Charlotte Kellogg

“ Belgium, after centuries of intermittent misery and recuperation as the cockpit of Europe, had with a hundred years of the peaceful fruition of the intelligence, courage, thrift, and industry of its people, emerged as the beehive of the Continent. ”

“ There you have their stories and know their suffering; you are able, also, to teach them, while they sew, how to care for their bodies and their homes, even to sing, and all the while you realize that the very garments they are putting together are to go to others even more unhappy—these are the places where service has its swift and rich rewards! I have visited just such blessed workrooms in Namur and Charleroi and Mons, in Antwerp and Dinant, in fact in dozens of cities up and down the length of Belgium. ”

“ As the only American woman member of the Commission for Relief I was permitted to enter Belgium in July, 1916.
I already knew that this country held 3,000,000 destitute; that over one and one-quarter million depended for existence entirely on the daily “soupes”; that between the soup-lines and the rich (who in every country, in every catastrophe, can most easily save themselves) there were those who, after having all their lives earned a comfortable living, now found their sources of income vanished, and literally faced starvation. ”

“ VII THE BREAD IN THE HAND
I soon came to have the curious feeling about the silent stone fronts of the houses that if I could but look through them I should see women sorting garments, women making patterns for lace, women ladling soup, painting toys, washing babies. Up and down the stairs of these inconvenient buildings they are running all day long, back and forth, day after day, seeking through a heroic cheerfulness, a courageous smile, to hold back tears. ”

“ The longer he stays the more he realizes the futility of any such attempt, the more he becomes dumb. It requires a brush and color beyond our grasp; it must be the picture of the soul of a nation in travail, of the lifting of the strong to save the weak. We may, however, choose certain angles of vision from which we see, [2] thrown into high relief, special aspects of an inexpressible experience.
One of these particular developments is the unswerving devotion of the women of Belgium to all those hurt or broken by the tragedy within and without her gates. ”

“ Inside the tables were crowded, sixty-five women were hurrying between them and back and forth to the directors who stood at a long counter in front of the kitchen, serving the thousands of portions, of soup, sausage, and a kind of stew of rice and vegetables.
In the kitchen and meat and vegetable rooms there was the constant clamor of sifting, cutting, stirring, of the opening and shutting of ovens. While the sausages of the day were being hurried from the pans, the soup of the morrow was being mixed in the great caldrons; 250 men were hard at work. ”

“ The problem of purchasing the vegetables is so great that a special committee has been formed at Malines to buy for Brussels on the spot. One of the saving things for Belgium has been that she produces quantities of these delicious greens. In the smaller towns a committeeman usually goes each morning to market the day’s supply. For instance, the lawyer who occupies himself with the vegetables for the Charleroi soup, makes his own selection at four o’clock each morning, and is extravagantly proud of the quality of his carrots and lettuces! ”

“ But no matter how inconvenient the building, skilful women transform it at once into something clean and cheery. In the whole of Belgium I have never seen a run-down or dirty relief center. In some the kitchen is simply a screened-off corner of the dining-room, in others it is a separate and excellently equipped quarter. I visited one crowded cantine where every day the women had to carry up and down a narrow ladder stairway all the plates and food for over 470 children. ”

“ It is easy to conceive of such service if the giver is in close touch with the mother and her need, but when he must be cut off from her—locked up with the grind, the disillusionment, the staggering obstacles, this unbroken devotion through the days and nights of more than two years, becomes one of the finest expressions of altruism the world has seen. ”

“ On the Great Day we shall give back to the Queen her chosen industry, fully three years ahead of where she left it. She will find all the standards raised, her women better trained and equipped to care for themselves, and to re-establish Belgium as the lace-maker of the world. ”

“ The audible music of this creation is the clatter of hundreds of typewriters, the tooting of tugs and shrieks of locomotives, but the undertones are the harmonies of devotion.
Everybody who can pay for his food must do so—it is sold at a fair profit, and it is this profit, gained from those who still have money, that goes over to the women in charge of the cantines for the purchase of supplies for the destitute. ”

“ Many were weak and ill-looking; all wore the stamp of war. Every day they must come for the pint of soup and the bread that meant life—200,000 in Brussels alone; in Belgium one and a half million! These are the lowest in the scale of misery—those who “must have a supplement of protein,” for [22] meat never passes their lips but in soup. ”

