Part 18

They that slander the dead are like envious dogs that bark, and bite, at bones. ZENO.

A poor lone woman. SHAKESPEARE.

Done to death by slanderous tongues. SHAKESPEARE.

Speak me fair in death. SHAKESPEARE.

And thereby hangs a tale. SHAKESPEARE.

The greater the truth the greater the libel. LORD MANSFIELD.

The greatest friend of truth is Time. COLTON-LACON.

Truth is the daughter of Time. MAZZINI.

Truth is Truth. TENNYSON.

There is nothing so powerful as truth. DANIEL WEBSTER.

Truth pierces the clouds; it shines like the sun and, like it, is imperishable. NAPOLEON.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

GEORGE ELIOT.

All error, false hate, malice, evil company and their kindred, are sure to find their true value, and though apparently successful are doomed to die at last. CLARA BARTON.

The Almighty has his own purposes. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

We never know the uses the Master will put us to. His designs are known only to himself. CLARA BARTON.

When you come to the certain conclusion that only truth and justice are eternal, you will find it easy to wait and let the Heavens rule. CLARA BARTON.

Nothing but truth lives. CLARA BARTON.

My Lord will help me. JOAN OF ARC.

God shows me the way I shall go. JOAN OF ARC.

We are all lost! We have burned a saint.

TRESSART, Secretary to Henry VI.

Would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman is.

JOHN ALESPIE, PETER MAURICE. (Two of the judges that condemned Joan of Arc.)

First in the list of American great women is Clara Barton; first in her ideals; first in her achievements. In America, she ranks with Jeanne d’Arc, of France, to whom the English are now (1818) placing a monument in Manchester.

CORRA BACON-FOSTER, Author, _Clara Barton, Humanitarian_.

Joan of Arc was rather tall, well shaped, dark, with a look of composure, animation and gentleness. GUIZOT.

It is not true, I think, that Miss Barton has ever done anything to disentitle her to a conspicuous recognition in the Red Cross Building. EX-SECRETARY OF STATE RICHARD OLNEY (in 1917). (The eminent American selected by the “Remonstrants” in 1903, and unanimously approved by the Red Cross, to name the members of the Red Cross Proctor Committee—to investigate the “charges.”)

There is, and can be, no foundation for such a charge.... During all the twenty-five years that Miss Barton has devoted herself to the Red Cross work she has been in receipt of an individual income which it has been her pleasure to use in defraying her own expenses and for such helpers as the extensive correspondence compelled.

(Signed Red Cross Committee By WALTER P. PHILLIPS Chairman, SAMUEL M. JARVIS, J. B. HUBBELL.)

(In a Memorial to Congress, March 3, 1903—from House Document No. 552, Vol. 49, 58th Cong.)

Wherein ... was removed from his position, under Miss Barton, he said: “I can stand a great deal of cuffing, but then my time will come, so help me God I will not humbly submit to all I am having to bear.” ... was brought to Washington from a distant State ... principal witness for the “Remonstrants.” Mr. Stebbins and I were convinced that ...’s object was blackmail.

W. H. SEARS, Attorney for Red Cross.

... conspired to supplant Miss Barton by destroying her name and fame. Miss Barton resigned in my favor. Hoping to secure justice for Miss Barton I accepted the Presidency, but finding that I would be unable to assume the onerous duties as her successor, with Miss ...’s insatiable desire to be at the head of the Red Cross, I resigned in favor of a party Miss ... dared not oppose. Affidavit by MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN. (From a book of 177 pages by General W. H. Sears, in a report to the Library Committee of Congress, in 1916.)

... not one of whom (“remonstrants”) ever went to a field nor gave a dollar, above fees; and half of whom were never known as members until now they appear in protest against the management. CLARA BARTON (1903).

As to the threat of an investigation, if there be any, Miss Barton cannot assent that it be suppressed by any act of hers. Red Cross Committee, 1903. From House Document No. 552, Vol. 49th, 58th Congress.

The Red Cross up to this time, 1898, had kept clear of political rings, and uncontaminated. Miss Barton was the acknowledged chief in authority. The Society had begun to win the most enviable reputation; it was growing to be a power; and politicians who had hogged everything else, from a cross-roads postoffice to a foreign minister, had begun to lay plans for displacing Miss Barton with a wife, niece, or daughter of a Washington politician. Miss Barton was probably not aware of this unholy scheme at this time. Perhaps, even if she had been, it would not have disturbed the serenity of her countenance for she was working for God and humanity. _Under the Red Cross; or the Spanish-American War_ (Page No. 154, book published 1898; Author, Doctor Henry M. Lathrop; Editor, John R. Musick.)

