To cope with the grist of wounded, the mass of refugees and destitute, Paris was filled with relief organizations. The sign of some "_oeuvre_" decorated every other building of any size, it seemed. Apart from the numerous hospitals, there were hostels for the refugee women and children, who earlier in the war had poured into Paris from the north and east, workrooms for making garments, distributing agencies, etc. All civilian Paris had turned itself into one vast relief organization to do what it could to stanch the wounds of France. Of the relief and hospital side of Paris I have the space to say little: much has been written of it by those more competent than I. But in passing I cannot refrain from my word of gratitude to those generous Americans who by their acts and their gifts have put in splendid relief the timid inanities of our official diplomacy. While the President has been exchanging futile words with the Barbarian over the murders on the Lusitania, to the bewilderment and contempt of the French nation, the American Ambulance at Neuilly has offered splendid testimony to the real feelings of the vast majority of true Americans, also an excellent example of the generous American way of doing things. That great hospital, as well as the American Clearing-House and the individual efforts of many American men and women working in numberless organizations, encourage a citizen from our rich republic to hold up his head in spite of German-American disloyalty, gambling in munitions stocks, and official timidity.
Already the French had realized the necessity of creating agencies for bringing back into a life of activity and service the large numbers of seriously wounded--to find for them suitable labor and to reëducate their crippled faculties so that they could support themselves and take heart once more. Schools were started for the blind and the deaf, of whom the war has made a fearful number. I remember meeting one of these pupils, a young officer, blind, with one arm gone, and wounded in the face. On his breast was the Service Cross and the cross of the Legion of Honor. He was led into the room by his wife, a young school teacher from Algeria, who had given up her position and come to Paris to nurse her fiancé back to life and hope. He was being taught telegraphy by an American teacher of the blind.