Part 17

During the eighteen months of European experience I worked with the Red Cross on my arm. The horrors and sufferings of Weissenburg, Woerth, and Hagenau, Strasbourg, Metz, Sedan and Paris—poor twice shattered Paris—and every besieged and desolated city of France fell under my observation and shared the labor of my hands through eighteen hard and dreadful months.

CLARA BARTON, in public address at Cape May.

Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time. BOVEE.

Our dearly beloved and most honored Clara Barton! She understood fully the meaning of the Red Cross, and knew well how to put into action the great and beautiful, though difficult, duties of the Red Cross. How shall I forget what she was to us here in the year 1870, helping us during the time of war we had to go through with then! God grant her peace eternal! There where her beautiful soul will live in the glory of Christ.

LUISE, Grand Duchess of Baden (1912).

OMISSION OF, OR ACQUIESCENCE IN, THE TRAGEDY OF 1904

“PASSES THE BUCK”

It may be we shall let most of the period of the differences with the Red Cross remain in solution till the larger life and letters (by William E. Barton).

Reverend Percy H. Epler, (In 1915) One of the “Committee to Advise,” and Author of “The Life of Clara Barton.”

“REFUSES TO ANTE”

If there was any lack of consideration for Clara Barton, it would do no good now to remember it.

Reverend William E. Barton, (In 1922) One of the “Committee to Advise,” and Author of “The Life of Clara Barton.”

Years were to Clara Barton merely opportunities of service, not measures of life. This attitude prolonged her life and kept her young in spirit.

At ninety (1911) there was no mark of physical infirmity upon her nor was there any slightest slacking in the interest of the object for which she long had cared.

Senility was farther removed from her at ninety (1911) than from most women at sixty.

At the age of ninety-one (1912) there was not a physical lesion nor a diseased organ in the body.

She lived to enter her tenth decade, and when she died (1912) was still so normal in the soundness of her bodily organs and in the clarity of her mind and memory that it seemed she might easily have lived to see her hundredth birthday.

WILLIAM E. BARTON “Her Cousin, the Author.” (“William E. Barton is one of our third or fourth cousins. Stephen E. Barton,”) Clara Barton’s Nephew, and Dedicatee of Barton’s “Life of Clara Barton.”

At no time in her life has Miss Barton been in sounder bodily or mental health or better able to continue the work to which her years of experience and natural endowments have preeminently fitted her. Moreover, the nation’s confidence is Miss Barton’s, and no hand can better guide its Red Cross work than hers.

Red Cross Committee, officially, to Congress. Written report unanimously concurred in. (In 1903.)

Year after year your President has framed and offered her resignation to the preceding Board and Committees. These have been resolutely met by appointment for life. CLARA BARTON.

Miss Barton has resigned three times before this time (May 14, 1904) but every time we have elected her again unanimously; and twice we have elected her for life and every member, 315 in number, voted for her. W. H. SEARS, Secretary for Clara Barton.

I certify that at the meeting of the American National Red Cross, held in Washington, D. C, December 9, 1902, on motion to elect Clara Barton President of the organization for life, a standing vote was taken, resulting as follows: Ayes 28, noes 3, the three negative votes being....

S. W. BRIGGS, Secretary, Red Cross Committee.

It is the Red Cross, without the glamor of war or disaster, to attract your interest, that I bring to you to nourish and protect.

CLARA BARTON.

When the Government accepted the Red Cross, perhaps a bit arrogantly, I felt that my end was accomplished and that I was ready to give it up. CLARA BARTON.

It is a pride as well as a pleasure to hand to you an organization perfectly formed, thoroughly officered, with no debts and a sum of from $12,000 to $14,000 available to our treasury as a working fund. (Amount realized $15,541.89. The Author.) CLARA BARTON (on May 14, 1904, in offering her resignation as President).

It would be strange, if after so many years of earnest effort for the relief of human suffering, during which time I have always lived and moved in the full glare of the public gaze, I could not now safely trust my character and good name to the care of the American people. CLARA BARTON.

CLARA BARTON’S RESIGNATION

At a meeting of the American National Red Cross, held December 10, 1901, President Clara Barton said: “at that meeting (July 10, 1900) I brought my armor, worn and rusted, and reverently laid it at your feet with the request that I be released. You declined to permit me to retire. I again lay my armor before you, recommending the filling of this most eminent position in your gift by someone better fitted than I ever have been to assume its duties, and wear its honors.” The Red Cross again refused to accept the resignation.

The so called “charges” against Miss Barton were made December 10, 1903. The case was heard before the Proctor Red Cross Committee on May 3, 1904. Only one witness testified and, as elsewhere stated, he refused to be cross examined whereupon his statements were discredited, the case summarily dismissed for want of evidence, and on motion of the committee itself. Miss Barton previously had been re-elected, almost unanimously, to succeed herself.

