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A Plea for Workers.

Communication

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

At the present moment there must be a considerable number of men who are thinking of coming to Europe after College is over in June. In view of the interest already shown in the American Ambulance of Paris and the number of Harvard men already serving with the ambulances attached to the Army, I trust you will feel justified in publishing this letter.

The American Ambulance is in need of men to drive cars for service in the field. Almost eighty cars are already attached to the various divisions of the French Army and are working under the military authorities from Belgium to Alsace. Now that summer is practically here, the fighting will develop in severity, and the French, already short in ambulance equipment, will be greatly handicapped. The American Ambulance cannot remedy the horrors of the situation but it can do a little towards helping out, provided it has men of the right kind to send out with the cars. The automobiles themselves have been guaranteed; the need now is for men to run them.

And above all the need is for men who will come with a serious purpose to help France. Those who would plan a three months outing had best stay at home; the tourist spirit has already caused grave trouble over here. Men who are willing to come here must be ready to spend long weeks of work which may appear tame and stupid. There is very little romance in carting wounded men from a railway station to the hospital; however, one squad has carried over 9,500 sick and wounded during a period of three months. War being the uncertain game that it is, the work of the ambulances may mean dull and uninteresting days at a railway station; or even days under fire. At the present moment one squad is in Belgium doing the work of the military ambulances which takes them under fire every day. But the question of where one is located will not be considered by those who come with the determination to help, to do what little an American can in the war.

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The need is great and the opportunity is at hand. It only remains for those who are hesitating to decide at once.

Detailed information may be had from Guy Lowell '92, of Boston.  JOHN PAULDING BROWN '14.  Ypres, Belgium, May 7, 1915

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