All over the country business men coöperated with the War Industries Board with patriotic zeal, willingly curtailing their output and reducing their incomes in order to release material, capital, labor, fuel, transportation facilities, for the expediting of work necessary for the winning of the war. Dozens of them left their affairs in the hands of subordinates or gave up high-salaried positions and entered the service of the War Industries Board in order that the nation might have the advantage of their training and their wide and expert knowledge. These men, who were generally known as “the Government’s dollar-a-year men,” because legally the Government can accept no gratuitous service, freely gave to the country, as their contribution to the winning of the war, what it could not have bought for millions of dollars and worked with as much energy and ardor as ever they had done for the making and furthering of their own fortunes. CHAPTER XXVI “THE GREATEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD” Before the world war the American Red Cross would have had ample reason to complain, had it been so minded, of the indifference of the great masses of the American people to its rightful claim upon their interest, sympathy and support. But its world-wide works of compassion during the war, that won for it the loving titles of “The Greatest Mother in the World” and “The Universal Mother,” opened their eyes and their hearts until they almost merged themselves in it and made it the organization through which they themselves functioned for the help of the war-made need and suffering. The American Red Cross was transformed to a war basis within a month after the United States entered the conflict. It had then less than half a million members. Five months later they numbered five millions. The membership rose to fifteen millions in the following spring and a campaign for new members in December, 1918, for which arrangements had been made before the end of the war, raised the number to nearly 18,000,000, an average of membership in the Red Cross for almost every family in the Union. In addition, the Junior Red Cross, composed of school children organized under their teachers into auxiliaries for Red Cross work suitable to their ages, numbered approximately 10,000,000. Whatever the Red Cross has asked of the American people for the financing of its vast works of mercy they have given with overflowing hands. In June, 1917, it went to them for a war fund of $100,000,000. They gave it $115,000,000. In May of the following year the Red Cross told them it needed another hundred million dollars and they gave it $176,000,000. Altogether, more than 47,000,000 American people gave to the Red Cross during our war period $325,000,000 in money and manufactured products of a value of $60,000,000.