The “remonstrants” discredited, their “charges” found baseless, Miss Barton vindicated, on May 14, 1904, she again offered her resignation[7] of the Presidency, this time in favor of Mrs. General John A. Logan, and insisted on its acceptance. Her friends protested her resignation; insisted she should not resign but should hold the position for life. Miss Barton persisted in sacrificing herself for what she _then_ thought would be in the interest of harmony, and the cause nearest her heart. The following is the personal explanation of her then attitude of mind.

Footnote 7:

Clara Barton resigned the presidency May 14, 1904. Mrs. John A. Logan succeeded to the presidency, holding the office until June 16, 1904. Mrs. Logan nominated W. H. Taft as her successor. Mr. Taft declining then to serve, Admiral W. K. Van Reypen, according to Red Cross official records, acted as president pro tern until January 8, 1905, when Mr. Taft accepted the presidency.

“In initiating measures for the conciliation of opposing interests and views, it may seem to some of my friends that I have overlooked just grounds of personal offence in imputations wantonly made upon my honor and integrity. I do so knowingly and willingly, and because the cause that the American Red Cross is meant to promote stands first in my affections and my desires. It would be strange if it did not—if the cause for which I have devoted myself for half a century were not deemed by me worthy of any possible sacrifice of personal pride or personal interest.”

’Tis not the house and not the dress, That makes the saint or sinner, To see the spider sit and spin, Shut with her walls of silver in, You would never, never, never guess, The way she gets her dinner.

Had she entered the spider’s web of the society “remonstrant”; had she accepted the proposed annuity—and proposed honor of Honorary President, and thrown her child to the sharks, Clara Barton’s frail bark would have been towed into port, in peace. Instead, with her never failing courage she took to the life boat, on a stormy sea, and survived the storm to hand over her Red Cross child not to an unworthy, but to her Country and humanity.

LXXXIV

No cynic will find a flaw in what Miss Barton did.

Boston (Mass.) _Record_.

The spiteful factionist, to be found in every cause—even the cause of Christ himself—formed an opposition to Miss Barton.

Harrisburg (Pa.) _Telegram_.

Truth hath a quiet breast. SHAKESPEARE.

Great souls suffer in silence. SCHILLER.

Silence is the Mother of Truth. EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.

Come, let us have peace. U. S. GRANT.

Peace to the land forevermore. CLARA BARTON.

I never spoke a discordant word in my life, meaningly.

CLARA BARTON.

Like her Master, whom she followed, Clara Barton opened not her mouth. KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD.

And when He was accused by the chief priests and elders He answered nothing. ST. MATTHEW.

NO RED CROSS CONTROVERSY

“There has been no Red Cross controversy,” says Clara Barton, “as the sensational press has termed it, inasmuch as the Red Cross has taken no controversial part. It has only spoken when it _must_, and as little as possible, and its President not at all, nor ever will.

“When it is necessary for me to defend myself before the _American people_, let me fall. I should not value the defense thus gained, and I trust I shall never feel it needful.”

In her later years the following was oft quoted by Clara Barton:

The stars come nightly to the sky, The tidal wave unto the sea I’ll rail no more ’gainst time or tide, For lo! my own shall come to me.

LXXXV

A Greek Red Cross on a field of white should tell any soldier of any country within the treaty that the wearer was his friend and could be trusted; and to any officer of any army that he was legitimately there, and not subject to capture. CLARA BARTON.

This is what the Red Cross means, not an order of knighthood, not a commandery of it, not a secret society, not a society at all by itself, but the powerful, peaceful sign and the reducing to practical usefulness of one of the broadest and most needed humanities the world has ever known. CLARA BARTON.

I hope that all the patriotic and humane men, women and children of the United States who are able to do so, will give it (the Red Cross) their support by becoming members of our national organization. EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

I hereby commend the plan of the Red Cross to secure a large membership in this country. I hope the American people will prove as patriotic in this respect as are the people of other nations, so that we may be as well prepared as they to render relief in the misfortune of war or to mitigate the suffering caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods, mine explosions and other great disasters.

EX-PRESIDENT W. H. TAFT.

A large, well-organized and efficient Red Cross is essential. It is both a patriotic and humane service that is rendered by every citizen who becomes a member of the American Red Cross.

EX-PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON.

I perceive that in creating an institution that shall be National and of the people the foundations must be as broad and as solid as the whole nation. CLARA BARTON.

The Red Cross has become well known and well beloved. Of all the great humanitarian institutions of this country the Red Cross is surely among the greatest. CLARA BARTON.

