how strongly and at how many points and angles the Red
Cross has influenced his mental attitude, his moral conduct,
and his physical condition.

Reference has been made to the departmental organization
of the Red Cross and the distribution of its duties incident
to war. Moreover, it may be unnecessary to add that the
men and women engaged in all these various departments
were, every one, convinced that their own department was
the biggest and most vital; but it was this conviction,
nevertheless, that inspired their work and actuated the
whole machine. It is also true that as we follow the soldier
on his long journey to the battleground, and back again,
each stage as it is passed seems to yield in importance to
the next.

In all the formative stage of the soldier's development and,
for that matter, at every step of his service, of all the depart-
ments of the Red Cross that of Military Relief was closest
to him. In his cosmos that department and no other com-
prised the Red Cross.

A large part of the work of the department of Military
Relief was merged in the Medical Service of the Army. The
base hospitals with their personnel, which were organized
and equipped by the Red Cross as part of its official business,
became automatically a part of the Army organization
when they were sent into service overseas. There re-
mained under Red Cross administration, for the purpose
of utility and to simplify the Army mechanism, the bureaus
whose sphere was broader and more elastic and whose func-
tions were not an actual part of the war-making business.
They were, in a way, the left hand of the service. Under
this head may be grouped the Bureau of Canteens, the
Bureau of Camp Service, the Bureau of Motor Service,
and the Bureau of Sanitary Service.

The American boy -- up to forty-five -- bumped into the
Red Cross at the very moment almost of leaving his home

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