Part 1
CLARA BARTON A CENTENARY TRIBUTE
TO THE WORLD’S GREATEST HUMANITARIAN FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS SOCIETY AUTHOR OF THE AMERICAN AMENDMENT TO THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS CONVENTION OF GENEVA FOUNDER OF THE NATIONAL FIRST AID ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
CHARLES SUMNER YOUNG, A.M. Ph.D
ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY RICHARD G. BADGER
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America
Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company, New York, U. S. A.
This book is respectfully dedicated to the Boys and Girls of the World; and to the Men and Women who are still Boys and Girls, in their love for humanity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author, in the preparation of his pen pictures, begs to acknowledge with sincere thanks the courtesies extended to him by Mr. Stephen E. Barton, the Executor of the Clara Barton Estate; by Doctor J. B. Hubbell, for many years the manager for Clara Barton; by the Oxford (Mass.) Memorial Day Committee of 1917; by the Twenty-First Massachusetts Regiment G. A. R.; by many of the Army Nurses of the Civil War; also for material assistance in data by the American National Red Cross; by Mrs. J. Sewall Reed Acting-President, National First Aid Association of America; by Honorable Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress; by General W. H. Sears for the use of his data in his book of 177 pages, prepared for and used in the defense of Clara Barton before the Library Committee of Congress, and his generous contribution of incidents in the life of his personal friend; by Honorable Francis Atwater for data in “The Story of My Childhood,” by Clara Barton; by the Macmillan Co., Publishers of the Life of Clara Barton by Percy H. Epler, the book of the best data on her life now before the American people; by the National First Aid Association of America and likewise to many other associations, personal friends and admirers of America’s most remarkable woman.
There is a woman at the beginning of all great things. LAMARTINE.
Honor women! they entwine and weave heavenly roses in our earthly life. SCHILLER.
“The fairest chaplet Victory wears is that which mercy weaves.”
I live to learn their story, Who suffered for my sake; To emulate their glory And follow in their wake; Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages, The noble of all ages, Whose deeds crown History’s pages, And Time’s great volume make.
· · · · ·
For the cause that needs assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance And the good that I can do.
THE FOREWORD
The author undertakes to produce a few pen pictures of a personal friend—humanity’s friend. They are pictures of sentiment, pictures of reality—pictures of humanity.
Although precluded the use of data left by Clara Barton for her biography the author, nevertheless, is conforming to the sentiment of her oft expressed wish that he write the story of her life. Recognizing the wish to be a sacredly imposed trust, for the past six years he has gleaned what he could for his sketches from public documents, from her personal friends in California, New England, New York, Washington and elsewhere, as well as from his memory of facts developing through the years he enjoyed her confidence and received from her highest inspirations.
The author assumes not a rôle literary—has herein no aspirations, literary. His impulse to write is not fame; it is sentiment, a love-sentiment for a woman whom all the world loves and whose “life gives expression to the sympathy and tenderness of all the hearts of all the women of the world.” His motive in writing is to point a moral in “a passion for service”; to limn scenes, vivid, along “paths of charity over roadways of ashes”; to depict for the lesson it teaches a career, a career the memory of which must remain a rich heritage to the American people.
In life’s drama, wherein Clara Barton played the leading rôle, there appear faces to inspire, faces to instruct, but also the faces of intrigue. In the closing incidents of a life-heroic time’s detectives disclose the plotters, and the motive in their plot to destroy—
Like a led victim to my death I’ll go, And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow.
Except now and then in dim outline, the faces of intrigue in the _tragic_ scene do not appear. These faces are un-American—inhuman—and would mar humanity’s picture.
The Divine Humanitarian forgave His enemies, but the picture of the crucified on the cross ever suggests the Pontius Pilate and the executioners. Clara Barton also forgave her enemies, and yet some day a literary artist may portray the Judasette Iscariot, or possibly the plotting Antony and Cleopatra, to make a Clara Barton picture historically and tragically complete.
In biography is the world’s history. If, in human logic, the silencing of truth in biography be an imperative virtue, then literature should be relegated to the ash-heap of forgotten lore. As “in a valley centuries ago grew a fern leaf green and slender,” leaving its impress on what have become the rocks of the centuries, so truth leaves its impress imperishable on what become the tablets of history. Truth crushed to earth again and again will appear; and, when Clara Barton’s Gethsemane appears with all its delineations in a picture complete, there will be none so poor to do reverence to Clara Barton’s character assassins, nor to the Clara Barton ghouls who desecrate her tomb and use the United States mails to traduce the dead.
Sentiment is the soul of action. The highest tribute to mortal is the angel-sentiment—the tribute to self-sacrificing woman that blazes her “path where highways never ran.”
