, 68,000 articles of bedding, 332,000 pounds of food, 1000 tons of coal, 3000 agricultural implements, and 11,000 miscellaneous articles; and in addition to that, during a period of six months, we donated approximately 3,000,000 francs to the various French charitable organizations that were carrying on the work. From that you can see the magnitude of the work.

The method of helping the soldier was something like this: The soldier would go to the French officers and say, "I have a family living in a certain vicinity," and the captain would communicate with us and the family of that soldier was taken care of until he returned home. (Applause.) They came to us time and time again with tears in their eyes and said they knew their children would be taken care of.

We were living in a life of intense excitement; the atmosphere was surcharged. Our people would be working all day and then they would be told that a trainload of refugees were coming in and they would have to help them at night; in Paris at perhaps 3 o'clock we would receive a communication that a trainload of refugees was coming into town. The office would be stripped; to the station we would go and help them. Again, we would receive a message that a trainload of wounded soldiers were coming in, and we would assist in carrying those men out and seeing that they got something to eat, or gave such other aid as was requested of us. While we were working with them, we did not notice particularly the effect, but when we returned to our home, perhaps at two or three o'clock in the morning, and tried to get