Part 19

Slander I saw it tread upon a lily fair— A maid of whom the world could say no harm; And when sunk beneath the mortal wound, It broke into the sacred sepulchre And dragged its victim from the hallowed grave For public eyes to gaze upon.

Yea, I have seen this accursed child of envy Breathe mildew on the sacred fame of her Who once had been her country’s benefactor.

Human nature hasn’t changed since he, who became the first American President, suffered through the “Conway Cabal,” a cabal not dissimilar in the motives, the charges and the execution, to that through which suffered the first Red Cross President. But George Washington was a fighter; Clara Barton, a woman of peace. The Red Cross President was as patient as was the first martyred American President, under persecution, and who then said “I am nothing, but truth is everything.” She was as innocent and unsuspecting as was our last martyred American President, who said “I have never done any man wrong, and I believe no man will do me one.”

Man, political, cowardly-man constructed the apparatus;—the tongue of woman, the sender; the ear of woman, the receiver. Of all the God-given good of earth, one woman is the best; TWO WOMEN, the worst. The only serious charge in history that will stand against Clara Barton is that she WAS A WOMAN; her most serious “misappropriation,” that of her confidence in _another woman_.

Away the fair detractors went And gave by turns their censures vent.

Elected for life? Yes. Then resigned? She was not a “war-woman,”—she had never filled a swiveled-chair;—yes, she resigned in the interest of peace and _harmony_. And from the facts, distorted, and the motives, impugned, as to why she resigned were taken the bundle of faggots to add fuel to the flames of her torture.

Slander never wants for material; Virtue itself provides it with weapons.

As for safety, the ancient criminal fled to the Temple of the Gods, so America’s modern character-assassin fled to the Temple of the Red Cross, and implored silence; for then to recite the historic facts of the martyrdom might cause vibrations that would have shaken to earth the pillars of that sacred temple. President Clara Barton of the Red Cross said: “Its President has spoken not at all, and never will.” Silence reigned. The truth was withheld at the Red Cross receiving station, while untruth sped wireless—and all the world wondered.

The Red Cross! No, the recent Red Cross officials don’t know the facts,—the reputation of the Mother is the child’s richest heritage. The Mother loved the Red Cross child; the child, the Mother—the slander of the Mother, dead, is by the individual, not by the Red Cross. The slander having coiled itself in Red Cross official circles there it lives, and will live, until scotched by the Red Cross or the American people.

For slander lives upon succession; Forever housed, where it gets possession.

The so-called “investigation of charges” against Clara Barton in 1904 was before the Red Cross Proctor Committee. The “Remonstrants” demanded an investigation, and suggested that Honorable Richard Olney name the committee. The Red Cross unanimously approved the selection. The great Ex-Secretary of State named as that committee: U. S. Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont; William Alden Smith of Michigan, then a member of the House and later a member of the Senate; General Fred C. Ainsworth, of the United States Army, of Washington, D. C. This in fact was a Red Cross Committee and not, as so-called, a Congressional Committee. “Congressional Committee to investigate” was a threat to frighten a timid woman.

In the so-called “remonstrance” (of record) there is by the “remonstrants,” of whom the “post-mortem accuser” was one, a disclaimer of

(a) “Any dishonesty on the part of Miss Barton in the administration of the affairs of the Red Cross.

(b) “Any charge of misappropriation of any property or any money by Miss Barton; or

(c) “Any improper act or conduct of any kind which involved in the slightest degree any element of moral turpitude.”

Had there been an official charge at that time of “misappropriation of any property or any money,” or any other charge involving “in the slightest degree any element of moral turpitude,” on the part of the Red Cross Founder, charities would have thenceforward ceased to flow into Red Cross coffers, the Red Cross would have collapsed, and the “remonstrants” making such accusation haled into court, on a charge of criminal libel. The “remonstrants” foresaw that the good name of the Founder was the one hope of the Red Cross. The disclaimer was prerequisite to the attainment of the “remonstrant’s” ultimate object, namely: the coming into possession of a popular organization that carried political and social prestige.

Mrs. Logan, the Vice-President, threatened court proceedings unless her name was removed from Red Cross literature, and in consequence it was removed. Not so, Miss Barton. She at all times wished it removed, at one time threatened court action, but she dared not risk the possibly fatal consequences to the Red Cross. She suffered, in heart-aches, because of such conscienceless fraud on the American people, as she often said, that the Red Cross might survive. Thus to the very day of her death, through silent acquiescence in the fraudulent use of her name to secure legislation and the people’s confidence for the new management, she was being terrorized, lest by her own word or act her Red Cross child might come to grief. The _post mortem_ charges are camouflage, a shield to protect the actors in the “tragedy of 1904;” the game as of the cuttle-fish in making the waters murky, when being chased by a superior force;—in this case, that of Truth.

