n thinking of the American Ambulance
Hospital in Paris, I admire your persistence in labor. You have
established this hospital. That was good. But it costs a thousand
dollars a day, and yet you keep on with the work. That is doubly good.
Indeed, one can understand that you have not been willing, after having
created this model hospital, that some day through lack of support its
doors should close and the wounded you have taken in be turned over to
others; certainly those first subscribers undertook a sort of moral
obligation to themselves not to permit the work to fail. But, none the
less, it is admirable that it should be so. To give once is something,
but it is little if one compares the value of the first gift to those
which follow.

The first charity is easily understood. Suddenly war is at hand. Its
horrors can be imagined and every one feels that he can in some measure
lessen them, and he opens his purse. Then time passes, the war
continues, and one becomes accustomed to the thoughts that were at first
unbearable--it is so far away and so long. Others in this way were
checked after their first impulse.

But you, you have thought that, if it is good to establish a hospital,
that alone was not enough, and that each day would bring new wounded to
replace those who, cured, took up their guns again and returned to the
field of battle. And since at the American Ambulance the wounded are
cured quickly, the very excellence of your organization, the science of
your surgeons, and the greatness of your sacrifices all bring upon you
other and new sacrifices to be made.

But the word "sacrifice" is badly chosen. You do not make sacrifices,
for you are strong and you are good. When you decide upon some new
generous act you have only to appeal to your national pride, which will
never allow an American undertaking to fail. You have the knowledge of
the good that you are doing, and that, for you, is sufficient. You know
that, thanks to your generosity, suffering is relieved, and you know
that, thanks to the science of your surgeons, this relief is not merely
momentary, but that the wounded man who would have remained a cripple if
he had been less ably cared for, will be, thanks to you, completely
cured, and that, instead of dragging out a miserable existence, he will
be able to live a normal life and support a family which will bless
you. Such men will owe it all to the persistence of your generosity.

I return always to that