100 years ago in The Record
Thursday, Dec. 20, 1917
Captain Arthur Rudd blames the Russian revolution and the new regime’s withdrawal from the great war in Europe on the inability of the International Red Cross to operate in its country. Rudd speaks from experience, having served in the Russian army earlier in the war. Wearing a Russian uniform and a Cossack sword, he addresses a Red Cross membership rally at Proctor’s Theater tonight. “In numerous Russian villages I have seen hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, minus a leg or an arm, or both,” Rudd says, “They might have been saved those losses had they had care and treatment of the Red Cross. That is why Russia lost so heavily.” Rudd “could have presented no better argument for the Red Cross tan the effects of the stubbornness of the autocratic regime of Europe that barred the aid of the Red Cross,” The Record reports. The Red Cross is in the middle of an ambitious nationwide membership drive. In Rensselaer County, the goal is to add 20,000 new members by Christmas Eve. American soldiers in Europe are little better off than their Russian counterparts, Rudd says, because American civilians aren’t doing all they can to help the Red Cross. “Think of an American soldier sitting on the edge of a box in a trench in the northern part of France,” he continues, “The trench is wet. The penetrating air of that section of the country has chilled him to the backbone. His feet are wet and cold. He feels miserable, dejected, discouraged.
“He is wondering, thinking – thinking hard. His life is not worth an hour. He has suffered, and he has a great deal to suffer yet. He closes his eyes and looks into the cities of his country. He can see the women playing cards, carrying out social ambitions, and men, business men to whom the war means largely how much they will make or lose because of it.
“How, how, I ask you, can that soldier feel he is appreciated? He has asked the commissary for a pair of dry stockings, and he has been told there are none. His feet must remain wet and cold.”
Rudd is disgusted to report that “many look at a dollar two or three times before they give it to the Red Cross and many of them – God pity them in their selfishness – put the dollar back in their pockets and pinch it hard.”
On the lighter side, Metropolitan Opera soprano Lillian Wheeler, wearing a Red Cross nurse’s uniform, performs a program of patriotic songs supported by a chorus from the Watervliet Arsenal.