Ever the blind world Knows not its angels of deliverance Till they stand glorified ’twixt earth and heaven,
and yet more powerful than armies is the soul-sentiment that protects fame,—the fame of the Florence Nightingales, the Clara Bartons and the Edith Cavells.
Her “friends” say time will vindicate Clara Barton. The more such “friends” the more’s the pity. It’s not time, it’s truth, that vindicates. “Procrastination is the thief of time.” The thief of time must not be permitted to steal from the present, even under pledge to disgorge in the future. The present is ours to possess, ours to enjoy. It’s not that the millions can do something for Clara Barton; instead, the Clara Barton spirit can do something for the millions. The plotter may revile the Red Cross Mother; the Red Cross Artist may picture the cross of red on the breast of a fictitious “Greatest Mother in the World;” the self-constituted autocrat in Red Cross literature may suppress, and belie, truth; but the spirit of Clara Barton is the Mother-Spirit still, the real spirit of the American Red Cross, the Red Cross spirit in all Christendom. The fighting sons of America on the “Western Front” may not have read of Clara Barton in recent Red Cross literature but, trooping under the Red Cross peace-banner that Clara Barton brought here from Europe, were more millions of her followers in America than in the world war there were soldiers marshalled under the military banners in all the armies in Europe.
Grant was “Grant the Great” at Appomattox; Lincoln was more than “six feet four” when in the home of Confederate General Pickett he stooped down to kiss the brow of “Baby George” Pickett; Stephen A. Douglass was more than “the little giant” when at the inauguration on the east steps of the capitol he held the hat of Abraham Lincoln; Clara Barton was more divine than human when, with love for her enemies, in her last world prayer she gave expression to the forgiving sentiment of the Divine Humanitarian.
Clara Barton said that the bravest act of her life was crossing the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg. The historian will say that the bravest act of her life was snatching her Red Cross child from the social—political—fat-salaried-swiveled-chair clique at Washington, and handing over her best beloved unharmed to the country for which in the smoke of battle and terrors of disaster she had many times risked her life. The historian will further say that in refusing to accept a pension of $2500 for life and Honorary Presidency of the Red Cross from that “clique” as the price of her child, and suffering persecution for life as the penalty, there was shown the true mother spirit that must commend her for all time to those who respect the spirit of self-sacrificing Motherhood.
President Warren G. Harding, the president also of the Red Cross, “entertains the highest sentiment regarding the splendid service of Miss Barton.” Ex-President Woodrow Wilson—also ex-president of the Red Cross—has voiced the sentiment of the American people in no uncertain sound as has a second Clara Barton,—the soldier-angel Margaret Wilson. General John J. Pershing has not been silent in his admiration of the great woman, nor have the hundreds of thousands of American boys on the “Western Front” been unmindful in gratitude to the Founder of the American Red Cross; and, if signs fail not, from the American Congress there will come to America’s greatest humanitarian a testimonial—accompanied by an acclaim that will be heard around the world.
On a certain state occasion the statement was made that there is less to censure, and more to commend, in the public life of Clara Barton for the twenty-three years she was President of the Red Cross than in the public life of any one of the twenty-eight Presidents from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson. There commenting on the statement, America’s beloved Mrs. General George E. Pickett significantly said: “Yes, that’s true, but Clara Barton was a woman.” But woman is coming into her own, and Clara Barton said, “My own shall come to me.” Never was prophecy more certain of fulfillment. With hundreds of thousands of Americans receiving the benefits of “First Aid”; with more than thirty thousand brave American nurses, ten thousand of these following the illustrious example of Clara Barton by going to the battlefield; with more than thirty millions of Americans serving the Red Cross in time of war; with more than a billion of human beings making use of the Red Cross American Amendment in times of peace and war, Clara Barton already has come into her own.
The American nation will come into its own, as did respectively two great nations of Europe, when she wipes out from the scroll of history its foulest blot,—by giving national recognition to a national heroine; the American Red Cross will come into its own when it shall repossess the name Clara Barton; the American people will come into their own when they patriotically recognize, and sacredly cherish, that immortal Mother-Spirit which, after a half century of heroic sacrifices in the war of human woes, passed triumphant through the archway ’twixt earth and heaven.
If these pen pictures give to the boys and girls of America inspiration to loftier patriotism and higher ideals in achievement; if truth in the biography give renewed impulse to American Red Cross philanthropy; if through this volume immortal deeds, and a name unsullied, be treasured for world-humanity then Clara Barton’s dying message to the author shall not have been in vain.
