Seven Million Homeless and Helpless
By Editor
DESPATCHES during the last few days state that some seven million people, including helpless children, old men and women, and tottering invalids, have been rendered homeless and helpless by the war that is now raging in northern France and Belgium. These despatches do not give estimates of the numbers that are similarly stricken in eastern Europe; but from the heavy fighting that is in progress there, it must be apparent that an equal number are in destitute circumstances in eastern Germany, Poland, eastern Austria-Hungary, and other afflicted sections in that locality. The hard winter of those regions is coming on. Help must be given to those people right away. Otherwise thousands upon thousands of them, who have escaped the bullets and the shells of the furious war, will have to succumb to the still more severe plagues of hunger, cold, and destitution. These conditions should appeal to the American people as nothing in their history has ever appealed to them. Our General Conference is raising thousands and thousands of dollars among our own people to send to those sufferers. Our organization is such that means entrusted to us is placed in safe hands, that administer it directly to those who are suffering. None of it is used for salaries or other expenses, as all our agents have their regular income, and take nothing from this fund. Every cent of it goes to help the afflicted and suffering. Persons desiring to donate for this purpose may send their offerings to the treasurer of the Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, and it will be promptly and safely forwarded.