ing Columbus, Mr. Bicknell had soon established Red Cross
headquarters and the corps under his direction was working in closest
harmony with the state flood relief committee, the Governor of Ohio and
the United States army and navy relief officials.

The disaster in the Middle West was the greatest the Red Cross Society
was ever called upon to deal with. The amount of suffering entailed by
the flood far exceeded that of the San Francisco earthquake and fire.

RAILROADS BRAVELY HELPING

Bravely the railroads worked their way into the stricken territory.
While a blizzard raged in Ohio from Cleveland to Cincinnati, with the
temperature down to twenty-eight degrees above zero, the
railroads--which means all the railroads in every section, the New York
Central, the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, and their
allied lines--threw into the battle thousands upon thousands of men,
trainload after trainload of machinery, and money rewards as a stimulus
for the repair of miles of washed-out tracks and shattered bridges.
Every division superintendent of every line in the district, his
assistants, usually with some high executive officer of the system in
control; every man and boy able to handle a pick or shovel or crowbar,
to carry his end of a girder or drag a coil of rope, was out on the job.

It was not for any selfish purpose that the roads threw this immense
power into the work. Their object was to open up rail communication
with the desolated cities, towns and villages and send relief trains
with bread, with blankets, with medicines, doctors and nurses. It was
not a race for money.

"We will carry every pound of supplies for the devastated district free
over any lines" announced the Pennsylvania, and it added free passage
for doctors, nurses and every other good Samaritan.

"No charge," was the echo of the New York Central, and that order went
to every freight and passenger agent of the big system everywhere. The
Baltimore and Ohio, the Erie, and every other line followed in an
instant. The railroads helped all they could.

RELIEF FROM STATES AND INDIVIDUALS

If the nation was generous and prompt in its relief, neighboring states
and individuals were not less so. Governors in many states and mayors of
many cities, following the noble example of the President, issued
appeals for help. Mayor Dahlman of Omaha and Governor Morehead of
Nebraska bravely declined the help offered by President Wilson and
oth