“ Human beings are most extraordinarily adaptable: people were asked where they were living; no one could answer exactly, but all knew that they were living somewhere, somehow—in the sheltered corner of a ruined room, perhaps in a cave, or beside a chimney! The relief committee hurried in food and clothing, hastily constructed a few temporary cottages; a few persons began to rebuild their original homes, and life went on. ”

“ Some were hurrying the soup plates and the 1,662 white bowls along the tables, while others poured milk or went on with the bread-cutting. Several women were perspiring in the kitchens and vegetable rooms. The potato-peeling machine, the last proud acquisition which was saving them untold labor, had turned out the day’s kilos of potatoes, which were already cooked with meat, carrots and green vegetables into a thick, savory stew. The big fifty-quart cans were being filled to be carried to the dining-room; the rice dessert was getting its final stirring. ”

“ A full account of the struggle of the lace-workers would take us straight to the heart of the tragedy of Belgium. At present it can only be intimated. The women who are back of this struggle represent a fine intelligence, a most fervent patriotism and most unswerving devotion to their people and their country. ”

“ Nor does fear ever enter their little heads lest the slender chain of finance, ships and direction which supports these warehouses should fail, for has the cantine ever failed in all these two and a [xviii] half years? That the day shall not come when some Belgian woman amid her tears must stand before its gate to repeat: “Mes petites, il n’y en a plus,” is simply a problem of labor and money. In this America has a duty, and the women of America a privilege. ”

“ The constant contributions of time and service at the strictly business ends—in the warehouses, or depots like the Hippodrome, or the skating-rink—seem more generous than all others. In these places the committees are shut away from that daily contact with misery that [147] evokes a quick response. The business there has settled down to a matter of lists and accounts: one must work with a far vision for inspiration. It is quite a different matter in the actual ouvroir, where grateful women come all day and sew, and are sometimes allowed to keep their little children beside them. ”

“ If after a long walk to the cantine (they have neither motors nor bicycles) madame finds there are not enough carrots for the stew, she can not telephone—she must go to fetch whatever ingredient she wants! Each cantine has its own pantry or shop with its precious stores of rice, beans, sugar, macaroni, bacon and other foodstuffs of the C. R. B., and in addition the fresh vegetables, potatoes, eggs and meat it solicits or buys with the money gathered from door to door, the gift of the suffering to the suffering. ”

“ For a few centimes, about ten cents, usually, one may have a good soup, a plate with meat and vegetables, and sometimes a dessert.
Wonderful Belgian women come day after day, month after month, to serve the thousands that flock to these centers that save them from the soup-lines. If they can add this dinner to their relief ration, they can live. And they are not “accepting charity!” The dining-rooms are always attractive, often bright with flags and flowers, the women are cheery in their service. Priests, children, artists, men and women of every class sit at the tables. ”

“ There are seven rooms in Brussels, each with a long table in the middle, and with rows upon rows of green wooden boxes (about the size of a macaroni box) on shelf-racks against walls. The racks, too, are painted the color of hope—the green which after the war might well deserve a place with the red, orange and black, for having so greatly comforted the people when all display of their national colors was supprest. Each box has a hook in front from which hangs a pasteboard card, marked with a number; it hangs there if the box is full, when empty it is filed. ”

“ The Relief Committee granted a subsidy of 10,000 francs a month, which, one sees at a glance, can not nearly cover the need. So day after day the directors of each section canvass their districts for money and food, and by dint of an untiring devotion raise the monthly 10,000 to about 28,000 francs. But, unfortunately, every day more of war means wretched ones forced to the wall, and this sum is always far from meeting the distress. We have only to divide the 30,000 francs by the 5,000 on the lists, to see what, at best, each family may receive. ”

“ How fortunate are these women, born to royal leadership, to have found in their Queen the leader typifying the highest ideal of their service, and the actual comrade in sorrow, working shoulder to shoulder with them in the hospitals and kitchens. The battle-lines may separate her wounded and suffering from theirs, but they know always that she is there, doing as they are doing, and more than they are doing. ”

“ One sees, too, hundreds of little ones on the sidewalks before the Enfants Débiles dining-rooms, as early as 8 A.M., clutching their precious cards and waiting already for their eleven o’clock potatoes and phosphatine.
This school is also a communal soup center, tho the teachers have nothing to do with the distribution. Every day from 2,500 to 3,000 men and women line up—worn, white enamel pitchers in one hand, cards in the other, to receive the family ration of soup and bread. ”