Though we may leave our task unaccomplished, the task may be glorious in design if not in completion, and speak of us sincerely and with more fitting substance than words could ever compass or suggest. CLARA BARTON.

The Red Cross is the Big Brother of the Fighting Man.

GENERAL LEONARD WOOD.

The Red Cross is the most generally recognized humanitarian movement in the known world. CLARA BARTON.

The Red Cross has awakened the senses, and attuned the public ear to the cry of distress wherever emanating. CLARA BARTON.

The Treaty of Geneva takes its powers from the common consent of the United Governments of the civilized world.

CLARA BARTON.

Human intelligence has devised the provisions of the Red Cross, and it is peculiarly adapted to popular favor. CLARA BARTON.

It is probable that no sign nor figure in the secular world is sacred to so many people as is the Red Cross of Geneva. CLARA BARTON.

The insignia, which has given its name to the Treaty of Geneva, has become universally known and respected. CLARA BARTON.

The Red Cross never leads, but follows, in all military matters.

CLARA BARTON.

The Red Cross has given rise to most valuable inventions and, under its humane impulses, sanitary science has made rapid progress.

CLARA BARTON.

Inspired by the love of humanity and the world-wide motto of the Red Cross: “In time of peace and prosperity, prepare for war and calamity.” CLARA BARTON.

Some forty nations are in the Red Cross treaty, and from every military hospital in every one of these nations floats the same flag.

CLARA BARTON.

Of all existing organizations, there is possibly not one that has causes for sentiment of higher devotion and more prayerful gratitude than the Red Cross, which owes its very life to pity and help for the woes of the world. CLARA BARTON.

The Red Cross means not national aid for the needs of the people, but the people’s aid for the needs of the nation.

CLARA BARTON.

History records the wonderful achievements of the Red Cross, greatest of relief organizations, though it cannot record the untold suffering which has been averted by it. CLARA BARTON.

I desire to enroll all to whom this message may come as subscribing, or sustaining, members of the Red Cross; and I wish this idea to spread and grow until it develops into a great National Red Cross movement. Then my hope will be realized. And when the call shall come I can lay the burden of my work tenderly and lovingly into the lap of the whole people, with whom I have labored so many years, and who will keep and cherish it always because it is the sacred cause of humanity they hold. CLARA BARTON.

In France recently there was found in the mails an unstamped postcard addressed, “Clara Barton, Heaven,” and on the card was written, “You certainly founded a wonderful institution,” and signed “A Soldier.” _Press Dispatch._

No country is more liable than our own to great overmastering calamities, various, widespread and terrible. CLARA BARTON.

Seldom a year passes that the nation, from sea to sea, is not by the shock of some sudden, unforeseen disaster, brought to utter consternation and stands shivering like a ship in a gale, powerless, terrified and despairing. CLARA BARTON.

Through Clara Barton’s influence the International Congress of Berne adopted the “American Amendment.”

MARY R. PARKMAN, Author.

Although the original purpose and object of the Red Cross was indeed to heal the wounds and sickness incident to warfare, there will remain the work under the “American Amendment,” in which the Red Cross goes forth to heal other great ills of life.

CLARA BARTON.

INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS—AMERICAN RED CROSS—AMERICAN AMENDMENT

The International Treaty of Geneva—Red Cross—dates from August 23rd, 1864. The Red Cross is a Confederation of Societies in different countries for the amelioration of the condition of wounded soldiers in arms, in campaigns on land and sea. The World Society originated with Henri Dunant of Switzerland, after seeing the condition from neglect of the wounded at the battle of Solferino, Italy, on June 24, 1859. Gustave Moynier, also of Switzerland, called a meeting at Geneva, Switzerland, and the organization followed—August 23, 1864.

France was the first nation to adopt the treaty, this being September 23, 1864. The United States was the thirtieth in the list of nations adopting the treaty, this being on March 1, 1882. Up to the present time 49 nations have acceded to the Treaty of Geneva. In this list are the following possessing a National Red Cross Society:

1. Wurtemberg 2. Belgium 3. Prussia 4. Denmark 5. France 6. Italy 7. Spain 8. Hessie (Grand Duchy) 9. Portugal 10. Sweden 11. Norway 12. United States 13. Saxony 14. Baden 15. Switzerland 16. Russia 17. Austria 18. Netherlands 19. Bavaria 20. Turkey 21. Great Britain 22. Montenegro 23. Serbia 24. Roumania 25. Greece 26. Peru 27. Argentine 28. Hungary 29. Bulgaria 30. Japan 31. Congo 32. Venezuela 33. Uruguay

The following are governments that have signed the Geneva convention but have not Red Cross Chapters recognized by the International Committee:

