The Omaha Indians of this country have a chapter of the Red Cross, and early in 1918 they held an auction sale for its benefit. After a prayer the bidding began, and it was reckless bidding, for every Indian was ready to open his purse wide to buy chickens, pigs, corn, goats, preserved fruit—no matter what—so long as the money went to help the soldiers. The Indians from the first have been deeply interested in the war. "I have heard of a peaceful people brought low by mighty guns," said an aged chief. He promptly sold a load of corn and sent twenty dollars to the Belgian Minister at Washington, who responded by a note thanking him "not alone for his gift of money, but more particularly for the kindness of an understanding heart." The Indians fully appreciated the need of Liberty Loans and to the first three they subscribed $13,000,000. Who was it that said the only good Indian was a dead Indian?

Since the war began, societies without number have been formed to help the suffering people of Europe. One of the oldest is that of the "American Fund for French Wounded." We have never forgotten that France came to our help in Revolutionary days, when we were struggling—not with the people of England—they were never against us—but with an obstinate and short-sighted sovereign. Moreover, to help France was to keep the enemy from our own shores. So it was that surgical dressings, garments of all needed varieties, and all sorts of hospital supplies went to France from the "French Wounded" by thousands, and did much to strengthen the old friendship between the two countries.

The Society of Friends does not as a whole approve of fighting, but it does approve of helping to build up again. Friends have gone to France, Italy, Russia, wherever there is need, and there is need everywhere. They make an old chateau into a hospital, a former barracks into a children's home, they run a factory for making the most practical sort of artificial limbs and also one to make furniture for the people who are coming back to their ruined homes. They sew and nurse and care for refugees. Every week they send great cases of clothing across the water, and they do not forget to slip in boxes of candy for the little folk. The Friends go to the barren and ragged country where once stood neat little villages and happy homes. They repair the cottages or set up portable ones, and give to the suffering refugees a hope of having once more a home.

The college boys were prompt in looking about to see what they could do for the country in her hour of need. Many enlisted. Some entered aviation, some drove ambulances for the wounded, often a college sent half her students to the army or navy. Others formed companies and were drilled by army officers so as to be ready when their time should come. Soon it was plain that with the Allies depending upon us for food and so many of our men in the army, some one must do farmwork. Thousands of boys from colleges and high schools set to work and helped to raise corn and potatoes and whatever else would help to keep hunger away.

College girls, too, were thinking hard. They knit and sewed and gave their spending money for the soldiers and sailors. War courses in hygiene were promptly arranged. Canning, first aid, food conservation, and care of the sick were soon added to their studies. Several colleges for women sent each an ambulance or more to the field. Many college girls spent their summer vacation doing farmwork—not the kind that is composed of one hour in the field and three in a hammock, but eight hours a day of real work for the season. "I didn't raise my hand to be a blister," said one, looking ruefully at her palm; but evidently she changed her mind, for she and every other girl of her group worked till the end of the summer. In the spring of 1918 Vassar announced that as soon as commencement was over the college buildings and grounds would become a great training camp for college women from twenty-one to thirty-one years of age who wished to become trained nurses. This is the college women's Plattsburg, and just as at Plattsburg men were rapidly and "intensively" trained to become officers, so at this training camp for nurses the summer's work was arranged to count for one year in the three-years course for registered nurses. Before the middle of May five hundred had applied for admission, and a waiting list was begun.

The Salvation Army has from the first been at the front in war work. It has no wealthy members, but during the first year of the war the American branch raised $25,000 for the troops. It has no office hours, and even when the drivers of the supply wagons come in at unearthly times in the morning, biscuits, hot coffee, doughnuts, and sometimes even pies are waiting with a word of cheer and appreciation for every man. "Salvationists go," said Commander Evangeline Booth, "to comfort and encourage in every way possible—with rest rooms, refreshment bars, recreation arrangements; with song, with music, with dispatching and securing messages to and from the boys' homes, with the Bible, with affection, with advice, with teaching, with prayer, and with a glad spirit." A soldier who had lost his way and was creeping cautiously about in the darkness described the joy that he felt when he heard singing,—

and realized that he was close to a Salvationist tent. It is the rule for the military salute to be given to men only, but the French troops at Rheims always gave it to two women officers of the Salvation Army who fearlessly remained in town and served them in every possible way. The climax came when the hungry soldiers brought a whole ox for the two women to cook for them over a small gas stove and an oil lamp. It was done within twenty-four hours, and surely women who could accomplish that feat deserved the salute of at least one army.