BLACKMAIL ALLEGED—“CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION”—TRUTH OF HISTORY

Joan of Arc was born in 1410; Clara Barton in 1821—411 years later. The former became the leader of the armies of France; the latter, the leader of humanitarianism in America. Each was a patriot—self-sacrificing—serving not for self-glory, but for a great cause. The little clique of politicians and military aristocracy plied Joan of Arc for five months with “catch questions” on “trumped-up” charges, then condemned her to be burned at the stake. The little clique of politicians and social aristocracy plied Clara Barton with “catch questions” on “trumped-up” charges, then tried to condemn her to eternal ignominy. General Leonard Wood, humanity’s friend and chivalric, with whom Clara Barton served in the camp, the hospital, and on the battlefield, says: “There is a call for women actuated by the same spirit of service as a Deborah, a Joan of Arc, a Molly Pitcher—women who will carry forward the work begun by Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale.”

Let the ends thou aimest at be thy country’s Thy God’s and Truth.

Clara Barton met her fate in the Nation’s Capital. Says _The Fra_: “The clique went before Congress and secured an amended charter to the Red Cross, which included none of Miss Barton’s friends. Because the name of Clara Barton headed the list, the bill was passed; the members of Congress supposed it was a bill that Miss Barton wanted. This was done without Miss Barton’s knowledge or consent. However, Miss Barton was ignored by the new organization. Her name has never been mentioned in their reports or publications; she has never been invited to attend any meeting of the Society which she had created, and established in this country.”

The Red Cross then was non politics, non society, non salary, non graft. President Clara Barton was obdurate, non pliable. She could not _be used_. Her virtues became her undoing. She was retired. From Europe, for inspiration in America, was brought the English heroine;—suppressed or belittled, the American Red Cross Mother in semi-official literature, “At Home and Abroad.” The _coup_ won—the conspiracy completely triumphed. And how the official records disclose.

Washington is the rendezvous of “in full dress” criminals—character-assassins,—“that strange bedlam composed largely of social climbers and official poseurs.” They carry a stiletto, half truth, but in desperate cases make use of slander, of forty-five calibre. Their prospective victims range from rich Uncle Sam down to a poor lone woman, of charity. They ply their vocations sometimes, through envy, for self-glorification; sometimes, through ambition, for self-exaltation. While Washington was having the _honor_ of dishonoring the great American philanthropist, a western town was offering as a present to her a fifty thousand dollar home, just to have the honor of her presence there. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Miss Barton’s three cospirits and co-workers for humanity, met their fate while guarded by detectives; under certain customs prevailing in the West and South, as there is no protection from slander against a woman, “Chivalry” would have come to the rescue of defenseless Clara Barton.

There is an official Red Cross report to Congress, made in 1903, said report on file in House Document No. 552, Vol. 49, 58th Congress, statements of historic interest relating to the status of Red Cross affairs about that time. _In re_ the proposed annuity of $2,500 and the Honorary Presidency for Life, should Clara Barton consent to permit the minority membership _thereafter to control the Red Cross_, and other matters relating thereto, appear the following in that report:

Since the filing of their (the remonstrants) Memorial in Congress, at least two thousand newspapers, in the country and out of it, have openly published these damaging statements, without the slightest knowledge of the facts.

The memorial includes an ex parte statement.—It is greatly to be regretted that such action should have been taken—without giving a hearing to the majority of the organization, or to Miss Barton herself.

While there were seven States represented by members actually present (at the meeting), the entire list of signers to the Memorial (by the remonstrants), with one exception, were residents of Washington, D. C.

With one exception, not one of the twenty-five members has ever taken part in Red Cross Field work for a single day;—and she valuing her services, however, at $50.00 per week for two weeks, making a sum of $100, which was allowed and paid by the board; nor were there any records to show that, aside from their membership fees aggregating about $160, they have ever contributed to the funds of the Red Cross, while individual signers of this Memorial have drawn from it more than 500, in aggregate amount.

Clara Barton has never been a pensioner on the Red Cross Society, and certainly could not assent to be placed in that relation. We may, too, reasonably ask how these sticklers for correct form in all proceedings can find authority, being only a small minority of the membership, to offer such terms; and how can they undertake to barter its offices, privileges, and funds for a compliance with their demands? They admit they can stop the proceedings in Congress—for a consideration—thereby indirectly admitting the purpose of their movement from the beginning. The mere statement of the situation will suggest its difficulties. The majority in control of the body is at a loss to know where and how, under the charter or any of its bylaws, past or present, there can be authority for such proceedings.

