To the soldier or the sailor Home Service is insurance against things which may happen to the folks at home. Because of the Red Cross he can feel secure about his family. He can 'soldier better' with the knowledge that should sickness enter his household, should loneliness oppress the wife or the mother, should the members of the family be unable to manage their affairs in his absence, should any accident of fortune or misfortune come, the Red Cross is ready to supply money when that is needed, credit when that is needed, and friends who are needed most of all. Knowing this, the men in the service can, as one of them said, "go forward with a clear mind." They can do their duty with a feeling of assurance that enables them to bear their own hardships and dangers with cheerfulness and courage. Because of the Red Cross, the morale of the army and navy—that thing of the spirit which is more important than ships or munitions and without which victory is impossible—continues to be strong. Such is the part which Home Service is playing in the war that is now being fought.
But the war will not be decided when the peace terms are signed. "The true victory," as Sir Baden-Powell has said, "lies not so much in the actual tactical gains on the battlefield today as in the quality of the men who have to carry on the work of the country after the war."
It is this thought which underlies all of the Home Service of the Red Cross. Home Service is looking to the future. Of what sort of people is the next generation to be. Only if the men and women of tomorrow are strong in body, in mind, and in spirit will the United States have come successfully through the great struggle in which it is now engaged.
Of the men examined in the first draft 23.7 per cent. were found to be physically unfit for service in the national army. If such a test were to be taken thirty years from now, would this percentage be greater or less? Only 28 per cent. of the grammar school graduates in the United States enter high school.[1] Will the number be larger or smaller thirty years from now? President Wilson's spiritual leadership has been possible only because the American people are ready to understand and to accept the ideals which he has set forth. Will the American people be as ready to rise to new ideals a generation hence? Will the families of what President Wilson calls "plain people everywhere," the family of the neighbor across the way, the family living in the next block, the Brown family, the Smith family, just the everyday family that is neither millionaire nor pauper, the family which has furnished the men who are fighting this war, will this family be as sturdy, as self-reliant, as devout, will it have in it as much of the right stuff thirty years from now as it has today?
The answer to these questions will decide whether or not the United States has been truly victorious in the great war. But if we desire to make that answer "Yes" we must not risk allowing any sign of weakness or strain in any household to go without attention. No family must, for lack of help, become disorganized and less able to do its work in the world. And what families are under greater strain now than the families of the soldiers and sailors? To what families does the country owe more? What group of people, moreover, represents so large a part of the population? For the sake of the future of the nation as well as for the sake of the morale of the soldier and the sailor the Home Service of the Red Cross is of vital importance. It is not only an insurance to the men of the army and navy, it is an insurance to the whole country.
When the household is invaded by sickness, when things begin to go wrong, when loneliness and despair begin to show themselves, then, indeed, the Red Cross must be quick to act. It must be quick to act, but more than that, it must be long continuing in action; for Home Service is not something that is completed in a few moments or days as the passage of an ordinance by a town council. Home Service is not a wholesale process. It does not deal with the families of soldiers and sailors in the mass. It is not to be compared with a law enacted by Congress which affects everybody alike. Home Service does not involve the same thing for any two families. To each family it tries to mean what that family needs.
A neighbor comes to the office of the Home Service Section with word that a certain family is having a hard time of it. A mother writes to say that she is in such distress that she cannot continue struggling alone, Some member of a family applies to the Red Cross for information about the man at the front and soon shows that a great deal more than this information is needed. In these and in a hundred other ways the Home Service Section learns about the difficulties besetting the folks at home.
Its workers begin their Home Service with the realization that no two families are alike, that each family has its own hopes, its own ambitions, its own problems, its own strengths. Because she appreciates the sacredness of each family's life, each worker helps each family only as she feels that she understands it. It is upon this appreciation and this understanding of the individual family that the things described in the preceding chapters have been accomplished. But here what was said in Chapter V must be remembered. One does not really accomplish anything for a family. Whatever is accomplished is accomplished by the family itself. One cannot give a family health, education, or spiritual life. One can only offer it opportunity and encouragement. The rest remains with the family. It must work out its own salvation. Every man must be his own success.
Home Service, moreover, is not infallible. Its workers are only human beings. They have been hurriedly brought together by the emergency of war. They have no such miraculous abilities that merely to wish is to succeed. Many of them, indeed, are still learning the art of helping people. With it all, as the stories in this book show, much is being achieved.
This is true largely because Home Service is not a sudden discovery of the Red Cross. Like the art of healing, it has been slowly developing over many years. It started with the friendly aid which since all time neighbor has always given to neighbor. It has been fostered by the church. Half a century ago this gospel of neighborliness became the beginnings of that art of helping people out of trouble which is known everywhere as social work. Through hundreds of organizations in every part of the country men and women have been putting this art into practice. Thus it is that the United States has been better prepared to help the families of its soldiers and sailors than any other nation in the world, for in the years before the war there were in no country so many citizens engaged voluntarily in activities to improve standards of wages, of work, and of living, and in similar efforts to enable their fellows to take full advantage of the opportunities that democracy offers.
When war was declared the nation suddenly appreciated the fact that social work was essential to victory. It realized that the only real progress is progress made by everybody. No one must be allowed to fall by the wayside for lack of a chance to go forward. Home Service is an expression of the quickened ideals of the nation. The American Red Cross with an organization that reaches into every town and city in the United States tells the American people that democracy fails unless each individual is able to use the opportunities which democracy offers.
True victory in this war will not be achieved until, in the democracy for which we hope to make the world safe, each family can develop to the fullest physical, mental, and spiritual life of which it is capable. The real victory will, indeed, be decided in the next generation, This is the victory that the American Red Cross is working to achieve through its Home Service with the families of soldiers and sailors this side the trenches.
Review of Chapter VIII
1. What does Home Service mean to the soldier and the sailor?
2. What is the purpose that underlies all of Home Service?
3. (a) What percentage of men in the first draft were found to be physically unfit for service? (b) What percentage of the grammar school graduates in the United States enter high school?
4. Why is it that, if the children of the United States have better opportunity to obtain an education, the country will have better citizens in the next generation?
5. (a) When is it desirable to attempt to improve conditions by legislation? (b) When is a better result attained by helping people to help themselves?
6. How does the Home Service Section learn that fami lies need its help?
7. What kind of help cannot one give to a family and what can one give?
8. Out of what ideals and experience has Home Service developed?
9. What is the only real kind of national progress?
10. What is the ultimate victory?
Douglas C. McMurtrie
New York