The charges made were:

(a) “That proper books of account were not at all times kept;

(b) “That the property and funds of the Red Cross were not at all times distributed upon the order of the Treasurer of the Society, as alleged to be required by the by-laws of the Society; and

(c) “That a certain tract of land in Lawrence County, Indiana, had been donated to the Society by one Joseph Gardner; that the Society was reincorporated after such donation, and that such donation was never reported to the new corporation.”

It was shown at the investigation that no Red Cross money had been invested in the tract of land referred to; that for reasons the proposed deal was not consummated, and the title lapsed; that proper books of account had been kept, and receipts taken for material and money, but not individual receipts from the sick, the wounded and the dying on fields of disaster—a system of red-tape impossible consistent with good service; that also the by-laws had been complied with in making disbursements through the Treasurer except,—when that too was impossible—during the stress of active relief work in the field. As her every field worker, then living that had at any time served under President Barton, approved her methods in Red Cross work; as the Washington “Society Remonstrants” had no experience in field work, manifesting pitiful ignorance as to what was required, the “charges” of _incompetency_ on the part of the accused received no consideration at the hands of the Committee.

L. A. Stebbins, of Chicago, Illinois, ex-attorney for the Red Cross, in July, 1916, in a written report to the Library Committee of the House, and to which report he makes affidavit, refers to the charges of 1903 and 1904 in words such as follow: “The _only witness_ ever produced to give testimony;—testimony was wholly unworthy of credit—false and untrue;—for blackmailing purposes;—clearly indicating blackmail.”

On February 20, 1903, as elsewhere stated, the “remonstrants” certified in writing (certification of record) as to the “integrity, good name and fame of Clara Barton.” At the investigation held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Room on April 12, 1904, _in re_ the terrifying twenty-four page “remonstrance” before the Proctor Red Cross Committee, General John M. Wilson, himself a “remonstrant” and representing the “remonstrants” on that occasion, among other things said “We do not charge that anybody has been guilty of malfeasance,” in Red Cross affairs.

Referring to this very occasion, Major-General W. R. Shafter, Commander of the American Army in the Spanish-American War, in 1904 while the case was pending, said: “If the charges made against Clara Barton were true, no gentleman could afford to be mixed up in the affair, but not one word uttered against her _is_ true.” Clara Barton, in 1911, referring to that now historic event, said: “The harvest is not what the reapers expected, and I suspect if it were all to be done over again in the light of their newly-gained experience, it would not be done.”

To the credit of man’s respect for historic truth in official decisions, and his innate American chivalry, since the exoneration in 1904 there is not, at least of record, by any man an adverse criticism of the Red Cross Founder. _The perversion of the truth of history, however, by woman is as injurious to the public weal as such perversion by man, and through no ingenuous excuse of chivalry for a live woman, and against a dead woman, should untruth have countenance._ The investigation, for want of evidence, was _summarily dismissed_, on motion of the Committee itself. It thus became a mere farcical episode in American history.

The written certification of the Founder’s “integrity,” by the “remonstrants” in 1903; the oral disclaimer by the “remonstrants” of _any_ Red Cross malfeasance in office officially proclaimed at the investigation in 1904, followed by a unanimous decision adverse to the “remonstrants,” the incident then should have been closed. The “accusation,” however, of even worse import than that originally in the _indictment_, by the “remonstrants” of 1903 and of 1904, again comes to the attention of the public in a semi-official way, from the same “lone woman accuser,” and is still a living factor in Red Cross policy,—still coming—still going—never ending—

All slander Must still be strangled in its birth; as time Will soon conspire to make it strong enough To overcome truth.

A certain letter by a Red Cross official, assuming to represent the Red Cross Society, was mailed from the Washington Red Cross headquarters to the members of the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives. Said letter was written to be used, and was used, as the basis of an argument against the record and fame of Clara Barton before the Library Committee of Congress. On the letter-head was the following:

The American Red Cross

Pointe-au-Pie Province of Quebec, Canada. July 29, 1916.

The letter was signed ... (unofficially).

From that long letter, certain to be in American annals of peculiar interest as an epistolary curio, are taken the following excerpts:

“Her father died in 1862, leaving property valued at a little more than $1,000, of which she received a few hundred.”

“I may say individually that previous to the war Miss Barton appears, according to her statement to have taught school at Bordentown, New Jersey, where a teacher’s salary was $300 per year. A little later the records show that she and some other woman occasionally did copying in the Interior Department.”

