Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/49

Rh thorized officer of the National Red Cross Society, affiliated with that organization. The wisdom of this step was demonstrated a few weeks later, when the government gave transportation to Manila to two Oregon nurses, Dr. Frances Woods and Miss Lena Killiam. These nurses were selected, outfitted and sent forward supplied with funds by the Oregon Emergency Corps and Red Cross Society. In August the society sent its president, Mrs. Henry E. Jones, and Mrs. Levi Young to San Francisco to investigate the conditions reported to exist at Camp Merritt.

(As a result of their visit there such active measures were brought to bear by an indignant public as went far toward improving the situation of the soldier at this unhappy camp.—Editor.)

The formation of a state Red Cross Society speedily grew to be a necessity of the times, and on the 23d of September, in a convention called for the purpose by the mother corps, the state organization was effected. Delegates were present from the auxiliary and other patriotic relief societies throughout Oregon. Mrs. Henry E. Jones, president of the Portland corps, was elected to that office in the state society; Mrs. Levi Young became vice-president; Mrs. F. E. Lownsbury, secretary, and Mrs. E. C. Protzman, treasurer. The Oregon Emergency Corps, organized to meet an exigency, thus became a permanent society, incorporated under the laws of Oregon, and endowed with full power to act at all times in the larger interests of humanity, at the same time preserving its right to perform in the manner that seems best any local work that comes within its reach.