The only picture of myself that I have cared anything about at all is the one taken at the time of the Civil War (1865), in which I am represented in the uniform of a nurse. If my friends had let me have my way, I would never have had another picture taken. (_Frontispiece_)
CLARA BARTON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Babyhood Impressions 21
II School—Childish Memories—Military 24
III On Her Favorite Black Horse 28
IV Phrenology—Read Her Characteristics—Basis of Friendship 30
V “Spontaneous Combustion” Laid to Clara Barton 34
VI Christmas—a Christmas Carol 36
VII “Button”—“Billy”—Clara Barton Ownership 38
VIII Pauper Schools; from Six to Six Hundred 43
IX Child Love—Joe and Charlie—Appreciation 45
X Temperance—Clara Barton and the Hired Man—Stranger than Fiction 48
XI Looking for a Job—Equal Suffrage 51
XII Credulous Ox—Innocent Child—Clara Barton, a Vegetarian 55
XIII Fell Dead on the Ground beside Her 57
XIV Wickedness of War—Settles no Disputes 59
XV Her Wardrobe in a Handkerchief—The Battle Scene 63
XVI The Bravery of Women—Clara Barton’s Bravest Act 66
XVII Yes, and Got Euchred 69
XVIII To Dream of Home and Mother 71
XIX Tribute of Love and Devotion 74
XX Cheering Words—Always Ready—Wears a Smile 76
XXI Horrible Deed—Leads American Navy—Angel of Mercy 80
XXII Confederates and Federals alike Treated 86
XXIII The Enemy, Starving—Tact—The White Ox 89
XXIV Bullethole—Amputated Limbs Like Cordwood—God Gives Strength 91
XXV Fearless of Bullets and Kicking Mules 95
XXVI His Comfort, not Hers; His Life, not Hers 97
XXVII Does not Need any Advice 99
XXVIII Had but a Few Moments to Live 102
XXIX Enlisted Men First—The Colonel’s Life Saved 104
XXX You’re Right, Madam—Good Day 107
XXXI Bleeding to Death—His Headless Body—Women in the War 109
XXXII Timid Child—Timid Woman 112
XXXIII Ez Ef We Wuz White Folks 115
XXXIV In Her Dreams—Again in Battle 117
XXXV Four Famous Women 120
XXXVI Simplicity of Childhood—Pet Wasps—Pet Cats—Loved Life—Domestic 122
XXXVII Clara Barton in the Literary Field 128
XXXVIII The Art of Dressing—Clara Barton’s Individuality 133
XXXIX The Jewelled Hand and the Hard Hand Meet 138
XL Clara Barton and the Emperor 140
XLI America—Scarlet and Gold—Europe 143
XLII Three Cheers—Wild Scenes in Boston—Tiger!! No, Sweetheart 147
XLIII The Last Reception—Her Autograph—The Boys in Gray 150
XLIV Open House—Cost of Fame, Self-Sacrifice—Best in Woman 152
XLV Kneeled Before Her and Kissed Her Hand 158
XLVI I Never Get Tired—Eating the Least of My Troubles 160
XLVII Royalty Under a Quaker Bonnet 163
XLVIII Still Stamping on Me—Personally Unharmed 165
XLIX At the Memorial—“The Flags of all Nations”—A Good Time 167
L Clara Barton Kept a Diary 171
LI Nursing a Fine Art—Over the Washtub 176
LII Immortal Words—A Million Thanks 178
LIII The Pansy Pin—For Thoughts 180
LIV Clara Barton Pays Respects to Florence Nightingale 182
LV The Passing of Years—Right Habits of Life 184
LVI She Won His Heart 186
LVII You Buy It for Him 188
LVIII Or God Wouldn’t Have Made Them 190
LIX Clara Barton—Mary Baker Eddy 192
LX Like Tolstoi She Lived the Simple Life 194
LXI Clara Barton—Florence Nightingale 196
LXII The General Has Money—I Am His Reconcentrado 201
LXIII Abraham Lincoln’s Son 204
LXIV The Butcher Didn’t Get It 207
LXV The Kind of Girls that Needed Help 209
LXVI A Romance of Two Continents 211
LXVII The Little Monument—For all Eternity 215
LXVIII Story of Baba—Dream of a White Horse—Life’s Woes 218
LXIX People, Like Jack Rabbits—No “Show-Woman” 223
LXX Clara Barton’s Heart Secret—$10,000 in “Gold Dust” 227
LXXI Fell on Their Knees before “Mis’ Red Cross” 231
LXXII Clara Barton’s Tribute to Cuba 233
LXXIII At the Birthplace of Napoleon—The Corsican Bandit 235
LXXIV When Cares Grow Heavy and Pleasures Light 238
LXXV A Red Cross Red Letter Day 240
LXXVI Patriotic Women of America Self-Sacrificing 242
LXXVII Opposition—The American Red Cross “Complete Victory” 246
LXXVIII Greetings—National First Aid Association of America 255
LXXIX Humanitarianism, Unparalleled in All History 264