“She obtained from Congress in 1866, $15,000 which she said she had expended of her own money in tracing the missing soldiers. It is difficult to understand where she obtained this money and also upon what her income depended in future years, as she stated she never received any salary or income from the Red Cross and yet she had no other remunerative occupation that we know of.”

“In the 126 volumes of the War Department records of the Civil War no mention is made of Miss Barton’s name or services except in a single letter from her asking information as to prisoners at Annapolis.”

“We have a printed diary of.... This diary was published in 1863. Though the names of a number of efficient women like Miss Dix and others connected with the Sanitary Commission are mentioned in a laudatory way, Miss Barton is never referred to.”

“In many published accounts of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, Miss Barton is not mentioned, though hundreds of other devoted women are given.”

“Just after the Civil War, several gentlemen who had been connected with the Sanitary Commission organized the first American Red Cross Society, but as the Senate had not at that time ratified the treaty of Geneva, this body could hold no official status and shortly went out of existence.”

“In 1881 Miss Barton who, previously when visiting in Vienna, had learned of the treaty of Geneva and the Red Cross societies, with a number of others organized the American Red Cross.”

“The International Committee of Geneva transmitted through her a letter to the President of the United States requesting the ratification of the Treaty.”

“Mr. Blaine interested himself in the matter and in 1882 the Treaty was ratified by the United States Senate.”

“From 1881 until 1904 Miss Barton remained the President of this small American Red Cross, and sometimes acted also as its treasurer.”

“Financial statements were not made public and it is impossible to say what funds were received and expended during the 23 years of its existence.”

“I don’t care to take your time in stating many evidences of the misuse of the Red Cross relief funds under Miss Barton, but I desire to mention two or three incidents.”

“She advertised in the Worcester papers for contributions for relief among the soldiers, but no record was made of what she received or expended during the Civil War.”

“Certain letters we have seem to show that she occasionally had some of the contributed funds invested in the West.”

“It is difficult to obtain data regarding the receipts and expenditure of funds.”

“At the time of the Russian famine in 1892 ... no financial report was made.”

“Shortly after this time Miss Barton bought real estate in Washington and Glen Echo....”

“I think I have given, however, sufficient evidence to show why dishonest appropriation of relief funds for the personal use of Miss Barton makes the officials of the American 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. Should your committee desire me to go to Washington and lay before it the evidence I have given and more in our possession, I would be willing to do so.”

... would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, _Authorized_ by her grandam.

The “charges,” including detractions, innuendoes and suspicions (of which the foregoing are only in part), take a wide range, extending from the time Clara Barton taught her first school at Bordentown in 1836 (80 years previous), down to the Sea Islands hurricane in 1893 (22 years previous). These “charges” were segregated by a friend of Clara Barton for the Library Committee. In that form they consist of thirty-one “charges,” including the accuser’s _personal verdict_, “the dishonest appropriation of relief funds.” In history the “accusation” will be referred to as “_The Thirty-One Charges Without a Charge In It._” In legal circles such affirmations are known as “stale charges,” or by a worse name; but, even if presented immediately, such “charges” would have no standing in any court of equity in this country. The “charges” are further negatived by the admissions of the accuser, “It is difficult to obtain data regarding the receipts and expenditures;” “It is impossible to say what funds were received and expended.”

Also, inexcusable ignorance was shown on the part of the accuser of Clara Barton as to her methods in Red Cross affairs. It is certified to by the Red Cross (and of official record) that Clara Barton made her report at the close of every disaster, and in every instance the report was approved by the Red Cross, and was satisfactory to her government and the American people. Besides besmirching the history and good name of the Red Cross and her country, thus to impeach the integrity of the Founder of the Red Cross and for more than a score of years its President, is to impeach also her various boards of officers and her hundreds of other associates, including American Presidents,—all of whom uniformly approved her methods, her reports and the results achieved, while “she remained the President of this small American Red Cross and sometimes acted also as its Treasurer.”

If what the “lone accuser” asserts be true, that “we (Red Cross) have letters that seem to show that she occasionally had some of the contributed funds invested in the West,” they are letters, among other Red Cross effects, that came officially into the possession of the Red Cross, in 1904, through the pleasure and free-will offering of the conscientious-and-honest-to-a-fault-concealing-nothing Clara Barton. And for which also she received a _clearance card_, a “receipt in full.” As an American citizen and a member of the Red Cross I protest the legal right, or the moral right, of the Red Cross “accuser” now to incriminate her whose lips are sealed, or longer to approve of record, _upon what seems to show_.... The facts _not only seem to show, but do show_, that if Clara Barton had not accepted as a present from the twin brothers, Edwin and Edward Baltzley of Glen Echo, Chautauqua, her Glen Echo real estate, and for a house thereon as a present, the wreckage lumber from the people of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889, there would have been no free-of-rent home for the Red Cross for the last fifteen years of her Red Cross administration and that of other philanthropies; that, while the accuser was living in a palace and “rolling in wealth,” the accused would have been homeless and penniless, living on charity.