“That it was physically withstood,” says Clara Barton after her retirement, “was beyond either the expectation or the intention;” “still stamping on me;” “so long as I am _personally_ unharmed I expect nothing more.” Fortunately for her country her life was spared, by her “enemies,” eight years more; for in that eight years she did a work many times more difficult than to have kept running her perfected and well-oiled Red Cross machinery. She brought into existence a new organization, of possible greater benefit to the American people than the Red Cross, an organization with headquarters in Boston and branch societies everywhere from Maine to California.

And why should she not have done so? About the time of her retirement (in 1903) there was filed with Congress by a committee of the Red Cross an official report, unanimously concurred in by the committee, in which report appears the following: “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. While every right minded person will deplore the mental suffering, anxiety, and personal humiliation inflicted upon one of the noblest women that ever lived, it cannot be supposed that she will abandon her life work on such a demand as this, or that she will retire from the office to which she has been almost unanimously elected, while under fire; nor would her friends permit it if she were so disposed.—We find nothing in the opposition except malice, resentment, and the jealousy of a few people whose ambition has been thwarted.”

Tis eminence that makes envy rise; As fairest fruit attract the flies.

Successful with her new organization, the Red Cross a few years later (in 1910) formed in its society a department to carry on relief as then carried on in Miss Barton’s new organization, the department being of like name—The First Aid Division. In her new field of humane service, Clara Barton expended from her personal funds about $5,000, besides five years of hard work, before she achieved success.

She was herself again; she was on the “firing line”; she had the support of her former Red Cross field forces,—not one had deserted her. She didn’t flee her “enemies” to Mexico, but to the “Hub”;—where, and in which vicinity, she had enjoyed social amenities with the Julia Ward Howes, the Wendell Phillips’, the George Bancrofts, the John B. Goughs, the Louisa M. Alcotts, the Lucy Larcoms, the Mary Baker Eddys, the Henry Wilsons, the Charles Sumners, the George F. Hoars. Either among such then living or their friends, she had lost none of her prestige because she had been attacked in the “Den of Character-Assassins.”

Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not escape calumny.

On her “First Aid” Advisory Board were Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles and ex-Governor John L. Bates, of Massachusetts; Dr. Eugene Underhill, of Pennsylvania; Dr. Charles R. Dickson, of Canada; Dr. Joseph Gardner, of Indiana. Associated with her in various other capacities, also, were persons of national fame and widely-known humanitarianism. She was unanimously elected and re-elected, while she lived, the Active President of the organization—the organization known as the National First Aid Association of America: now she is the President _In Memoriam_.

In the House Records of 1903 and 1904 there is found the following: “They (Remonstrants) suggest that Miss Barton is a party to loose and improper arrangements for securing the needed accountability for supervision of disbursements for money furnished in demand of exigency of the Red Cross by the charitable public.” In 1916, a letter signed by a leading Red Cross official was mailed to the members of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. In that letter, among many other “charges,” was the following: “I think I have given sufficient evidence to show why the dishonest appropriation of relief funds for the personal use of Miss Barton makes the officials of the Red Cross strongly opposed to having the memorial of such a woman placed in a building that stands in remembrance of the noblest, finest, and most self-sacrificing womanhood of America.”

It is inexcusable, on the part of a member of the present management of the Red Cross, to make public “accusation” of Clara Barton’s book-records without certification to that effect by an expert accountant, in an official capacity, and then only confidentially to the organization itself for some good purpose; and in no case to the public in defamation, to support the position taken by an “enemy.” Similar conduct, on the part of an employé in a well-ordered private corporation would subject the guilty, probably, to dismissal in disgrace from the service. If in the interest of public policy such information should be made public, and become of record, it should be made officially public, and through the President of the society.

In what has been done, _pro bono publico_ has had no consideration. In publicly attacking the Red Cross Founder’s book-records before the members of the National Legislature, there should also have been considered that conditions now are not as were the conditions a score of years ago. Then the President-Vice-President-Chairman-Vice-Chairman-Comptroller-General Manager received no salary; _now_ (in 1919) the annual salary of four Red Cross officers is $41,400; $15,000 and $10,000 respectively, for Chairman and Vice-Chairman; $8,000 and $8,400 respectively, for Comptroller and General Manager. _In re_ the attitude of the “Remonstrants” towards her, Clara Barton said: “I am still unanimously bidden to work on for life; bear the burden of an organization; meet its cost myself—and now threatened with the expenses of the ‘investigation.’”

