s
--Summary--Commendatory Words Of General Richardson--Our Weekly
"Sentinel" Put Out By Red Cross--Returned Men Strong For American Red
Cross Work In North Russia.

Even before the question of American participation in the Allied
expedition to North Russia had been decided upon, the American Red Cross
had dispatched a mission of thirteen persons, with four thousand two
hundred tons of food and medicine, for the relief of the civilian
population. When, shortly thereafter, a considerable detachment of
American doughboys, engineers and ambulance corps troops were landed,
the Red Cross had the nucleus of an organization to provide for the
needs of our soldiers as well as for the civilian population.

A report, made public here by the American Red Cross on its work in
North Russia, gives an interesting picture of conditions on our Arctic
battle front during the war. The food situation among the civilian
population was acute. With the city swollen in population through a
steady influx of refugees, few fresh supplies were coming in and hoarded
supplies were rapidly diminishing. Coarse bread and fish were staple
articles of food, and there was a grave shortage of clothing.

The desperate need for foodstuffs in the regions far north along the
Arctic shores was brought sharply to the attention of the Allied Food
Committee when delegates from Pechora arrived by reindeer teams and
camped at the doors of the committee urging assistance. They brought
samples of the bread they were forced to eat. It was made of a small
quantity of white flour mixed with ground-up dried fish. Other samples
which were shown were made from immature frostbitten rye grain, and a
third was composed of a small quantity of white flour mixed with
reindeer moss. A small quantity of rye flour mixed with chopped coarse
straw, was the basis of a fourth example.

Much attention was devoted by the Red Cross to caring for school
children and orphans. Over two million hot lunches were distributed,
during a period of a few months, to three hundred and thirty schools
with twenty thousand pupils. Every orphanage in the district was
outfitted with the things it needed and received a regular fortnightly
issue of food supplies. Over twenty thousand suits of underwear were
given out to refugees. To provide for the many persons separated from
their families or from employment on account of the war, the Red Cross
established a regular free employment agency.

The writer