LXXX Clara Barton’s Prayer Answered 268
LXXXI Not the Value of a Postage Stamp 272
LXXXII Honorary Presidency for Life—Proposed Annuity 275
LXXXIII Clara Barton’s Resignation 279
LXXXIV No Red Cross Controversy 285
LXXXV International Red Cross—American Red Cross—American Amendment 287
LXXXVI Blackmail Alleged—“Congressional Investigation”—Truth of History 294
LXXXVII Of Graves, of Worms, of Epitaphs 332
LXXXVIII Turkey—Statesmanship of Philanthropy—Armenia 340
LXXXIX Treason—Lincoln Assassinated—Grant Protects Clara Barton 349
XC President McKinley Sends Clara Barton to Cuba 352
XCI In Details—Clara Barton, a Business Manager—World’s Record 355
XCII Superintendent of Woman’s Prison 363
XCIII Greatness—An Immortal American Destiny—Immortality 365
XCIV What Was Her Religion? 369
XCV One Day with Clara Barton 373
XCVI The Personal Correspondence—Clara Barton’s Proposed Self-Expatriation 377
XCVII Closing Incidents—The Biography—Other Correspondence 392
XCVIII A Record History at the Funeral 398
XCIX Clara Barton’s Last Ride 401
C Chronology of the Leading Achievements in the Life of Clara Barton 403
CI The Press and the Individual 411
CII The Clara Barton Centenary—Memorial Address, 1921 415
CIII Clara Barton—Memorial Day Address, 1917 422
I want the last picture of the friends I love to show them in their strength, and at their best, not after time and age shall have robbed them of all _characteristic_ features which represented them in actual life.—CLARA BARTON, from her diary of December 13, 1910.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CLARA BARTON _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
CHARLES SUMNER YOUNG 12
THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH, MAIN STREET, OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 35
SUMMER HOME OF CLARA BARTON, OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 35
BIRTHPLACE OF CLARA BARTON, NEAR OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS 42
OFFICERS OF THE W. N. M. A. PRESENT AT THE DEDICATION OF THE CLARA BARTON MEMORIAL ON OCTOBER 12, 1921 42
HISTORIC IN EDUCATION, BORDENTOWN, N. J. 53
The School House
The Desk Used by Clara Barton
The Clara Barton Museum
REPRESENTATIVE TEMPERANCE ADVOCATES 56
Annie Wittenmeyer
John B. Gough
Mary Stewart Powers
Frances Willard
REPRESENTATIVE SUFFRAGE LEADERS 69
Susan B. Anthony
Carrie Chapman Catt
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw
WARREN G. HARDING 72
REPRESENTATIVES RESPECTIVELY OF THREE WARS 83
William T. Sampson
Isaac B. Sherwood
Joseph Taggart
REPRESENTATIVE OF TWO WARS 90
Mathew C. Butler
Joseph Wheeler
Harrison Gray Otis
LEONARD WOOD 117
THE RED CROSS HOME OF CLARA BARTON, GLEN ECHO, MARYLAND 120
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE LITERARY WORLD 133
Ida M. Tarbell
Lucy Larcrom
Elbert Hubbard
Alice Hubbard
W. R. SHAFTER 136
THE ROYALTY OF GERMANY 149
Empress Augusta
Emperor William I
Luise, The Grand Duchess of Baden
Friederich, The Grand Duke of Baden
THE ROYALTY OF RUSSIA 152
Nicholas II, The Czar of Russia
Alexandra Feodorowna, The Czarina of Russia
Maria Feodorowna, The Empress Dowager
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE between pages 182 and 183
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MEMORIAL ON THE MALL, LONDON between pages 182 and 183
CO-WORKERS WITH CLARA BARTON 195
Count Lyof Nikolayevitch Tolstoi
Dr. Henry W. Bellows
Dr. Julian B. Hubbell
WOODROW WILSON 202
SENTIMENT IN HISTORY 213
The Clara Barton Baby Cradle
The Pet Jersey Calf
Colony of Constantinople Dogs
HISTORIC AND SENTIMENTAL 216
Baba, Clara Barton’s Pet Horse
The Baba Tree and William H. Lewis
THE CLARA BARTON MONUMENT 229
MARIO G. MENOCAL 232
WILLIAM MCKINLEY 241
JAMES A. GARFIELD between pages 246 and 247
CHESTER A. ARTHUR between pages 246 and 247
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (in 1898) 252
CLARA BARTON 275
HARRIETTE L. REED 275
MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN 282
AMBASSADOR BAKHMETEFF 289
ELUTHEROS VENIZELOS 293
GROVER CLEVELAND 296