the cereal and fat reserves are divided between rotterdam, the mills, warehouses and moving lighters in belgium and northern france, so that one can never see the dramatic heaping up in one place of the grain that is to feed 10,000,000 for six days, or months. but the greater part of the clothing reserves are held in the one city of brussels. their housing furnishes another of the bewildering contrasts wrought by the war; what was two years ago a huge, thrilling hippodrome is now filled with the silent ranks of bolts of cotton and flannel. and not [138]far away, the once popular skating-rink is piled to the ceiling with finished garments; stage boxes, galleries, dressing-rooms, stairways—all are heaped with cases and stacked with racks. the ceiling is the only part of the edifice still visible; along the rear wall, for instance, runs a big sign, “garments for babies,” and they mount to the skylights. stocks are accumulating in both these buildings and other sub-centers during the summer, and in the autumn the work of distribution against the approaching winter begins, october 1st registering the high-water mark of assets. at that time there were three and a half million pieces, yards and pairs, on the shelves of the hippodrome, and already hundreds of thousands of garments assembled in the skating-rink.
the rink is not more than a few yards and minutes from the hippodrome, but a bolt of flannel may travel many miles [139]and occupy several weeks in going from one to the other. that journey explains the marvelous development of the clothing organization. one may go even further, and trace the cloth from the donor in america, to the recipient in mons or tournai! in fact, i once thought i recognized a finished blouse, as plaid flannel contributed in san francisco. i may have been mistaken, but i let my mind follow that flannel from the hand of the little school-teacher on the pacific, to the unhappy mother in tournai!
for when the c. r. b. sent out a call for new clothing materials in january, 1916, somehow it reached a weather-beaten school-house on a lonely stretch of coast 30 miles south of san francisco. the teacher hurriedly got together some wool, and began showing her eight pupils (they happened all to be boys), how to knit caps for other [140]boys of their own size. their few families gathered what they could, and on her first free saturday, the teacher started in an open buggy in the rain for the c. r. b. bureau in san francisco. this meant 30 miles over wretched roads, up hill and down, with her precious box. when we opened it we found eight knitted caps, one small sack of rice, one pair of fur-lined gloves, a bag of beans, a lady’s belt, plaid flannel for a blouse, and 40 cents for eight five-cent stamps for the letters the boys hoped to receive in answer to those they had carefully tucked inside the caps. they did not know that our orders were to remove all writing from all gifts, tho once in a while a line did slip in. i saw a touching example of what these slips meant when i was leaving brussels. a group of women came to me to say, [141]“madame, we hear you are going to california—is it true? and, if you are, may we not send a message of just a single word by you? will you not tell margery marshall, of saratoga, that the pretty dress she sent over a year ago, made a little girl, oh, so happy! she has waited all these long months hoping to find a way to thank margery—and we want to thank margery. will you tell her?”
these offerings then were freighted to new york with the month’s contributions, and there consigned to a c. r. b. ship, starting for rotterdam. in rotterdam they were unloaded into the enormous c. r. b. clothing warehouse, a corrugated zinc structure as big as a city block. after the examinations, valuings and listings, they were reloaded on to one of the c. r. b. barges that ply the canals constantly, and finally deposited for the comité national in the hippodrome at brussels. there the women’s work began—in fact, to one woman especially is due the credit [142]for the completeness of the organization of this clothing department.
on a certain day the flannel for the blouse was piled into a big gray truck and hauled across the city to one of the most interesting places in brussels. this is at once the central workroom for the capital, and the pattern and model department for all belgium. madame ... has 500 women and men working continually, to prepare the bundles of cut garments that go out to the sub-sections and homes in brussels. if the seamstresses have children they may receive one bundle of sewing a week; if not, but one in a fortnight. in the ouvroir itself the work is divided between shifts who are allowed to come for a fortnight each. this is, of course, the great sorrow of the committees. if only there were enough work to give all the time to those whose sole appeal is that they be allowed to earn their soup [143]and bread! but every hour’s work encourages somebody, and the opportunities are distributed just as widely as possible. in this way about 25,000 are reached in greater brussels alone.
the business of preparing these little packages of cut-out blouses and trousers and bibs is amazing. the placing of patterns to save cloth in the cutting is the first consideration; the counting off of the buttons, tapes, hooks and necessary furnishings for millions of garments—can we conceive the tediousness of this task? instructions must be carefully marked on a card that is tied across the top of the completed bundle, everything being made as simple for the sewer as possible. they travel from one counter to another, from one room to the next, even up and down stairs, before compact, neat and complete, they are finally registered and ready to go to the waiting women, who will [144]make them into the skirts or baby slips or men’s shirts or suits that the relief committees will distribute.
that is the brussels side of the work; the national side appears in the pattern and model department. madame has developed this to an extraordinary degree. here dozens of people are bending over counters, folding, measuring, cutting heavy brown paper into shapes for every particular article that is to be given to every particular man, baby and woman in belgium. there are patterns for children of every age, and for grown-ups, of every width and length—hundreds of patterns for all the workrooms in all the provinces. then there are sample picture-charts showing how the patterns must be placed for the most advantageous cutting. along with every type of pattern goes one finished model for exhibition in the workroom. in the models the women may see just how the little bundles that started originally from the hippodrome should look, when they are shipped back as garments to the rink.
one corner of the brussels hippodrome, now a central clothing supply station
[145]
and it was for one of these models for a blouse that the school-teacher’s plaid was used! as sample blouse it traveled from the brussels pattern center to an ouvroir in the southern hainaut: it hung in a workroom in mons! after hundreds of blouses had been copied from it and distributed in the province, the pattern department decided to change the blouse model, and the old one was sent back to brussels to the skating-rink, to be apportioned again, as it happened, to the relief committee in tournai, which knew the need of the mother who wore it the day i saw her! too much system, you will say. but there should be no such criticism until one has seen with his own eyes several millions depending entirely on a relief organization for covering [146](blankets and shoes, too, are a necessary part of the aid given), and realize the terrible obligations to divide the work among as many as possible of the thousands of unemployed, the necessity of a high standard of work, and of justice in division among the nine provinces.
the scraps from the floors of the ouvroirs are carefully hoarded in sacks, in the hope that the germans may grant the committee the right to use a factory to re-weave them into some rough materials in the absence of cotton and wool. some of these cuttings are at present being used as filling for quilts.
the constant contributions of time and service at the strictly business ends—in the warehouses, or depots like the hippodrome, or the skating-rink—seem more generous than all others. in these places the committees are shut away from that daily contact with misery that [147]evokes a quick response. the business there has settled down to a matter of lists and accounts: one must work with a far vision for inspiration. it is quite a different matter in the actual ouvroir, where grateful women come all day and sew, and are sometimes allowed to keep their little children beside them. there you have their stories and know their suffering; you are able, also, to teach them, while they sew, how to care for their bodies and their homes, even to sing, and all the while you realize that the very garments they are putting together are to go to others even more unhappy—these are the places where service has its swift and rich rewards! i have visited just such blessed workrooms in namur and charleroi and mons, in antwerp and dinant, in fact in dozens of cities up and down the length of belgium. if they could be gaily flagged as they should be, we [148]should see all the country dotted with these centers of hope. and we should know that they meant that thousands of women in belgium are being given at least a few days’ work every month.
