under shell-fire to acquire the immunity to fear which passes for
courage. The bravest man is likely to get "jumpy," if he only faces up
to a bombardment occasionally. There are other reasons why combatants
should do the stretcher-bearing which do not need elaborating. The
combatants have an expert knowledge of their own particular frontage;
they are "wise" to the barraged areas; they are "up front" and
continually coming and going, so it is often an economy of man-power
for them to attend to their own wounded in the initial stages; they
are the nearest to a comrade when he falls and all carry the necessary
first-aid dressings; the emblem of the Red Cross has proved to be only
a slight protection, as the Hun is quite likely not to respect it.
What I am driving at is that the Red Cross has had to adapt itself to
the new conditions of modern warfare, so that very many of its most
important present-day functions are totally different from what
popular fancy imagines.

The American Red Cross has its French Headquarters in a famous
gambling club in the Place de la Concorde. It is somewhat strange to
pass through these rooms where rakes once flung away fortunes, and
to find them industriously orderly with the conscience of an imported
nation. By far the larger part of the staff are business men of
the Wall Street type--not at all the kind who have been accustomed
to sentimentalise over philanthropy. There is also a sprinkling
of trained social workers, clergy, journalists, and university
professors. The medical profession is represented by some of the
leading specialists of the States, but at Headquarters they are
distinctly in the minority. The purely medical work of the American
Red Cross forms only a part of its total activities. The men
at the head of affairs are bankers, merchants, presidents of
corporations--men who have been trained to think in millions and
to visualise broad areas. Girls are very much in evidence. They are
usually volunteers, drawn from all classes, who offered their services
to do anything that would help. To-day they are typists, secretaries,
stenographers, nurses.

The organisation is divided into three main departments:
the department of military affairs, of civil affairs and of
administration. Under these departments come a variety of bureaus:
the bureau of rehabilitation and reconstruction; of the care and
prevention of tuberculosis; of needy children and infant mortality;
of refugees and rel