The Boy Scouts had decided, even before we entered the war, what they could do to help. They carry no guns, but it is not the man with the gun who does all the work of a great war. Not every one realizes that there are about 200,000 on the lists of the Boy Scouts, besides 350,000 young men who have had the valuable Boy Scout training, to say nothing of 50,000 men who have been connected with them as advisers and scout masters. More than half a million of boys and men who have been trained to see and hear exactly, to think quickly, and to know what to do in an emergency, is a valuable asset for any country, whether in war or out of it. In war a Scout can render first aid to the sick or injured. He can send messages by wire, wireless, or wigwagging, he can carry a message promptly and repeat it accurately, and he can get through places where a man cannot. He can work on a farm; he can act as guard of property and give alarm in case of danger. All these things he has often done, and when the United States entered the war, the Boy Scouts was one of the few organizations that were prepared to do their part from the first.

Girl Scouts, too, and Camp-Fire Girls had promised to be loyal, and when war came, they translated their promise of loyalty into service. Their work was not limited to carrying pretty knitting-bags by any means, for they offered themselves promptly to the Red Cross for orders, and the work assigned them was not always agreeable. From Eastport, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, they swept workroom floors and picked oakum. In New York they opened a Red Cross workroom of their own. In Philadelphia they raised by a bazaar $800 for buying knitting yarn. They have learned the best methods of canning, and some of them have been specially trained to teach these things to schools, clubs, and churches. In short, "wherever a girl's size war job has offered itself, these Girls have taken it on." Both they and the Boy Scouts have been excellent solicitors for the Liberty Loans, and both fully deserve to wear a badge on which is written "America first."

The Government, of course, provides for the care of its animals in the war, but many emergencies arise in which a private society can act much more quickly. Therefore, the Secretary of War invited the American Humane Association to aid in this work, and the American Red Star was promptly organized. More than six hundred anti-cruelty societies were eager to help, and even the natives of Alaska are contributing generously and wearing Red Star buttons with the utmost pride and satisfaction. The Red Star, like the Red Cross, "specializes in emergencies," and at times of immediate need officers are free to call for whatever is needed. Their requests have ranged all the way from blankets and bandages to a veterinary hospital, and every one has been promptly filled.

The American Library Association is doing a fine work in providing books for the men in camp and "over there." Not rubbish, of course, but books of value in all lines are in demand. In one camp there are seven hundred college boys. Some colleges give credit for study done in camp, and the boys want up-to-date college textbooks. Many foreigners want simple books for beginners in English. Good novels, interesting histories and biographies, especially on French subjects, are called for. The Association collects money for books, and every public library is a station to which books for the soldiers may be sent.

So it is that every person in the land who has any genuine love for his country is trying to help her. Well-known artists are designing posters and doing rough camouflage work; actors and musicians are using their popularity to gain dollars for the soldiers, and using their talents to entertain them in the camps; men with heavy business cares are neglecting these and devoting their time and ability to the needs of the Government. "My country asks me to help her," may well be the proud slogan of those who help make munitions, or drive nails into ships, or save food from careless waste, or do their bit in any other way. Even little children are helping to win the war; and this is right, for the war is waged expressly for their sake. Every man in the trenches of the Allies is fighting for them. "You must always remember," one brave soldier wrote home to his boys and girls, "that your father came into this great war for the sake of all little children. The grown folk will not stay here many years longer, and it would not have been difficult for them to make some sort of peace that would endure for a time. They are not struggling for themselves, but to make the world safe for their children and the children of those children. "The glory of the Present is to make the Future Free"—and this is why we are in the war.

There is only one thing worse than war, and that is to stand one side when we ought to be fighting. We have not taken up arms for revenge, or to gain land or wealth or power. We have entered this war to make sure that right rather than might shall rule. It is a struggle between truth and falsehood, between mercy and cruelty, between freedom and slavery. It is a struggle that we have got to win.

Of our navy, Secretary Daniels writes: "Never did a nation have more right to be proud of its navy than America has now. Never were fighting ships manned by men of such skill and valor as our fleet to-day." The British Admirality are generous in their praise of teh effective service already rendered by our forces under Admiral Sims.

Each of these camps is a city complete in itself, with lodging and mess quarters, baths, kitchens, bakeries, water-supply adn drainage systems, hospitals, roads, railways, etc. After a tour of inspection, Former President Taft wrote an enthusiastic report upon the health and morale of the men in training. "They are," he said, "the finest material for the making of an army ever seen in any country."