“ Men lift their hats to it, children salute it. In the shop windows one often sees it draping the pictures of the King and Queen!
This is not a tribute to the American flag alone, but also to the personality of the man who has so splendidly represented this flag and to the men who carried the American soul and its works into Belgium through the C. R. B. Belgium will [52] never forget its immediate debt to Brand Whitlock and to these hundreds of Americans whose personal service to this country in its darkest hour is already a matter of history. ”

“ Without this employment, without the daily devotion of the wonderful women who have built up this astonishing organization, thousands of other women must have been on the streets—with no opportunity (except the dread, ever present one) through these two years to earn a franc, with nothing but the soup-lines to depend on for bread. Of course, there is always dire need for the finished garments. They are turned over as fast as they can be to the various other committees that care for the destitute. ”

“ Overriding all physical suffering and all [xi] trial is the great cloud of mental depression, of repression and reserve in every act and word, a terror that is so real that it was little wonder to us when in the course of an investigation in one of the large cities we found the nursing period of mothers has been diminished by one-fourth. Every street corner and every crossroad is marked by a bayonet, and every night resounds with the march of armed men, the mark of national subjection. ”

“ Our task and theirs has been to maintain the laughter of the children, not to dry their tears. The pathos of the long lines of expectant, chattering mites, each with a ticket of authority pinned to its chest or held in a grimy fist, never depresses the mind of childhood. ”

“ There are ten of the large trucks and 500 of the fifty-quart cans in constant use. As soon as the 8 o’clock lot come back, they are quickly cleaned, refilled, and hurried off on their second journey. Mostly they are hurried off through rain, for there are many more rainy than sunny days in Belgium.
One passes a long line of patient, wet, miserable-looking men and women with their empty pitchers, then meets with a thrill the red truck bringing the steaming cans. The bakers have probably already delivered the 25,000 loaves of bread, for a half loaf goes with each pint of soup. ”

“ Besides being the section kitchen and dining-room, this school has become a social center. Every Sunday afternoon the children are invited to gather there to have a good time. They are taught to play games, each is given a bonbon, a simple sweet of some sort—“nothing of the kind to encourage luxury!” They are occupied, happy, and kept off the streets and out of homes made miserable through lack of employment. ”

“ Not [ix] only were all those who had resources insistent that they should either pay now or in the future for their food, but far beyond this, they have insisted upon caring for their own destitute to the fullest extent of those remaining resources—the charity of the poor toward the poor. They have themselves set up no cry for benevolence, but the American Relief Commission has insisted upon pleading to the world to help in a burden so far beyond their ability. ”

“ The world will be incredulous when it is given the final picture of the complexity and completeness of the Belgian Relief Organization. In all the communes, all the provinces, in the capital, for over two years, groups of Belgians have been shut in their bureaux with figures and plans, matching needs with relief. ”

“ The Relief Commission stands as an encouragement and protection to the endeavors of the Belgian people themselves and a shield to their despair. By degrees an army of 55,000 volunteer workers on Relief had grown up among the Belgian and French people, of a perfection and a patriotism without parallel in the existence of any country. ”

“ Picture this sea of golden and brown heads low over the heaped tables—every square foot of pit, galleries and entry packed, lengths of cotton and flannel flung in confusion over all the balconies and from the royal box like war banners—and then suddenly see a man making his way through the crowded packing-cases on the stage to the footlights! ”

“ There must be bread and clothing for everybody, shelter for the homeless, soup for the hungry, food boxes for prisoners in Germany, milk for babies, special nourishment for the tubercular, orphanages and crèches for the tiny war victims, work for the idle, some means of secours [72] for merchants, artists, teachers and thousands of “ashamed poor”—665,000 idle workmen with their 1,000,000 dependents, 1,250,000 on the soupes, 53,000 babies and 200,000 children under normal health in the cantines—how much of the story can these figures tell? ”

“ We reviewed the army of cans stationed toward the rear, and the great [19] bread-racks of either side. The committee of women arrived; we tasted the soup and found it good. I was asked to sit at the table with two men directors, where I might watch them stamp and approve the ration-cards as the hungry passed in.
One may hate war, but never as it should be hated until he has visited the communal soupes and the homes represented by the lines. The work must be so carefully systematized that there is only time for a word or two as they pass the table. But that word is enough to reveal the tragedy! ”