34. Bolivia 35. Brazil 36. Chili 37. Colombia 38. Cuba 39. Ecuador 40. Guatemala 41. Haiti 42. Panama 43. Siam 44. Luxembourg 45. Mexico 46. Persia 47. Honduras 48. Nicaragua 49. China

Anticipating the adoption of the treaty by the United States, in July 1881 the American Association of the Red Cross was organized, seventy-five persons present with Clara Barton the President. The United States Senate having acceded to the Treaty of Geneva, its ratification was proclaimed by President Arthur July 26, 1882. This association was incorporated April 17, 1883, under the name American National Red Cross; reincorporated by Act of Congress, the charter signed by President McKinley June 6, 1900. That charter was repealed and a new charter substituted, the same being adopted by an Act of Congress and approved by President Roosevelt January 5, 1905. Under the new charter the name continued to be The American National Red Cross. Section 4 of this Act was amended by an Act of Congress, and approved by President Taft June 23, 1910. This amendment relates to the collection of moneys by authorized agents, the use of the Red Cross emblem or any other insignia colored, and similar matters. A second amendment was adopted by Congress and approved by the President December 12, 1912, and relates to the time of the annual meeting.

The American National Association of Red Cross (organized in July 1881) was independent of the Treaty of Geneva; it was a private association, but Miss Barton was constantly urging this Government’s adhesion to the Red Cross Treaty of Nations. In compliment to Clara Barton, she was invited to address a meeting at Dansville, New York. As a result there was formed on August 2, 1881, the first local Society of the Red Cross in the United States of America.

In September 1881, the Michigan forest fires occurred. This became the first test of the merits of the Red Cross work in America. Miss Barton was at this time also invited to make an address on this subject to the citizens of Syracuse, New York. A proposition to organize an auxiliary in that city was made at the close of the meeting. The amount there raised for the relief of the Michigan sufferers was $3,807.28, the new Red Cross Auxiliary Society numbering 250 members. This, in brief, is the history of the inception of the Red Cross and the two auxiliaries in America.

Of the Michigan forest fires Clara Barton said: “So sweeping has been the destruction that there is not food enough left in its wake for a rabbit to eat, and indeed there is no rabbit, if there were food.”

In the spring of 1882 for hundreds of miles there overflowed the raging waters of the Mississippi, destroying homes and causing great suffering. Again the new association responded to the cries of distress. While the National Association was in session, devising ways and means for extending relief, a messenger came from the U. S. Senate announcing that the United States had acceded to the Treaty of Geneva. “Through all the past years, during which the Red Cross has sought recognition, protection and cooperation of the Government,” says Clara Barton, “it has been but for one purpose—to be ready.” The relief of suffering in national disasters, hitherto unknown in the history of the world through Miss Barton had become popular among the American people.

The ratifying powers at Berne accepted the National American Red Cross with the proposed Clara Barton amendment, generally known as the American Amendment. The system for relief work in national disasters, made popular in the United States through Clara Barton, was later approved and adopted by the International Red Cross Committee of the Treaty of Geneva. It has therefore become a part of the Red Cross system of all Treaty nations. These nations, representing a population of more than one billion of human beings, or four-fifths of the human race, are now enjoying the beneficence of the constructive genius of Clara Barton.

LXXXVI

Clara Barton—one of God’s noblest. Augusta (Ga.) _Journal_.

One of the world’s greatest.

Sacramento (Cal.) _Record-Union_.

Honored in three continents. St. Paul (Minn.) _Dispatch_.

Her movement spanned the globe.

Springfield (Mo.) _Republican_.

The preferring of charges against Clara Barton, and her subsequent investigation, is one of the rankest instances of injustice in the history of this country. Unfounded charges, political spite and the hope of remuneration,—the charges were refuted and the schemers were discredited, but politics had triumphed and Miss Barton was cast aside. Los Angeles (Cal.) _Examiner_.

It was demanded of Clara Barton that she give an accounting of goods and food distributed to dying and wounded on the battlefield. The unspeakable Turk never did anything as bad as this.—But that investigation was only an exigency, an excrescence, a malformation, a wart on the nose. _The Fra_, East Aurora, N. Y.

Squint-eyed slander. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Slanderous as Satan. SHAKESPEARE.

Slander expires at a good woman’s door. EWALD.

’Twas slander filled her mouth with lying words, Slander, the foulest whelp of sin. POLLOCK—_Course of Time_.

Slander, meanest spawn of Hell— And woman’s slander is the worst. TENNYSON—_The Letters_.

’Tis slander “whose breath Rides on posting winds and doth belie All corners of the world.” CYMBELINE.

If the end brings me out all right what is said against me won’t amount to anything. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Speak not evil of the dead. CHILO.