The “lone accuser” has no “letters that seem to show,” save and except such letters be interpreted by an “enemy,” and for an ulterior purpose. There is no truth in cynicism, or but half truth, which is more untruth than no truth. There is no truth in “we (Red Cross) have others in our possession” which the “lone accuser” pretended to have in her _post-mortem cruise_, in 1916, while trying to thwart the will of the people as to the proposed Clara Barton memorial tablet in the American Red Cross Building; and, still worse, trying to blot out forever the name of the Red Cross Founder. As the sentiment of all the people, but said by the people of Johnstown just after the flood, in 1889: “Try to describe the sunshine. Try to describe the starlight. Picture the sunlight and the starlight, and then try to say good bye to Clara Barton.”

Truth will come to sight.

_In re_ Memorial to Clara Barton in 1916, the Library Committee of the House of Representatives, having before them all charges of whatsoever nature against Clara Barton, but especially those certain _post mortem_ “charges,” wholly ignored each charge, and all “charges,” made by the “remonstrants” of 1902–4, in their memorial to Congress at that time. The report of the Library Committee in 1916 was favorable to Miss Barton, and as disastrous to the cause of the “remonstrants” as was that of the Red Cross Proctor Committee, in 1904.

From the House Records, in the unanimously approved report by the Library Committee, are the following excerpts:

“Miss Barton’s life was given up to the work of relieving the distress in Europe and America, and her place in the affection of her friends and admirers is secure. None of them is willing to admit that she needs any special tablet, or stone, or that either is required to keep alive her memory as a benefactor of all distressed mankind. As one of the women of the Civil War, and a distinguished one, she also is memorialized in the Red Cross Building.”

ATTORNEYS FOR THE AMERICAN RED CROSS SOCIETY UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF CLARA BARTON

The memorial tablet[8] was not placed in the Red Cross Building, as requested by the friends of Clara Barton, backed by one and one-half millions of petitioners to have it so placed, the most forceful argument being that one of the largest contributors to the cost of the building—and a friend of the accuser—made objection.

Footnote 8:

As a substitute for the proposed memorial tablet in the Red Cross building, the statue of Clara Barton, representing American philanthropy, should be placed in the “Hall of Fame” in the National Capitol, alongside that of Frances Willard, representing temperance; and the name of the Red Cross Founder also should be recognized as President _In Memoriam_ of the American Red Cross, as her name is now recognized by The National First Aid Association of America.

The foregoing is the authentic record presented to Congress in 1916, and a complete statement of facts—all the important recorded facts—relating to the “charges” of 1903–1904, with no official charges succeeding that date. Nor have I found in many months of examination in the Library of Congress, consisting of 2,800,000 volumes, or anywhere else of record, any detraction of early American Red Cross history or the slightest intimation that the Red Cross Founder was dishonest or a malfeasant in office, except from the pen of this “lone accuser.”

Every officer, under oath sworn to conduct his office to the best of his ability, that knowingly conceals “dishonest appropriation” of public funds becomes _particeps criminis_, in the dishonest transaction. If true, therefore, as the “lone accuser” asserts over her signature in her letter to the Members of Congress, that “we (i.e., Red Cross) have letters that seem to show”—“dishonest appropriation of relief funds” then, inasmuch as no effort was made to recover from her or her estate these alleged losses, Clara Barton’s successors as Red Cross executives, in their capacity as trustees of a public trust, Mrs. John A. Logan, W. H. Taft and Woodrow Wilson become involved.

“CHARGES”? YES, REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

If not true, what could have been the object hoped for by the accusing Red Cross official, in her perversion of Red Cross history? Was it that she might dictate to one hundred millions of people the sentiment of a government building, known as The American Red Cross Building? It is somewhat significant that a few months later the United States put four millions of soldiers in the field, to make “The World Safe for Democracy.”

Since this chapter was written and in type, there came into the possession of the author a letter, unsolicited, and relating to the possible motive. The letter was written by the Honorable Francis Atwater, the well-known Journalist and Ex-State Senator of Connecticut, and who for 40 years was Clara Barton’s co-worker and financial adviser. The letter, sworn to, follows:

October 14, 1921.

Mrs. Marietta B. Wilkins, 359 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass.

My dear Mrs. Wilkins: