We want every American citizen to help us in this great, this divine, work; for so best shall we prove the largeness of our thought, and the wideness and scope of the civilisation of the Republic and it ideals; so shall we best display the spirit of the young New World, uprising on the waters of this deluge like another ark of the covenant, sending forth the dove of hope and promise to those who are struggling for life in the overwhelming waves. We would like to write the noble words of Man’s universal Poet, Shakespeare, across the doors of all our fellow-countrymen upon whom we now call for aid, convinced of their generous response:-- “The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes; ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The thronèd monarch better than his crown-- ... We do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.” In this mind and mood we appeal for help: for ungrudging, tenderest, quickest help!--the help that brave persons would instantly give if they saw children drowning. For every man disabled, sick, or deprived of his strength is as a struggling child in the flood of adversity, and indeed more pitiful than a child, for the child’s day may be yet to come, while his is past. Moreover, he has been snatched from all that made life pleasant and useful to himself, to fight his country’s battle, for which he, personally, is not responsible, but which he enters upon for the sake of a duty which is purely heroic self-sacrifice. Let us therefore accept this free gift of his manhood in the cause of Right and Justice and Freedom, with no less cheerful and willing gifts and self-sacrifices of our own; let us give and still give, in the all-beneficent spirit of the daily sunlight which pours itself out unasked over the fields and pastures to bless and fructify them! And let us never weary of giving! From every man and woman of the teeming population of the United States we ask a donation for our Holy Cause--our new Crusade of the Lord’s Sepulchre--for such it is, inasmuch as we seek to raise from the grave of silence and despair those who have been giving the best of their lives in suffering the horrors of this terrific War. Be the gift small or great it will add to the sum of what we hope to make the most wonderful and munificent gift and act of homage to martyred heroes that has ever been known in the world! We are a Committee of Mercy, and we make this Appeal to all the merciful, in God’s Name, and for the sweet uplifting of a Star of Hope in the darkness! STARVING BELGIUM AN APPEAL (_Written by request for Mr. Hoover’s “Belgium Relief Fund,” and circulated through the United States Press_) “_Six million of people are on the verge of starvation in Belgium!_”