In consonance with her sentiment, and statement, “The foundation on which all good government rests is conformity to its laws,” Clara Barton in 1904 turned over to the new management all Red Cross books, official papers, official records, public funds—all Red Cross matters of whatsoever kind or nature. If there were evidence of defalcation, or “dishonest appropriation of relief funds for the personal use of Miss Barton,” then was the time to have made the charges, and in the criminal court. “Instead, the _post mortem_ charges were made twelve years after Clara Barton’s resignation of the Red Cross Presidency, and four years after her death.”

Kings, queens and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This vituperous slander enters.

Under the laws of this country the accuser was estopped from making “charges” in 1916; or at any other time, except in a court of competent jurisdiction. Were it not for this wise provision the reputation of no man nor woman, alive or dead, could have adequate protection from “enemies,” in ambush. By what code of ethics, legal or moral, is such _personal_ judgment against the dead rendered? And where is the record-verdict of the “crime”? In five or six years of the investigation, I have been unable to find any record that such “crime,” as is alleged against Miss Barton, was committed. Nor do I find that a criminal charge of any kind against her is of record in the criminal court, the only institution under the laws of this country where a person should be adjudged guilty of crime. I do find from the records, however, that the Red Cross official making these charges was one of the “Remonstrants” of 1903–4, and who then certified to Miss Barton’s “_integrity_”; and also over her own signature proposed that Miss Barton accept the Honorary Presidency of the Red Cross as a tribute to her “_integrity_.”

“Loose and improper arrangements for securing the needed accountability”; “such a woman”; “dishonest appropriation of relief funds for the personal use of Clara Barton!” Says _The Fra_, then under the management of Mr. and Mrs. Elbert Hubbard, “Such accusation is not only the blunder of boors but it is crime and sacrilege.” If such unproved, unfounded charges against a woman, with immunity to their author, can get into the government record, into the hands of the people’s representatives at Washington, passing without governmental protest through the mails, perilous the adventure of the women of America to enter upon a career of public service.

And has the cause of Clara Barton grown? Yes, gloriously, to the infinite credit of Clara Barton in laying the foundation in conformity to her statement, “To be efficient, the Red Cross must have government recognition, must bear the stamp of national individuality, and be constructed according to the spirit, habits, and needs of the country it represents;—in contemplating the possible realization of my hope and all it would entail and involve, I have been looking carefully and anxiously to the plans of the foundations of the structure we are hoping to build; and I perceive 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.”

To the credit of the Clara Barton management, and of the succeeding management, of the Red Cross; to the credit of the American people that for twenty-three years previous to the “accusation,” and thereafter notwithstanding, the world has held in highest regard the Red Cross Founder and Red Cross integrity. What of financial support, _for reasons_ that have been withheld, (probably millions) has not been reported. What of financial and moral support accorded to the Red Cross brings a flush of pride to the face of every true American; what of seeming policy toward the Founder also brings a flush,—but not of pride. A public policy, not in harmony with public sentiment, has brought on national disasters—a world disaster.

Mere growth, of itself, is not a virtue; for the upas tree grows, with spreading branches. The best prosperity is that prosperity whose foundation is secure, whose record-history is untarnished. The best philanthropy is that philanthropy which lives in the best atmosphere, breathes of the purest, gives of the soul’s best. To her latest breath Clara Barton breathed love, breathed purest Red Cross philanthropy,—but prayed justice for herself. She had never spoken a discordant word in her life, meaningly; her “enemies” monopolized the discordant words. So far as known, she never made an enemy; her “enemies” were self-made—their self-made record, on the books, reported “in the red.”

Wearing a “political helmet,” those who attacked a helpless woman took possession of her reputation and prospered. At no time in her life has it been shown that in her chosen field, with years of successful experience, Clara Barton was not a good business manager; her “enemies” assumed themselves, _without experience_, to be good in business and took charge of her affairs:—but under _proper_ political protection.

Slander—it is a coward in a coat of mail That wages war against the brave and wise.

Her “enemies,” shielded behind “charges,” made accusation against her,—_without self-sacrifice_; she exposed herself to attacks of every character known to womankind, and made self-sacrifices for the Red Cross and for country. What is inscribed over the portals of the cell, near Brussels, of Edith Cavell, must be inscribed on history’s tablets, of Clara Barton: “She sacrificed herself for the Red Cross; she sacrificed herself for the country.”